You have made the nation larger, O Lord, you have made the nation larger and revealed your splendor, you have extended all the borders of the land.

For tyrants will disappear, those who taunt will vanish, and all those who love to do wrong will be eliminated –

you will be blessed, you who plant seed by all the banks of the streams, you who let your ox and donkey graze.

It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the nations and their lands.

I dug wells and drank water. With the soles of my feet I dried up all the rivers of Egypt.’

I cry out until morning; like a lion he shatters all my bones; you turn day into night and end my life.

What can I say? He has decreed and acted. I will walk slowly all my years because I am overcome with grief.

The Lord is about to deliver me, and we will celebrate with music for the rest of our lives in the Lord’s temple.”

Every valley must be elevated, and every mountain and hill leveled. The rough terrain will become a level plain, the rugged landscape a wide valley.

The splendor of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it at the same time. For the Lord has decreed it.”

Look, all who were angry at you will be ashamed and humiliated; your adversaries will be reduced to nothing and perish.

Turn to me so you can be delivered, all you who live in the earth’s remote regions! For I am God, and I have no peer.

they will say about me, “Yes, the Lord is a powerful deliverer.”’” All who are angry at him will cower before him.

you who practice ritual sex under the oaks and every green tree, who slaughter children near the streams under the rocky overhangs.

to announce the year when the Lord will show his favor, the day when our God will seek vengeance, to console all who mourn,

For the Lord judges all humanity with fire and his sword; the Lord will kill many.

Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over its convocations a cloud and smoke by day and a bright flame of fire by night; indeed a canopy will accompany the Lord’s glorious presence.

he will swallow up death permanently. The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from every face, and remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. Indeed, the Lord has announced it!

So in this way Jacob’s sin will be forgiven, and this is how they will show they are finished sinning: They will make all the stones of the altars like crushed limestone, and the Asherah poles and the incense altars will no longer stand.

My hand made them; that is how they came to be,” says the Lord. I show special favor to the humble and contrite, who respect what I have to say.