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¹Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice.

²Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.

³Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention.

⁴The heart of the hasty will understand and know, and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly.

⁵The fool will no more be called noble, nor the scoundrel said to be honorable.

⁶For the fool speaks folly, and his heart is busy with iniquity, to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the LORD, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied, and to deprive the thirsty of drink.

⁷As for the scoundrel — his devices are evil; he plans wicked schemes to ruin the poor with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is right.

⁸But he who is noble plans noble things, and on noble things he stands.

⁹Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech.

¹⁰In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come.

¹¹Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist.

¹²Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,

¹³for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers, yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city.

¹⁴For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks;

¹⁵until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.

¹⁶Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.

¹⁷And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.

¹⁸My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.

¹⁹And it will hail when the forest falls down, and the city will be utterly laid low.

²⁰Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.

¹Ah, you destroyer, who yourself have not been destroyed, you traitor, whom none has betrayed! When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betraying, they will betray you.

²O LORD, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble.

³At the tumultuous noise peoples flee; when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered,

⁴and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers; as locusts leap, it is leapt upon.

⁵The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness,

⁶and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is Zion's treasure.

⁷Behold, their heroes cry in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly.

⁸The highways lie waste; the traveler ceases. Covenants are broken; cities are despised; there is no regard for man.

⁹The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is confounded and withers away; Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.

¹⁰“Now I will arise,” says the LORD, “now I will lift myself up; now I will be exalted.

¹¹You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble; your breath is a fire that will consume you.

¹²And the peoples will be as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”

¹³Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my might.

¹⁴The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”

¹⁵He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil,

¹⁶he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; his water will be sure.

¹⁷Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar.

¹⁸Your heart will muse on the terror: “Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed the tribute? Where is he who counted the towers?”

¹⁹You will see no more the insolent people, the people of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend, stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand.

²⁰Behold Zion, the city of our appointed feasts! Your eyes will see Jerusalem, an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent, whose stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken.

²¹But there the LORD in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor majestic ship can pass.

²²For the LORD is our judge; the LORD is our lawgiver; the LORD is our king; he will save us.

²³Your cords hang loose; they cannot hold the mast firm in its place or keep the sail spread out. Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided; even the lame will take the prey.

²⁴And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.

¹Draw near, O nations, to hear, and give attention, O peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes from it.

²For the LORD is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter.

³Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise; the mountains shall flow with their blood.

⁴All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree.

⁵For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction.

⁶The LORD has a sword; it is sated with blood; it is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

⁷Wild oxen shall fall with them, and young steers with the mighty bulls. Their land shall drink its fill of blood, and their soil shall be gorged with fat.

⁸For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

⁹And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch.

¹⁰Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.

¹¹But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness.

¹²Its nobles — there is no one there to call it a kingdom, and all its princes shall be nothing.

¹³Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches.

¹⁴And wild animals shall meet with hyenas; the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; indeed, there the night bird settles and finds for herself a resting place.

¹⁵There the owl nests and lays and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow; indeed, there the hawks are gathered, each one with her mate.

¹⁶Seek and read from the book of the LORD: Not one of these shall be missing; none shall be without her mate. For the mouth of the LORD has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them.

¹⁷He has cast the lot for them; his hand has portioned it out to them with the line; they shall possess it forever; from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.