15:5 耶路撒冷啊,誰可憐你呢?誰為你悲傷呢?誰轉身問你的安呢?
15:6 耶和華說:你棄絕了我,轉身退後;因此我伸手攻擊你,毀壞你。我後悔甚不耐煩。
15:7 我在境內各城門口(或譯:我在這地邊界的關口),用簸箕簸了我的百姓,使他們喪掉兒女。我毀滅他們,他們仍不轉離所行的道。
15:8 他們的寡婦在我面前比海沙更多;我使滅命的午間來,攻擊少年人的母親,使痛苦驚嚇忽然臨到她身上。
15:9 生過七子的婦人力衰氣絕;尚在白晝,日頭忽落;她抱愧蒙羞。其餘的人,我必在他們敵人跟前,交與刀劍。這是耶和華說的。
“Who will have pity
on you, O Jerusalem,
or who will grieve for you?
Who will turn aside
to ask about your welfare?
You
have rejected me, declares the Lord;
you keep going backward,
so I have stretched out my hand against you
and destroyed you—
I am weary of relenting.
I
have winnowed them with a winnowing fork
in the gates of the land;
I have bereaved them; I have destroyed my
people;
they did not turn from their ways.
I
have made their widows more in number
than the sand of the seas;
I have brought against the mothers of young
men
a destroyer at noonday;
I have made anguish and terror
fall upon them suddenly.
She
who bore seven has grown feeble;
she has fainted away;
her sun went down while it was yet day;
she has been shamed and disgraced.
And the rest of them I will give to the
sword
before their enemies,
declares the Lord.”
************
先知這段訊息仍然是在警告猶大百姓,要他們知道上帝之所以不拯救的原因,不是上帝沒有慈愛與憐憫,而是因為他們刻意犯罪行惡,不敬畏上帝,所以上帝要施行滅族的懲罰!
其實上帝有完全的主權,上帝要毀滅,人無權說甚麼,人只能默默承受。然而先知在此是要猶大百姓認識,自己得罪上帝是多麼深,要快快悔改,才不至於落到上帝嚴厲的懲罰!
雖然我們的信仰是講上帝是愛,但是上帝的愛不是溺愛,上帝深深的盼望人能離開罪惡來歸向祂。在末世更是透過耶穌基督在十字架上的犧牲,為我們的罪而死,來呼召我們悔改,你願意答應這樣的呼召嗎?