19 For people will live on Zion in Jerusalem. You will never weep again; he will show favor to you at the sound of your outcry; as soon as he hears, he will answer you. 20 The Lord will give you meager bread and water during oppression,d but your TeacherA will not hide any longer. Your eyes will see your Teacher, 21 and whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.”e 22 Then you will defile your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, and call them filth.

23 Then he will send rain for your seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food, the produce of the ground, will be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle will graze in open pastures.f 24 The oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat salted fodder scattered with winnowing shovelg and fork. 25 Streams flowing with water will be on every high mountain and every raised hill on the day of great slaughter when the towers fall. 26 The moonlight will be as bright as the sunlight, and the sunlight will be seven times brighterh—like the light of seven days—on the dayi that the Lord bandages his people’s injuries and heals the wounds he inflicted.j

ANNIHILATION OF THE ASSYRIANS

27 Look! The name of the LordB is coming from far away,

his anger burning and heavy with smoke.C

His lips are full of fury,

and his tongue is like a consuming fire.

28 His breath is like an overflowing torrentk

that rises to the neck.l

He comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction

and to put a bridle on the jaws of the peoples

to lead them astray.m

29 Your singing will be like that

on the night of a holy festival,

and your heart will rejoice

like one who walks to the music of a flute,

going up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the Rock of Israel.n

30 And the Lord will make the splendor of his voice heard

and reveal his armo striking in angry wrath

and a flame of consuming fire,

in driving rain, a torrent, and hailstones.

31 Assyria will be shattered by the voice of the Lord.

He will strike with a rod.

32 And every stroke of the appointedD staff

that the Lord brings down on him

will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres;

he will fight against him with brandished weapons.

33 Indeed! Topheth has been readyp

for the king for a long time.

Its funeral pyre is deep and wide,

with plenty of fire and wood.

The breath of the Lord,q like a torrent of burning sulfur,

kindles it.