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¹Look, a righteous king is coming! And honest princes will rule under him.

²Each one will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a parched land.

³Then everyone who has eyes will be able to see the truth, and everyone who has ears will be able to hear it.

⁴Even the hotheads will be full of sense and understanding. Those who stammer will speak out plainly.

⁵In that day ungodly fools will not be heroes. Scoundrels will not be respected.

⁶For fools speak foolishness and make evil plans. They practice ungodliness and spread false teachings about the LORD. They deprive the hungry of food and give no water to the thirsty.

⁷The smooth tricks of scoundrels are evil. They plot crooked schemes. They lie to convict the poor, even when the cause of the poor is just.

⁸But generous people plan to do what is generous, and they stand firm in their generosity.

⁹Listen, you women who lie around in ease. Listen to me, you who are so smug.

¹⁰In a short time — just a little more than a year — you careless ones will suddenly begin to care. For your fruit crops will fail, and the harvest will never take place.

¹¹Tremble, you women of ease; throw off your complacency. Strip off your pretty clothes, and put on burlap to show your grief.

¹²Beat your breasts in sorrow for your bountiful farms and your fruitful grapevines.

¹³For your land will be overgrown with thorns and briers. Your joyful homes and happy towns will be gone.

¹⁴The palace and the city will be deserted, and busy towns will be empty. Wild donkeys will frolic and flocks will graze in the empty forts and watchtowers

¹⁵until at last the Spirit is poured out on us from heaven. Then the wilderness will become a fertile field, and the fertile field will yield bountiful crops.

¹⁶Justice will rule in the wilderness and righteousness in the fertile field.

¹⁷And this righteousness will bring peace. Yes, it will bring quietness and confidence forever.

¹⁸My people will live in safety, quietly at home. They will be at rest.

¹⁹Even if the forest should be destroyed and the city torn down,

²⁰the LORD will greatly bless his people. Wherever they plant seed, bountiful crops will spring up. Their cattle and donkeys will graze freely.

¹What sorrow awaits you Assyrians, who have destroyed others but have never been destroyed yourselves. You betray others, but you have never been betrayed. When you are done destroying, you will be destroyed. When you are done betraying, you will be betrayed.

²But LORD, be merciful to us, for we have waited for you. Be our strong arm each day and our salvation in times of trouble.

³The enemy runs at the sound of your voice. When you stand up, the nations flee!

⁴Just as caterpillars and locusts strip the fields and vines, so the fallen army of Assyria will be stripped!

⁵Though the LORD is very great and lives in heaven, he will make Jerusalem his home of justice and righteousness.

⁶In that day he will be your sure foundation, providing a rich store of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of the LORD will be your treasure.

⁷But now your brave warriors weep in public. Your ambassadors of peace cry in bitter disappointment.

⁸Your roads are deserted; no one travels them anymore. The Assyrians have broken their peace treaty and care nothing for the promises they made before witnesses. They have no respect for anyone.

⁹The land of Israel wilts in mourning. Lebanon withers with shame. The plain of Sharon is now a wilderness. Bashan and Carmel have been plundered.

¹⁰But the LORD says: “Now I will stand up. Now I will show my power and might.

¹¹You Assyrians produce nothing but dry grass and stubble. Your own breath will turn to fire and consume you.

¹²Your people will be burned up completely, like thornbushes cut down and tossed in a fire.

¹³Listen to what I have done, you nations far away! And you that are near, acknowledge my might!”

¹⁴The sinners in Jerusalem shake with fear. Terror seizes the godless. “Who can live with this devouring fire?” they cry. “Who can survive this all-consuming fire?”

¹⁵Those who are honest and fair, who refuse to profit by fraud, who stay far away from bribes, who refuse to listen to those who plot murder, who shut their eyes to all enticement to do wrong —

¹⁶these are the ones who will dwell on high. The rocks of the mountains will be their fortress. Food will be supplied to them, and they will have water in abundance.

¹⁷Your eyes will see the king in all his splendor, and you will see a land that stretches into the distance.

¹⁸You will think back to this time of terror, asking, “Where are the Assyrian officers who counted our towers? Where are the bookkeepers who recorded the plunder taken from our fallen city?”

¹⁹You will no longer see these fierce, violent people with their strange, unknown language.

²⁰Instead, you will see Zion as a place of holy festivals. You will see Jerusalem, a city quiet and secure. It will be like a tent whose ropes are taut and whose stakes are firmly fixed.

²¹The LORD will be our Mighty One. He will be like a wide river of protection that no enemy can cross, that no enemy ship can sail upon.

²²For the LORD is our judge, our lawgiver, and our king. He will care for us and save us.

²³The enemies’ sails hang loose on broken masts with useless tackle. Their treasure will be divided by the people of God. Even the lame will take their share!

²⁴The people of Israel will no longer say, “We are sick and helpless,” for the LORD will forgive their sins.

¹Come here and listen, O nations of the earth. Let the world and everything in it hear my words.

²For the LORD is enraged against the nations. His fury is against all their armies. He will completely destroy them, dooming them to slaughter.

³Their dead will be left unburied, and the stench of rotting bodies will fill the land. The mountains will flow with their blood.

⁴The heavens above will melt away and disappear like a rolled-up scroll. The stars will fall from the sky like withered leaves from a grapevine, or shriveled figs from a fig tree.

⁵And when my sword has finished its work in the heavens, it will fall upon Edom, the nation I have marked for destruction.

⁶The sword of the LORD is drenched with blood and covered with fat — with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of rams prepared for sacrifice. Yes, the LORD will offer a sacrifice in the city of Bozrah. He will make a mighty slaughter in Edom.

⁷Even men as strong as wild oxen will die — the young men alongside the veterans. The land will be soaked with blood and the soil enriched with fat.

⁸For it is the day of the LORD’s revenge, the year when Edom will be paid back for all it did to Israel.

⁹The streams of Edom will be filled with burning pitch, and the ground will be covered with fire.

¹⁰This judgment on Edom will never end; the smoke of its burning will rise forever. The land will lie deserted from generation to generation. No one will live there anymore.

¹¹It will be haunted by the desert owl and the screech owl, the great owl and the raven. For God will measure that land carefully; he will measure it for chaos and destruction.

¹²It will be called the Land of Nothing, and all its nobles will soon be gone.

¹³Thorns will overrun its palaces; nettles and thistles will grow in its forts. The ruins will become a haunt for jackals and a home for owls.

¹⁴Desert animals will mingle there with hyenas, their howls filling the night. Wild goats will bleat at one another among the ruins, and night creatures will come there to rest.

¹⁵There the owl will make her nest and lay her eggs. She will hatch her young and cover them with her wings. And the buzzards will come, each one with its mate.

¹⁶Search the book of the LORD, and see what he will do. Not one of these birds and animals will be missing, and none will lack a mate, for the LORD has promised this. His Spirit will make it all come true.

¹⁷He has surveyed and divided the land and deeded it over to those creatures. They will possess it forever, from generation to generation.