My message is like a fire that purges dross! ¹  It is like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces! ²  I, the Lord, so affirm it! ³ 

Leave your towns, you inhabitants of Moab. Go and live in the cliffs. Be like a dove that makes its nest high on the sides of a ravine. ¹ 

Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. ¹  But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. ²  Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected. They have become as hardheaded as a rock. ³  They refuse to change their ways. ⁴ 

“Take the shorts that you bought and are wearing ¹  and go at once ²  to Perath. ³  Bury the shorts there ⁴  in a crack in the rocks.”

But for now I, the Lord, say: ¹  “I will send many enemies who will catch these people like fishermen. After that I will send others who will hunt them out like hunters from all the mountains, all the hills, and the crevices in the rocks. ² 

The terror you inspire in others ¹  and the arrogance of your heart have deceived you. You may make your home in the clefts of the rocks; you may occupy the highest places in the hills. ²  But even if you made your home where the eagles nest, I would bring you down from there,” says the Lord.

The Lord says, ¹  “Beware! I am opposed to you, Babylon! ²  You are like a destructive mountain that destroys all the earth. I will unleash my power against you; ³  I will roll you off the cliffs and make you like a burned-out mountain. ⁴