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!

For this will I lament, and I will howl; I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the jackals, and mourning like the ostriches.

I will, surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee, I will, surely gather, the remnant of Israel, at once, will I make them like sheep in distress, - Like a flock in the midst of its pasture, shall they hum with men,

They shall lick dust like the serpent; like crawling things of the earth, they shall come trembling forth from their close places. They shall turn with fear to Jehovah our God, and shall be afraid because of thee.

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.

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."

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."

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.

Those survivors from Jacob will live in the midst of many nations. They will be like the dew the Lord sends, like the rain on the grass, that does not hope for men to come or wait around for humans to arrive.

Those survivors from Jacob will live among the nations, in the midst of many peoples. They will be like a lion among the animals of the forest, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep, which attacks when it passes through; it rips its prey and there is no one to stop it.