⁵ The Lord replied to me: If racing with mere men—these men of Anathoth—has wearied you, how will you race against horses, against the king, his court, and all his evil priests?^[a] If you stumble and fall on open ground, what will you do in Jordan’s jungles? ⁶ Even your own brothers, your own family, have turned against you. They have plotted to call for a mob to lynch you. Don’t trust them, no matter how pleasantly they speak. Don’t believe them.

⁷ Then the Lord said: I have abandoned my people, my inheritance; I have surrendered my dearest ones to their enemies. ⁸ My people have roared at me like a lion of the forest, so I have treated them as though I hated them. ⁹ My people have fallen. I will bring upon them swarms of vultures and wild animals to pick the flesh from their corpses.

¹⁰ Many foreign rulers have ravaged my vineyard, trampling down the vines, and turning all its beauty into barren wilderness. ¹¹ They have made it desolate; I hear its mournful cry. The whole land is desolate and no one cares. ¹² Destroying armies plunder the land; the sword of the Lord devours from one end of the nation to the other; nothing shall escape. ¹³ My people have sown wheat but reaped thorns; they have worked hard, but it does them no good. They shall harvest a crop of shame, for the fierce anger of the Lord is upon them.