O Lord, your power is visible, but they do not see it. They will see how devoted your people are, and they will be put to shame. Your burning anger will destroy your enemies.
Now I will send plagues that will affect you personally as well as your officials and people. This is how you will know that there is no one like me anywhere on earth.
Strong people will become tinder for a fire, and their work will be the spark. Both of them will burn together, and there will be no one to put out the fire.
As flames burn up straw and dry grass shrivels in flames, so their roots will rot, and their blossoms will blow away like dust. They have rejected the teachings of the Lord of Armies and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
He puts on righteousness like a coat of armor and a helmet of salvation on his head. He wears clothes of vengeance. He wraps himself with fury as a coat.
The descendants of those who oppress you will bow in front of you. All who despise you will bow at your feet. They will call you the city of the Lord, Zion, the city of the Holy One of Israel.
Look down and see from heaven, from your holy and beautiful dwelling. Where is your determination and might? Where is the longing of your heart and your compassion? Don’t hold back.
The Lord will come with fire and with his chariots like a thunderstorm. He will pay them back with his burning anger and punish them with flames of fire.
Then they will go out and look at the corpses of those who have rebelled against me. The worms that eat them will not die. The fire that burns them will not go out. All humanity will be disgusted by them.
Listen to the Lord’s word, all who tremble at his word. Your relatives, who hate you and exclude you for my name’s sake, say, “Let the Lord show his glory; then we will see your joy.” But they will be put to shame.
Surely wickedness burns like fire. It burns up briars and thorns. It sets the underbrush in the forest on fire, and it whirls upward in clouds of smoke.
His government and peace will have unlimited growth. He will establish David’s throne and kingdom. He will uphold it with justice and righteousness now and forever. The Lord of Armies is determined to do this!
Those who escape the wars will return to Judah from Egypt. Then all the people of Judah who went to live in Egypt will know whose words have come true, mine or theirs.
Lord, your eyes look for the truth. You strike these people, but they don’t feel it. You crush them, but they refuse to be corrected. They are more stubborn than rocks. They refuse to turn back.
Then my enemies will see this, and they will be covered with shame, because they asked me, “Where is the Lord your God?” Now I look at them. They are trampled like mud in the streets.
“Certainly the day is coming! It will burn like a furnace. All arrogant people and all evildoers will be ⌞like⌟ straw. The day that is coming will burn them up completely,” says the Lord of Armies. “It won’t leave a single root or branch.
“Then the king will say to those on his left, ‘Get away from me! God has cursed you! Go into everlasting fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels!
These people have become close-minded and hard of hearing. They have shut their eyes so that their eyes never see. Their ears never hear. Their minds never understand. And they never turn to me for healing.” ’
The beast and the false prophet who had done miracles for the beast were captured. By these miracles the false prophet had deceived those who had the brand of the beast and worshiped its statue. Both of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.
I will make those who are in Satan’s synagogue come and bow at your feet and realize that I have loved you. They claim that they are Jewish, but they are lying.
but then watch where it goes. If it goes up the road to its own country toward Beth Shemesh, then this disaster is the Lord’s doing. But if not, we’ll know it wasn’t his hand that struck us, but what happened to us was an accident.”