So a treaty curse ¹  devours the earth; its inhabitants pay for their guilt. ²  This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, ³  and are reduced to just a handful of people. ⁴ 

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.

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 

Yes, your land lies in ruins; it is desolate and devastated. ¹  But now you will be too small to hold your residents, and those who devoured you will be far away.

Look, the sovereign Lord helps me. Who dares to condemn me? Look, all of them will wear out like clothes; a moth will eat away at them.

Foreigners will rebuild your walls; their kings will serve you. Even though I struck you down in my anger, I will restore my favor and have compassion on you. ¹ 

They will rebuild the perpetual ruins and restore the places that were desolate; ¹  they will reestablish the ruined cities, the places that have been desolate since ancient times.

Your names will live on in the curse formulas of my chosen ones. ¹  The sovereign Lord will kill you, but he will give his servants another name.

For Syria’s leader is Damascus, and the leader of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will no longer exist as a nation. ¹ 

At that time ¹  those left in Israel, those who remain of the family ²  of Jacob, will no longer rely on a foreign leader that abuses them. ³  Instead they will truly ⁴  rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. ⁵ 

He will treat the poor fairly, ¹  and make right decisions ²  for the downtrodden of the earth. ³  He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, ⁴  and order the wicked to be executed. ⁵ 

Don’t be so happy, all you Philistines, just because the club that beat you has been broken! ¹  For a viper will grow out of the serpent’s root, and its fruit will be a darting adder. ² 

Wail, O city gate! Cry out, O city! Melt with fear, ¹  all you Philistines! For out of the north comes a cloud of smoke, and there are no stragglers in its ranks. ² 

Fortified cities will disappear from Ephraim, and Damascus will lose its kingdom. ¹  The survivors in Syria will end up like the splendor of the Israelites,” says the Lord who commands armies.

In the evening there is sudden terror; ¹  by morning they vanish. ²  This is the fate of those who try to plunder us, the destiny of those who try to loot us! ³ 

For the Lord will rise up, as he did at Mount Perazim, ¹  he will rouse himself, as he did in the Valley of Gibeon, ²  to accomplish his work, his peculiar work, to perform his task, his strange task. ³ 

You will desecrate your silver-plated idols ¹  and your gold-plated images. ²  You will throw them away as if they were a menstrual rag, saying to them, “Get out!”

Tell those who panic, ¹  “Be strong! Do not fear! Look, your God comes to avenge! With divine retribution he comes to deliver you.” ² 

“I have been inactive ¹  for a long time; I kept quiet and held back. Like a woman in labor I groan; I pant and gasp. ² 

So he poured out his fierce anger on them, along with the devastation ¹  of war. Its flames encircled them, but they did not realize it; ²  it burned against them, but they did notice. ³