The Lord Judges the Nations

1For behold in those days, and in that time when I shall bring back the captivity of Juda and Jerusalem:

2I will gather together all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Josaphat: and I will plead with them there for my people, and for my inheritance Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and have parted my land.

3And they have cast lots upon my people: and the boy they have put in the stews, and the girl they have sold for wine, that they might drink.

4But what have you to do with me, O Tyre, and Sidon, and all the coast of the Philistines? will you revenge yourselves on me? and if you revenge yourselves on me, I will very soon return you a recompense upon your own head. 5For you have taken away my silver and my gold: and my desirable and most beautiful things you have carried into your temples. 6And the children of Juda, and the children of Jerusalem you have sold to the children of the Greeks, that you might remove them far off from their own country. 7Behold, I will raise them up out of the place wherein you have sold them: and I will return your recompense upon your own heads. 8And I will sell your sons, and your daughters by the hands of the children of Juda, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far off, for the Lord hath spoken it.

9Proclaim ye this among the nations: prepare war, rouse up the strong: let them come, let all the men of war come up.

10Cut your ploughshares into swords, and your spades into spears. Let the weak say: I am strong.

11Break forth, and come, all ye nations, from round about, and gather yourselves together: there will the Lord cause all thy strong ones to fall down.

12Let them arise, and let the nations come up into the valley of Josaphat: for there I will sit to judge all nations round about.

13Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe: come and go down, for the press is full, the fats run over: for their wickedness is multiplied.

14Nations, nations in the valley of destruction: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of destruction.

15The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their shining.

16And the Lord shall roar out of Sion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem: and the heavens and the earth shall be moved, and the Lord shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.

Blessings for God's People

17And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Sion my holy mountain: and Jerusalem shall be holy and strangers shall pass through it no more.

18And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down sweetness, and the hills shall flow with milk: and waters shall flow through all the rivers of Juda: and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the torrent of thorns.

19Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a wilderness destroyed: because they have done unjustly against the children of Juda, and have shed innocent blood in their land.

20And Judea shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem to generation and generation.

21And I will cleanse their blood which I had not cleansed: and the Lord will dwell in Sion.