“‘You took your sons and your daughters whom you bore to me and you sacrificed them ¹  as food for the idols to eat. As if your prostitution not enough,

Their horses are faster than leopards and more alert ¹  than wolves in the desert. ²  Their horses ³  gallop, ⁴  their horses come a great distance; like a vulture ⁵  they swoop down quickly to devour their prey. ⁶ 

The Lord who rules over all will guard them, and they will prevail and overcome with sling stones. Then they will drink, and will become noisy like drunkards, ¹  full like the sacrificial basin or like the corners of the altar. ² 

For the Lord your God is a consuming fire; he is a jealous God. ¹ 

They will eat up your crops and your food. They will kill off ¹  your sons and your daughters. They will eat up your sheep and your cattle. They will destroy your vines and your fig trees. ²  Their weapons will batter down ³  the fortified cities you trust in.

“King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon devoured me and drove my people out. Like a monster from the deep he swallowed me. He filled his belly with my riches. He made me an empty dish. He completely cleaned me out.” ¹ 

“This is what you must say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: As surely as I live, those living in the ruins will die ¹  by the sword, those in the open field I will give to the wild beasts for food, and those who are in the strongholds and caves will die of disease.

“I am against you!” declares ¹  the Lord who commands armies: ²  “I will burn your chariots ³  with fire; ⁴  the sword will devour your young lions; ⁵  you will no longer prey upon the land; ⁶  the voices of your messengers ⁷  will no longer be heard.”

For fire went out from Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon. It has consumed Ar of Moab and the lords ¹  of the high places of Arnon.

They will be starved by famine, eaten by plague, and bitterly stung; ¹  I will send the teeth of wild animals against them, along with the poison of creatures that crawl in the dust.

When evil men attack me ¹  to devour my flesh, ²  when my adversaries and enemies attack me, ³  they stumble and fall. ⁴ 

The Lord comes to pronounce judgment on the leaders of his people and their officials. He says, ¹  “It is you ²  who have ruined ³  the vineyard! ⁴  You have stashed in your houses what you have stolen from the poor. ⁵ 

Sinners are afraid in Zion; panic ¹  grips the godless. ²  They say, ³  ‘Who among us can coexist with destructive fire? Who among us can coexist with unquenchable ⁴  fire?’

Israel was set apart to the Lord; they were like the first fruits of a harvest to him. ¹  All who tried to devour them were punished; disaster came upon them,” says the Lord.’”

From earliest times our worship of that shameful god, Baal, has taken away ¹  all that our ancestors ²  worked for. It has taken away our flocks and our herds, and even our sons and daughters.

They sound like ¹  chariots rumbling ²  over mountain tops, like the crackling ³  of blazing fire consuming stubble, like the noise of ⁴  a mighty army ⁵  being drawn up for battle. ⁶ 

Your warriors will be like women in your midst; the gates of your land will be wide open ¹  to your enemies; fire will consume ²  the bars of your gates. ³ 

I then said, “I will not shepherd you. What is to die, let it die, and what is to be eradicated, let it be eradicated. As for those who survive, let them eat each other’s flesh!”

“A sower went out to sow ¹  his seed. ²  And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled on, and the wild birds ³  devoured it.

Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging ¹  report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through ²  to investigate is a land that devours ³  its inhabitants. ⁴  All the people we saw there ⁵  are of great stature.