3
Do not surrender our glorious privileges to any other people.
4
How happy we are, people of Israel; we have the advantage of knowing what is pleasing to God!
5
Take courage, my people, you are the ones who keep Israel's name alive.
6
You were sold to Gentile nations, but not to be destroyed. Because you made God angry, he handed you over to your enemies.
7
When you offered sacrifices to demons instead of to God, you angered the one who made you.
8
You forgot the Eternal God, who had nourished you as a child, and so you brought grief to Jerusalem, who had been like a mother to you.
9
Jerusalem saw that God was punishing you because he was angry, and she said to all the neighboring cities, "Look at the great misery that God has brought on me.
10
I saw my sons and daughters taken into captivity, a captivity brought on them by the Eternal God.
11
I brought up my children with great delight, but I cried and mourned when they were taken from me.
12
Let no one take pleasure in my suffering now that I am a widow and so many of my children have been taken from me. They turned away from God's Law, and their sins have made me a deserted city.
13
They had no respect for his commandments and would not live by them; they refused to let him guide them in the way of righteousness.