The Judgment on the Earth

¹ Look! Yahweh is about to lay the earth waste and is about to devastate it, and he will twist her surface, and he will scatter her inhabitants.

² And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; as with the female slave, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the one to whom he lends.

³ The earth shall be utterly laid waste, and it shall be utterly plundered, for Yahweh has spoken this word.

⁴ The earth dries up, it withers; the world languishes, it withers. The elevated of the people of the earth languish,

⁵ and the earth is defiled beneath its inhabitants. For they have transgressed laws; they have passed by statutes;¹ they have broken the everlasting covenant.

1. Hebrew “statute”

⁶ Therefore a curse devours the earth, and the inhabitants in it suffer for their guilt. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth burn, and ⌞few men are left⌟.¹

1. Literally “he is left a man of smallness”

⁷ The new wine dries up; the vine languishes. All the merry of heart sigh;

⁸ the joy of the tambourine has stopped. The noise of the jubilant has ceased; the joy of the lyre has stopped.

⁹ They do not drink wine with song; strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.

¹⁰ The city of emptiness is broken; every house is shut ⌞so that no one can enter⌟;¹

1. Literally “from entering”

¹¹ there is an outcry over the wine in the streets. All joy turns into ⌞darkness⌟;¹ the joy of the earth disappears.

1. Literally “evening”

¹² Desolation is left in the city; the gate is crushed into a state of ruin.

¹³ For it shall be like this in the midst of the earth, among the nations, like the beating of an olive tree, like gleanings when a grape harvest is at an end.

¹⁴ They lift up their voices;¹ they sing for joy; they shout out from the west over the majesty of Yahweh.

1. Hebrew “voice”

¹⁵ Therefore glorify Yahweh in the east, the name of Yahweh the God of Israel in the coastlands of the sea.

¹⁶ We hear songs from the ⌞edge⌟¹ of the earth: “Glory to the righteous one!” But I say, “Ruin to me! Ruin to me! Woe to me! The treacherous ones deal treacherously, and the treacherous ones deal treacherously with treachery!”

1. Literally “wing”

¹⁷ Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you, inhabitants¹ of the earth!

1. Hebrew “inhabitant”

¹⁸ And this shall happen: The one who flees from the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit, and the one who goes up from ⌞inside the pit⌟¹ shall be caught in the snare, for the windows from heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.

1. Literally “the middle of the pit”

¹⁹ The earth is utterly broken; the earth is torn asunder; the earth is shaken violently.

²⁰ The earth staggers to and fro like the drunkard, and it sways like a hut, and its transgression is heavy upon it, and it falls and does not rise again.

²¹ And this shall happen on that day: Yahweh will punish the host of heaven in heaven, and the kings of the earth on the earth.

²² And they will be gathered in a gathering, like a prisoner ⌞in⌟¹ a pit. And they will be shut ⌞in⌟² a prison and be punished ⌞after⌟³ many days.

1. Literally “on”
2. Literally “on”
3. Literally “from”

²³ And the full moon will be ashamed and the sun will be ashamed, for Yahweh of hosts will rule on ⌞Mount Zion⌟¹ and in Jerusalem, and before his elders in glory.

1. Literally “the mountain of Zion”