1 ARST Some day Yahweh is going to destroy the earth. He will devastate it and cause it to become a desert, and he will scatter its people. BSB BSB: Behold, the LORD lays waste the earth and leaves it in ruins. He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants—
2 ARST He will scatter everyone: priests and common people, servants and their masters, maids and their mistresses, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, people who owe money and people who are owed money. BSB BSB: people and priest alike, servant and master, maid and mistress, buyer and seller, lender and borrower, creditor and debtor.
3 ARST Nothing that is worth anything will be left on earth; everything valuable will be destroyed. That will surely happen because Yahweh has said it. BSB BSB: The earth will be utterly laid waste and thoroughly plundered. For the LORD has spoken this word.
4 ARST Everything on the earth will dry up and die; its important people will become weak and unimportant. BSB BSB: The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and fades; the exalted of the earth waste away.
5 ARST The earth has become unacceptable to Yahweh because the people who live on it have disobeyed his laws; they have rejected the covenant that he intends to last forever. BSB BSB: The earth is defiled by its people; they have transgressed the laws; they have overstepped the decrees and broken the everlasting covenant.
6 ARST Therefore, Yahweh will curse the earth; the people who live on it must be punished because of the sins that they have committed. They will be destroyed by fire, and only a few people will remain alive. BSB BSB: Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants must bear the guilt; the earth’s dwellers have been burned, and only a few survive.
7 ARST The grapevines will wither, and there will be no grapes to make wine. All the people who were previously happy will now groan and mourn. BSB BSB: The new wine dries up, the vine withers. All the merrymakers now groan.
8 ARST People will no longer play cheerful songs with tambourines, people will no longer play joyfully on their harps, and people will no longer shout noisily during their celebrations. BSB BSB: The joyful tambourines have ceased; the noise of revelers has stopped; the joyful harp is silent.
9 ARST People will no longer sing while they drink wine, and all their alcoholic drinks will taste bitter. BSB BSB: They no longer sing and drink wine; strong drink is bitter to those who consume it.
10 ARST Towns and cities will be desolate; every house will be locked to prevent thieves from entering, for no one will live in them. BSB BSB: The city of chaos is shattered; every house is closed to entry.
11 ARST Mobs will gather in the streets, wanting wine; no one on the earth will be happy anymore. BSB BSB: In the streets they cry out for wine. All joy turns to gloom; rejoicing is exiled from the land.
12 ARST Cities will be ruined, and all their gates will be battered into pieces. BSB BSB: The city is left in ruins; its gate is reduced to rubble.
13 ARST It will be like that all over the earth: there will only be a few people still alive, like what happens when workers beat all the olives off a tree and there are only a few left, or when they harvest the grapes and there are only a few left on the vines. BSB BSB: So will it be on the earth and among the nations, like a harvested olive tree, like a gleaning after a grape harvest.
14 ARST Those in the west will sing with great happiness; they will declare that Yahweh is very great. BSB BSB: They raise their voices, they shout for joy; from the west they proclaim the majesty of the LORD.
15 ARST Those in the east of Israel will also praise Yahweh; those along the coastlines of the sea will praise Yahweh, the God the people Israel worship. BSB BSB: Therefore glorify the LORD in the east. Extol the name of the LORD, the God of Israel in the islands of the sea.
16 ARST We will hear people in the most distant places on the earth singing praise to Yahweh, the truly righteous one. But now, I am very sad. Weep for me, because I have become thin and weak. Terrible things are happening! Treacherous people still betray others everywhere. BSB BSB: From the ends of the earth we hear singing: “Glory to the Righteous One.” But I said, “I am wasting away! I am wasting away! Woe is me.” The treacherous betray; the treacherous deal in treachery.
17 ARST You people all over the earth, you will be terrified, and you will fall into deep pits and traps. BSB BSB: Terror and pit and snare await you, O dweller of the earth.
18 ARST Those who try to flee because they are terrified will fall into deep pits, and those who climb out of the pits will be caught by traps. The sky will split open and torrents of rain will fall; the foundations of the earth will shake. BSB BSB: Whoever flees the sound of panic will fall into the pit, and whoever climbs from the pit will be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are open, and the foundations of the earth are shaken.
19 ARST The earth will split apart and be shattered; it will shake violently. BSB BSB: The earth is utterly broken apart, the earth is split open, the earth is shaken violently.
20 ARST It will be as though the earth will stagger like a drunk; it will shake like a hammock in a windstorm. It will collapse and not be able to rise again, because the guilt of the people who rebel against Yahweh is very great. BSB BSB: The earth staggers like a drunkard and sways like a shack. Earth’s rebellion weighs it down, and it falls, never to rise again.
21 ARST At that time, Yahweh will punish the wicked powerful beings in the skies and the wicked kings on the earth. BSB BSB: In that day the LORD will punish the host of heaven above and the kings of the earth below.
22 ARST They will all be gathered together and thrown into a dungeon. They will be shut in that dungeon, and later they will be punished. BSB BSB: They will be gathered together like prisoners in a pit. They will be confined to a dungeon and punished after many days.
23 ARST At that time the light of the moon and the sun will be lessened; it will be as though they are ashamed in the presence of Yahweh, because he, Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, will rule gloriously on Mount Zion, in the presence of all the leaders of his people. BSB BSB: The moon will be confounded and the sun will be ashamed; for the LORD of Hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before His elders with great glory.
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