Judgment on Moab

1The oracle concerning Moab.

Surely in a night Ar of Moab is devastated and ruined;

Surely in a night Kir of Moab is devastated and ruined.

2They have gone up to the temple and to Dibon, even to the high places to weep.

Moab wails over Nebo and Medeba;

Everyone’s head is bald and every beard is cut off.

3In their streets they have girded themselves with sackcloth;

On their housetops and in their squares

Everyone is wailing, dissolved in tears.

4Heshbon and Elealeh also cry out,

Their voice is heard all the way to Jahaz;

Therefore the armed men of Moab cry aloud;

His soul trembles within him.

5My heart cries out for Moab;

His fugitives are as far as Zoar and Eglath-shelishiyah,

For they go up the ascent of Luhith weeping;

Surely on the road to Horonaim they raise a cry of distress over their ruin.

6For the waters of Nimrim are desolate.

Surely the grass is withered, the tender grass died out,

There is no green thing.

7Therefore the abundance which they have acquired and stored up

They carry off over the brook of Arabim.

8For the cry of distress has gone around the territory of Moab,

Its wail goes as far as Eglaim and its wailing even to Beer-elim.

9For the waters of Dimon are full of blood;

Surely I will bring added woes upon Dimon,

A lion upon the fugitives of Moab and upon the remnant of the land.

Prophecy of Moab’s Devastation

1Send the tribute lamb to the ruler of the land,

From Sela by way of the wilderness to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.

2Then, like fleeing birds or scattered nestlings,

The daughters of Moab will be at the fords of the Arnon.

3“Give us advice, make a decision;

Cast your shadow like night at high noon;

Hide the outcasts, do not betray the fugitive.

4Let the outcasts of Moab stay with you;

Be a hiding place to them from the destroyer.”

For the extortioner has come to an end, destruction has ceased,

Oppressors have completely disappeared from the land.

5A throne will even be established in lovingkindness,

And a judge will sit on it in faithfulness in the tent of David;

Moreover, he will seek justice

And be prompt in righteousness.

6We have heard of the pride of Moab, an excessive pride;

Even of his arrogance, pride, and fury;

His idle boasts are false.

7Therefore Moab will wail; everyone of Moab will wail.

You will moan for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth

As those who are utterly stricken.

8For the fields of Heshbon have withered, the vines of Sibmah as well;

The lords of the nations have trampled down its choice clusters

Which reached as far as Jazer and wandered to the deserts;

Its tendrils spread themselves out and passed over the sea.

9Therefore I will weep bitterly for Jazer, for the vine of Sibmah;

I will drench you with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh;

For the shouting over your summer fruits and your harvest has fallen away.

10Gladness and joy are taken away from the fruitful field;

In the vineyards also there will be no cries of joy or jubilant shouting,

No treader treads out wine in the presses,

For I have made the shouting to cease.

11Therefore my heart intones like a harp for Moab

And my inward feelings for Kir-hareseth.

12So it will come about when Moab presents himself,

When he wearies himself upon his high place

And comes to his sanctuary to pray,

That he will not prevail.

13This is the word which the Lord spoke earlier concerning Moab. 14But now the Lord speaks, saying, “Within three years, as a hired man would count them, the glory of Moab will be degraded along with all his great population, and his remnant will be very small and impotent.”

Prophecy about Damascus

1The oracle concerning Damascus.

“Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city

And will become a fallen ruin.

2The cities of Aroer are forsaken;

They will be for flocks to lie down in,

And there will be no one to frighten them.

3The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim,

And sovereignty from Damascus

And the remnant of Aram;

They will be like the glory of the sons of Israel,”

Declares the Lord of hosts.

4Now in that day the glory of Jacob will fade,

And the fatness of his flesh will become lean.

5It will be even like the reaper gathering the standing grain,

As his arm harvests the ears,

Or it will be like one gleaning ears of grain

In the valley of Rephaim.

6Yet gleanings will be left in it like the shaking of an olive tree,

Two or three olives on the topmost bough,

Four or five on the branches of a fruitful tree,

Declares the Lord, the God of Israel.

7In that day man will have regard for his Maker

And his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel.

8He will not have regard for the altars, the work of his hands,

Nor will he look to that which his fingers have made,

Even the Asherim and incense stands.

9In that day their strong cities will be like forsaken places in the forest,

Or like branches which they abandoned before the sons of Israel;

And the land will be a desolation.

10For you have forgotten the God of your salvation

And have not remembered the rock of your refuge.

Therefore you plant delightful plants

And set them with vine slips of a strange god.

11In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in,

And in the morning you bring your seed to blossom;

But the harvest will be a heap

In a day of sickliness and incurable pain.

12Alas, the uproar of many peoples

Who roar like the roaring of the seas,

And the rumbling of nations

Who rush on like the rumbling of mighty waters!

13The nations rumble on like the rumbling of many waters,

But He will rebuke them and they will flee far away,

And be chased like chaff in the mountains before the wind,

Or like whirling dust before a gale.

14At evening time, behold, there is terror!

Before morning they are no more.

Such will be the portion of those who plunder us

And the lot of those who pillage us.

Message to Ethiopia

1Alas, oh land of whirring wings

Which lies beyond the rivers of Cush,

2Which sends envoys by the sea,

Even in papyrus vessels on the surface of the waters.

Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth,

To a people feared far and wide,

A powerful and oppressive nation

Whose land the rivers divide.

3All you inhabitants of the world and dwellers on earth,

As soon as a standard is raised on the mountains, you will see it,

And as soon as the trumpet is blown, you will hear it.

4For thus the Lord has told me,

“I will look from My dwelling place quietly

Like dazzling heat in the sunshine,

Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

5For before the harvest, as soon as the bud blossoms

And the flower becomes a ripening grape,

Then He will cut off the sprigs with pruning knives

And remove and cut away the spreading branches.

6They will be left together for mountain birds of prey,

And for the beasts of the earth;

And the birds of prey will spend the summer feeding on them,

And all the beasts of the earth will spend harvest time on them.

7At that time a gift of homage will be brought to the Lord of hosts

From a people tall and smooth,

Even from a people feared far and wide,

A powerful and oppressive nation,

Whose land the rivers divide—

To the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, even Mount Zion.

Message to Egypt

1The oracle concerning Egypt.

Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt;

The idols of Egypt will tremble at His presence,

And the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.

2“So I will incite Egyptians against Egyptians;

And they will each fight against his brother and each against his neighbor,

City against city and kingdom against kingdom.

3Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be demoralized within them;

And I will confound their strategy,

So that they will resort to idols and ghosts of the dead

And to mediums and spiritists.

4Moreover, I will deliver the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel master,

And a mighty king will rule over them,” declares the Lord God of hosts.

5The waters from the sea will dry up,

And the river will be parched and dry.

6The canals will emit a stench,

The streams of Egypt will thin out and dry up;

The reeds and rushes will rot away.

7The bulrushes by the Nile, by the edge of the Nile

And all the sown fields by the Nile

Will become dry, be driven away, and be no more.

8And the fishermen will lament,

And all those who cast a line into the Nile will mourn,

And those who spread nets on the waters will pine away.

9Moreover, the manufacturers of linen made from combed flax

And the weavers of white cloth will be utterly dejected.

10And the pillars of Egypt will be crushed;

All the hired laborers will be grieved in soul.

11The princes of Zoan are mere fools;

The advice of Pharaoh’s wisest advisers has become stupid.

How can you men say to Pharaoh,

“I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings”?

12Well then, where are your wise men?

Please let them tell you,

And let them understand what the Lord of hosts

Has purposed against Egypt.

13The princes of Zoan have acted foolishly,

The princes of Memphis are deluded;

Those who are the cornerstone of her tribes

Have led Egypt astray.

14The Lord has mixed within her a spirit of distortion;

They have led Egypt astray in all that it does,

As a drunken man staggers in his vomit.

15There will be no work for Egypt

Which its head or tail, its palm branch or bulrush, may do.

16In that day the Egyptians will become like women, and they will tremble and be in dread because of the waving of the hand of the Lord of hosts, which He is going to wave over them. 17The land of Judah will become a terror to Egypt; everyone to whom it is mentioned will be in dread of it, because of the purpose of the Lord of hosts which He is purposing against them.

18In that day five cities in the land of Egypt will be speaking the language of Canaan and swearing allegiance to the Lord of hosts; one will be called the City of Destruction.

19In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord near its border. 20It will become a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they will cry to the Lord because of oppressors, and He will send them a Savior and a Champion, and He will deliver them. 21Thus the Lord will make Himself known to Egypt, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day. They will even worship with sacrifice and offering, and will make a vow to the Lord and perform it. 22The Lord will strike Egypt, striking but healing; so they will return to the Lord, and He will respond to them and will heal them.

23In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians will come into Egypt and the Egyptians into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.

24In that day Israel will be the third party with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, 25whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.”

Prophecy about Egypt and Ethiopia

1In the year that the commander came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him and he fought against Ashdod and captured it, 2at that time the Lord spoke through Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go and loosen the sackcloth from your hips and take your shoes off your feet.” And he did so, going naked and barefoot. 3And the Lord said, “Even as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot three years as a sign and token against Egypt and Cush, 4so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old, naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. 5Then they will be dismayed and ashamed because of Cush their hope and Egypt their boast. 6So the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, ‘Behold, such is our hope, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria; and we, how shall we escape?’ ”