(64:1) As when fire ignites dry wood, or fire makes water boil, let your adversaries know who you are, ¹  and may the nations shake at your presence!

You conceive straw, ¹  you give birth to chaff; your breath is a fire that destroys you. ² 

Your land is devastated, your cities burned with fire. Right before your eyes your crops are being destroyed by foreign invaders. ¹  They leave behind devastation and destruction. ² 

Indeed every boot that marches and shakes the earth ¹  and every garment dragged through blood is used as fuel for the fire.

Because of the anger of the Lord who commands armies, the land was scorched, ¹  and the people became fuel for the fire. ²  People had no compassion on one another. ³ 

For this reason ¹  the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, will make his healthy ones emaciated. ²  His majestic glory will go up in smoke. ³ 

O Lord, you are ready to act, ¹  but they don’t even notice. They will see and be put to shame by your angry judgment against humankind, ²  yes, fire will consume your enemies. ³ 

Judgment will come from the Lord who commands armies, ¹  accompanied by thunder, earthquake, and a loud noise, by a strong gale, a windstorm, and a consuming flame of fire.

It shatters in pieces like a clay jar, so shattered to bits that none of it can be salvaged. ¹  Among its fragments one cannot find a shard large enough ²  to scoop a hot coal from a fire ³  or to skim off water from a cistern.” ⁴ 

The Lord will give a mighty shout ¹  and intervene in power, ²  with furious anger and flaming, destructive fire, ³  with a driving rainstorm and hailstones.

Sinners are afraid in Zion; panic ¹  grips the godless. ²  They say, ³  ‘Who among us can coexist with destructive fire? Who among us can coexist with unquenchable ⁴  fire?’

When you pass through the waters, I am with you; when you pass ¹  through the streams, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not harm ²  you.

Half of it he burns in the fire – over that half he cooks ¹  meat; he roasts a meal and fills himself. Yes, he warms himself and says, ‘Ah! I am warm as I look at the fire.’

Look, they are like straw, which the fire burns up; they cannot rescue themselves from the heat ¹  of the flames. There are no coals to warm them, no firelight to enjoy. ² 

Look, all of you who start a fire and who equip yourselves with ¹  flaming arrows, ²  walk ³  in the light ⁴  of the fire you started and among the flaming arrows you ignited! ⁵  This is what you will receive from me: ⁶  you will lie down in a place of pain. ⁷ 

Our holy temple, our pride and joy, ¹  the place where our ancestors praised you, has been burned with fire; all our prized possessions have been destroyed. ² 

They say, ‘Keep to yourself! Don’t get near me, for I am holier than you!’ These people are like smoke in my nostrils, like a fire that keeps burning all day long.

For look, the Lord comes with fire, his chariots come like a windstorm, ¹  to reveal his raging anger, his battle cry, and his flaming arrows. ² 

Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion ¹  and over its convocations a cloud and smoke by day and a bright flame of fire by night; ²  indeed a canopy will accompany the Lord’s glorious presence. ³ 

Therefore, as flaming fire ¹  devours straw, and dry grass disintegrates in the flames, so their root will rot, and their flower will blow away like dust. ²  For they have rejected the law of the Lord who commands armies, they have spurned the commands ³  of the Holy One of Israel. ⁴