Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger-- the staff in their hands is My wrath.

I will send him against a godless nation; I will command him [to go] against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils, to plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

I form light and create darkness, I make success and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.

I was angry with My people; I profaned My possession, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; you made your yoke very heavy on the elderly.

This is what the LORD says: Where is your mother's divorce certificate that I used to send her away? Or who were My creditors that I sold you to? Look, you were sold for your iniquities, and your mother was put away because of your transgressions.

Why was no one there when I came? Why was there no one to answer when I called? Is My hand too short to redeem? Or do I have no power to deliver? Look, I dry up the sea by My rebuke; I turn the rivers into a wilderness; their fish rot because of lack of water and die of thirst.

Indeed, the LORD's hand is not too short to save, and His ear is not too deaf to hear.

But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have made Him hide [His] face from you so that He does not listen.

But they rebelled, and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He became their enemy [and] fought against them.

The LORD will bring a nation from far away, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down on you like an eagle, a nation whose language you don't understand,

How could one man pursue a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up?

The LORD's anger burned against Israel, and He handed them over to marauders who raided them. He sold them to the enemies around them, so that they could no longer resist their enemies.

The LORD's anger burned against Israel, and He sold them to Cushan-rishathaim king of Aram of the Two Rivers,and the Israelites served him eight years.

So the LORD's anger burned against Israel, and He sold them to the Philistines and the Ammonites.

Nation was crushed by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every possible distress.

So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their choice young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. He had no pity on young man and virgin or elderly and aged; He handed them all over to him.

But they were disobedient and rebelled against You. They flung Your law behind their backs and killed Your prophets who warned them to turn them back to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.

So You handed them over to their enemies, who oppressed them. In their time of distress, they cried out to You, and You heard from heaven. In Your abundant compassion You gave them deliverers, who rescued them from the power of their enemies.

Therefore the LORD's anger burned against His people, and He abhorred His own inheritance.

Their enemies oppressed them, and they were subdued under their power.

I am about to bring a nation from far away against you, house of Israel. [This is] the LORD's declaration. It is an established nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know and whose speech you do not understand.

"Therefore, this is what the LORD of Hosts says: 'Because you have not obeyed My words,

I am going to send for all the families of the north'-- [this is] the LORD's declaration-- 'and [send for] My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and I will bring them against this land, against its residents, and against all these surrounding nations, and I will completely destroy them and make them a desolation, a derision, and ruins forever.

My transgressions have been formed into a yoke, fastened together by His hand; they have been placed on my neck, and the Lord has broken my strength. He has handed me over to those I cannot withstand.

The LORD is in the right, for I have rebelled against His command. Listen, all you people; look at my pain. My young men and women have gone into captivity.

If a ram's horn is blown in a city, aren't people afraid? If a disaster occurs in a city, hasn't the LORD done it?

The king was enraged, so he sent out his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned down their city.