God’s Judgment Unavoidable

1I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said,

“Strike the pillar capitals so that the thresholds will shake,

And break them on the heads of them all!

Then I will put to death the rest of them with the sword;

They will not have a fugitive who will flee,

Nor a survivor who will escape.

2“Though they dig into Sheol,

From there My hand will take them;

And though they ascend to heaven,

From there I will bring them down.

3“And though they hide on the summit of Carmel,

I will track them down and take them from there;

And though they hide themselves from My sight on the bottom of the sea,

I will command the serpent from there, and it will bite them.

4“And though they go into captivity before their enemies,

From there I will command the sword and it will kill them,

And I will set My eyes against them for harm and not for good.”

5The Lord [a]GOD of armies,

The One who touches the land so that it quakes,

And all those who live in it mourn,

And all of it rises up like the Nile

And subsides like the Nile of Egypt;

6The One who builds His upper chambers in the heavens

And has founded His vaulted dome over the earth,

He who calls for the waters of the sea

And pours them out on the face of the earth,

The LORD is His name.

7“Are you not as the sons of Ethiopia to Me,

You sons of Israel?” declares the LORD.

“Have I not brought up Israel from the land of Egypt,

And the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?

8“Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom,

And I will eliminate it from the face of the earth;

Nevertheless, I will not totally eliminate the house of Jacob,”

Declares the LORD.

9“For behold, I am commanding,

And I will shake the house of Israel among all nations

As grain is shaken in a sieve,

But not a pebble will fall to the ground.

10“All the sinners of My people will die by the sword,

Those who say, ‘The catastrophe will not overtake or confront us.’

The Restoration of Israel