For like the crackling of quick-burning thorns under a cooking pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This kind of folly also is useless.

The fragrance of your colognes is delightful; your name is like the finest perfume. No wonder the young women adore you!

Therefore, the sovereign Lord who commands armies, the powerful ruler of Israel, says this: “Ah, I will seek vengeance against my adversaries, I will take revenge against my enemies.

Therefore my people will be deported because of their lack of understanding. Their leaders will have nothing to eat, their masses will have nothing to drink.

As I have done to Samaria and its idols, so I will do to Jerusalem and its idols.”

For this reason all hands hang limp, every human heart loses its courage.

For this reason what they have made and stored up, they carry over the Stream of the Poplars.

We have heard about Moab’s pride, their great arrogance, their boasting, pride, and excess. But their boastful claims are empty!

So Moab wails over its demise – they all wail! Completely devastated, they moan about what has happened to the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth.

So my heart constantly sighs for Moab, like the strumming of a harp, my inner being sighs for Kir Hareseth.

So in the east extol the Lord, along the seacoasts extol the fame of the Lord God of Israel.

So a strong nation will extol you; the towns of powerful nations will fear you.

As when a pregnant woman gets ready to deliver and strains and cries out because of her labor pains, so were we because of you, O Lord.

Therefore, listen to the Lord’s word, you who mock, you rulers of these people who reside in Jerusalem!

Egypt is totally incapable of helping. For this reason I call her ‘Proud one who is silenced.’”

Just as birds hover over a nest, so the Lord who commands armies will protect Jerusalem. He will protect and deliver it; as he passes over he will rescue it.

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

They will disappoint you, those you have so faithfully dealt with since your youth. Each strays off in his own direction, leaving no one to rescue you.”

(just as many were horrified by the sight of you) he was so disfigured he no longer looked like a man;

for just as the sky is higher than the earth, so my deeds are superior to your deeds and my plans superior to your plans.