You will win, O ETERNAL One, if I make claim against You, Yet I shall present charges against You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are the workers of treachery at ease?
Yet You, ETERNAL One, have noted and observed me; You have tested my heart, and found it with You. Drive them out like sheep to the slaughter, Prepare them for the day of slaying!
How long must the land languish, And the grass of all the countryside dry up? Must beasts and birds perish, Because of the evil of its inhabitants, Who say, “[God] will not look upon our future”?
If you race with the foot-runners and they exhaust you, How then can you compete with horses? If you are secure only in a tranquil land, How will you fare in the jungle of the Jordan?
For even your own kin and your father’s house— Even they are treacherous toward you; They cry after you as a mob. Do not believe them When they speak cordially to you.
My own people acts toward Me Like a bird of prey [or] a hyena; Let the birds of prey surround her! Go, gather all the wild beasts, Bring them to devour!
Thus said GOD: As for My wicked neighbors who encroach on the heritage that I gave to My people Israel—I am going to uproot them from their soil, and I will uproot the House of Judah out of the midst of them.
And if they learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name—“As GOD lives”—just as they once taught My people to swear by Baal, then they shall be built up in the midst of My people.