Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: ‘Because all of you have become slag, look out! – I am about to gather you in the middle of Jerusalem.

“‘You have shown unrelenting hostility and poured the people of Israel onto the blades of a sword at the time of their calamity, at the time of their final punishment.

As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, my sheep have become prey and have become food for all the wild beasts. There was no shepherd, and my shepherds did not search for my flock, but fed themselves and did not feed my sheep,