The mountains will melt under him and the valleys will split apart, like wax in the presence of fire and like water gushing down a steep incline.

"Therefore I will cry out and grieve loudly; I will walk around stripped and naked. I will cry out like a jackal and mourn like a company of ostriches.

Lately my people have acted like an enemy you strip travelers who thought they were as secure as those who return from war.

Suppose a man who keeps company with a deceiving spirit prophesies like this: "Drink wine and strong drink!' Won't the people accept him as a prophet?"

"Jacob, how I will surely gather all of you! How I will gather the survivors of Israel! I will gather them together like sheep in a pen, like the flock in the midst of the sheepfold. There will be a great commotion because of all the people.

You eat the flesh of my people, flaying their skin from them. You break their bones, chopping them in pieces like meat for a pot, like meat destined for a soup kettle.'

"Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed up like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the Temple Mount like a forest high place."

Why are you crying so loud now? There's no king among you, is there? Perhaps your advisor has died? For pain has overtaken you like a woman in labor.

Be in pain! Be in labor, you daughter of Zion, like a woman about to give birth, because now you will depart from the city, living in the open fields. To Babylon you will go. There you will be delivered, there the LORD will rescue you from the power of your enemies."

But they don't know the thoughts of the LORD, and they don't understand his tactics, for he will gather them like harvested grain to his threshing floor.

Get up and smash them to pieces, daughter of Zion, because I will make your horn like iron and your hooves like bronze! And you will beat many people to pieces, and I will consecrate their dishonest gain to the LORD and their assets to the Lord of the entire earth."

The survivors of Jacob will live among the nations; they will live among many nations, like a lion among flocks of sheep, who, if he passes through, will trample and tear down with no one to deliver.

Poor me! I feel like those who harvest summer fruit, or like those who pick grapes there are no clusters to eat or any fresh fruit that I want.

The best of them is like a thorn, and their most upright like a hedge of thorns. The day announced by your watchmen and by your own calculations approaches. Now it's your time to be confused!

Then my enemy will observe it, and shame will engulf the ones who asked me, "Where is the LORD your God?' My own eyes will see them, they will be trampled on like mud in the streets.

They will lick the dust like a serpent; they will crawl from their strongholds like snakes. They will fear the LORD our God. They will be terrified because of you.

Is there any God like you, forgiving iniquity, passing over transgressions by the survivors who are your heritage? He is not angry forever, because he delights in gracious love.