"Run for your lives, children of Benjamin! Get out of Jerusalem, and now! Give a blast on the ram's horn in Blastville. Send up smoke signals from Smoketown. Doom pours out of the north-- massive terror!
Well, now 'shepherds' from the north have discovered her and brought in their flocks of soldiers. They've pitched camp all around her, and plan where they'll 'graze.'
Just as a well holds a good supply of water, she supplies wickedness nonstop. The streets echo the cries: 'Violence! Rape!' Victims, bleeding and moaning, lie all over the place.
More orders from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "Time's up! Harvest the grapes for judgment. Salvage what's left of Israel. Go back over the vines. Pick them clean, every last grape.
"I've got something to say. Is anybody listening? I've a warning to post. Will anyone notice? It's hopeless! Their ears are stuffed with wax-- deaf as a post, blind as a bat. It's hopeless! They've tuned out GOD. They don't want to hear from me.
But I'm bursting with the wrath of GOD. I can't hold it in much longer. "So dump it on the children in the streets. Let it loose on the gangs of youth. For no one's exempt: Husbands and wives will be taken, the old and those ready to die;
Do you suppose they are embarrassed over this outrage? No, they have no shame. They don't even know how to blush. There's no hope for them. They've hit bottom and there's no getting up. As far as I'm concerned, they're finished." GOD has spoken.
GOD's Message yet again: "Go stand at the crossroads and look around. Ask for directions to the old road, The tried and true road. Then take it. Discover the right route for your souls. But they said, 'Nothing doing. We aren't going that way.'
And, 'Pay attention, earth! Don't miss these bulletins.' I'm visiting catastrophe on this people, the end result of the games they've been playing with me. They've ignored everything I've said, had nothing but contempt for my teaching.
What would I want with incense brought in from Sheba, rare spices from exotic places? Your burnt sacrifices in worship give me no pleasure. Your religious rituals mean nothing to me."
So listen to this. Here's GOD's verdict on your way of life: "Watch out! I'm putting roadblocks and barriers on the road you're taking. They'll send you sprawling, parents and children, neighbors and friends-- and that will be the end of the lot of you."
Armed to the teeth, vicious and pitiless, Booming like sea storm and thunder--tramp, tramp, tramp-- riding hard on war horses, In battle formation against you, dear Daughter Zion!"
"Dear Daughter Zion: Dress in black. Blacken your face with ashes. Weep most bitterly, as for an only child. The countdown has begun . . . six, five, four, three . . . The Terror is on us!"
Refining fires are cranked up to white heat, but the ore stays a lump, unchanged. It's useless to keep trying any longer. Nothing can refine evil out of them.