¹ About the children of Ammon. These are the words of the Lord: Has Israel no sons? has he no one to take the heritage? why then has Milcom taken Gad for himself, putting his people in its towns?

² Because of this, see, the days are coming when I will have a cry of war sounded against Rabbah, the town of the children of Ammon; it will become a waste of broken walls, and her daughter-towns will be burned with fire: then Israel will take the heritage of those who took his heritage, says the Lord.

³ Make sounds of grief, O Heshbon, for Ai is wasted; give loud cries, O daughters of Rabbah, and put haircloth round you: give yourselves to weeping, running here and there and wounding yourselves; for Milcom will be taken prisoner together with his rulers and his priests.

⁴ Why are you lifted up in pride on account of your valleys, your flowing valley, O daughter ever turning away? who puts her faith in her wealth, saying, Who will come against me?

⁵ See, I will send fear on you, says the Lord, the Lord of armies, from those who are round you on every side; you will be forced out, every man straight before him, and there will be no one to get together the wanderers.

⁶ But after these things, I will let the fate of the children of Ammon be changed, says the Lord.

⁷ About Edom. This is what the Lord of armies has said. Is there no more wisdom in Teman? have wise suggestions come to an end among men of good sense? has their wisdom completely gone?

⁸ Go in flight, go back, take cover in deep places, you who are living in Dedan; for I will send the fate of Edom on him, even the time of his punishment.

⁹ If men came to get your grapes, would they not let some be uncut on the vines? if thieves came by night, would they not make waste till they had enough?

¹⁰ I have had Esau searched out, uncovering his secret places, so that he may not keep himself covered: his seed is wasted and has come to an end, and there is no help from his neighbours.

¹¹ Put in my care your children who have no father, and I will keep them safe; and let your widows Put their faith in me.

¹² For the Lord has said, Those for whom the cup was not made ready will certainly be forced to take of it; and are you to go without punishment? you will not be without punishment, but will certainly be forced to take from the cup.

¹³ For I have taken an oath by myself, says the Lord, that Bozrah will become a cause of wonder, a name of shame, a waste and a curse; and all its towns will be waste places for ever.

¹⁴ Word has come to me from the Lord, and a representative has been sent to the nations, to say, come together and go up against her, and take your places for the fight.

¹⁵ For see, I have made you small among the nations, looked down on by men.

¹⁶ ... the pride of your heart has been a false hope, O you who are living in the cracks of the rock, keeping your place on the top of the hill: even if you made your living-place as high as the eagle, I would make you come down, says the Lord.

¹⁷ And Edom will become a cause of wonder: everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder, and make sounds of fear at all her punishments.

¹⁸ As at the downfall of Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbouring towns, says the Lord, no man will be living in it, no son of man will have a resting-place there.

¹⁹ See, he will come up like a lion from the thick growth of Jordan against the resting-place of Teman: but I will suddenly make him go in flight from her; and I will put over her the man of my selection: for who is like me? and who will put forward his cause against me? and what keeper of sheep will be able to keep his place before me?

²⁰ For this cause give ear to the decision of the Lord which he has made against Edom, and to his purposes designed against the people of Teman: Truly, they will be pulled away by the smallest of the flock; truly, he will make waste their fields with them.

²¹ The earth is shaking with the noise of their fall; their cry is sounding in the Red Sea.

²² See, he will come up like an eagle in flight, stretching out his wings against Bozrah: and the hearts of Edom's men of war on that day will be like the heart of a woman in birth-pains.

²³ About Damascus. Hamath is put to shame, and Arpad; for the word of evil has come to their ears, their heart in its fear is turned to water, it will not be quiet.

²⁴ Damascus has become feeble, she is turned to flight, fear has taken her in its grip: pain and sorrows have come on her, as on a woman in birth-pains.

²⁵ How has the town of praise been wasted, the place of joy!

²⁶ So her young men will be falling in her streets, and all the men of war will be cut off in that day, says the Lord of armies.

²⁷ And I will have a fire lighted on the wall of Damascus, burning up the great houses of Ben-hadad.

²⁸ About Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, overcame. This is what the Lord has said: Up! go against Kedar, and make an attack on the children of the east.

²⁹ Their tents and their flocks they will take; they will take away for themselves their curtains and all their vessels and their camels: they will give a cry to them, Fear on every side.

³⁰ Go in flight, go wandering far off, take cover in deep places, O people of Hazor, says the Lord; for Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, has made a design against you, he has a purpose against you in mind.

³¹ Up! go against a nation which is living in comfort and without fear of danger, says the Lord, without doors or locks, living by themselves.

³² And their camels will be taken from them by force, and their great herds will come into the hands of their attackers: those who have the ends of their hair cut I will send in flight to all the winds; and I will send their fate on them from every side, says the Lord.

³³ And Hazor will be a hole for jackals, a waste for ever: no one will be living in it, and no son of man will have a resting-place there.

³⁴ The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet about Elam, when Zedekiah first became king of Judah, saying,

³⁵ This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, I will have the bow of Elam, their chief strength, broken.

³⁶ And I will send on Elam four winds from the four quarters of heaven, driving them out to all those winds; there will be no nation into which the wanderers from Elam do not come.

³⁷ And I will let Elam be broken before their haters, and before those who are making designs against their lives: I will send evil on them, even my burning wrath, says the Lord; and I will send the sword after them till I have put an end to them:

³⁸ I will put the seat of my power in Elam, and in Elam I will put an end to kings and rulers, says the Lord.

³⁹ But it will come about that, in the last days, I will let the fate of Elam be changed, says the Lord.

¹ And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

² Go and say in the ears of Jerusalem, The Lord says, I still keep the memory of your kind heart when you were young, and your love when you became my bride; how you went after me in the waste of sand, in an unplanted land.

³ Israel was holy to the Lord, the first-fruits of his increase: all who made attacks on him were judged as wrongdoers, evil came on them, says the Lord.

⁴ Give ear to the words of the Lord, O sons of Jacob and all the families of Israel:

⁵ These are the words of the Lord: What evil have your fathers seen in me that they have gone far from me, and, walking after what is false, have become false?

⁶ And they never said, Where is the Lord, who took us up out of the land of Egypt; who was our guide through the waste of sand, through an unplanted land full of deep holes, through a dry land of deep shade, which no one went through and Where no man was living?

⁷ And I took you into a fertile land, where you were living on its fruit and its wealth; but when you came in, you made my land unclean, and made my heritage a disgusting thing.

⁸ The priests did not say, Where is the Lord? and those who were expert in the law had no knowledge of me: and the rulers did evil against me, and the prophets became prophets of the Baal, going after things without value.

⁹ For this reason, I will again put forward my cause against you, says the Lord, even against you and against your children's children.

¹⁰ For go over to the sea-lands of Kittim and see; send to Kedar and give deep thought to it; and see if there has ever been such a thing.

¹¹ Has any nation ever made a change in their gods, though they are no gods? but my people have given up their glory in exchange for what is of no profit.

¹² Be full of wonder, O heavens, at this; be overcome with fear, be completely waste, says the Lord.

¹³ For my people have done two evils; they have given up me, the fountain of living waters, and have made for themselves water-holes, cut out from the rock, broken water-holes, of no use for storing water.

¹⁴ Is Israel a servant? has he been a house-servant from birth? why has he been made waste?

¹⁵ The young lions have made an outcry against him with a loud voice: they have made his land waste; his towns are burned up, with no one living in them.

¹⁶ Even the children of Noph and Tahpanhes have put shame on you.

¹⁷ Has not this come on you because you have given up the Lord your God, who was your guide by the way?

¹⁸ And now, what have you to do on the way to Egypt, to get your drink from the waters of the Nile? or what have you to do on the way to Assyria, to get your drink from the waters of the River?

¹⁹ The evil you yourselves have done will be your punishment, your errors will be your judge: be certain then, and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing to give up the Lord your God, and no longer to be moved by fear of me, says the Lord, the Lord of armies.

²⁰ For in the past, your yoke was broken by your hands and your cords parted; and you said, I will not be your servant; for on every high hill and under every branching tree, your behaviour was like that of a loose woman

²¹ But when you were planted by me, you were a noble vine, in every way a true seed: how then have you been changed into the branching plant of a strange vine?

²² For even if you are washed with soda and take much soap, still your evil-doing is marked before me, says the Lord God.

²³ How are you able to say, I am not unclean, I have not gone after the Baals? see your way in the valley, be clear about what you have done: you are a quick-footed camel twisting her way in and out;

²⁴ An untrained ass, used to the waste land, breathing up the wind in her desire; at her time, who is able to send her away? all those who are looking for her will have no need to make themselves tired; in her month they will get her.

²⁵ Do not let your foot be without shoes, or your throat dry from need of water: but you said, There is no hope: no, for I have been a lover of strange gods, and after them I will go.

²⁶ As the thief is shamed when he is taken, so is Israel shamed; they, their kings and their rulers, their priests and their prophets;

²⁷ Who say to a tree, You are my father; and to a stone, You have given me life: for their backs have been turned to me, not their faces: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Up! and be our saviour.

²⁸ But where are the gods you have made for yourselves? let them come, if they are able to give you salvation in the time of your trouble: for the number of your gods is as the number of your towns, O Judah.

²⁹ Why will you put forward your cause against me? You have all done evil against me, says the Lord.

³⁰ I gave your children blows to no purpose; they got no good from training: your sword has been the destruction of your prophets, like a death-giving lion.

³¹ O generation, see the word of the Lord. Have I been a waste land to Israel? or a land of dark night? why do my people say, We have got loose, we will not come to you again?

³² Is it possible for a virgin to put out of her memory her ornaments, or a bride her robes? but my people have put me out of their memories for unnumbered days.

³³ With what care are your ways ordered when you are looking for love! so ... your ways.

³⁴ And in the skirts of your robe may be seen the life-blood of those who have done no wrong: ...

³⁵ And still you said, I have done no wrong; truly, his wrath is turned away from me. See, I will take up the cause against you, because you say, I have done no wrong.

³⁶ Why do you go about so much for the purpose of changing your way? you will be shamed on account of Egypt, as you were shamed on account of Assyria.

³⁷ Truly, you will go out from him with your hands on your head: for the Lord has given up those in whom you have put your faith, and they will be of no help to you.