God Will Punish Israel

24 Look! The Lord will destroy this land. The Lord will completely clean everything from the land. The Lord will force the people to go far away. ²At that time, the common people and the priests will be the same. Slaves and masters will be the same. Women slaves and their women masters will be the same. The buyers and sellers will be the same. The people that borrow and the people that lend will be the same. The bankers and the people that owe the bank will be the same. ³All the people will be forced out of the land. The wealth will all be taken. This will happen because the Lord commanded it. ⁴The country will be empty and sad. The world will be empty and weak. The great leaders of the people in this land will become weak. ⁵The people on the land have made the land dirty. {How did this happen}? The people did wrong things against God’s teaching. The people did not obey God’s laws. The people made an agreement with God a long time ago, but those people broke their agreement with God. ⁶The people living in this land are guilty of doing wrong. So God promised to destroy the land. The people will be punished. Only a few people will survive. ⁷The grapevines are dying. The new wine is bad. In the past, people were happy. But now those people are sad. ⁸People have stopped showing their joy. All the happy sounds have stopped. The happy music from the drums and harps has ended. ⁹People don’t sing happy songs while they drink their wine. The beer now tastes bitter to the person drinking it. ¹⁰“Total Confusion” is a good name for this city. The city has been destroyed. People can’t enter the houses. The doors are blocked. ¹¹People still ask for wine in the market places. But all the happiness is gone. Joy has been carried far away. ¹²Only destruction is left for the city. Even the gates are crushed. ¹³At harvest time, people knock olives from olive trees. But, a few olives are left in the trees. It will be like that in this land among the nations. ¹⁴The people that are left will begin shouting. They will be louder than the noise from the ocean. They will be happy because of the Lord’s greatness. ¹⁵Those people will say, “People in the east, praise the Lord! People in faraway lands, praise the name of the Lord God of Israel.” ¹⁶We will hear songs of praise for God from every place on earth. These songs will praise the Good God. But I say; “Enough! I have had enough! The things I see are terrible. Traitors* are turning against people and hurting them. ¹⁷{I see danger for the people living in this land. I see} fear, holes, and traps for them. ¹⁸People will hear about danger and they will be scared. Some of the people will run away. But they will fall into holes and be trapped. Some of those people will climb out of the holes, but they will be caught in another trap.” The flood gates in the sky above will open, {and the floods will begin}. The foundations of the earth will shake. ¹⁹There will be earthquakes. And the earth will split open. ²⁰The sins of the world are very heavy. So the earth will fall under that weight. The earth will shake like an old house. The earth will fall like a drunk person. The earth will not be able to continue. ²¹At that time, the Lord will judge the heavenly armies in heaven and the earthly kings on earth. ²²Many people will be gathered together. Some of them have been locked in the Pit. Some of them have been in prison.* But finally, after much time, they will be judged. ²³The Lord will rule as king on Mount Zion* in Jerusalem. His Glory* will be before the elders.* {His Glory will be so bright that} the moon will be embarrassed, the sun will be ashamed.

Traitors People that turn against their country, friends, or family and do bad things to them. Pit … prison This is probably “Sheol,” the grave. Zion The southeast part of the mountain Jerusalem is built on. Sometimes it means the people of God living in Jerusalem. His Glory The “Glory of the Lord,” one of the forms God used when he appeared to people. It was like a bright shining light. See Ex. 40:34–36. elders Older men that were city leaders; they helped make decisions for the people.

A Song of Praise to God

25 Lord, you are my God. I honor you and praise your name. You have done amazing things. The words you said long ago are completely true. Everything has happened exactly as you said it would. ²You have destroyed the city. It was a city protected by strong walls. But now it is only a pile of rocks. The foreign palace has been destroyed. It will never be built again. ³People from powerful nations will honor you. Powerful people from strong cities will fear you. ⁴{Lord} you are a safe place for poor people that have needs. Many problems begin to defeat these people, but you protect them. {Lord} you are like a house protecting people from floods and heat. Troubles are like terrible winds and rain. The rain hits the wall and runs down, but the people in the house are not hurt. ⁵The enemy shouts and makes noise. The terrible enemy shouts challenges. But you, {God,} will stop them. In the desert during the summer {plants wilt and fall to the ground}. In the same way, you will defeat the enemy and force them to their knees. Thick clouds stop the summer heat. In the same way, you will stop the shouts of the terrible enemy.

God’s Banquet for His Servants

⁶At that time, the Lord All-Powerful will give a feast for all the people on this mountain. At the feast, there will be the best foods and wines. The meat will be tender and good. ⁷But now, there is a veil* covering all nations and people. This veil is called, “death.” ⁸But death will be destroyed forever.* And the Lord my Master will wipe away every tear from every face. {In the past,} all of his people were sad. But God will take away that sadness from the earth. All of this will happen because the Lord said it would. ⁹At that time, people will say, “Here is our God! He is the One we have been waiting for. He has come to save us. We have been waiting for our Lord. So we will rejoice and be happy when the Lord saves us.” ¹⁰The Lord’s power is on this mountain. And Moab* will be defeated. The Lord will trample (walk on) the enemy. It will be like walking on straw in a pile of waste. ¹¹The Lord will spread his arms like a person that is swimming. Then the Lord will gather all the things the people are proud of. The Lord will gather all the beautiful things they made. And he will throw those things away. ¹²The Lord will destroy the people’s high walls and safe places. The Lord will throw them down into the dust on the ground.

veil A piece of cloth used to cover a person’s face. death will be destroyed forever This can also be translated, “death will be swallowed in victory.” Moab Or “the enemy.” This name is like a Hebrew word meaning, “enemy.”

A Song of Praise to God

26 At that time, people will sing this song in Judah: {The Lord} gives us our salvation. We have a strong city. Our city has strong walls and defenses. ²Open the gates and the good people will enter. Those people obey God’s good teachings. ³Lord, you give true peace to people who depend on you, to people who trust you. ⁴So, trust the Lord always. Why? Because in the Lord Yah,* you have a place of safety forever! ⁵But the Lord will destroy the proud city. And he will punish the people living there. The Lord will throw that high city down to the ground. It will fall into the dust. ⁶Then poor and humble people will walk on those ruins. ⁷Honesty is the way of living for good people. Good people follow the way that is straight and true. And God, you make that way smooth and easy to follow. ⁸But Lord, we are waiting for your way of justice. Our souls want to remember you and your name. ⁹My soul wants to be with you at night. And the spirit in me wants to be with you at the dawning of every new day. When your way of justice comes to the land, people will learn the right way of living. ¹⁰An evil person will not learn to do good if you show him only kindness. An evil person will do bad things, even if he lives in a good world. That evil person might never see the Lord’s greatness. ¹¹But Lord, get ready to punish those people. Surely they will see it, won’t they? Lord, show the evil people the strong love* that you have for your people. Surely the evil people will be ashamed. Surely your enemies will be burned in their own fire (evil). ¹²Lord, you have succeeded in doing all the things that we tried to do. So give us peace.

God Will Give New Life to His People

¹³Lord, you are our God. But in the past, we followed other lords.* We belonged to other masters. But now we want people to remember only one name, your name! ¹⁴Those dead {lords*} will not come to life. Those ghosts will not rise from death. You decided to destroy them. And you destroyed everything that makes us think about them. ¹⁵You have helped the nation you love. You stopped other people from defeating that nation.* ¹⁶Lord, people remember you when they are in trouble. People say quiet prayers to you when you punish them. ¹⁷Lord, when we are not with you, we are like a woman giving birth to a baby. She cries with birth pains. ¹⁸In the same way, we have pain. We give birth, but only to wind. We don’t make new people for the world. We don’t bring salvation to the land. ¹⁹{But the Lord says,} “Your people have died, but they will live again. The bodies of my people will rise from death. Dead people in the ground, stand and be happy! The dew covering you is like the dew sparkling in the light of a new day. It shows a new time is coming when the earth will give up the dead people that are in it.”

Judgment: Reward or Punishment

²⁰My people, go into your rooms. Lock your doors. Hide in your rooms for a short time. Hide until God’s anger is finished. ²¹The Lord will leave his place* to judge the people of the world for the bad things they have done. The earth will show the blood of the people that have been killed. The earth will not cover the dead people any more.

Lord Yah Or, “YAH YAHWEH,” a Hebrew name for God. strong love This Hebrew word means strong feelings like love, hate, anger, zeal, or jealousy. lords The Hebrew word can mean “husbands, lords,” or “Baals“ (false gods that the Canaanite people worshiped). lords The Hebrew word can mean “husbands, lords,” or “Baals“ (false gods that the Canaanite people worshiped). You have helped … nation. Or, “You gathered together the nation you love, the nation that you drove away into faraway lands.” his place Probably the temple in Jerusalem.