“I have chosen ¹  you alone from all the clans of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all your sins.”

The Israelites ¹  turn justice into bitterness; ²  they throw what is fair and right ³  to the ground. ⁴ 

They sing ¹  to the tune of ²  stringed instruments; ³  like David they invent ⁴  musical instruments.

Indeed, look! The Lord is giving the command. ¹  He will smash the large house to bits, and the small house into little pieces.

I said, “Sovereign Lord, stop! How can Jacob survive? ¹  He is too weak!” ² 

The Lord decided not to do this. ¹  The sovereign Lord said, “This will not happen either.”

(But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion; he can turn the darkness into morning and daylight ¹  into night. He summons the water of the seas and pours it out on the earth’s surface. The Lord is his name!

So I will set Moab on fire, ¹  and it will consume Kerioth’s ²  fortresses. Moab will perish ³  in the heat of battle ⁴  amid war cries and the blaring ⁵  of the ram’s horn. ⁶ 

Does a bird swoop down into a trap on the ground if there is no bait? Does a trap spring up from the ground unless it has surely caught something?

Each of you will go straight through the gaps in the walls; ¹  you will be thrown out ²  toward Harmon.” ³  The Lord is speaking!

You will pick up your images ¹  of Sikkuth, ²  your king, ³  and Kiyyun, ⁴  your star god, which you made for yourselves,

They lie around on beds decorated with ivory, ¹  and sprawl out on their couches. They eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the middle of the pen.

When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses, ¹  pick up their bodies to remove the bones from the house, they will say to anyone who is in the inner rooms of the house, “Is anyone else with you?” He will respond, “Be quiet! Don’t invoke the Lord’s name!” ² 

I will remove ¹  the ruler ²  from Ashdod, ³  the one who holds the royal scepter from Ashkelon. ⁴  I will strike Ekron ⁵  with my hand; ⁶  the rest of the Philistines will also die.” ⁷  The sovereign Lord has spoken!

Disaster will be inescapable, ¹  as if a man ran from a lion only to meet a bear, then escaped ²  into a house, leaned his hand against the wall, and was bitten by a poisonous snake.

Woe ¹  to those who live in ease in Zion, ²  to those who feel secure on Mount Samaria. They think of themselves as ³  the elite class of the best nation. The family ⁴  of Israel looks to them for leadership. ⁵ 

“Look! I am about to bring ¹  a nation against you, family ²  of Israel.” The Lord, the God who commands armies, is speaking. “They will oppress ³  you all the way from Lebo-Hamath ⁴  to the Stream of the Arabah.” ⁵ 

The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ¹  him making locusts just as the crops planted late ²  were beginning to sprout. (The crops planted late sprout after the royal harvest. ³ )

The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ¹  the sovereign Lord summoning a shower of fire. ²  It consumed the great deep and devoured the fields.

Because of this the earth ¹  will quake, ²  and all who live in it will mourn. The whole earth ³  will rise like the River Nile, ⁴  it will surge upward ⁵  and then grow calm, ⁶  like the Nile in Egypt. ⁷