the clothing of slain gashed by the sword
Who sink to the very stones of the Pit.
20You shall not have a burial like them;
Because you destroyed j-your country,
Murdered your people. -j
Let the breed of evildoers
Nevermore be named!
21Prepare a slaughtering block for his sons
Because of the guilt of their father.k
Let them not arise to possess the earth!
Then the world’s face shall be covered with towns.
22I will rise up against them—declares the LORD of Hosts—and will wipe out from Babylon name and remnant, kith and kin—declares the LORD—23and I will make it a home of bitterns,l pools of water. I will sweep it with a broom of extermination—declares the LORD of Hosts.
24The LORD of Hosts has sworn this oath:
“As I have designed, so shall it happen;
What I have planned, that shall come to pass:
25To break Assyria in My land,
To crush him on My mountain.”m
And his yoke shall drop off them,
And his burden shall drop from theirn backs.
26That is the plan that is planned
For all the earth;
That is why an arm is poised
Over all the nations.
27For the LORD of Hosts has planned,
Who then can foil it?
It is His arm that is poised,
And who can stay it?
28This pronouncement was made in the year that King Ahaz died:
29Rejoice not, all Philistia,
Because the staff of him that beat you is broken.
For from the stock of a snake there sprouts an asp,
A flying serapho branches out from it.
30p-The first-born of the poor shall graze-p
And the destitute lie down secure.
q-I will kill your stock by famine,-q
And it shall slay the very last of you.
31Howl, O gate; cry out, O city;
Quake, all Philistia!
r-For a stout one is coming from the north
And there is no straggler in his ranks.-r
32And what will he answer the messengers of any nation?
That Zion has been established by the LORD:
In it, the needy of His people shall find shelter.
15 The “Moab” Pronouncement.
Ah, in the night Ar was sacked,
Moab was ruined;
Ah, in the night Kir was sacked,
Moab was ruined.
2He went up to the temple to weep,
Dibona [went] to the outdoor shrines.
Over Nebo and Medeba
Moab is wailing;
On every head is baldness,
Every beard is shorn.
3In its streets, they are girt with sackcloth;
On its roofs, in its squares,
Everyone is wailing,
Streaming with tears.
4Heshbon and Elealeh cry out,
Their voice carries to Jahaz.
Therefore,
b-The shock troops of Moab shout,-b
His body is convulsed.
5My heart cries out for Moab—
His fugitives flee down to Zoar,
To Eglath-shelishiyah.
For the ascent of Luhith
They ascend with weeping;
On the road to Horonaim
They raise a cry of anguish.
6Ah, the waters of Nimrim
Are become a desolation;
The grass is sear,
The herbage is gone,
Vegetation is vanished.
7Therefore,
The gains they have made, and their stores,
They carry to the Wadi of Willows.
8Ah, the cry has compassed
The country of Moab:
All the way to Eglaim her wailing,
Even at Beer-elim her wailing!
9Ah, the waters of Dimon are full of bloodc
For I pour added [water] on Dimon;
I drenchd it—for Moab’s refugees—
With soile for its remnant.
16 aDispatch as messenger
The ruler of the land,
From Sela in the wilderness
To the mount of Fair Zion:
2“Like fugitive birds,
Like nestlings driven away,
Moab’s villagers linger
By the fords of the Arnon.
3Give advice,
b-Offer counsel.-b
At high noon make
Your shadow like night:
Conceal the outcasts,
Betray not the fugitives.
4Let c-Moab’s outcasts-c
Find asylum in you;
Be a shelter for them
Against the despoiler.”
For violence has vanished,
Rapine is ended,
And marauders have perished from this land.
5And a throne shall be established in goodness
In the tent of David,
And on it shall sit in faithfulness
A ruler devoted to justice
And zealous for equity.d
6“We have heard of Moab’s pride—
Most haughty is he—
Of his pride and haughtiness and arrogance,
And of the iniquity in him.”e
7Ah, let Moab howl;
Let all in Moab howl!
For the raisin-cakesf of Kir-hareseth
You shall moan most pitifully.
8The vineyards of Heshbon are withered,
And the vines of Sibmah;
b-Their tendrils spread
To Baale-goiim,-b
And reached to Jazer,
And strayed to the desert;
Their shoots spread out
And crossed the sea.
9Therefore,
As I weep for Jazer,
So I weep for Sibmah’s vines;
O Heshbon and Elealeh,
I drench you with my tears.
g-Ended are the shouts
Over your fig and grain harvests-g
10Rejoicing and gladness
Are gone from the farm land;
In the vineyards no shouting
Or cheering is heard.
No more does the treader
Tread wine in the presses—
The shouts h-have been silenced.-h
11Therefore,
Like a lyre my heart moans for Moab,
And my very soul for Kir-heres.
12And when it has become apparent that Moab has gained nothing in the outdoor shrine, he shall come to pray in his temple—but to no avail.
13That is the word that the LORD spoke concerning Moab long ago. 14And now the LORD has spoken: In three years, fixed like the years of a hired laborer, Moab’s population, with all its huge multitude, shall shrink. Only a remnant shall be left, of no consequence.
17 The “Damascus” Pronouncement.
Behold,
Damascus shall cease to be a city;
It shall become a heap of ruins.
2a-The towns of Aroer shall be deserted;-a
They shall be a place for flocks
To lie down, with none disturbing.
3Fortresses shall cease from Ephraim,b
And sovereignty from Damascus;
The remnant of Aram shall become
Like the mass of Israelites
—declares the LORD of Hosts.
4In that day,
The mass of Jacob shall dwindle,
And the fatness of his body become lean:
5After being like the standing grain
Harvested by the reaper—
Who reaps ears by the armful—
He shall be like the ears that are gleaned
In the Valley of Rephaim.
6Only gleanings shall be left of him,
As when one beats an olive tree:
Two berries or three on the topmost branch,
Four or five c-on the boughs of the crown-c
—declares the LORD, the God of Israel.
7In that day, men shall turn to their Maker, their eyes look to the Holy One of Israel; 8they shall not turn to the altars that their own hands made, or look to the sacred posts and incense stands that their own fingers wrought.
9In that day, their fortress cities shall be like the deserted sites which d-the Horesh and the Amir-d abandoned because of the Israelites; and there shall be desolation.
10Truly, you have forgotten the God who saves you
And have not remembered the Rock who shelters you;
That is why, though you plant a delightfule sapling,
What you sow proves a disappointing slip.
11On the day that you plant, you see it grow;
On the morning you sow, you see it bud—
But the branches wither away
On a day of sickness and mortal agony.
12Ah, the roar of many peoples
That roar as roars the sea,
The rage of nations that rage
As rage the mighty waters—
13Nations raging like massive waters!
But He shouts at them, and they flee far away,
Driven like chaff before winds in the hills,
And like tumbleweed before a gale.
14At eventide, lo, terror!
By morning, it is no more.
Such is the lot of our despoilers,
The portion of them that plunder us.
18 Ah,
a-land in the deep shadow of wings,-a
Beyond the rivers of Nubia!
2Go, swift messengers,
To a nation b-far and remote,
To a people thrust forth and away-b—
A nation of gibber and chatterc—
Whose land is cut off by streams;
d-Which sends out envoys by sea,
In papyrus vessels upon the water!-d
3[Say this:]
“All you who live in the world
And inhabit the earth,
When a flag is raised in the hills, take note!
When a ram’s horn is blown, give heed!”
4For thus the LORD said to me:
“I rest calm and confidente in My habitation—
Like a scorching heat upon sprouts,
f-Like a rain-cloud in the heat of reaping time.”-f
5For before the harvest,g yet after the budding,
When the blossom has hardened into berries,
He will trim away the twigs with pruning hooks,
And lop off the trailing branches.h
6They shall all be left
To the kites of the hills
And to the beasts of the earth;
The kites shall summer on them
And all the beasts of the earth shall winter on them.
7In that time,
Tribute shall be brought to the LORD of Hosts
[From] a people far and remote,
From a people thrust forth and away—
A nation of gibber and chatter,
Whose land is cut off by streams—
At the place where the name of the LORD of Hosts abides,
At Mount Zion.
19 The “Egypt” Pronouncement.
Mounted on a swift cloud,
The LORD will come to Egypt;
Egypt’s idols shall tremble before Him,
And the heart of the Egyptians shall sink within them.
2“I will incite Egyptian against Egyptian:
They shall war with each other,
Every man with his fellow,
City with city
And kingdom with kingdom.a
3Egypt shall be drained of spirit,
And I will confound its plans;
So they will consult the idols and the shades
And the ghosts and the familiar spirits.
4And I will place the Egyptians
At the mercy of a harsh master,
And a ruthless king shall rule them”
—declares the Sovereign, the LORD of Hosts.
5Water shall fail from the seas,
Rivers dry up and be parched,
6Channels turn foul as they ebb,
And Egypt’s canals run dry.
Reed and rush shall decay,
7b-And the Nile papyrus by the Nile-side-b
And everything sown by the Nile
Shall wither, blow away, and vanish.
8The fishermen shall lament;
All who cast lines in the Nile shall mourn,
And those who spread nets on the water shall languish.
9The flax workers, too, shall be dismayed,
Both carders and weavers chagrined.b
10cHer foundations shall be crushed,
And all who make dams shall be despondent.
11Utter fools are the nobles of Tanis;
The sagest of Pharaoh’s advisers
[Have made] absurd predictions.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
“I am a scion of sages,
A scion of Kedemite kings”?d
12Where, indeed, are your sages?
Let them tell you, let them discover
What the LORD of Hosts has planned against Egypt.
13The nobles of Tanis have been fools,
The nobles of Memphis deluded;
Egypt has been led astray
By the chiefs of her tribes.
14The LORD has mixed within her
A spirit of distortion,
Which shall lead Egypt astray in all her undertakings
As a vomiting drunkard goes astray;
15Nothing shall be achieved in Egypt
By either head or tail,
Palm branch or reed.e

16In that day, the Egyptians shall be like women, trembling and terrified because the LORD of Hosts will raise His hand against them. 17And the land of Judah shall also be the dread of the Egyptians; they shall quake whenever anybody mentions it to them, because of what the LORD of Hosts is planning against them. 18In that day, there shall be severalf towns in the