Tell your children of it, and let them show it to their children, and so they - to certify their posterity thereof.

For a nation has invaded our land. There are so many of them they are too numerous to count. Their teeth are like those of a lion; they tear apart their prey like a lioness.

They shall make my vineyard waste, they shall pull off the bark of my fig trees, strip them bare, cast them away, and make the branches white.

How do the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are bewildered, for they have no pasture; the flocks of sheep also are in suffering.

"A fire blazes in their presence, and behind them a conflagration rages. Before they come, the land is like the garden in Eden; after they leave, there is only a barren wasteland. Indeed, nothing escapes them.

The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so they run.

Like the noise of chariots, on the tops of the mountains, they leap; like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.

People writhe in fear when they see them. All of their faces turn pale with fright.

They run like mighty men; they climb the wall like men of war; and they march every one on his ways, and break not their ranks.

Neither doth one press upon another; they march every one in his path; and fall amid weapons, but are not wounded.

They spread themselves over the city; they run upon the wall; they climb up into the houses; they enter in by the windows like a thief.

The Lord utters His voice before His army,
For His camp is very great,
Because strong and powerful is he who [obediently] carries out His word.
For the day of the Lord is indeed great and very terrible [causing dread];
Who can endure it?

Gather the people together; bring the elders to one place; gather the young children and they that suck the breasts, together. Let the bridegroom come out of his chamber and the bride out of her parlour.

Let the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare, O Jehovah, thy people, and give not thine inheritance to reproach, that they should be a byword of the nations. Wherefore should they say among the peoples, Where is their God?

"I will remove the northerners from you, driving them to a barren and desolate land the front toward the Dead Sea and the back toward the Mediterranean. Their stench will rise, and their stinking odor will ascend, because they have done great things."

I will also gather all the nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will enter into judgment with them there on account of my people and mine inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations: and they have parted my land;

and they have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, and have drunk it.

And, the sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem, ye sold to the sons of Greece, - that they might be far removed from their own boundary.

And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far off: for Jehovah hath spoken.

Call ye this among the nations: Consecrate war; rouse up the strong ones, they shall draw near, all the men of war shall come up.

Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, in that they have shed innocent blood in their land.