The Destruction of Israel

9 I saw the Lord standing besidea the altar, and he said:

Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake,

and shatter them on the heads of all the people;b

and those who are left I will kill with the sword;

not one of them shall flee away,

not one of them shall escape.

2 Though they dig into Sheol,

from there shall my hand take them;

though they climb up to heaven,

from there I will bring them down.

3 Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,

from there I will search out and take them;

and though they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,

there I will command the sea-serpent, and it shall bite them.

4 And though they go into captivity in front of their enemies,

there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;

and I will fix my eyes on them

for harm and not for good.

5 The Lord, God of hosts,

he who touches the earth and it melts,

and all who live in it mourn,

and all of it rises like the Nile,

and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;

6 who builds his upper chambers in the heavens,

and founds his vault upon the earth;

who calls for the waters of the sea,

and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—

the Lord is his name.

7 Are you not like the Ethiopiansc to me,

O people of Israel? says the Lord.

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

and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?

8 The eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom,

and I will destroy it from the face of the earth

—except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,

says the Lord.

9 For lo, I will command,

and shake the house of Israel among all the nations

as one shakes with a sieve,

but no pebble shall fall to the ground.

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

who say, “Evil shall not overtake or meet us.”