If you don’t listen, and if you don’t take it to heart to honour my name,’ says the Lord of Armies, ‘I will send a curse among you, and I will curse your blessings. In fact, I have already begun to curse them because you are not taking it to heart.
A fire devours in front of them, and behind them a flame blazes. The land in front of them is like the garden of Eden, but behind them, it is like a desert wasteland; there is no escape from them.
What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.
The Lord can no longer bear your evil deeds and the detestable acts you have committed, so your land has become a waste, a desolation, and an example for cursing, without inhabitant, as you see today.
If I go out to the field, look #– #those slain by the sword! If I enter the city, look #– #those ill from famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land they do not know.
And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.’
How she sits alone, the city once crowded with people! She who was great among the nations has become like a widow. The princess among the provinces has been put to forced labour.
But she said, ‘As the Lord your God lives, I don’t have anything baked #– #only a handful of flour in the jar and a bit of oil in the jug. Just now, I am gathering a couple of sticks in order to go and prepare it for myself and my son so we can eat it and die.’
Now Elijah the Tishbite, from the Gilead settlers, , said to Ahab, ‘As the Lord God of Israel lives, in whose presence I stand, there will be no dew or rain during these years except by my command! ’
refusing to share with any of them his children’s flesh that he will eat because he has nothing left during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you in all your towns.
I will send it out,’ #– #this is the declaration of the Lord of Armies #– #‘and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of the one who swears falsely by my name. It will stay inside his house and destroy it along with its timbers and stones.’