Sharper Iron — The Law of God is Good and Wise: Your No-Gods Are No Good

¹⁹ “The Lord saw it and spurned them,
    because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
²⁰ And he said, ‘I will hide my face from them;
    I will see what their end will be,
for they are a perverse generation,
    children in whom is no faithfulness.
²¹ They have made me jealous with what is no god;
    they have provoked me to anger with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with those who are no people;
    I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
²² For a fire is kindled by my anger,
    and it burns to the depths of Sheol,
devours the earth and its increase,
    and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.

²³ “‘And I will heap disasters upon them;
    I will spend my arrows on them;
²⁴ they shall be wasted with hunger,
    and devoured by plague
    and poisonous pestilence;
I will send the teeth of beasts against them,
    with the venom of things that crawl in the dust.
²⁵ Outdoors the sword shall bereave,
    and indoors terror,
for young man and woman alike,
    the nursing child with the man of gray hairs.
²⁶ I would have said, “I will cut them to pieces;
    I will wipe them from human memory,”
²⁷ had I not feared provocation by the enemy,
    lest their adversaries should misunderstand,
lest they should say, “Our hand is triumphant,
    it was not the Lord who did all this.”’

²⁸ “For they are a nation void of counsel,
    and there is no understanding in them.
²⁹ If they were wise, they would understand this;
    they would discern their latter end!
³⁰ How could one have chased a thousand,
    and two have put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
    and the Lord had given them up?
³¹ For their rock is not as our Rock;
    our enemies are by themselves.
³² For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom
    and from the fields of Gomorrah;
their grapes are grapes of poison;
    their clusters are bitter;
³³ their wine is the poison of serpents
    and the cruel venom of asps.

³⁴ “‘Is not this laid up in store with me,
    sealed up in my treasuries?
³⁵ Vengeance is mine, and recompense,^[a]
    for the time when their foot shall slip;
for the day of their calamity is at hand,
    and their doom comes swiftly.’
³⁶ For the Lord will vindicate^[b] his people
    and have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone
    and there is none remaining, bond or free.
³⁷ Then he will say, ‘Where are their gods,
    the rock in which they took refuge,
³⁸ who ate the fat of their sacrifices
    and drank the wine of their drink offering?
Let them rise up and help you;
    let them be your protection!