^19-25 God saw it and spun around,
    angered and hurt by his sons and daughters.
He said, “From now on I’m looking the other way.
    Wait and see what happens to them.
Oh, they’re a turned-around, upside-down generation!
    Who knows what they’ll do from one moment to the next?
They’ve goaded me with their no-gods,
    infuriated me with their hot-air gods;
I’m going to goad them with a no-people,
    with a hollow nation incense them.
My anger started a fire,
    a wildfire burning deep down in Sheol,
Then shooting up and devouring the Earth and its crops,
    setting all the mountains, from bottom to top, on fire.
I’ll pile catastrophes on them,
    I’ll shoot my arrows at them:
Starvation, blistering heat, killing disease;
    I’ll send snarling wild animals to attack from the forest
    and venomous creatures to strike from the dust.
Killing in the streets,
    terror in the houses,
Young men and virgins alike struck down,
    and yes, breast-feeding babies and gray-haired old men.”

^26-27 I could have said, “I’ll hack them to pieces,
    wipe out all trace of them from the Earth,”
Except that I feared the enemy would grab the chance
    to take credit for all of it,
Crowing, “Look what we did!
    God had nothing to do with this.”