9 Therefore, I will bring a case against you again.

This is the Lord’s declaration.

I will bring a case against your children’s children.m

10 Cross over to the coasts of CyprusC,n and take a look.

Send someone to Kedaro and consider carefully;

see if there has ever been anything like this:

11 Has a nation ever exchanged its gods?p

(But they were not gods!q)

Yet my people have exchanged theirD Glory

for useless idols.r

12 Be appalled at this, heavens;s

be shocked and utterly desolated!

This is the Lord’s declaration.

13 For my people have committed a double evil:

They have abandoned me,t

the fountain of living water,u

and dug cisterns for themselves—

cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.v

CONSEQUENCES OF APOSTASY

14 Is Israel a slave?

Was he born into slavery?E

Why else has he become a prey?

15 The young lions have roared at him;w

they have roared loudly.

They have laid waste his land.x

His cities are in ruins, without inhabitants.

16 The men of Memphis and Tahpanhesy

have also broken your skull.

17 Have you not brought this on yourselfz

by abandoning the Lord your God

while he was leading you along the way?

18 Now what will you gain

by traveling along the way to Egyptaa

to drink the water of the Nile?F

What will you gain

by traveling along the way to Assyriaab

to drink the water of the Euphrates?ac

19 Your own evil will discipline you;ad

your own apostasies will reprimand you.

RecognizeG how evil and bitterae it is

for you to abandon the Lord your God

and to have no fear of me.

This is the declaration

of the Lord God of Armies.