‘Ask the mediums your questions,
    and quiz the spiritists who chirp and mutter,’
shouldn’t a people instead be consulting their God—^[a]
    and not the dead—
on behalf of those who are living
²⁰ for instruction and for testimony?
    Surely they are speaking like this
        because the truth^[b] hasn’t dawned on them.

²¹ “They’ll pass through the land,^[c]
    while^[d] greatly distressed and hungry.
When they are hungry,
    they’ll become enraged,
and they’ll curse their king and their god.^[e]
    They’ll turn their faces upwards,
²² or they’ll look toward the^[f] earth,
    but they’ll see only distress and darkness,
the gloom that comes from anguish,
    and then they’ll be thrown into total darkness.”