Chapter 33

33:1Woe, you destroyer never destroyed,
you traitor never betrayed!
When you have finished destroying,
you will be destroyed.
When you have finished betraying,
they will betray you.
2Lord, be gracious to us! We wait for You.
Be our strength every morning
and our salvation in time of trouble.
3The peoples flee at the thunderous noise;
the nations scatter when You rise in Your majesty.
4Your spoil will be gathered as locusts are gathered;
people will swarm over it like an infestation of locusts.
5The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high;
He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.
6There will be times of security for you-
a storehouse of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.
The fear of the Lord is Zion's treasure.
7Listen! Their warriors cry loudly in the streets;
the messengers of peace weep bitterly.
8The highways are deserted;
travel has ceased.
An agreement has been broken,
cities despised,
and human life disregarded.
9The land mourns and withers;
Lebanon is ashamed and decayed.
Sharon is like a desert;
Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.
10"Now I will rise up," says the Lord.
"Now I will lift Myself up.
Now I will be exalted.
11You will conceive chaff;
you will give birth to stubble.
Your breath is fire that will consume you.
12The peoples will be burned to ashes,
like thorns cut down and burned in a fire.
13You who are far off, hear what I have done;
you who are near, know My strength."
14The sinners in Zion are afraid;
trembling seizes the ungodly:
"Who among us can dwell with a consuming fire?
Who among us can dwell with ever-burning flames?"
15The one who lives righteously
and speaks rightly,
who refuses gain from extortion,
whose hand never takes a bribe,
who stops his ears from listening to murderous plots
and shuts his eyes to avoid endorsing evil-
16he will dwell on the heights;
his refuge will be the rocky fortresses,
his food provided, his water assured.
17Your eyes will see the King in His beauty;
you will see a vast land.
18Your mind will meditate on the past terror:
"Where is the accountant?
Where is the tribute collector?
Where is the one who spied out our defenses?"
19You will no longer see the barbarians,
a people whose speech is difficult to comprehend-
who stammer in a language that is not understood.
20Look at Zion, the city of our festival times.
Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
a peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander;
its tent pegs will not be pulled up
nor will any of its cords be loosened.
21For the majestic One, our Lord, will be there,
a place of rivers and broad streams
where ships that are rowed will not go,
and majestic vessels will not pass.
22For the Lord is our Judge,
the Lord is our lawgiver,
the Lord is our King.
He will save us.
23Your ropes are slack;
they cannot hold the base of the mast
or spread out the flag.
Then abundant spoil will be divided,
the lame will plunder it,
24and none there will say, "I am sick."
The people who dwell there
will be forgiven their iniquity.

Chapter 34

34:1You nations, come here and listen;
you peoples, pay attention!
Let the earth hear, and all that fills it,
the world and all that comes from it.
2The Lord is angry with all the nations-
furious with all their armies.
He will set them apart for destruction,
giving them over to slaughter.
3Their slain will be thrown out,
and the stench of their corpses will rise;
the mountains will flow with their blood.
4All the heavenly bodies will dissolve.
The skies will roll up like a scroll,
and their stars will all wither
as leaves wither on the vine,
and foliage on the fig tree.
5When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens,
it will then come down on Edom
and on the people I have set apart for destruction.
6The Lord's sword is covered with blood.
It drips with fat,
with the blood of lambs and goats,
with the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7The wild oxen will be struck down with them,
and young bulls with the mighty bulls.
Their land will be soaked with blood,
and their soil will be saturated with fat.
8For the Lord has a day of vengeance,
a time of paying back Edom
for its hostility against Zion.
9Edom's streams will be turned into pitch,
her soil into sulfur;
her land will become burning pitch.
10It will never go out-day or night.
Its smoke will go up forever.
It will be desolate, from generation to generation;
no one will pass through it forever and ever.
11The desert owl and the screech owl will possess it,
and the great owl and the raven will dwell there.
The Lord will stretch out a measuring line
and a plumb line over her
for her destruction and chaos.
12No nobles will be left to proclaim a king,
and all her princes will come to nothing.
13Her palaces will be overgrown with thorns;
her fortified cities, with thistles and briers.
She will become a dwelling for jackals,
an abode for ostriches.
14The desert creatures will meet hyenas,
and one wild goat will call to another.
Indeed, the screech owl will stay there
and will find a resting place for herself.
15The sand partridge will make her nest there;
she will lay and hatch her eggs
and will gather her brood under her shadow.
Indeed, the birds of prey will gather there,
each with its mate.
16Search and read the scroll of the Lord:
Not one of them will be missing,
none will be lacking its mate,
because He has ordered it by my mouth,
and He will gather them by His Spirit.
17He has ordained a lot for them;
His hand allotted their portion with a measuring line.
They will possess it forever;
they will dwell in it from generation to generation.