He will give us peace. ¹  Should the Assyrians try to invade our land and attempt to set foot in our fortresses, ²  we will send ³  against them seven ⁴  shepherd-rulers, ⁵  make that eight commanders. ⁶ 

In that day people will sing this taunt song to you – they will mock you with this lament: ¹  ‘We are completely destroyed; they sell off ²  the property of my people. How they remove it from me! ³  They assign our fields to the conqueror.’ ⁴ 

Therefore the Lord says this: “Look, I am devising disaster for this nation! ¹  It will be like a yoke from which you cannot free your neck. ²  You will no longer ³  walk proudly, for it will be a time of catastrophe.

I will certainly gather all of you, O Jacob, I will certainly assemble those Israelites who remain. ¹  I will bring them together like sheep in a fold, ²  like a flock in the middle of a pasture; ³  they will be so numerous that they will make a lot of noise. ⁴ 

He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord really wants from you: ¹  He wants you to ²  promote ³  justice, to be faithful, ⁴  and to live obediently before ⁵  your God.

I will remove the sorcery ¹  that you practice, ²  and you will no longer have omen readers living among you. ³ 

They are determined to be experts at doing evil; ¹  government officials and judges take bribes, ²  prominent men make demands, and they all do what is necessary to satisfy them. ³ 

For a son thinks his father is a fool, a daughter challenges ¹  her mother, and a daughter-in-law her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are his own servants. ² 

It will be a day for rebuilding your walls; in that day your boundary will be extended. ¹ 

For this reason I ¹  will mourn and wail; I will walk around barefoot ²  and without my outer garments. ³  I will howl ⁴  like a wild dog, ⁵  and screech ⁶  like an owl. ⁷ 

You ¹  devour my people’s flesh, strip off their skin, and crush their bones. You chop them up like flesh in a pot ²  – like meat in a kettle.

but you rise up as an enemy against my people. ¹  You steal a robe from a friend, ²  from those who pass by peacefully as if returning from a war. ³ 

You wrongly evict widows ¹  among my people from their cherished homes. You defraud their children ²  of their prized inheritance. ³ 

I will remove your idols and sacred pillars from your midst; you will no longer worship what your own hands made.

Nations will see this and be disappointed by ¹  all their strength, they will put their hands over their mouths, and act as if they were deaf. ² 

You will be loyal to Jacob and extend your loyal love to Abraham, ¹  which you promised on oath to our ancestors ²  in ancient times. ³ 

I will uproot your images of Asherah ¹  from your midst, and destroy your idols. ² 

‘Don’t preach with such impassioned rhetoric,’ they say excitedly. ¹  ‘These prophets should not preach of such things; we will not be overtaken by humiliation.’ ² 

Many nations have now assembled against you. They say, “Jerusalem must be desecrated, ¹  so we can gloat over Zion!” ² 

Lift your hand triumphantly against your adversaries; ¹  may all your enemies be destroyed! ²