Now I will destine you for death. All of you will bow to be slaughtered. I called, but you didn’t answer. I spoke, but you didn’t listen. You did what I consider evil. You chose what I don’t like.
Nothing’s left but to crouch among prisoners and to fall with those who are killed. Even after all this, his anger will not disappear, and he is still ready to use his power.
On that day the Lord will use his fierce and powerful sword to punish Leviathan, that slippery snake, Leviathan, that twisting snake. He will kill that monster which lives in the sea.
The Lord is angry with all the nations. He is furious with all their armies. He has claimed them for destruction. He has handed them over to be slaughtered.
The Lord’s sword is covered with blood. It is covered with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of rams’ kidneys. The Lord will receive a sacrifice in Bozrah, a huge slaughter in the land of Edom.
Why was no one here when I came? Why was no one here to answer when I called? Am I too weak to reclaim you? Don’t I have the power to rescue you? I dry up the sea with my command, and I turn rivers into deserts. Their fish stink because there is no water, and people die of thirst.
Now, hand their children over to famine. Pour out their ⌞blood⌟ by using your sword. Then their wives will become childless widows. Their husbands will be put to death. Their young men will be struck down in battle.
“This is what the Lord says: You didn’t obey me. You haven’t freed your relatives and neighbors. Now I am going to free you,” declares the Lord. “I will free you to die in wars, plagues, and famines. I will make all the kingdoms of the world horrified at the thought of you.
“ ‘This is what the Lord God of Armies, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring on Judah and on all those who live in Jerusalem all the disasters that I threatened. I have spoken to them, but they didn’t listen. I called to them, but they didn’t answer.’ ”
You have done the same things the people did at Shiloh,’ ” declares the Lord. “ ‘Although I spoke to you again and again, you did not listen. When I called you, you did not answer.
I will bring war on you to get revenge for my promise ⌞that you rejected⌟. When you gather in your cities, I will send plagues on you and you will fall under the control of your enemy.
Aren’t these the same words that the Lord announced through the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem and its surrounding cities were inhabited and undisturbed and the Negev and the foothills were still inhabited?’ ”
Foreign wars will kill off their children, and even at home there will be horrors. Young men and young women alike will die as well as nursing babies and gray-haired men.