19. But the Lord took note and despised thembecause his sons and daughters enraged him.
20. He said, “I will reject them, I will see what will happen to them;for they are a perverse generation,children who show no loyalty.
21. They have made me jealous with false gods,enraging me with their worthless gods;so I will make them jealous with a people they do not recognize,with a nation slow to learn I will enrage them.
22. For a fire has been kindled by my anger,and it burns to lowest Sheol;it consumes the earth and its produce,and ignites the foundations of the mountains.
23. I will increase their disasters,I will use up my arrows on them.
24. They will be starved by famine,eaten by plague, and bitterly stung;I will send the teeth of wild animals against them,along with the poison of creatures that crawl in the dust.
25. The sword will make people childless outside,and terror will do so inside;they will destroy both the young man and the virgin,the infant and the gray-haired man.
26. “I said, ‘I want to cut them in pieces.I want to make people forget they ever existed.
27. But I fear the reaction of their enemies,for their adversaries would misunderstandand say, “Our power is great,and the Lord has not done all this!”’
28. They are a nation devoid of wisdom, and there is no understanding among them.