The Destruction of Israel

9 I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and He said:

“Strike the 1doorposts, that the thresholds may shake,

And abreak them on the heads of them all.

I will slay the last of them with the sword.

bHe who flees from them shall not get away,

And he who escapes from them shall not be delivered.

2 “Though cthey dig into 2hell,

From there My hand shall take them;

dThough they climb up to heaven,

From there I will bring them down;

3 And though they ehide themselves on top of Carmel,

From there I will search and take them;

Though they hide from My sight at the bottom of the sea,

From there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them;

4 Though they go into captivity before their enemies,

From there fI will command the sword,

And it shall slay them.

gI will set My eyes on them for harm and not for good.”

5 The Lord God of hosts,

He who touches the earth and it hmelts,

iAnd all who dwell there mourn;

All of it shall swell like 3the River,

And subside like the River of Egypt.

6 He who builds His jlayers 4in the sky,

And has founded His strata in the earth;

Who kcalls for the waters of the sea,

And pours them out on the face of the earth—

lThe Lord is His name.

7 “Are you not like the 5people of Ethiopia to Me,

O children of Israel?” says the Lord.

“Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,

The mPhilistines from nCaphtor, 6

And the Syrians from oKir?

8 “Behold, pthe eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom,

And I qwill destroy it from the face of the earth;

Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,”

Says the Lord.

9 “For surely I will command,

And will 7sift the house of Israel among all nations,

As grain is sifted in a sieve;

rYet not the smallest 8grain shall fall to the ground.

10 All the sinners of My people shall die by the sword,

sWho say, ‘The calamity shall not overtake nor confront us.’