Its collapse is like smashing a clay jar, so ruthlessly shattered that a shard will not be found among the pieces to take fire from the hearth or scoop water from the cistern.”
Wail, you shepherds, and cry! Wallow in the dust, you leaders of the flock! For the days of your slaughter and your dispersions are full. You will fall like a precious vase.
On all the housetops of Moab and in its squares— lamentation everywhere! For I have broken Moab like a jar In which no one delights” —it is a declaration of Adonai—
Israel is a scattered flock— lions have driven them away. First, Assyria’s king devoured him. This last one who broke his bones was King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
“Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me, crushed me, set me aside like an empty dish, swallowed me up like a dragon, filled his belly with my delicacies, rinsed me away.”
All your enemies opened their mouth wide against you; they hissed and gnashed their teeth, and say, “We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day we have waited for; we have lived to see it!”
My Lord has mercilessly swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. He threw down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah in His fury. He knocked to the ground and humiliated the kingdom and its princes.
My Lord is like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel. He swallowed up all her citadels, destroyed her fortifications and multiplied mourning and moaning for the daughter of Judah.
Therefore prophesy and say, thus says Adonai Elohim: ‘Because they ravaged and crushed you from every side, so that you became the possession of the rest of the nations and you became the talk and evil gossip of people,’
I will scatter you among the nations and I will draw out the sword after you. So your land will become a desolation and your cities will become a waste.
“Adonai will bring you to defeat before your enemies. You will go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. You will become a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
“Adonai will scatter you among all peoples from the one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods—wood and stone—that you and your fathers have not known.