2

A Call to Repentance

  1Gather yourselves together, yes, gather together,
   O undesirable nation,
   2Before the decree is issued,
   Or the day passes like chaff,
   Before the Lord’s fierce anger comes upon you,
   Before the day of the Lord’s anger comes upon you!
   3Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth,
   Who have upheld His justice.
   Seek righteousness, seek humility.
   It may be that you will be hidden
   In the day of the Lord’s anger.

Judgment on Nations

  4For Gaza shall be forsaken,
   And Ashkelon desolate;
   They shall drive out Ashdod at noonday,
   And Ekron shall be uprooted.
   5Woe to the inhabitants of the seacoast,
   The nation of the Cherethites!
   The word of the Lordis against you,
   O Canaan, land of the Philistines:
   “I will destroy you;
   So there shall be no inhabitant.”
  6The seacoast shall be pastures,
   With shelters for shepherds and folds for flocks.
   7The coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah;
   They shall feed their flocks there;
   In the houses of Ashkelon they shall lie down at evening.
   For the Lord their God will intervene for them,
   And return their captives.
  8“I have heard the reproach of Moab,
   And the insults of the people of Ammon,
   With which they have reproached My people,
   And made arrogant threats against their borders.
   9Therefore, as I live,”
   Says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
   “Surely Moab shall be like Sodom,
   And the people of Ammon like Gomorrah—
   Overrun with weeds and saltpits,
   And a perpetual desolation.
   The residue of My people shall plunder them,
   And the remnant of My people shall possess them.”
  10This they shall have for their pride,
   Because they have reproached and made arrogant threats
   Against the people of the Lord of hosts.
   11The Lordwill be awesome to them,
   For He will reduce to nothing all the gods of the earth;
   People shall worship Him,
   Each one from his place,
   Indeed all the shores of the nations.
  12“You Ethiopians also,
   You shall be slain by My sword.”
  13And He will stretch out His hand against the north,
   Destroy Assyria,
   And make Nineveh a desolation,
   As dry as the wilderness.
   14The herds shall lie down in her midst,
   Every beast of the nation.
   Both the pelican and the bittern
   Shall lodge on the capitals of her pillars;
   Their voice shall sing in the windows;
   Desolation shall be at the threshold;
   For He will lay bare the cedar work.
   15This is the rejoicing city
   That dwelt securely,
   That said in her heart,
   “I am it, and there is none besides me.”
   How has she become a desolation,
   A place for beasts to lie down!
   Everyone who passes by her
   Shall hiss and shake his fist.