¹ The Lord who commands armies makes this solemn vow: “Be sure of this: Just as I have intended, so it will be; just as I have planned, it will happen.

We have heard about Moab’s pride, their great arrogance, their boasting, pride, and excess. ¹  But their boastful claims are empty! ² 

At that time ¹  their fortified cities will be like the abandoned summits of the Amorites, ²  which they abandoned because of the Israelites; there will be desolation.

You saw the many breaks in the walls of the city of David; ¹  you stored up water in the lower pool.

At that time the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, called for weeping and mourning, for shaved heads and sackcloth. ¹ 

Indeed, ¹  the Lord knocks down those who live in a high place, he brings down an elevated town; he brings it down to the ground, ²  he throws it down to the dust.

The time is coming when Jacob will take root; ¹  Israel will blossom and grow branches. The produce ²  will fill the surface of the world. ³ 

For the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket is too narrow to wrap around oneself. ¹ 

But the horde of invaders will be like fine dust, the horde of tyrants ¹  like chaff that is blown away. It will happen suddenly, in a flash.

Now go, write it ¹  down on a tablet in their presence, ²  inscribe it on a scroll, so that it might be preserved for a future time as an enduring witness. ³ 

On every high mountain and every high hill there will be streams flowing with water, at the time of ¹  great slaughter when the fortified towers collapse.

A deceiver’s methods are evil; ¹  he dreams up evil plans ²  to ruin the poor with lies, even when the needy are in the right. ³ 

The land ¹  dries up ²  and withers away; the forest of Lebanon shrivels up ³  and decays. Sharon ⁴  is like the desert; ⁵  Bashan and Carmel ⁶  are parched. ⁷ 

You will no longer see a defiant ¹  people whose language you do not comprehend, ²  whose derisive speech you do not understand. ³ 

Were the nations whom my predecessors ¹  destroyed – the nations of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden in Telassar – rescued by their gods? ² 

Look, the sovereign Lord comes as a victorious warrior; ¹  his military power establishes his rule. ²  Look, his reward is with him; his prize goes before him. ³ 

“Look, I am making you like ¹  a sharp threshing sledge, new and double-edged. ²  You will thresh the mountains and crush them; you will make the hills like straw. ³ 

I do this ¹  so people ²  will recognize from east to west that there is no God but me; I am the Lord, I have no peer.

I solemnly make this oath ¹  – what I say is true and reliable: ²  ‘Surely every knee will bow to me, every tongue will solemnly affirm; ³ 

You said, ‘I will rule forever as permanent queen!’ ¹  You did not think about these things; ²  you did not consider how it would turn out. ³