Isaiah 9:16-18

Easy-to-Read Version

¹⁶ Their guides are leading them the wrong way, so those who follow them will be destroyed. ¹⁷ All of them are evil. So the Lord is not happy with the young men, and he will not show mercy to their widows and orphans. That is because they are evil hypocrites. They tell lies.

The Lord has punished them, but he is not finished yet. He is still angry, and his arm is raised to continue punishing his people.

¹⁸ That evil was like a small fire that started among the weeds and thorns and then spread to the larger bushes in the forest. Finally, it became a giant fire, and everything went up in smoke.