“Your country is devastated. Your cities are burned down. Your fields are destroyed right before your eyes by foreigners. Your fields are devastated and taken over by foreigners.
One thousand people will flee when one person threatens them, and you will flee when five threaten you. Then you will be left alone like a flagpole on top of a mountain, like a signpost on a hill.
This is the message that the Lord speaks to him, ‘My dear people in Zion despise you and laugh at you. My people in Jerusalem shake their heads behind your back.
The Lord your God may have heard the words of the field commander. His master, the king of Assyria, sent him to defy the living God. The Lord your God may punish him because of the message that the Lord your God heard. Pray for the few people who are left.”
Then you will ask yourself, “Who has fathered these ⌞children⌟ for me? I was childless and unable to have children. I was exiled and rejected. Who raised these ⌞children for me⌟? I was left alone. Where have they come from?”
The Lord has announced to the ends of the earth: “Tell my people Zion, ‘Your Savior is coming. His reward is with him, and the people he has won arrive ahead of him.’ ”
It will sweep through Judah. It will overflow and pass through; it will be neck-high. Its outspread wings will extend over your whole country, O Immanuel.
“Look how the Lord has covered the people of Zion with the cloud of his anger! He has thrown down Israel’s beauty from heaven to earth. He didn’t ⌞even⌟ remember his footstool on the day of his anger.
He stripped his own booth as if it were a garden and destroyed his own festivals. The Lord wiped out the memory of festivals and days of rest—holy days—in Zion. He expelled kings and priests because of his fierce anger.
Rejoice with all your heart, people of Zion! Shout in triumph, people of Jerusalem! Look! Your King is coming to you: He is righteous and victorious. He is humble and rides on a donkey, on a colt, a young pack animal.