Bible Time

¹GATHER yourselves, bind yourselves together, oh people without discipline; ²Before you become like the chaff which is driven away, before the fierce anger of Yahvah comes on you, before the day of Yahvah's anger reaches you. ³Seek Yahvah, all you meek of the earth, execute justice; seek righteousness and meekness; perhaps you may find refuge in the day of Yahvah's anger.

⁴For Gaza will be deserted and Ashkelon a desolation; they will carry captive Ashdod's people at the noon day, and Ekron will be uprooted. ⁵Woe to the inhabitants of the seacoast and the people of Crete. The word of Yahvah is against you, oh Canaan, the land of the Philistines; I will even destroy you, that there will be no inhabitant. ⁶And the seacoast will become pastures for sheep, and Crete a pasture for flocks of sheep. ⁷And the seacoast will be for the remnant of the house of Judah; they will feed thereupon; in the houses of Ashkelon they will lie down in the evening; for Yahvah their God will visit them and bring back their captivity.

⁸I have heard the disgrace of Moab and the blasphemies of the children of Ammon, by which they have disgraced my people and magnified themselves against their border. ⁹Therefore, as I live, says Yahvah God of hosts, the God of Israel, surely Moab will become as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, for their plantations have been destroyed and their counsellors lost, and they have become a desolation forever; the remnant of my people will plunder them, and the survivors of my people will possess them. ¹⁰This disaster they will have for their pride because they have disgraced and magnified themselves against the people of Yahvah of hosts, against Israel; ¹¹For Yahvah has declared to them that he will destroy all the kings of the earth; and men will worship him, everyone from his place, even all the isles of the seas.

¹²You Ethiopians, you will also be slain by the sword. ¹³And he will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy the Assyrian, and will make Nineveh a desolation and dry like a wilderness. ¹⁴And flocks will lie down in the middle of her, all kinds of animals of the nations; both pelicans and the owls will lodge in her houses; and wild animals will roar in the middle of her, and the sword will be in her gates; for her foundations are laid bare. ¹⁵This is the mighty city that lived in security, that said in her heart, I am, and there is no one like me; how is she become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in. Everyone who passes by her will be amazed and hiss, and shake his hand, saying,