But even if they roar like a fearsome flood, God will give the command to turn them back. They will be like dust, or like straw blowing across the hills in a storm.
I am the LORD All-Powerful, the God of Israel, and I make this promise— “Soon Babylon will be levelled and packed down like a threshing place at harvest time.”
I weep for the pasture land in the hill country. It's so barren and scorched that no one travels there. No cattle can be found there, and birds and wild animals have all disappeared.
I will make the whole country an empty wasteland and crush the power in which you take such pride. Even the mountains will be bare, and no one will try to cross them.
Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed and blown away without a trace, like husks of wheat at threshing time. But the stone became a tremendous mountain that covered the entire earth.
Smash them to pieces, Zion! I'll let you be like a bull with iron horns and bronze hoofs. Crush those nations and bring their wealth to me, the LORD of the earth.
At present they are scattered, but later they will attack, as though they were fierce lions pouncing on sheep. Their enemies will be torn to shreds, with no one to save them;
Zerubbabel, that mountain in front of you will be levelled to the ground. Then you will bring out the temple's most important stone and shout, “God has been very kind.”
so you can have the rest of the hill country, but it's a forest, and you'll have to cut down the trees and clear the land. You can also have Jezreel Valley. Even though the Canaanites there are strong and have iron chariots, you can force them to leave the valley.”