The Women of Jerusalem

9Stand up, you complacent women;

listen to me.

Give ear to my word,

you overconfident daughters.

10In a little more than a year you will tremble,

O secure ones.

For the grape harvest will fail

and the fruit harvest will not arrive.

11Shudder, you ladies of leisure;

tremble, you daughters of complacency.

Strip yourselves bare

and put sackcloth around your waists.

12Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields,

for the fruitful vines,

13and for the land of my people,

overgrown with thorns and briers—

even for every house of merriment

in this city of revelry.

14For the palace will be forsaken,

the busy city abandoned.

The hill and the watchtower will become caves forever—

the delight of wild donkeys

and a pasture for flocks—

15until the Spirit is poured out

upon us from on high.

Then the desert will be an orchard,

and the orchard will seem like a forest.

16Then justice will inhabit the wilderness,

and righteousness will dwell in the fertile field.

17The work of righteousness will be peace;

the service of righteousness will be quiet confidence forever.

18Then my people will dwell in a peaceful place,

in safe and secure places of rest.

19But hail will level the forest,

and the city will sink to the depths.

20Blessed are those who sow beside abundant waters,

who let the ox and donkey range freely.

The LORD Is Exalted

1Woe to you, O destroyer never destroyed,

O traitor never betrayed!

When you have finished destroying,

you will be destroyed.

When you have finished betraying,

you will be betrayed.

2O LORD, be gracious to us!

We wait for You.

Be our strength every morning

and our salvation in time of trouble.

3The peoples flee the thunder of Your voice;

the nations scatter when You rise.

4Your spoil, O nations, is gathered as by locusts;

like a swarm of locusts men sweep over it.

5The LORD is exalted, for He dwells on high;

He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.

6He will be the sure foundation for your times,

a storehouse of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.

The fear of the LORD is Zion’s treasure.

7Behold, their valiant ones cry aloud in the streets;

the envoys of peace weep bitterly.

8The highways are deserted;

travel has ceased.

The treaty has been broken,

the witnesses are despised,

and human life is disregarded.

9The land mourns and languishes;

Lebanon is ashamed and decayed.

Sharon is like a desert;

Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.

10“Now I will arise,” says the LORD.

“Now I will lift Myself up. Now I will be exalted.

11You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble.

Your breath is a fire that will consume you.

12The peoples will be burned to ashes,

like thorns cut down and set ablaze.

13You who are far off, hear what I have done;

you who are near, acknowledge My might.”

14The sinners in Zion are afraid;

trembling grips the ungodly:

“Who of us can dwell with a consuming fire?

Who of us can dwell with everlasting flames?”

15He who walks righteously

and speaks with sincerity,

who refuses gain from extortion,

whose hand never takes a bribe,

who stops his ears against murderous plots

and shuts his eyes tightly against evil—

16he will dwell on the heights;

the mountain fortress will be his refuge;

his food will be provided

and his water assured.

17Your eyes will see the King in His beauty

and behold a land that stretches afar.

18Your mind will ponder the former terror:

“Where is he who tallies? Where is he who weighs?

Where is he who counts the towers?”

19You will no longer see the insolent,

a people whose speech is unintelligible,

who stammer in a language you cannot understand.

20Look upon Zion,

the city of our appointed feasts.

Your eyes will see Jerusalem,

a peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander;

its tent pegs will not be pulled up,

nor will any of its cords be broken.

21But there the Majestic One, our LORD,

will be for us a place of rivers and wide canals,

where no galley with oars will row,

and no majestic vessel will pass.

22For the LORD is our Judge,

the LORD is our lawgiver,

the LORD is our King.

It is He who will save us.

23Your ropes are slack;

they cannot secure the mast or spread the sail.

Then an abundance of spoils will be divided,

and even the lame will carry off plunder.

24And no resident of Zion will say, “I am sick.”

The people who dwell there

will be forgiven of iniquity.

Judgment on the Nations

1Come near, O nations, to listen;

pay attention, O peoples.

Let the earth hear, and all that fills it,

the world and all that springs from it.

2The LORD is angry with all the nations

and furious with all their armies.

He will devote them to destruction;

He will give them over to slaughter.

3Their slain will be left unburied,

and the stench of their corpses will rise;

the mountains will flow with their blood.

4All the stars of heaven will be dissolved.

The skies will be rolled up like a scroll,

and all their stars will fall

like withered leaves from the vine,

like foliage from the fig tree.

Judgment on Edom

5When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens,

then it will come down upon Edom,

upon the people I have devoted to destruction.

6The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood.

It drips with fat—

with the blood of lambs and goats,

with the fat of the kidneys of rams.

For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah,

a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

7And the wild oxen will fall with them,

the young bulls with the strong ones.

Their land will be drenched with blood,

and their soil will be soaked with fat.

8For the LORD has a day of vengeance,

a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

9Edom’s streams will be turned to tar,

and her soil to sulfur;

her land will become a blazing pitch.

10It will not be quenched—day or night.

Its smoke will ascend forever.

From generation to generation it will lie desolate;

no one will ever again pass through it.

11The desert owl and screech owl will possess it,

and the great owl and raven will dwell in it.

The LORD will stretch out over Edom

a measuring line of chaos

and a plumb line of destruction.

12No nobles will be left to proclaim a king,

and all her princes will come to nothing.

13Her towers will be overgrown with thorns,

her fortresses with thistles and briers.

She will become a haunt for jackals,

an abode for ostriches.

14The desert creatures will meet with hyenas,

and one wild goat will call to another.

There the night creature will settle

and find her place of repose.

15There the owl will make her nest;

she will lay and hatch her eggs

and gather her brood under her shadow.

Even there the birds of prey will gather,

each with its mate.

16Search and read the scroll of the LORD:

Not one of these will go missing,

not one will lack her mate,

because He has ordered it by His mouth,

and He will gather them by His Spirit.

17He has allotted their portion;

His hand has distributed it by measure.

They will possess it forever;

they will dwell in it from generation to generation.

The Glory of Zion

1The wilderness and the land will be glad;

the desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose.

2It will bloom profusely

and rejoice with joy and singing.

The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,

the splendor of Carmel and Sharon.

They will see the glory of the LORD,

the splendor of our God.

3Strengthen the limp hands

and steady the feeble knees!

4Say to those with anxious hearts:

“Be strong, do not fear!

Behold, your God will come with vengeance.

With divine retribution He will come to save you.”

5Then the eyes of the blind will be opened

and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

6Then the lame will leap like a deer

and the mute tongue will shout for joy.

For waters will gush forth in the wilderness,

and streams in the desert.

7The parched ground will become a pool,

the thirsty land springs of water.

In the haunt where jackals once lay,

there will be grass and reeds and papyrus.

8And there will be a highway

called the Way of Holiness.

The unclean will not travel it—

only those who walk in the Way—

and fools will not stray onto it.

9No lion will be there,

and no vicious beast will go up on it.

Such will not be found there,

but the redeemed will walk upon it.

10So the redeemed of the LORD will return

and enter Zion with singing,

crowned with everlasting joy.

Gladness and joy will overtake them,

and sorrow and sighing will flee.