Like a frightened gazelle or a sheep with no shepherd, each will turn toward home, each will run to his homeland.

Nations will take them and bring them back to their own place. Then the family of Jacob will make foreigners their servants as they settle in the Lord’s land. They will make their captors captives and rule over the ones who oppressed them.

You will not be buried with them, because you destroyed your land and killed your people. The offspring of the wicked will never be mentioned again.

The many nations massing together are as good as dead, those who make a commotion as loud as the roaring of the sea’s waves. The people making such an uproar are as good as dead, those who make an uproar as loud as the roaring of powerful waves.

The Lord who commands armies will pronounce a blessing over the earth, saying, “Blessed be my people, Egypt, and the work of my hands, Assyria, and my special possession, Israel!”

So I say: “Don’t look at me! I am weeping bitterly. Don’t try to console me concerning the destruction of my defenseless people.”

Look at the land of the Chaldeans, these people who have lost their identity! The Assyrians have made it a home for wild animals. They erected their siege towers, demolished its fortresses, and turned it into a heap of ruins.

Everyone will suffer – the priest as well as the people, the master as well as the servant, the elegant lady as well as the female attendant, the seller as well as the buyer, the borrower as well as the lender, the creditor as well as the debtor.

This is what will happen throughout the earth, among the nations. It will be like when they beat an olive tree, and just a few olives are left at the end of the harvest.

The Lord who commands armies will hold a banquet for all the nations on this mountain. At this banquet there will be plenty of meat and aged wine – tender meat and choicest wine.

On this mountain he will swallow up the shroud that is over all the peoples, the woven covering that is over all the nations;

O Lord, you are ready to act, but they don’t even notice. They will see and be put to shame by your angry judgment against humankind, yes, fire will consume your enemies.

Go, my people! Enter your inner rooms! Close your doors behind you! Hide for a little while, until his angry judgment is over!

Therefore I will again do an amazing thing for these people – an absolutely extraordinary deed. Wise men will have nothing to say, the sages will have no explanations.”

all will be put to shame because of a nation that cannot help them, who cannot give them aid or help, but only shame and disgrace.”

For people will live in Zion; in Jerusalem you will weep no more. When he hears your cry of despair, he will indeed show you mercy; when he hears it, he will respond to you.

His battle cry overwhelms like a flooding river that reaches one’s neck. He shakes the nations in a sieve that isolates the chaff; he puts a bit into the mouth of the nations and leads them to destruction.

Mourn over the land of my people, which is overgrown with thorns and briers, and over all the once-happy houses in the city filled with revelry.

This is what the true God, the Lord, says – the one who created the sky and stretched it out, the one who fashioned the earth and everything that lives on it, the one who gives breath to the people on it, and life to those who live on it:

But these people are looted and plundered; all of them are trapped in pits and held captive in prisons. They were carried away as loot with no one to rescue them; they were carried away as plunder, and no one says, “Bring that back!”