Moab Destroyed

16 Send athe lamb to the ruler of the land,

bFrom 1Sela to the wilderness,

To the mount of the daughter of Zion.

2 For it shall be as a cwandering bird thrown out of the nest;

So shall be the daughters of Moab at the fords of the dArnon.

3 “Take counsel, execute judgment;

Make your shadow like the night in the middle of the day;

Hide the outcasts,

Do not betray him who escapes.

4 Let My outcasts dwell with you, O Moab;

Be a shelter to them from the face of the 2spoiler.

For the extortioner is at an end,

Devastation ceases,

The oppressors are consumed out of the land.

5 In mercy ethe throne will be established;

And One will sit on it in truth, in the tabernacle of David,

fJudging and seeking justice and hastening grighteousness.”

6 We have heard of the hpride of Moab—

He is very proud—

Of his haughtiness and his pride and his wrath;

iBut his 3lies shall not be so.

7 Therefore Moab shall jwail for Moab;

Everyone shall wail.

For the foundations kof Kir Hareseth you shall mourn;

Surely they are stricken.

8 For lthe fields of Heshbon languish,

And mthe vine of Sibmah;

The lords of the nations have broken down its choice plants,

Which have reached to Jazer

And wandered through the wilderness.

Her branches are stretched out,

They are gone over the nsea.

9 Therefore I will bewail the vine of Sibmah,

With the weeping of Jazer;

I will drench you with my tears,

oO Heshbon and Elealeh;

For 4battle cries have fallen

Over your summer fruits and your harvest.

10 pGladness is taken away,

And joy from the plentiful field;

In the vineyards there will be no singing,

Nor will there be shouting;

No treaders will tread out wine in the presses;

I have made their shouting cease.

11 Therefore qmy 5heart shall resound like a harp for Moab,

And my inner being for 6Kir Heres.

12 And it shall come to pass,

When it is seen that Moab is weary on rthe high place,

That he will come to his sanctuary to pray;

But he will not prevail.

13 This is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning Moab since that time. 14 But now the Lord has spoken, saying, “Within three years, sas the years of a hired man, the glory of Moab will be despised with all that great multitude, and the remnant will be very small and feeble.”

Proclamation Against Syria and Israel

17 The aburden 1against Damascus.

“Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city,

And it will be a ruinous heap.

2 2The cities of bAroer are forsaken;

They will be for flocks

Which lie down, and cno one will make them afraid.

3 dThe fortress also will cease from Ephraim,

The kingdom from Damascus,

And the remnant of Syria;

They will be as the glory of the children of Israel,”

Says the Lord of hosts.

4 “In that day it shall come to pass

That the glory of Jacob will 3wane,

And ethe fatness of his flesh grow lean.

5 fIt shall be as when the harvester gathers the grain,

And reaps the heads with his arm;

It shall be as he who gathers heads of grain

In the Valley of Rephaim.

6 gYet gleaning grapes will be left in it,

Like the shaking of an olive tree,

Two or three olives at the top of the uppermost bough,

Four or five in its most fruitful branches,”

Says the Lord God of Israel.

7 In that day a man will hlook to his Maker,

And his eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel.

8 He will not look to the altars,

The work of his hands;

He will not respect what his ifingers have made,

Nor the 4wooden images nor the incense altars.

9 In that day his strong cities will be as a forsaken 5bough

And 6an uppermost branch,

Which they left because of the children of Israel;

And there will be desolation.

10 Because you have forgotten jthe God of your salvation,

And have not been mindful of the Rock of your 7stronghold,

Therefore you will plant pleasant plants

And set out foreign seedlings;

11 In the day you will make your plant to grow,

And in the morning you will make your seed to flourish;

But the harvest will be a heap of ruins

In the day of grief and desperate sorrow.

12 Woe to the multitude of many people

Who make a noise klike the roar of the seas,

And to the rushing of nations

That make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!

13 The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters;

But God will lrebuke them and they will flee far away, And mbe chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind,

Like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.

14 Then behold, at eventide, trouble!

And before the morning, he is no more.

This is the portion of those who plunder us,

And the lot of those who rob us.

Proclamation Against Ethiopia

18 Woe ato the land shadowed with buzzing wings,

Which is beyond the rivers of 1Ethiopia,

2 Which sends ambassadors by sea,

Even in vessels of reed on the waters, saying,

“Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth of skin,

To a people terrible from their beginning onward,

A nation powerful and treading down,

Whose land the rivers divide.”

3 All inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth:

bWhen he lifts up a banner on the mountains, you see it;

And when he blows a trumpet, you hear it.

4 For so the Lord said to me,

“I will take My rest,

And I will 2look from My dwelling place

Like clear heat in sunshine,

Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

5 For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect

And the sour grape is ripening in the flower,

He will both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks

And take away and cut down the branches.

6 They will be left together for the mountain birds of prey

And for the beasts of the earth;

The birds of prey will summer on them,

And all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

7 In that time ca present will be brought to the Lord of hosts

3From a people tall and smooth of skin,

And from a people terrible from their beginning onward,

A nation powerful and treading down,

Whose land the rivers divide—

To the place of the name of the Lord of hosts,

To Mount Zion.