3“Give us counsel;

render a decision.

Shelter us at noonday

with shade as dark as night.

Hide the refugees;

do not betray the one who flees.

4Let my fugitives stay with you;

be a refuge for Moab from the destroyer.”

When the oppressor has gone, destruction has ceased,

and the oppressors have vanished from the land,

5in loving devotion a throne will be established

in the tent of David.

A judge seeking justice and hastening righteousness

will sit on it in faithfulness.

6We have heard of Moab’s pomposity,

his exceeding pride and conceit,

his overflowing arrogance.

But his boasting is empty.

7Therefore let Moab wail;

let them wail together for Moab.

Moan for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth,

you who are utterly stricken.

8For the fields of Heshbon have withered,

along with the grapevines of Sibmah.

The rulers of the nations

have trampled its choicest vines,

which had reached as far as Jazer

and spread toward the desert.

Their shoots had spread out

and passed over the sea.

9So I weep with Jazer

for the vines of Sibmah;

I drench Heshbon and Elealeh

with my tears.

Triumphant shouts have fallen silent

over your summer fruit and your harvest.

10Joy and gladness are removed from the orchard;

no one sings or shouts in the vineyards.

No one tramples the grapes in the winepresses;

I have put an end to the cheering.

11Therefore my heart laments for Moab like a harp,

my inmost being for Kir-heres.

12When Moab appears on the high place,

when he wearies himself

and enters his sanctuary to pray,

it will do him no good.

The Burden against Damascus

1This is the burden against Damascus:

“Behold, Damascus is no longer a city;

it has become a heap of ruins.

2The cities of Aroer are forsaken;

they will be left to the flocks,

which will lie down with no one to fear.

3The fortress will disappear from Ephraim,

and the sovereignty from Damascus.

The remnant of Aram will be

like the splendor of the Israelites,”

declares the LORD of Hosts.

4“In that day the splendor of Jacob will fade,

and the fat of his body will waste away,

5as the reaper gathers the standing grain

and harvests the ears with his arm,

as one gleans heads of grain

in the Valley of Rephaim.

6Yet gleanings will remain,

like an olive tree that has been beaten—

two or three berries atop the tree,

four or five on its fruitful branches,”

declares the LORD, the God of Israel.

7In that day men will look to their Maker

and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.

8They will not look to the altars

they have fashioned with their hands

or to the Asherahs and incense altars

they have made with their fingers.

9In that day their strong cities

will be like forsaken thickets and summits,

abandoned to the Israelites

and to utter desolation.

10For you have forgotten the God of your salvation

and failed to remember the Rock of your refuge.

Therefore, though you cultivate delightful plots

and set out cuttings from exotic vines—

11though on the day you plant

you make them grow,

and on that morning

you help your seed sprout—

yet the harvest will vanish

on the day of disease and incurable pain.

12Alas, the tumult of many peoples;

they rage like the roaring seas and clamoring nations;

they rumble like the crashing of mighty waters.

13The nations rage like the rush of many waters.

He rebukes them, and they flee far away,

driven before the wind like chaff on the hills,

like tumbleweeds before a gale.

14In the evening, there is sudden terror!

Before morning, they are no more!

This is the portion of those who loot us

and the lot of those who plunder us.

A Message to Cush

1Woe to the land of whirring wings,

along the rivers of Cush,

2which sends couriers by sea,

in papyrus vessels on the waters.

Go, swift messengers,

to a people tall and smooth-skinned,

to a people widely feared,

to a powerful nation of strange speech,

whose land is divided by rivers.

3All you people of the world

and dwellers of the earth,

when a banner is raised on the mountains,

you will see it;

when a ram’s horn sounds,

you will hear it.

4For this is what the LORD has told me:

“I will quietly look on from My dwelling place,

like shimmering heat in the sunshine,

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

5For before the harvest, when the blossom is gone

and the flower becomes a ripening grape,

He will cut off the shoots with a pruning knife

and remove and discard the branches.

6They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey,

and to the beasts of the land.

The birds will feed on them in summer,

and all the wild animals in winter.

7At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD of Hosts—

from a people tall and smooth-skinned,

from a people widely feared,

from a powerful nation of strange speech,

whose land is divided by rivers—

to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD of Hosts.

The Burden against Egypt

1This is the burden against Egypt:

Behold, the LORD rides on a swift cloud;

He is coming to Egypt.

The idols of Egypt will tremble before Him,

and the hearts of the Egyptians will melt within them.

2“So I will incite Egyptian against Egyptian;

brother will fight against brother, neighbor against neighbor,

city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.

3Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be emptied out from among them,

and I will frustrate their plans,

so that they will resort to idols and spirits of the dead,

to mediums and spiritists.

4I will deliver the Egyptians into the hands of harsh masters,

and a fierce king will rule over them,”

declares the Lord GOD of Hosts.

5The waters of the Nile will dry up,

and the riverbed will be parched and empty.

6The canals will stink;

the streams of Egypt will trickle and dry up;

the reeds and rushes will wither.

7The bulrushes by the Nile,

by the mouth of the river,

and all the fields sown along the Nile,

will wither, blow away, and be no more.

8Then the fishermen will mourn,

all who cast a hook into the Nile will lament,

and those who spread nets on the waters will pine away.

9The workers in flax will be dismayed,

and the weavers of fine linen will turn pale.

10The workers in cloth will be dejected,

and all the hired workers will be sick at heart.

11The princes of Zoan are mere fools;

Pharaoh’s wise counselors give senseless advice.

How can you say to Pharaoh,

“I am one of the wise,

a son of eastern kings”?

12Where are your wise men now?

Let them tell you and reveal

what the LORD of Hosts has planned against Egypt.

13The princes of Zoan have become fools;

the princes of Memphis are deceived.

The cornerstones of her tribes

have led Egypt astray.

14The LORD has poured into her

a spirit of confusion.

Egypt has been led astray in all she does,

as a drunkard staggers through his own vomit.

15There is nothing Egypt can do—

head or tail, palm or reed.