How the animals groan!
The herds of cattle are bewildered and wander aimlessly
Because they have no pasture;
Even the flocks of sheep suffer.

Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord,
Weep between the porch and the altar,
And let them say, “Have compassion and spare Your people, O Lord,
And do not make Your inheritance (Israel) an object of ridicule,
Or a [humiliating] byword among the [Gentile] nations.
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’”

“But I will remove the northern army far away from you,
And I will drive it into a parched and desolate land,
With its forward guard into the eastern sea (Dead Sea)
And with its rear guard into the western sea (Mediterranean Sea).
And its stench will arise and its foul odor of decay will come up [this is the fate of the northern army in the final day of the Lord],
For He has done great things.”

Do not be afraid, you animals of the field,
For the pastures of the wilderness have turned green;
The tree has produced its fruit,
And the fig tree and the vine have yielded in full.

I will gather together all the [Gentile] nations [that were hostile to My people]
And bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat (the Lord has judged).
And there I will deal with them and enter into judgment with them there
For [their treatment of] My people, My inheritance, Israel,
Whom they have scattered among the nations,
And [because] they have encroached on My land and divided it up.

“They have also cast lots for My people,
And have traded a boy for a prostitute
And have sold a girl for wine that they may drink.

Because you have taken My silver and My gold and have carried My precious treasures to your temples and palaces,

and have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem to the Greeks, so that you may send them far away from their territory,

behold, I am going to stir them up from the place where you have sold them [and return them to their land], and I shall return your action [of retaliation] on your own head.

Egypt will become a waste,
And Edom will become a desolate wilderness,
Because of their violence against the children of Judah,
In whose land they have shed innocent blood.

And I shall avenge their blood which I have not avenged,
For the Lord dwells in Zion.