for they are a perverse generation,
children in whom there is no faithfulness.
They made me jealous with what is no god,
provoked me with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with what is no people,
provoke them with a foolish nation.
For a fire is kindled by my anger,
and burns to the depths of Sheol;
it devours the earth and its increase,
and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.
I will heap disasters upon them,
spend my arrows against them:
wasting hunger,
burning consumption,
bitter pestilence.
The teeth of beasts I will send against them,
with venom of things crawling in the dust.
In the street the sword shall bereave,
and in the chambers terror,
for young man and woman alike,
nursing child and old gray head.
I thought to scatter them[77 (#ulink_e45b88c1-9846-51bc-9039-5c82faa26f7c)]
and blot out the memory of them from humankind;
but I feared provocation by the enemy,
for their adversaries might misunderstand
and say, “Our hand is triumphant;
it was not the LORD who did all this.”
They are a nation void of sense;
there is no understanding in them.
If they were wise, they would understand this;
they would discern what the end would be.
How could one have routed a thousand,
and two put a myriad to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
the LORD had given them up?
Indeed their rock is not like our Rock;
our enemies are fools.[77 (#ulink_e45b88c1-9846-51bc-9039-5c82faa26f7c)]
Their vine comes from the vinestock of Sodom,
from the vineyards of Gomorrah;
their grapes are grapes of poison,
their clusters are bitter;
their wine is the poison of serpents,
the cruel venom of asps.
Is not this laid up in store with me,
sealed up in my treasuries?
Vengeance is mine, and recompense,
for the time when their foot shall slip;
because the day of their calamity is at hand,
their doom comes swiftly.
Indeed the LORD will vindicate his people,
