For I solemnly swear,” says the Lord, “that Bozrah will become a pile of ruins. It will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example to be used in curses. All the towns around it will lie in ruins forever.”

For the Lord says, “Look! Like an eagle with outspread wings a nation will swoop down on Moab.

I brought you into a fertile land so you could enjoy its fruits and its rich bounty. But when you entered my land, you defiled it; you made the land I call my own loathsome to me.

Raise a signal flag that tells people to go to Zion. Run for safety! Do not delay! For I am about to bring disaster out of the north. It will bring great destruction.

Do you think this temple I have claimed as my own is to be a hideout for robbers? You had better take note! I have seen for myself what you have done! says the Lord.

The Lord is like a lion who has left his lair. So their lands will certainly be laid waste by the warfare of the oppressive nation and by the fierce anger of the Lord.”

For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope.

Babylonia had been a gold cup in the Lord’s hand. She had made the whole world drunk. The nations had drunk from the wine of her wrath. So they have all gone mad.

I see one destruction after another taking place, so that the whole land lies in ruins. I see our tents suddenly destroyed, their curtains torn down in a mere instant.

Like a cage filled with the birds that have been caught, their houses are filled with the gains of their fraud and deceit. That is how they have gotten so rich and powerful.

You are like a wild female donkey brought up in the wilderness. In her lust she sniffs the wind to get the scent of a male. No one can hold her back when she is in heat. None of the males need wear themselves out chasing after her. At mating time she is easy to find.

“You should fear me!” says the Lord. “You should tremble in awe before me! I made the sand to be a boundary for the sea, a permanent barrier that it can never cross. Its waves may roll, but they can never prevail. They may roar, but they can never cross beyond that boundary.”

That is why the rains have been withheld, and the spring rains have not come. Yet in spite of this you are obstinate as a prostitute. You refuse to be ashamed of what you have done.

I looked and saw that the fruitful land had become a desert and that all of the cities had been laid in ruins. The Lord had brought this all about because of his blazing anger.

The people I call my own have turned on me like a lion in the forest. They have roared defiantly at me. So I will treat them as though I hate them.

Therefore, the Lord says, “Ask the people of other nations whether they have heard of anything like this. Israel should have been like a virgin. But she has done something utterly revolting!

The Lord who rules over all says, ‘Disaster will soon come on one nation after another. A mighty storm of military destruction is rising up from the distant parts of the earth.’

In those days and at that time I will raise up for them a righteous descendant of David. “‘He will do what is just and right in the land.

Not one of them will survive. I will bring disaster on those men from Anathoth who threatened you. A day of reckoning is coming for them.”

I made Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials drink it. I did it so Judah would become a ruin. I did it so Judah, its kings, and its officials would become an object of horror and of hissing scorn, an example used in curses. Such is already becoming the case!