1 ARST Terrible things will happen to you judges who are unjust and who make unfair laws. BSB BSB: Woe to those who enact unjust statutes and issue oppressive decrees,
2 ARST You refuse to help poor people, and you do not allow them to get the things that they should get. You allow people to steal things from widows and do unfair things to children without fathers. BSB BSB: to deprive the poor of fair treatment and withhold justice from the oppressed of My people, to make widows their prey and orphans their plunder.
3 ARST When I punish you by sending people from distant lands to cause you disasters, to whom will you run to get help? Your valuable possessions will certainly not be safe anywhere. BSB BSB: What will you do on the day of reckoning when devastation comes from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?
4 ARST You will be able only to stumble along as your enemies take you away with other prisoners, or else your corpses will lie on the ground with others who have been killed. But even after that happens, Yahweh will still be very angry with you. He will still be ready to strike you again with his fist. BSB BSB: Nothing will remain but to crouch among the captives or fall among the slain. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.
5 ARST Yahweh says,“Terrible things will happen to Assyria. It is true that their army is like a rod or a club with which I punish other nations because I am very angry with those nations. BSB BSB: Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.
6 ARST Sometimes I send the Assyrians to attack a godless nation, to fight against other people who have caused me to be angry. I send them to capture people and to seize and take away their possessions, and to trample them like people walk on mud in the streets. BSB BSB: I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.
7 ARST But the king of Assyria does not understand; he does not realize that he is only like a weapon in my hand. He only wants to destroy people, to get rid of many nations. BSB BSB: But this is not his intention; this is not his plan. For it is in his heart to destroy and cut off many nations.
8 ARST He says,‘All of my army commanders will soon be kings of these nations that I conquer! BSB BSB: “Are not all my commanders kings?” he says.
9 ARST We destroyed the city of Kalno as we destroyed the city of Carchemish. We destroyed the city of Hamath as we destroyed the city of Arpad; we destroyed Samaria just like we destroyed Damascus. BSB BSB: “Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?
10 ARST We were able to destroy all those kingdoms that were full of the images of their gods, kingdoms whose gods were stronger than the gods in Jerusalem and Samaria. BSB BSB: As my hand seized the idolatrous kingdoms whose images surpassed those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
11 ARST So we will defeat Jerusalem and destroy the images of gods that are there, just as we destroyed Samaria and the images that were there!’ BSB BSB: and as I have done to Samaria and its idols, will I not also do to Jerusalem and her idols?”
12 ARST But I am the Lord, and after I have used Assyria to finish what I want to do to punish the people in Jerusalem, I will punish the king of Assyria because he has been very proud and arrogant. BSB BSB: So when the Lord has completed all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the fruit of his arrogant heart and the proud look in his eyes.
13 ARST He says,‘By my own great power I have done these things. I have been able to do them because I am very wise and very intelligent. My army removed the barriers at the borders of nations and carried away all their valuable things. My mighty army has humiliated all their people. BSB BSB: For he says: ‘By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, for I am clever. I have removed the boundaries of nations and plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their rulers.
14 ARST Like someone who reaches into a bird’ s nest to take away the eggs, we have taken away the treasures of other countries. The people were not like birds that would have flapped their wings or chirp loudly to protest about their eggs being stolen; the people did not object at all to their treasures being stolen.’ BSB BSB: My hand reached as into a nest to seize the wealth of the nations. Like one gathering abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth. No wing fluttered, no beak opened or chirped.’”
15 ARST But I am Yahweh, and I say that an ax certainly cannot boast about being stronger than the person who uses it, and a saw is not greater than the person who uses it. A rod cannot control the one who holds it, and a wooden club cannot lift up a person. So the king of Assyria should not boast that he has done these things with his own wisdom and strength. BSB BSB: Does an axe raise itself above the one who swings it? Does a saw boast over him who saws with it? It would be like a rod waving the one who lifts it, or a staff lifting him who is not wood!
16 ARST I am the Lord Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, who will send a plague among the best soldiers of Assyria; it will be like a fire that will kill them and get rid of their glory. BSB BSB: Therefore the Lord GOD of Hosts will send a wasting disease among Assyria’s stout warriors, and under his pomp will be kindled a fire like a burning flame.
17 ARST Yahweh is like a light for the people of Israel, like a fire; the Holy One who rules Israel is like a flame. The soldiers of Assyria are like thorns and briers, and Yahweh will burn them up in one day. BSB BSB: And the Light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame. In a single day it will burn and devour Assyria’s thorns and thistles.
18 ARST There are glorious forests and fertile farmlands in Assyria, but Yahweh will completely destroy them; they will be like a very sick person who shrivels up and then dies. BSB BSB: The splendor of its forests and orchards, both soul and body, it will completely destroy, as a sickness consumes a man.
19 ARST There will be very few trees left in those forests; even a child will be able to count them.” BSB BSB: The remaining trees of its forests will be so few that a child could count them.
20 ARST In the future there will be only a few people left in Israel; not many descendants of Jacob will still be alive. But they will no longer rely on the king of Assyria, the king of the nation that tried to destroy them. Instead, they will faithfully trust in Yahweh, the Holy One who rules Israel. BSB BSB: On that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer depend on him who struck them, but they will truly rely on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel.
21 ARST Those Israelites will return to their mighty God. BSB BSB: A remnant will return—a remnant of Jacob—to the Mighty God.
22 ARST Now, the people of Israel are as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore, but only a few of them will return from the countries to which they will be exiled. Yahweh has decided to destroy most of the Israelites, and that is what he must do because he is completely just. BSB BSB: Though your people, O Israel, be like the sand of the sea, only a remnant will return. Destruction has been decreed, overflowing with righteousness.
23 ARST Yes, the Lord Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, has already decided to destroy the entire land of Israel. BSB BSB: For the Lord GOD of Hosts will carry out the destruction decreed upon the whole land.
24 ARST This is what the Lord Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, says:“My people in Jerusalem, do not be afraid of the army of Assyria when they beat you with rods and clubs, like the men of Egypt did to your ancestors long ago. BSB BSB: Therefore this is what the Lord GOD of Hosts says: “O My people who dwell in Zion, do not fear Assyria, who strikes you with a rod and lifts his staff against you as the Egyptians did.
25 ARST Soon I will no longer be angry with you, and then I will be angry with the people of Assyria and destroy them!” BSB BSB: For in just a little while My fury against you will subside, and My anger will turn to their destruction.”
26 ARST Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, will strike them with his whip. He will do to them as he did when he defeated the army of the Midian people group, and as he did when he caused the army of Egypt to drown in the Sea of Reeds. BSB BSB: And the LORD of Hosts will brandish a whip against them, as when He struck Midian at the rock of Oreb. He will raise His staff over the sea, as He did in Egypt.
27 ARST One day in the future, Yahweh will cause the army of Assyria to stop oppressing you, his people; he will end your suffering and your being slaves of the people of Assyria; you will become too strong for them. BSB BSB: On that day the burden will be lifted from your shoulders, and the yoke from your neck. The yoke will be broken because your neck will be too large.
28 ARST One day in the future this will be the situation: The army of Assyria has entered northern Judah near Aiath; they have gone through Migron and stored their supplies at Micmash, north of Jerusalem. BSB BSB: Assyria has entered Aiath and passed through Migron, storing their supplies at Michmash.
29 ARST They have crossed through a mountain pass and set up their tents at Geba. People in Ramah will tremble because they are afraid. The people of Gibeah, where King Saul was born, have all run away. BSB BSB: They have crossed at the ford: “We will spend the night at Geba.” Ramah trembles; Gibeah of Saul flees.
30 ARST You people of Gallim will cry out for help! They will shout to the people of the city of Laish near Jerusalem to warn them! The people of Anathoth will suffer a lot. BSB BSB: Cry aloud, O Daughter of Gallim! Listen, O Laishah! O wretched Anathoth!
31 ARST The people of Madmenah north of Jerusalem are all running away, and the people of Gebim close to Jerusalem are trying to hide. BSB BSB: Madmenah flees; the people of Gebim take refuge.
32 ARST The soldiers of Assyria will stop at the city of Nob outside Jerusalem. They will shake their fists as they threaten the people on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. BSB BSB: Yet today they will halt at Nob, shaking a fist at the mount of Daughter Zion, at the hill of Jerusalem.
33 ARST But listen to this! Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, with his great power will destroy the mighty army of Assyria. It is as though they are a huge tree that he will cut down. BSB BSB: Behold, the Lord GOD of Hosts will lop off the branches with terrifying power. The tall trees will be cut down, the lofty ones will be felled.
34 ARST He will destroy the soldiers of Assyria as men use big axes to cut down the tall trees in the forests of Lebanon. BSB BSB: He will clear the forest thickets with an axe, and Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.
Select verses for actions: Enter goes to them and Escape comes back.