My heritage is like a brightly coloured bird to me; the cruel birds are attacking her on every side: go, get together all the beasts of the field, make them come for destruction.

For there are sinners among my people: they keep watch, like men watching for birds; they put a net and take men in it.

Death from evil diseases will overtake them; there will be no weeping for them and their bodies will not be put to rest; they will be like waste on the face of the earth: the sword and need of food will put an end to them; their dead bodies will be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth.

Give yourselves to weeping, crying out in sorrow for the mountains; and for the fields of the waste land send up a song of grief, because they are burned up, so that no one goes through; there is no sound of cattle; the bird of the heavens and the beast are in flight and are gone.

So, as a prophet, give out these words among them, and say to them, The voice of the Lord will be sounding like a lion from on high; he will send out his voice from his holy place, like the loud voice of a lion, against his flock; he will give a cry, like those who are crushing the grapes, against all the people of the earth.

Bows and spears are in their hands; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice is like the thunder of the sea, and they go on horses; everyone in his place like men going to the fight, against you, O daughter of Zion.

The bodies of men will be falling like waste on the open fields, and like grain dropped by the grain-cutter, and no one will take them up.

See, he will come up like the clouds, and his war-carriages like the storm-wind: his horses are quicker than eagles. Sorrow is ours, for destruction has come on us.

O you hope of Israel, its saviour in time of trouble, why are you like one who is strange in the land, and like a traveller putting up his tent for a night?

Why are you like a man surprised, like a man of war who is not able to give help? but you, O Lord, are with us, and we are named by your name; do not go away from us.

About the prophets. My heart is broken in me, all my bones are shaking; I am like a man full of strong drink, like a man overcome by wine; because of the Lord, and because of his holy words.

And in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a shocking thing; they are untrue to their wives, walking in deceit, and they make strong the hands of evil-doers, so that a man may not be turned back from his evil-doing: they have all become like Sodom to me, and its people like Gomorrah

Is not my word like fire? says the Lord; and like a hammer, smashing the rock to bits?

Micah the Morashtite, who was a prophet in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, said to all the people of Judah, This is what the Lord of armies has said: Zion will become like a ploughed field, and Jerusalem will become a mass of broken walls, and the mountain of the house like the high places of the woodland.

And their fate will be used as a curse by all the prisoners of Judah who are in Babylon, who will say, May the Lord make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, who were burned in the fire by the king of Babylon;

Who is this coming up like the Nile, whose waters are lifting their heads like the rivers?

Egypt is coming up like the Nile, and his waters are lifting their heads like the rivers, and he says, I will go up, covering the earth; I will send destruction on the town and its people.

By my life, says the King, whose name is the Lord of armies, truly, like Tabor among the mountains and like Carmel by the sea, so will he come.

She makes a sound like the hiss of a snake when they come on with strength; they go against her with axes, like wood-cutters.

So my heart is sounding for Moab like the sound of pipes, and my heart is sounding like pipes for the men of Kir-heres: for the wealth he has got for himself has come to an end.