Israel forgiven and restored
    for they have scattered my people
    throughout their own countries,
    have taken each their portion of my land
   3   and shared out my people by lot,
  bartered a boy for a whore,
and sold a girl for wine and drunk it down.

4   What are you to me, Tyre and Sidon and all the districts of Philistia? Can you pay me back for anything I have done? Is there anything that you can do to me? Swiftly and speedily I will make your deeds recoil upon your own heads; 5   for you have taken my silver and my gold and carried off my costly treasures into your temples; 6   you have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, and removed them far beyond their own frontiers. 7   But I will rouse them to leave the places to which you have sold them. I will make your deeds recoil upon your own heads: 8   I will sell your sons and your daughters to the people of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabaeans, a nation far away. The Lord has spoken.

   9    10    11    12    ^noteProclaim this amongst the nations:
Declare a holy war, call your troops to arms!
  Beat your mattocks into swords
    and your pruning-hooks into spears. ^note
Rally to each other's help, all you nations round about.
Let the weakling say, ‘I am strong’,
  and let the coward show himself brave. ^note
  Let all the nations hear the call to arms
    and come to the Valley of the Lord's Judgement;
let all the warriors come and draw near
    and muster there;
    for there I will take my seat
  and judge all the nations round about.


13   Ply the sickle, for the harvest is ripe;
    come, tread the grapes,
for the press is full and the vats overflow;
    great is the wickedness of the nations.
14   The roar of multitudes, multitudes, in the Valley of Decision!
  The day of the Lord is at hand
    in the Valley of Decision;
   15   sun and moon are darkened
  and the stars forbear to shine.

Israel forgiven and restored
   16   The Lord roars from Zion
  and thunders from Jerusalem;
  heaven and earth shudder,
  but the Lord is a refuge for his people
    and the defence of Israel.


17   Thus you shall know that I am the Lord your God,
  dwelling in Zion my holy mountain;
  Jerusalem shall be holy,
and no one without the right shall pass through her again.
   18   When that day comes,
  the mountains shall run with fresh wine
  and the hills flow with milk.
All the streams of Judah shall be full of water,
  and a fountain shall spring from the Lord's house
    and water the gorge of Shittim,
   19   but Egypt shall become a desert
  and Edom a deserted waste,
    because of the violence done to Judah
  and the innocent blood shed in her land;
     20    21   and I will spill their blood,
    the blood I have not yet spilt.
  Then there shall be people living in Judah for ever,
  in Jerusalem generation after generation;
  and the Lord will dwell in Zion.

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