Your claim to have a strategy and military strength is just empty talk. ¹  In whom are you trusting that you would dare to rebel against me?

For this is what the Lord says, the one who created the sky – he is the true God, ¹  the one who formed the earth and made it; he established it, he did not create it without order, ²  he formed it to be inhabited – “I am the Lord, I have no peer.

“‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Woe to the city of bloodshed, the pot whose rot ¹  is in it, whose rot has not been removed ²  from it! Empty it piece by piece. No lot has fallen on it. ³ 

You will eat, but not be satisfied. Even if you have the strength ¹  to overtake some prey, ²  you will not be able to carry it away; ³  if you do happen to carry away something, I will deliver it over to the sword.

For the household gods ¹  have spoken wickedness, the soothsayers have seen a lie, and as for the dreamers, they have disclosed emptiness and give comfort in vain. Therefore the people set out like sheep and become scattered because they have no shepherd. ² 

The Lord ¹  found him ²  in a desolate land, in an empty wasteland where animals howl. ³  He continually guarded him ⁴  and taught him; ⁵  he continually protected him ⁶  like the pupil ⁷  of his eye.

I replied, “How long, sovereign master?” He said, “Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated, and houses are uninhabited, and the land is ruined and devastated,

those who bear false testimony against a person, ¹  who entrap the one who arbitrates at the city gate ²  and deprive the innocent of justice by making false charges. ³ 

Your claim to have a strategy and military strength is just empty talk. ¹  In whom are you trusting, that you would dare to rebel against me?

This is what the Lord says: “What fault could your ancestors ¹  have possibly found in me that they strayed so far from me? ²  They paid allegiance to ³  worthless idols, and so became worthless to me. ⁴ 

“From its earliest days Moab has lived undisturbed. It has never been taken into exile. Its people are like wine allowed to settle undisturbed on its dregs, never poured out from one jar to another. They are like wine which tastes like it always did, whose aroma has remained unchanged. ¹ 

Shaphan the scribe went to the king and reported, ¹  “Your servants melted down the silver in the temple ²  and handed it over to the construction foremen assigned to the Lord’s temple.”

Israel was a fertile vine that yielded fruit. As his fruit multiplied, he multiplied altars to Baal. ¹  As his land prospered, they adorned the fertility pillars.

When ¹  the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines; when the olive trees do not produce, ²  and the fields yield no crops; ³  when the sheep disappear ⁴  from the pen, and there are no cattle in the stalls,

Why ²  do the nations rebel? ³  Why ⁴  are the countries ⁵  devising ⁶  plots that will fail? ⁷ 

They repay me evil for the good I have done; ¹  I am overwhelmed with sorrow. ² 

So he caused them to die unsatisfied ¹  and filled with terror. ² 

who said, ¹  “Let’s take over ²  the pastures of God!”

He granted their request, then struck them with a disease. ¹ 

Should your springs be dispersed ¹  outside, your streams of water in the wide plazas?