12:1 Lord, you have always been fair
whenever I have complained to you. 1
However, I would like to speak with you about the disposition of justice. 2
Why are wicked people successful? 3
Why do all dishonest people have such easy lives?
12:2 You plant them like trees and they put down their roots. 4
They grow prosperous and are very fruitful. 5
They always talk about you,
but they really care nothing about you. 6
12:3 But you, Lord, know all about me.
You watch me and test my devotion to you. 7
Drag these wicked men away like sheep to be slaughtered!
Appoint a time when they will be killed! 8
12:4 How long must the land be parched 9
and the grass in every field be withered?
How long 10 must the animals and the birds die
because of the wickedness of the people who live in this land? 11
For these people boast,
“God 12 will not see what happens to us.” 13
12:5 The Lord answered, 14
“If you have raced on foot against men and they have worn you out,
how will you be able to compete with horses?
And if you feel secure only 15 in safe and open country, 16
how will you manage in the thick undergrowth along the Jordan River? 17
12:6 As a matter of fact, 18 even your own brothers
and the members of your own family have betrayed you too.
Even they have plotted to do away with you. 19
So do not trust them even when they say kind things 20 to you.
12:7 “I will abandon my nation. 21
I will forsake the people I call my own. 22
I will turn my beloved people 23
over to the power 24 of their enemies.
12:8 The people I call my own 25 have turned on me
like a lion 26 in the forest.
They have roared defiantly 27 at me.
So I will treat them as though I hate them. 28
12:9 The people I call my own attack me like birds of prey or like hyenas. 29
But other birds of prey are all around them. 30
Let all the nations gather together like wild beasts.
Let them come and destroy these people I call my own. 31
12:10 Many foreign rulers 32 will ruin the land where I planted my people. 33
They will trample all over my chosen land. 34
They will turn my beautiful land
into a desolate wasteland.
12:11 They will lay it waste.
It will lie parched 35 and empty before me.
The whole land will be laid waste.
But no one living in it will pay any heed. 36
12:12 A destructive army 37 will come marching
over the hilltops in the desert.
For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon 38
against 39 everyone from one end of the land to the other.
No one will be safe. 40
12:13 My people will sow wheat, but will harvest weeds. 41
They will work until they are exhausted, but will get nothing from it.
They will be disappointed in their harvests 42
because the Lord will take them away in his fierce anger. 43
12:14 “I, the Lord, also have something to say concerning 44 the wicked nations who surround my land 45 and have attacked and plundered 46 the land that I gave to my people as a permanent possession. 47 I say: ‘I will uproot the people of those nations from their lands and I will free the people of Judah who have been taken there. 48 12:15 But after I have uprooted the people of those nations, I will relent 49 and have pity on them. I will restore the people of each of those nations to their own lands 50 and to their own country. 12:16 But they must make sure you learn to follow the religious practices of my people. 51 Once they taught my people to swear their oaths using the name of the god Baal. 52 But then, they must swear oaths using my name, saying, “As surely as the Lord lives, I swear.” 53 If they do these things, 54 then they will be included among the people I call my own. 55 12:17 But I will completely uproot and destroy any of those nations that will not pay heed,’” 56 says the Lord.