He will judge between the nations, and will render verdicts for the benefit of many. "They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nations will not raise swords against nations, and they will not learn warfare anymore.

"Go into the rocks! Hide in the dust to escape the terror of the LORD and to escape the glory of his majesty!

Therefore my people go into exile because they lack understanding; my honored men go hungry, and the crowd is parched with thirst.

"It's the king of Assyria and all of his arrogance! He will rise over all of the river's channels and run over all of its banks. He will sweep on into Judah, overflowing as he passes through, like flood waters reaching up to a person's neck. His outstretched wings will flow as wide as your land, O Immanuel!"

or they'll look toward the earth, but they'll see only distress and darkness, the gloom that comes from anguish, and then they'll be thrown into total darkness."

The LORD will totally destroy the gulf of the Sea of Egypt. He will sweep his hand over the Euphrates River with a violent wind, breaking it up into seven streams, and making a way for people to cross on foot.

Watch out! The Day of the LORD is coming cruel, with wrath and fierce anger to turn the entire inhabited earth into a desolation and to annihilate sinners from it.

The entire earth is at rest and peace; its inhabitants break into song.

But now the LORD has spoken again: "Within three years, like the years of a contract worker, Moab's glory will be brought into contempt, in spite of all its great multitude, and its survivors will be very few and of no importance."

For before the harvest, when the season of budding is over, and sour grapes ripen into mature grapes, he cuts off the shoots with pruning knives, clearing away the spreading branches as he lops them off.

The fishermen will groan, and all who cast hooks into the Nile will lament; those who spread nets upon the water will become weaker and weaker.

At that time, there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will come into Egypt, and the Egyptians into Assyria, and they will worship with the Assyrians.

rolling you up tightly like a ball and throwing you into a large country. There you will die, and there your splendid chariots will lie. You're a disgrace to your master's house!

I'll set him like a peg into a secure place; he will become a throne of honor to his father's house.

At that time," declares the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, "the peg that was driven into a secure place will give way; it will be sheared and will fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut down." The LORD has spoken.

"Look at the land of the Chaldeans! This is a people that no longer exist; Assyria destined her for desert creatures. They raised up her siege towers, they stripped her fortresses bare and turned her into a ruin.

Desolation remains in the city whose gates lie battered into ruins.

Whoever flees at the sound of terror will fall into a pit, and whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in a snare. For the windows of judgment from above are opened, and the foundations of the earth are shaken.

They will be herded together into the Pit; they will be shut up in prison, and after many days they will be punished.

For you have made the city a heap of rubble, the fortified city into a ruin; the foreigners' citadel is no longer a city it will never be rebuilt!

Because you said: "We have entered into a covenant with death, and we have an agreement with Sheol, so when the overwhelming scourge makes its choice, it cannot reach us, since we have made lies our refuge and have concealed ourselves inside falsehood,'

"In a very little while, will not Lebanon be turned into a garden of fruit, and the garden of fruit seem like a forest?

Edom's streams will be turned into burning sulfur, and its dust into sulfur; its land will become pitch.

it will burst into bloom, and rejoice with gladness and shouts of joy. 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.

As soon as Hezekiah the king heard this, he tore his clothes, dressed himself in sackcloth, and went into the LORD's Temple.

and have thrown their gods into the fire but they are not gods, but rather the products of human hands, mere wood and stone. So the Assyrians destroyed them.

Who has aroused victory from the east, and has summoned it to his service, and has handed over nations to him? Who brings down kings, and turns them into dust with his sword, into windblown stubble with his bow?

"See, I'm making you into a new, sharp, and multi-tooth threshing sledge. You'll thresh and crush the mountains, and make the hills like chaff.

I'll open up rivers on the barren heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I'll turn the desert into a pool of water, and the parched land into springs of water.

See, the former things have taken place, and I'm announcing the new things before they spring into being I'm telling you about them."

I'll devastate the mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation; I'll turn rivers into islands, and dry up the ponds.

I'll help the blind walk, even on a road they do not know; I'll guide them in directions they do not know. I'll turn the dark places into light in front of them, and the rough places into level ground. These are the things I will do, and I won't abandon them.

And the rest of it he makes into a god. To blocks of wood he bows down, worships, prays, and says, "Save me, since you are my god."

They stoop, they bow down together, and they are not able to rescue the burden, but they themselves go off into captivity.

"Sit silent, and enter into the darkness, you daughter of the Chaldeans; for no more will they call you Queen of Kingdoms.

I was angry with my people, and I desecrated my heritage, and gave them into your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the aged you laid your yoke most heavily.

You said, "I will always continue Queen forever!' You didn't take these things into your thinking, nor did you think about their consequences.

I'll turn all my mountains into a road, and my highways will be raised up.

Why is it that when I came, no one was there? Why was there no answer when I called? Was my arm too short to redeem you? Do I lack the strength to rescue you? Look! By my mere rebuke I dry up the sea, I turn rivers into a desert. Their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst.

But I will put it into the hands of those who tormented and oppressed you, those who said to you, "Lie down, so we can step over you,' so that you had to make your back like the ground, and like a street for them to walk over."

For this is what the LORD says: "My people went down long ago into Egypt to live there; the Assyrian, too, has oppressed them without cause.

"Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the LORD has comforted his people, and he has redeemed Jerusalem.

"Sing, you barren woman, even the one who never bore a child! Burst into song and shout for joy, even you who were never in labor! For the children of the desolate woman will be more than the children of her that is married," says the LORD.

"For you will go out in joy, and come back with peace; the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees in the fields will clap their hands.

Then he enters into peace, and they'll rest on his couches, each one living righteously.

Behind the doors and the doorposts you have set up your pagan sign." For in deserting me you have uncovered your bed you have climbed up into it and have opened it wide. And you have made a pact for yourself with them; you have loved their bed, you have looked on their private parts.

Isn't it to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him with clothing, and not to raise yourself up from your own flesh and blood?"

like cattle that go down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD gave them rest. For you led your people, to win for yourself a glorious name.

There is no one who calls on your name or rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have given us into the control of our iniquity.

Watch out! It stands written before me: "I won't keep silent, but I will pay back in full; I'll indeed repay into their laps

both your iniquities and your ancestors' iniquities together,'' says the LORD. "Because they offered incense on the mountains and insulted me on hills, I'll measure into their laps full payment for their earlier actions."

All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came into being," declares the LORD. "But this is the one to whom I will look favorably: to the one who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at my message.

"Before she goes into labor she gives birth; before her pains come upon her she has delivered a son.