Show the Lord your God the respect that is due him. ¹  Do it before he brings the darkness of disaster. ²  Do it before you stumble ³  into distress like a traveler on the mountains at twilight. ⁴  Do it before he turns the light of deliverance you hope for into the darkness and gloom of exile. ⁵ 

For a nation from the north ¹  will attack Babylon. It will lay her land waste. People and animals will flee out of it. No one will inhabit it.’