16 16:1 Send the lamb to the ruler of the land, from Sela, by way of the desert, to the mount of the daughter of Zion. ²Like fleeing birds, like a scattered nest, so are the daughters of Moab at the fords of the Arnon.

³“Give counsel; grant justice; make your shade like night at the height of noon; shelter the outcasts; do not reveal the fugitive; ⁴let the outcasts of Moab sojourn among you; be a shelter to them[1] from the destroyer. When the oppressor is no more and destruction has ceased, and he who tramples underfoot has vanished from the land, ⁵then a throne will be established in steadfast love, and on it will sit in faithfulness in the tent of David one who judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness.”

⁶We have heard of the pride of Moab— how proud he is!— of his arrogance, his pride, and his insolence; in his idle boasting he is not right. ⁷Therefore let Moab wail for Moab, let everyone wail. Mourn, utterly stricken, for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth.

⁸For the fields of Heshbon languish, and the vine of Sibmah; the lords of the nations have struck down its branches, which reached to Jazer and strayed to the desert; its shoots spread abroad and passed over the sea. ⁹Therefore I weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah; I drench you with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh; for over your summer fruit and your harvest the shout has ceased. ¹⁰And joy and gladness are taken away from the fruitful field, and in the vineyards no songs are sung, no cheers are raised; no treader treads out wine in the presses; I have put an end to the shouting. ¹¹Therefore my inner parts moan like a lyre for Moab, and my inmost self for Kir- areseth. ¹²And when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself on the high place, when he comes to his sanctuary to pray, he will not prevail. ¹³This is the word that the Lord spoke concerning Moab in the past. ¹⁴But now the Lord has spoken, saying, “In three years, like the years of a hired worker, the glory of Moab will be brought into contempt, in spite of all his great multitude, and those who remain will be very few and feeble.”

[1] Some Hebrew manuscripts, Septuagint, Syriac; Masoretic Text let my outcasts sojourn among you; as for Moab, be a shelter to them

17 An Oracle Concerning Damascus

17:1 An oracle concerning Damascus.

Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins. ²The cities of Aroer are deserted; they will be for flocks, which will lie down, and none will make them afraid. ³The fortress will disappear from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus; and the remnant of Syria will be like the glory of the children of Israel, declares the Lord of hosts.

⁴And in that day the glory of Jacob will be brought low, and the fat of his flesh will grow lean. ⁵And it shall be as when the reaper gathers standing grain and his arm harvests the ears, and as when one gleans the ears of grain in the Valley of Rephaim. ⁶Gleanings will be left in it, as when an olive tree is beaten— two or three berries in the top of the highest bough, four or five on the branches of a fruit tree, declares the Lord God of Israel. ⁷In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. ⁸He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense. ⁹In that day their strong cities will be like the deserted places of the wooded heights and the hilltops, which they deserted because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.

¹⁰For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge; therefore, though you plant pleasant plants and sow the vine-branch of a stranger, ¹¹though you make them grow[2] on the day that you plant them, and make them blossom in the morning that you sow, yet the harvest will flee away[3] in a day of grief and incurable pain.

¹²Ah, the thunder of many peoples; they thunder like the thundering of the sea! Ah, the roar of nations; they roar like the roaring of mighty waters! ¹³The nations roar like the roaring of many waters, but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away, chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind and whirling dust before the storm. ¹⁴At evening time, behold, terror! Before morning, they are no more! This is the portion of those who loot us, and the lot of those who plunder us.

[2] Or though you carefully fence them [3] Or will be a heap

18 An Oracle Concerning Cush

18:1 Ah, land of whirring wings that is beyond the rivers of Cush,^[4]²which sends ambassadors by the sea, in vessels of papyrus on the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation, tall and smooth, to a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide.

³All you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains, look! When a trumpet is blown, hear! ⁴For thus the Lord said to me: “I will quietly look from my dwelling like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” ⁵For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away. ⁶They shall all of them be left to the birds of prey of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth. And the birds of prey will summer on them, and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them. ⁷At that time tribute will be brought to the Lord of hosts

from a people tall and smooth, from a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide, to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the Lordof hosts.

[4] Probably Nubia

19 An Oracle Concerning Egypt

19:1 An oracle concerning Egypt.

Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt; and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them. ²And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight, each against another and each against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom; ³and the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out, and I will confound[5] their counsel; and they will inquire of the idols and the sorcerers, and the mediums and the necromancers; ⁴and I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a hard master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the Lord God of hosts.

⁵And the waters of the sea will be dried up, and the river will be dry and parched, ⁶and its canals will become foul, and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up, reeds and rushes will rot away. ⁷There will be bare places by the Nile, on the brink of the Nile, and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched, will be driven away, and will be no more. ⁸The fishermen will mourn and lament, all who cast a hook in the Nile; and they will languish who spread nets on the water. ⁹The workers in combed flax will be in despair, and the weavers of white cotton. ¹⁰Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed, and all who work for pay will be grieved.

¹¹The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish; the wisest counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel. How can you say to Pharaoh, “I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings”? ¹²Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you that they might know what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt. ¹³The princes of Zoan have become fools, and the princes of Memphis are deluded; those who are the cornerstones of her tribes have made Egypt stagger. ¹⁴The Lord has mingled within her a spirit of confusion, and they will make Egypt stagger in all its deeds, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit. ¹⁵And there will be nothing for Egypt that head or tail, palm branch or reed, may do.

Egypt, Assyria, Israel Blessed

¹⁶In that day the Egyptians will be like women, and tremble with fear before the hand that the Lord of hosts shakes over them. ¹⁷And the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians. Everyone to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the purpose that the Lord of hosts has purposed against them.

¹⁸In that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord of hosts. One of these will be called the City of Destruction.[6]

¹⁹In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border. ²⁰It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. When they cry to the Lord because of oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and deliver them. ²¹And the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows to the Lord and perform them. ²²And the Lord will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to the Lord, and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them.

²³In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.

²⁴In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, ²⁵whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.”

[5] Or I will swallow up [6] Dead Sea Scroll and some other manuscripts City of the Sun