You must not worship or serve any idol, because I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. If you hate me, I will punish your children, and even your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
So the Lord God All-Powerful, the Mighty One of Israel, says: “You, my enemies, will not cause me any more trouble. I will pay you back for what you did.
At that time the Lord will punish Leviathan, the gliding snake. He will punish Leviathan, the coiled snake, with his great and hard and powerful sword. He will kill the monster in the sea.
The Lord will pay back his enemies for what they have done. He will show his anger to those who were against him; he will punish the people in faraway places as they deserve.
Listen to the loud noise coming from the city; hear the noise from the Temple. It is the Lord punishing his enemies, giving them the punishment they should have.
But hear the word of the Lord. Listen, all you Jews living in Egypt. The Lord says, ‘I have sworn by my great name: The people of Judah now living in Egypt will never again use my name to make promises. They will never again say in Egypt, “As surely as the Lord God lives . . . ”
Listen to the people running to escape the country of Babylon! They are telling Jerusalem how the Lord our God is punishing Babylon as it deserves for destroying his Temple.
“Call for the archers to come against Babylon. Tell them to surround the city, and let no one escape. Pay her back for what she has done; do to her what she has done to other nations. Babylon acted with pride against the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.
Mark one sign to show the road he can take with his sword to Rabbah in the land of the Ammonites. Mark the other sign to show the road to Judah and Jerusalem, which is protected with strong walls.
I will use my people Israel to take revenge on Edom. So the Israelites will do to Edom what my hot anger demands. Then the Edomites will know what my revenge feels like, says the Lord God.’
I will cause many people to be shocked about you. Their kings will tremble with fear because of you when I swing my sword in front of them. They will shake every moment on the day you fall; each king will be afraid for his own life.
The Lord is a jealous God who punishes; the Lord punishes and is filled with anger. The Lord punishes those who are against him, and he stays angry with his enemies.
and say evil things about each other. They hate God. They are rude and conceited and brag about themselves. They invent ways of doing evil. They do not obey their parents.
When people’s thinking is controlled by the sinful self, they are against God, because they refuse to obey God’s law and really are not even able to obey God’s law.
I will punish those who do wrong; I will repay them. Soon their foot will slip, because their day of trouble is near, and their punishment will come quickly.”
You must not worship or serve any idol, because I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. If people sin against me and hate me, I will punish their children, even their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.