18. Therefore the LORD will wait, that he may be gracious to you; and therefore he will be exalted, that he may have mercy on you, for the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for him.

19. For the people will dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. You will weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the voice of your cry. When he hears you, he will answer you.

20. Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers won't be hidden any more, but your eyes will see your teachers;

21. and when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way. Walk in it."

22. You shall defile the overlaying of your engraved images of silver, and the plating of your molten images of gold. You shall cast them away as an unclean thing. You shall tell it, "Go away!"

23. He will give the rain for your seed, with which you will sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your livestock will feed in large pastures.

24. The oxen likewise and the young donkeys that till the ground will eat savory feed, which has been winnowed with the shovel and with the fork.

25. There shall be brooks and streams of water on every lofty mountain and on every high hill in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.

26. Moreover the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD binds up the fracture of his people, and heals the wound they were struck with.

1. Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness,and princes shall rule in justice.

2. A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind,and a covert from the storm,as streams of water in a dry place,as the shade of a large rock in a weary land.

3. The eyes of those who see will not be dim,and the ears of those who hear will listen.

4. The heart of the rash will understand knowledge,and the tongue of the stammerers will be ready to speak plainly.

5. The fool will no longer be called noble,nor the scoundrel be highly respected.

6. For the fool will speak folly,and his heart will work iniquity,to practice profanity,and to utter error against The LORD,To make empty the soul of the hungry,and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.

7. The ways of the scoundrel are evil.He devises wicked devices to destroy the humble with lying words,even when the needy speaks right.

8. But the noble devises noble things;and he will continue in noble things.

9. Rise up, you women who are at ease! Hear my voice!You careless daughters, give ear to my speech!

10. For days beyond a year you will be troubled, you careless women;for the vintage shall fail.The harvest won't come.

11. Tremble, you women who are at ease!Be troubled, you careless ones!Strip yourselves, make yourselves naked,and put sackcloth on your waist.

12. Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields,for the fruitful vine.

13. Thorns and briers will come up on my people's land;yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city.

14. For the palace will be forsaken.The populous city will be deserted.The hill and the watchtower will be for dens forever,a delight for wild donkeys,a pasture of flocks;

15. Until the Spirit is poured on us from on high,and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,and the fruitful field is considered a forest.

16. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness;and righteousness will remain in the fruitful field.

17. The work of righteousness will be peace;and the effect of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever.

18. My people will live in a peaceful habitation,in safe dwellings,and in quiet resting places.

19. Though hail flattens the forest,and the city is leveled completely.

20. Blessed are you who sow beside all waters,who send out the feet of the ox and the donkey.

1. Woe to you who destroy, but you weren't destroyed;and who betray, but nobody betrayed you!When you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed;and when you have finished betrayal, you will be betrayed.

2. The LORD, be gracious to us. We have waited for you.Be our strength every morning,our salvation also in the time of trouble.

3. At the noise of the thunder, the peoples have fled.When you lift yourself up, the nations are scattered.

4. Your plunder will be gathered as the caterpillar gathers.Men will leap on it as locusts leap.

5. The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high.He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.

6. There will be stability in your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.The fear of the LORD is your treasure.

7. Behold, their valiant ones cry outside;the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.

8. The highways are desolate.The traveling man ceases.The covenant is broken.He has despised the cities.He doesn't respect man.

9. The land mourns and languishes.Lebanon is confounded and withers away.Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel are stripped bare.

10. "Now I will arise," says The LORD;"Now I will lift myself up.Now I will be exalted.

11. You will conceive chaff.You will give birth to stubble.Your breath is a fire that will devour you.

12. The peoples will be like the burning of lime,like thorns that are cut down and burned in the fire.

13. Hear, you who are far off, what I have done;and, you who are near, acknowledge my might."

14. The sinners in Zion are afraid.Trembling has seized the godless ones.Who among us can live with the devouring fire?Who among us can live with everlasting burning?

15. He who walks righteously,and speaks blamelessly;He who despises the gain of oppressions,who gestures with his hands, refusing to take a bribe,who stops his ears from hearing of blood,and shuts his eyes from looking at evil-

16. he will dwell on high.His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks.His bread will be supplied.His waters will be sure.

17. Your eyes will see the king in his beauty.They will see a distant land.

18. Your heart will meditate on the terror.Where is he who counted?Where is he who weighed?Where is he who counted the towers?

19. You will no longer see the fierce people,a people of a deep speech that you can't comprehend,with a strange language that you can't understand.

20. Look at Zion, the city of our appointed festivals.Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet habitation,a tent that won't be removed.Its stakes will never be plucked up,nor will any of its cords be broken.

21. But there the LORD will be with us in majesty,a place of wide rivers and streams,in which no galley with oars will go,neither will any gallant ship pass by there.

22. For the LORD is our judge.The LORD is our lawgiver.The LORD is our king.He will save us.

23. Your rigging is untied.They couldn't strengthen the foot of their mast.They couldn't spread the sail.Then the prey of a great plunder was divided.The lame took the prey.

24. The inhabitant won't say, "I am sick."The people who dwell therein will be forgiven their iniquity.

1. Come near, you nations, to hear!Listen, you peoples.Let the earth and all it contains hear;the world, and everything that comes from it.

2. For the LORD is enraged against all the nations,and angry with all their armies.He has utterly destroyed them.He has given them over for slaughter.

3. Their slain will also be cast out,and the stench of their dead bodies will come up;and the mountains will melt in their blood.

4. All of the army of the sky will be dissolved.The sky will be rolled up like a scroll,and all its armies will fade away,as a leaf fades from off a vine or a fig tree.

5. For my sword has drunk its fill in the sky.Behold, it will come down on Edom,and on the people of my curse, for judgment.

6. The LORD's sword is filled with blood.It is covered with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats,with the fat of the kidneys of rams;for the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah,And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

7. The wild oxen will come down with them,and the young bulls with the mighty bulls;and their land will be drunken with blood,and their dust made greasy with fat.

8. For the LORD has a day of vengeance,a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

9. Its streams will be turned into pitch,its dust into sulfur,And its land will become burning pitch.

10. It won't be quenched night nor day.Its smoke will go up forever.From generation to generation, it will lie waste.No one will pass through it forever and ever.

11. But the pelican and the porcupine will possess it.The owl and the raven will dwell in it.He will stretch the line of confusion over it,and the plumb line of emptiness.

12. They shall call its nobles to the kingdom, but none shall be there;and all its princes shall be nothing.

13. Thorns will come up in its palaces,nettles and thistles in its fortresses;and it will be a habitation of jackals,a court for ostriches.

14. The wild animals of the desert will meet with the wolves,and the wild goat will cry to his fellow.Yes, the night creature shall settle there,and shall find herself a place of rest.

15. The arrow snake will make her nest there,and lay, hatch, and gather under her shade.Yes, the kites will be gathered there, every one with her mate.

16. Search in the book of The LORD, and read:not one of these will be missing.None will lack her mate.For my mouth has commanded,and his Spirit has gathered them.

17. He has cast the lot for them,and his hand has divided it to them with a measuring line.They shall possess it forever.From generation to generation they will dwell in it.