“There is praise for Mo’aḇ no longer. In Ḥeshbon they have devised evil against her, ‘Come and let us cut it off as a nation.’ O Maḏmĕn, you are also cut off, a sword goes after you.
The message concerning Mo’aḇ. Because in the night Ar of Mo’aḇ was laid waste, was silenced! Because in the night Qir of Mo’aḇ was laid waste, was silenced!
My own heart is toward Mo’aḇ; her fugitives cry unto Tso‛ar, like a three-year-old heifer. For by the ascent of Luḥith they go up with weeping; for in the way of Ḥoronayim they raise a cry of destruction.
But now יהוה has spoken, saying, “Within three years, as the years of a hired man, the esteem of Mo’aḇ is to be despised with all its great throng, and the remnant be few, small and weak.”
“Have you not observed what these people have spoken, saying, ‘The two clans which יהוה has chosen have been rejected by Him’? So they have despised My people, no more to be a nation before them.
“Do not fear, O Ya‛aqoḇ My servant,” declares יהוה, “for I am with you. Though I make a complete end of all the nations to which I have driven you, yet I do not make a complete end of you. But I shall reprove you in right-ruling, and by no means leave you unpunished.”
“Those who fled stood powerless under the shadow of Ḥeshbon. But a fire shall come out of Ḥeshbon, and a flame from the midst of Siḥon, and consume the brow of Mo’aḇ and the crown of the head of the sons of uproar.
“Howl, O Ḥeshbon, for Ai is ravaged! Cry, daughters of Rabbah, gird on sackcloth! Lament and diligently search by the walls, for Malkam shall go into exile, with his priests and his heads.
And I shall break Ěylam before their enemies and before those who seek their life. And I shall bring evil upon them, my burning displeasure,’ declares יהוה. ‘And I shall send the sword after them until I have consumed them.