Let those of us who were forced out of Moab live in your land. Hide us from our enemies.” The robbing of Moab will stop. The enemy will be defeated; those who hurt others will disappear from the land.
Have you forgotten the Lord who made you, who stretched out the skies and made the earth? Why are you always afraid of those angry people who trouble you and who want to destroy? But where are those angry people now?
But do not measure the yard outside the temple. Leave it alone, because it has been given to those who are not God’s people. And they will trample on the holy city for forty-two months.
“You people living in the town of Dibon, come down from your place of honor and sit on the dry ground, because the destroyer of Moab has come against you. And he has destroyed your strong, walled cities.
The destroyer will come against every town; not one town will escape. The valley will be ruined, and the high plain will be destroyed, as the Lord has said.
Family of David, this is what the Lord says: You must judge people fairly every morning. Save the person who has been robbed from the power of his attacker. If you don’t, I will become very angry. My anger will be like a fire that no one can put out, because you have done evil things.
How terrible it will be for you who destroy others but have not been destroyed yet. How terrible it will be for you, traitor, whom no one has turned against yet. When you stop destroying, others will destroy you. When you stop turning against others, they will turn against you.
I will force those who trouble you to eat their own flesh. Their own blood will be the wine that makes them drunk. Then everyone will know I, the Lord, am the One who saves you; I am the Powerful One of Jacob who saves you.”
I will build you using fairness. You will be safe from those who would hurt you, so you will have nothing to fear. Nothing will come to make you afraid.
Share your food with the hungry and bring poor, homeless people into your own homes. When you see someone who has no clothes, give him yours, and don’t refuse to help your own relatives.
The Jews in Moab, Ammon, Edom, and other countries also heard that the king of Babylon had left a few Jews alive in the land. And they heard the king of Babylon had chosen Gedaliah as governor over them. (Gedaliah was the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan.)
Do not stand at the crossroads to destroy those who are trying to escape. Do not capture those who escape alive and turn them over to their enemy in their time of trouble.