Chapter 1

1 How deserted lies the city,

once so full of people!

How like a widow is she,

who once was great among the nations!

She who was queen among the provinces

has now become a slave.

2 Bitterly she weeps at night,

tears are on her cheeks.

Among all her lovers

there is no one to comfort her.

All her friends have betrayed her;

they have become her enemies.

3 After affliction and harsh labor,

Judah has gone into exile.

She dwells among the nations;

she finds no resting place.

All who pursue her have overtaken her

in the midst of her distress.

4 The roads to Zion mourn,

for no one comes to her appointed festivals.

All her gateways are desolate,

her priests groan,

her young women grieve,

and she is in bitter anguish.

5 Her foes have become her masters;

her enemies are at ease.

The Lord has brought her grief

because of her many sins.

Her children have gone into exile,

captive before the foe.

6 All the splendor has departed

from Daughter Zion.

Her princes are like deer

that find no pasture;

in weakness they have fled

before the pursuer.

7 In the days of her affliction and wandering

Jerusalem remembers all the treasures

that were hers in days of old.

When her people fell into enemy hands,

there was no one to help her.

Her enemies looked at her

and laughed at her destruction.

8 Jerusalem has sinned greatly

and so has become unclean.

All who honored her despise her,

for they have all seen her naked;

she herself groans

and turns away.

9 Her filthiness clung to her skirts;

she did not consider her future.

Her fall was astounding;

there was none to comfort her.

“Look, Lord, on my affliction,

for the enemy has triumphed.”

10 The enemy laid hands

on all her treasures;

she saw pagan nations

enter her sanctuary—

those you had forbidden

to enter your assembly.

11 All her people groan

as they search for bread;

they barter their treasures for food

to keep themselves alive.

“Look, Lord, and consider,

for I am despised.”

12 “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?

Look around and see.

Is any suffering like my suffering

that was inflicted on me,

that the Lord brought on me

in the day of his fierce anger?

13 “From on high he sent fire,

sent it down into my bones.

He spread a net for my feet

and turned me back.

He made me desolate,

faint all the day long.

14 “My sins have been bound into a yoke

by his hands they were woven together.

They have been hung on my neck,

and the Lord has sapped my strength.

He has given me into the hands

of those I cannot withstand.

15 “The Lord has rejected

all the warriors in my midst;

he has summoned an army against me

to crush my young men.

In his winepress the Lord has trampled

Virgin Daughter Judah.

16 “This is why I weep

and my eyes overflow with tears.

No one is near to comfort me,

no one to restore my spirit.

My children are destitute

because the enemy has prevailed.”

17 Zion stretches out her hands,

but there is no one to comfort her.

The Lord has decreed for Jacob

that his neighbors become his foes;

Jerusalem has become

an unclean thing among them.

18 “The Lord is righteous,

yet I rebelled against his command.

Listen, all you peoples;

look on my suffering.

My young men and young women

have gone into exile.

19 “I called to my allies

but they betrayed me.

My priests and my elders

perished in the city

while they searched for food

to keep themselves alive.

20 “See, Lord, how distressed I am!

I am in torment within,

and in my heart I am disturbed,

for I have been most rebellious.

Outside, the sword bereaves;

inside, there is only death.

21 “People have heard my groaning,

but there is no one to comfort me.

All my enemies have heard of my distress;

they rejoice at what you have done.

May you bring the day you have announced

so they may become like me.

22 “Let all their wickedness come before you;

deal with them

as you have dealt with me

because of all my sins.

My groans are many

and my heart is faint.”

Chapter 2

1 How the Lord has covered Daughter Zion

with the cloud of his anger

He has hurled down the splendor of Israel

from heaven to earth;

he has not remembered his footstool

in the day of his anger.

2 Without pity the Lord has swallowed up

all the dwellings of Jacob;

in his wrath he has torn down

the strongholds of Daughter Judah.

He has brought her kingdom and its princes

down to the ground in dishonor.

3 In fierce anger he has cut off

every horn of Israel.

He has withdrawn his right hand

at the approach of the enemy.

He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire

that consumes everything around it.

4 Like an enemy he has strung his bow;

his right hand is ready.

Like a foe he has slain

all who were pleasing to the eye;

he has poured out his wrath like fire

on the tent of Daughter Zion.

5 The Lord is like an enemy;

he has swallowed up Israel.

He has swallowed up all her palaces

and destroyed her strongholds.

He has multiplied mourning and lamentation

for Daughter Judah.

6 He has laid waste his dwelling like a garden;

he has destroyed his place of meeting.

The Lord has made Zion forget

her appointed festivals and her Sabbaths;

in his fierce anger he has spurned

both king and priest.

7 The Lord has rejected his altar

and abandoned his sanctuary.

He has given the walls of her palaces

into the hands of the enemy;

they have raised a shout in the house of the Lord

as on the day of an appointed festival.

8 The Lord determined to tear down

the wall around Daughter Zion.

He stretched out a measuring line

and did not withhold his hand from destroying.

He made ramparts and walls lament;

together they wasted away.

9 Her gates have sunk into the ground;

their bars he has broken and destroyed.

Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations,

the law is no more,

and her prophets no longer find

visions from the Lord.

10 The elders of Daughter Zion

sit on the ground in silence;

they have sprinkled dust on their heads

and put on sackcloth.

The young women of Jerusalem

have bowed their heads to the ground.

11 My eyes fail from weeping,

I am in torment within;

my heart is poured out on the ground

because my people are destroyed,

because children and infants faint

in the streets of the city.

12 They say to their mothers,

“Where is bread and wine?”

as they faint like the wounded

in the streets of the city,

as their lives ebb away

in their mothers’ arms.

13 What can I say for you?

With what can I compare you,

Daughter Jerusalem?

To what can I liken you,

that I may comfort you,

Virgin Daughter Zion?

Your wound is as deep as the sea.

Who can heal you?

14 The visions of your prophets

were false and worthless;

they did not expose your sin

to ward off your captivity.

The prophecies they gave you

were false and misleading.

15 All who pass your way

clap their hands at you;

they scoff and shake their heads

at Daughter Jerusalem:

“Is this the city that was called

the perfection of beauty,

the joy of the whole earth?”

16 All your enemies open their mouths

wide against you;

they scoff and gnash their teeth

and say, “We have swallowed her up.

This is the day we have waited for;

we have lived to see it.”

17 The Lord has done what he planned;

he has fulfilled his word,

which he decreed long ago.

He has overthrown you without pity,

he has let the enemy gloat over you,

he has exalted the horn of your foes.

18 The hearts of the people

cry out to the Lord.

You walls of Daughter Zion,

let your tears flow like a river

day and night;

give yourself no relief,

your eyes no rest.

19 Arise, cry out in the night,

as the watches of the night begin;

pour out your heart like water

in the presence of the Lord.

Lift up your hands to him

for the lives of your children,

who faint from hunger

at every street corner.

20 “Look, Lord, and consider:

Whom have you ever treated like this?

Should women eat their offspring,

the children they have cared for?

Should priest and prophet be killed

in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21 “Young and old lie together

in the dust of the streets;

my young men and young women

have fallen by the sword.

You have slain them in the day of your anger;

you have slaughtered them without pity.

22 “As you summon to a feast day,

so you summoned against me terrors on every side.

In the day of the Lord’s anger

no one escaped or survived;

those I cared for and reared

my enemy has destroyed.”

Obadiah

Obadiah’s Vision

1 The vision of Obadiah.

This is what the Sovereign Lord says about Edom—

We have heard a message from the Lord:

An envoy was sent to the nations to say,

“Rise, let us go against her for battle”—

2 “See, I will make you small among the nations;

you will be utterly despised.

3 The pride of your heart has deceived you,

you who live in the clefts of the rocks

and make your home on the heights,

you who say to yourself,

‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’

4 Though you soar like the eagle

and make your nest among the stars,

from there I will bring you down,”

declares the Lord.

5 “If thieves came to you,

if robbers in the night—

oh, what a disaster awaits you!—

would they not steal only as much as they wanted?

If grape pickers came to you,

would they not leave a few grapes?

6 But how Esau will be ransacked,

his hidden treasures pillaged!

7 All your allies will force you to the border;

your friends will deceive and overpower you;

those who eat your bread will set a trap for you,

but you will not detect it.

8 “In that day,” declares the Lord,

“will I not destroy the wise men of Edom,

those of understanding in the mountains of Esau?

9 Your warriors, Teman, will be terrified,

and everyone in Esau’s mountains

will be cut down in the slaughter.

10 Because of the violence against your brother Jacob,

you will be covered with shame;

you will be destroyed forever.

11 On the day you stood aloof

while strangers carried off his wealth

and foreigners entered his gates

and cast lots for Jerusalem,

you were like one of them.

12 You should not gloat over your brother

in the day of his misfortune,

nor rejoice over the people of Judah

in the day of their destruction,

nor boast so much

in the day of their trouble.

13 You should not march through the gates of my people

in the day of their disaster,

nor gloat over them in their calamity

in the day of their disaster,

nor seize their wealth

in the day of their disaster.

14 You should not wait at the crossroads

to cut down their fugitives,

nor hand over their survivors

in the day of their trouble.

15 “The day of the Lord is near

for all nations.

As you have done, it will be done to you;

your deeds will return upon your own head.

16 Just as you drank on my holy hill,

so all the nations will drink continually;

they will drink and drink

and be as if they had never been.

17 But on Mount Zion will be deliverance;

it will be holy,

and Jacob will possess his inheritance.

18 Jacob will be a fire

and Joseph a flame;

Esau will be stubble,

and they will set him on fire and destroy him.

There will be no survivors

from Esau.”

The Lord has spoken.

19 People from the Negev will occupy

the mountains of Esau,

and people from the foothills will possess

the land of the Philistines.

They will occupy the fields of Ephraim and Samaria,

and Benjamin will possess Gilead.

20 This company of Israelite exiles who are in Canaan

will possess the land as far as Zarephath;

the exiles from Jerusalem who are in Sepharad

will possess the towns of the Negev.

21 Deliverers will go up on Mount Zion

to govern the mountains of Esau.

And the kingdom will be the Lord’s.

Chapter 14

The Lamb and the 144,000

1 Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. 2 And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. 3 And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. 4 These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they remained virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were purchased from among mankind and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. 5 No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.

The Three Angels

6 Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people. 7 He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.”

8 A second angel followed and said, “ ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great,’ which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.”

9 A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, 10 they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.” 12 This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus.

13 Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.”

“Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”

Harvesting the Earth and Trampling the Winepress

14 I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. 15 Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, “Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” 16 So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.

17 Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. 18 Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, “Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.” 19 The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. 20 They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses’ bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia.