1Yahweh, whenever I tell you that I am unhappy about what is happening to me,
2You allow them to prosper
3But Yahweh, as for me, you know what is in my inner being.
4This land is [RHQ] becoming very dry and even the grass is withering.
5Then to show me that I needed to be prepared to endure even greater difficulties, Yahweh said to me,
6Already your brothers and other members of your own family oppose you.
7I have abandoned my Israeli people,
8My people have become to me like [SIM] a lion in the forest.
9My chosen people have [RHQ] become like speckled hawks
10Many rulers from other countries have come with their armies and devastated/destroyed my people
11They have caused it to become completely empty;
12The soldiers of our enemies have marched across all the barren hilltops.
13It is as though my people planted wheat,
14This is also what Yahweh said to me: “I will punish the evil nearby nations that have been trying to take away the land that I gave to my Israeli people, and I will force them to leave their own land. But I will throw the people of Judah out of their land, also.
15But later I will act mercifully toward those nations again, and I will bring them back to their own lands again. Each clan will come back to its own land.
16And if the people of the other nations whose armies have invaded Israel learn the religious customs of my people, and if they learn that I am listening when they solemnly promise that they will do something good, like they taught my people to believe that their god Baal was listening when they made solemn promises, I will cause them to become prosperous, and they also will be my people.
17But I will expel any nation whose people refuse to obey me, and I will destroy that nation and its people. That will surely happen because I, Yahweh, have said it.”