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24Now the Lord is about to lay waste the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants. ²And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the debtor. ³The earth shall be utterly laid waste and utterly despoiled; for the Lord has spoken this word. ⁴The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers; the heavens languish together with the earth. ⁵The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. ⁶Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled, and few people are left. ⁷The wine dries up, the vine languishes, all the merry-hearted sigh. ⁸The mirth of the timbrels is stilled, the noise of the jubilant has ceased, the mirth of the lyre is stilled. ⁹No longer do they drink wine with singing; strong drink is bitter to those who drink it. ¹⁰The city of chaos is broken down, every house is shut up so that no one can enter. ¹¹There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine; all joy has reached its eventide; the gladness of the earth is banished. ¹²Desolation is left in the city, the gates are battered into ruins.

¹³For thus it shall be on the earth and among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is ended. ¹⁴They lift up their voices, they sing for joy; they shout from the west over the majesty of the Lord. ¹⁵Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord; in the coastlands of the sea glorify the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹⁶From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise, of glory to the Righteous One. But I say, I pine away, I pine away. Woe is me! For the treacherous deal treacherously, the treacherous deal very treacherously. ¹⁷Terror, and the pit, and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth! ¹⁸Whoever flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit; and whoever climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble. ¹⁹The earth is utterly broken, the earth is torn asunder, the earth is violently shaken. ²⁰The earth staggers like a drunkard, it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again. ²¹On that day the Lord will punish the host of heaven in heaven, and on earth the kings of the earth. ²²They will be gathered together like prisoners in a pit; they will be shut up in a prison, and after many days they will be punished. ²³Then the moon will be abashed, and the sun ashamed; for the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his elders he will manifest his glory.

25O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure. ²For you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the palace of aliens is a city no more, it will never be rebuilt. ³Therefore strong peoples will glorify you; cities of ruthless nations will fear you. ⁴For you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat. When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm, ⁵the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place, you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds; the song of the ruthless was stilled.

⁶On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. ⁷And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. ⁸Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.

⁹It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. ¹⁰For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain. The Moabites shall be trodden down in their place as straw is trodden down in a dung-pit. ¹¹Though they spread out their hands in the midst of it, as swimmers spread out their hands to swim, their pride will be laid low despite the struggle of their hands. ¹²The high fortifications of his walls will be brought down, laid low, cast to the ground, even to the dust.

26On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; he sets up victory like walls and bulwarks. ²Open the gates, so that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. ³Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace— in peace because they trust in you. ⁴Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord God you have an everlasting rock.

⁵For he has brought low the inhabitants of the height; the lofty city he lays low. He lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust. ⁶The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy. ⁷The way of the righteous is level; O Just One, you make smooth the path of the righteous. ⁸In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and your renown are the soul’s desire. ⁹My soul yearns for you in the night, my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. ¹⁰If favor is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness they deal perversely and do not see the majesty of the Lord. ¹¹O Lord, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed. Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.

¹²O Lord, you will ordain peace for us, for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us. ¹³O Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but we acknowledge your name alone. ¹⁴The dead do not live; shades do not rise— because you have punished and destroyed them, and wiped out all memory of them. ¹⁵But you have increased the nation, O Lord, you have increased the nation; you are glorified; you have enlarged all the borders of the land. ¹⁶O Lord, in distress they sought you, they poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them. ¹⁷Like a woman with child, who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near her time, so were we because of you, O Lord; ¹⁸we were with child, we writhed, but we gave birth only to wind. We have won no victories on earth, and no one is born to inhabit the world. ¹⁹Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead.

²⁰Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past. ²¹For the Lord comes out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no longer cover its slain.

27On that day the Lord with his cruel and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea. ²On that day: A pleasant vineyard, sing about it! ³I, the Lord, am its keeper; every moment I water it. I guard it night and day so that no one can harm it; ⁴I have no wrath. If it gives me thorns and briers, I will march to battle against it. I will burn it up. ⁵Or else let it cling to me for protection, let it make peace with me, let it make peace with me. ⁶In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots, and fill the whole world with fruit.

⁷Has he struck them down as he struck down those who struck them? Or have they been killed as their killers were killed? ⁸By expulsion, by exile you struggled against them; with his fierce blast he removed them in the day of the east wind. ⁹Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be expiated, and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin: when he makes all the stones of the altars like chalkstones crushed to pieces, no sacred poles or incense altars will remain standing. ¹⁰For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness; the calves graze there, there they lie down, and strip its branches. ¹¹When its boughs are dry, they are broken; women come and make a fire of them. For this is a people without understanding; therefore he that made them will not have compassion on them, he that formed them will show them no favor. ¹²On that day the Lord will thresh from the channel of the Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you will be gathered one by one, O people of Israel. ¹³And on that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.