When you will look for your opponents, ¹  you will not find them; your enemies ²  will be reduced to absolutely nothing.

They ¹  will go into caves in the rocky cliffs and into holes in the ground, ²  trying to escape the dreadful judgment of the Lord ³  and his royal splendor, when he rises up to terrify the earth. ⁴ 

I ¹  look for ²  you during the night, my spirit within me seeks you at dawn, for when your judgments come upon the earth, those who live in the world learn about justice. ³ 

For when they see their children, whom I will produce among them, ¹  they will honor ²  my name. They will honor the Holy One of Jacob; ³  they will respect ⁴  the God of Israel.

The Lord’s messenger ¹  went out and killed 185,000 troops ²  in the Assyrian camp. When they ³  got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses! ⁴ 

There will be a highway leading out of Assyria for the remnant of his people, ¹  just as there was for Israel, when ²  they went up from the land of Egypt.

“Indeed, the Lord will call you back like a wife who has been abandoned and suffers from depression, ¹  like a young wife when she has been rejected,” says your God.

When you summon her for divorce, you prosecute her; ¹  he drives her away ²  with his strong wind in the day of the east wind. ³ 

When the chief adviser heard the king of Assyria had departed from Lachish, he left and went to Libnah, where the king was campaigning. ¹ 

so they themselves can go into the crevices of the rocky cliffs and the openings under the rocky overhangs, ¹  trying to escape the dreadful judgment of the Lord ²  and his royal splendor, when he rises up to terrify the earth. ³ 

But when ¹  the sovereign master ²  finishes judging ³  Mount Zion and Jerusalem, then I ⁴  will punish the king of Assyria for what he has proudly planned and for the arrogant attitude he displays. ⁵ 

‘Look, a time is coming when everything in your palace and the things your ancestors ¹  have accumulated to this day will be carried away to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord.

I want you ¹  to share your food with the hungry and to provide shelter for homeless, oppressed people. ²  When you see someone naked, clothe him! Don’t turn your back on your own flesh and blood! ³ 

For before the harvest, when the bud has sprouted, and the ripening fruit appears, ¹  he will cut off the unproductive shoots ²  with pruning knives; he will prune the tendrils. ³ 

What will you do on judgment day, ¹  when destruction arrives from a distant place? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your wealth?

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 

When its branches get brittle, ¹  they break; women come and use them for kindling. ²  For these people lack understanding, ³  therefore the one who made them has no compassion on them; the one who formed them has no mercy on them.

It ¹  will become a visual reminder in the land of Egypt of ²  the Lord who commands armies. When they cry out to the Lord because of oppressors, he will send them a deliverer and defender ³  who will rescue them.

At the fords of the Arnon ¹  the Moabite women are like a bird that flies about when forced from its nest. ² 

To you this entire prophetic revelation ¹  is like words in a sealed scroll. When they hand it to one who can read ²  and say, “Read this,” he responds, “I can’t, because it is sealed.”