For you are a holy people belonging to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be His own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.

Yet the Lord was devoted to your fathers and loved them. He chose their descendants after them—He chose you out of all the peoples, as it is today.

And today the Lord has affirmed that you are His special people as He promised you, that you are to keep all His commands,

But the Lord’s portion is His people,
Jacob, His own inheritance.

He declares His word to Jacob,
His statutes and judgments to Israel.

We have become like those You never ruled over,
like those not called by Your name.

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All

These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their family records, in their nations. The nations on earth spread out from these after the flood.

Indeed, I am about to summon all the clans and kingdoms of the north.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

They will come, and each king will set up his throne
at the entrance to Jerusalem’s gates.
They will attack all her surrounding walls
and all the other cities of Judah.

Pour out Your wrath on the nations
that don’t recognize You
and on the families
that don’t call on Your name,
for they have consumed Jacob;
they have consumed him and finished him off
and made his homeland desolate.

Because of the continual prostitution of the prostitute,
the attractive mistress of sorcery,
who betrays nations by her prostitution
and clans by her witchcraft,

Should any of the families of the earth not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, rain will not fall on them.

From one man He has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live.

Therefore

Slaughter the old men, the young men and women, as well as the older women and little children, but do not come near anyone who has the mark. Now begin at My sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were in front of the temple.

Just as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you.” This is the declaration of the Lord God.

He has carried out His words that He spoke against us and against our rulers

by bringing on us so great a disaster that nothing like what has been done to Jerusalem has ever been done under all of heaven.

Then He proceeded to denounce the towns where most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent:

And that slave who knew his master’s will and didn’t prepare himself or do it will be severely beaten.

affliction and distress for every human being who does evil, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek;

For the time has come for judgment to begin with God’s household, and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who disobey the gospel of God?

Punish

“The days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when I will punish all the circumcised yet uncircumcised:

Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts says: “I am about to punish them. The young men will die by the sword; their sons and daughters will die by famine.

What will you say when He appoints
close friends as leaders over you,
ones you yourself trained?
Won’t labor pains seize you,
as they do a woman in labor?

General references

I won’t be crossing the Jordan because I am going to die in this land. But you are about to cross over and take possession of this good land.

then I will call their rebellion
to account with the rod,
their sin with blows.

This is what the Lord God says:

Look, one disaster after another is coming!

But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you.