[16:1] Send the lambs for the ruler of the land from Selah to the wilderness, to the mountain of the daughter of Zion. [16:2] For it will be that as wandering birds, as a scattered nest, so will the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the Arnon. [16:3] Give counsel! Execute justice! Make your shade like the night in the midst of the noonday! Hide the outcasts! Don't betray the fugitive! [16:4] Let my outcasts dwell with you! As for Moab, be a hiding place for him from the face of the destroyer. For the extortioner is brought to nothing. Destruction ceases. The oppressors are consumed out of the land. [16:5] A throne will be established in loving kindness. One will sit on it in truth, in the tent of David, judging, seeking justice, and swift to do righteousness.
[16:6] We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud; even of his arrogance, his pride, and his wrath. His boastings are nothing. [16:7] Therefore Moab will wail for Moab. Everyone will wail. You will mourn for the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth, utterly stricken. [16:8] For the fields of Heshbon languish with the vine of Sibmah. The lords of the nations have broken down its choice branches, which reached even to Jazer, which wandered into the wilderness. Its shoots were spread abroad. They passed over the sea. [16:9] Therefore I will weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah. I will water you with my tears, Heshbon, and Elealeh: for on your summer fruits and on your harvest the battle shout has fallen. [16:10] Gladness is taken away, and joy out of the fruitful field; and in the vineyards there will be no singing, neither joyful noise. Nobody will tread out wine in the presses. I have made the shouting stop. [16:11] Therefore my heart sounds like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir Heres. [16:12] It will happen that when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself on the high place, and comes to his sanctuary to pray, that he will not prevail. [16:13] This is the word that Yahweh spoke concerning Moab in time past. [16:14] But now Yahweh has spoken, saying, "Within three years, as a worker bound by contract would count them, the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt, with all his great multitude; and the remnant will be very small and feeble."
[17:1] The burden of Damascus: "Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap. [17:2] The cities of Aroer are forsaken. They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. [17:3] The fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. They will be as the glory of the children of Israel," says Yahweh of Armies. [17:4] "It will happen in that day that the glory of Jacob will be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh will become lean. [17:5] It will be like when the harvester gathers the wheat, and his arm reaps the grain. Yes, it will be like when one gleans grain in the valley of Rephaim. [17:6] Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of a fruitful tree," says Yahweh, the God of Israel. [17:7] In that day, people will look to their Maker, and their eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel. [17:8] They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they respect that which their fingers have made, either the Asherim, or the incense altars. [17:9] In that day, their strong cities will be like the forsaken places in the woods and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it will be a desolation. [17:10] For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the rock of your strength. Therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set out foreign seedlings. [17:11] In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow. [17:12] Ah, the uproar of many peoples, who roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters! [17:13] The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters: but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm. [17:14] At evening, behold, terror! Before the morning, they are no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.
[18:1] Ah, the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia; [18:2] that sends ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of papyrus on the waters, saying, "Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide!" [18:3] All you inhabitants of the world, and you dwellers on the earth, when a banner is lifted up on the mountains, look! When the trumpet is blown, listen! [18:4] For Yahweh said to me, "I will be still, and I will see in my dwelling place, like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest." [18:5] For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and he will cut down and take away the spreading branches. [18:6] They will be left together for the ravenous birds of the mountains, and for the animals of the earth. The ravenous birds will summer on them, and all the animals of the earth will winter on them. [18:7] In that time, a present will be brought to Yahweh of Armies from a people tall and smooth, even from a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of Yahweh of Armies, Mount Zion.
[19:1] The burden of Egypt: "Behold, Yahweh rides on a swift cloud, and comes to Egypt. The idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence; and the heart of Egypt will melt in its midst. [19:2] I will stir up the Egyptians against the Egyptians, and they will fight everyone against his brother, and everyone against his neighbor; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom. [19:3] The spirit of Egypt will fail in its midst. I will destroy its counsel. They will seek the idols, the charmers, those who have familiar spirits, and the wizards. [19:4] I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel lord. A fierce king will rule over them," says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies. [19:5] The waters will fail from the sea, and the river will be wasted and become dry. [19:6] The rivers will become foul. The streams of Egypt will be diminished and dried up. The reeds and flags will wither away. [19:7] The meadows by the Nile, by the brink of the Nile, and all the sown fields of the Nile, will become dry, be driven away, and be no more. [19:8] The fishermen will lament, and all those who fish in the Nile will mourn, and those who spread nets on the waters will languish. [19:9] Moreover those who work in combed flax, and those who weave white cloth, will be confounded. [19:10] The pillars will be broken in pieces. All those who work for hire will be grieved in soul. [19:11] The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish. The counsel of the wisest counselors of Pharaoh has become stupid. How do you say to Pharaoh, "I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?" [19:12] Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you now; and let them know what Yahweh of Armies has purposed concerning Egypt. [19:13] The princes of Zoan have become fools. The princes of Memphis are deceived. They have caused Egypt to go astray, who are the cornerstone of her tribes. [19:14] Yahweh has mixed a spirit of perverseness in the midst of her; and they have caused Egypt to go astray in all of its works, like a drunken man staggers in his vomit. [19:15] Neither shall there be for Egypt any work, which head or tail, palm branch or rush, may do. [19:16] In that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will tremble and fear because of the shaking of the hand of Yahweh of Armies, which he shakes over them. [19:17] The land of Judah will become a terror to Egypt. Everyone to whom mention is made of it will be afraid, because of the plans of Yahweh of Armies, which he determines against it. [19:18] In that day, there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan, and swear to Yahweh of Armies. One will be called "The city of destruction." [19:19] In that day, there will be an altar to Yahweh in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to Yahweh at its border. [19:20] It will be for a sign and for a witness to Yahweh of Armies in the land of Egypt; for they will cry to Yahweh because of oppressors, and he will send them a savior and a defender, and he will deliver them. [19:21] Yahweh will be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians will know Yahweh in that day. Yes, they will worship with sacrifice and offering, and will vow a vow to Yahweh, and will perform it. [19:22] Yahweh will strike Egypt, striking and healing. They will return to Yahweh, and he will be entreated by them, and will heal them. [19:23] In that day there will be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria; and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. [19:24] In that day, Israel will be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth; [19:25] because Yahweh of Armies has blessed them, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance."
[20:1] In the year that Tartan came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and took it; [20:2] at that time Yahweh spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, "Go, and loosen the sackcloth from off your waist, and take your shoes from off your feet." He did so, walking naked and barefoot. [20:3] Yahweh said, "As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder concerning Egypt and concerning Ethiopia, [20:4] so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. [20:5] They will be dismayed and confounded, because of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory. [20:6] The inhabitants of this coast land will say in that day, 'Behold, this is our expectation, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria. And we, how will we escape?'"
[21:1] The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land. [21:2] A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media's sighing. [21:3] Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have taken hold on me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can't hear. I so am dismayed that I can't see. [21:4] My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me. [21:5] They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield! [21:6] For the Lord said to me, "Go, set a watchman. Let him declare what he sees. [21:7] When he sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of donkeys, a troop of camels, he shall listen diligently with great attentiveness." [21:8] He cried like a lion: "Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime, and every night I stay at my post. [21:9] Behold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs." He answered, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground. [21:10] You are my threshing, and the grain of my floor!" That which I have heard from Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.
[21:11] The burden of Dumah. One calls to me out of Seir, "Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?" [21:12] The watchman said, "The morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire. Come back again."
[21:13] The burden on Arabia. In the forest in Arabia you will lodge, you caravans of Dedanites. [21:14] They brought water to him who was thirsty. The inhabitants of the land of Tema met the fugitives with their bread. [21:15] For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the heat of battle. [21:16] For the Lord said to me, "Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will fail, [21:17] and the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, will be few; for Yahweh, the God of Israel, has spoken it."
[22:1] The burden of the valley of vision. What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops? [22:2] You that are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, a joyous town; your slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle. [22:3] All your rulers fled away together. They were bound by the archers. All who were found by you were bound together. They fled far away. [22:4] Therefore I said, "Look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Don't labor to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people. [22:5] For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity, from the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, in the valley of vision; a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains." [22:6] Elam carried his quiver, with chariots of men and horsemen; and Kir uncovered the shield. [22:7] It happened that your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at the gate. [22:8] He took away the covering of Judah; and you looked in that day to the armor in the house of the forest. [22:9] You saw the breaches of the city of David, that they were many; and you gathered together the waters of the lower pool. [22:10] You numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. [22:11] You also made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you didn't look to him who had done this, neither did you have respect for him who purposed it long ago. [22:12] In that day, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, called to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth: [22:13] and behold, joy and gladness, killing cattle and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die." [22:14] Yahweh of Armies revealed himself in my ears, "Surely this iniquity will not be forgiven you until you die," says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies.