The prophets in their realism attest to the ways in which God is mocked and neighbor is demeaned by political arrogance, economic manipulation, and religious obtuseness. But the second thing that strikes one about the recurring prophetic utterance of “speeches of judgment” is that they are daring, playful poetry with all kinds of risky images that are designed not only to instruct those held by the ideology, but to shock, dismay, and perhaps to move them emotionally to get back in touch with reality.
