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49 Concerning and against the Ammonites: Thus says the Lord: Has Israel no sons [to return after their captivity and claim the territory of Gad east of the Jordan which the Ammonites have taken over]? Has [Israel’s Gad] no heir? Why then has Milcom [the god the Ammonites call their king] dispossessed and inherited Gad, and [why do] his people dwell in Gad’s cities?

Therefore behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will cause an alarm of war to be heard against Rabbah of the Ammonites; and it [the high ground on which it stands] will become a desolate heap, and its daughter [villages] will be burned with fire. Then will Israel dispossess those who dispossessed him, says the Lord.(A)

Wail, O Heshbon [in Moab, just south of Ammon], for Ai [in Ammon] is laid waste! Cry out, you daughter [villages] of Rabbah! Gird yourselves with sackcloth, lament, and run to and fro inside the [sheepfold] enclosures; for Milcom [the god-king] shall go into exile, together with his priests and his princes.

Why do you boast of your valleys? Your valley flows away, O [Ammon] rebellious and faithless daughter, who trusted in her treasures, who said, Who can come against me?

Behold, I will bring terror upon you, says the Lord, the Lord of hosts, from all who are round about you; and you will be driven out, each man fleeing straight before him [without thought of his neighbor], and there will be no one to gather together the fugitives.

And [a]afterward I will reverse the captivity of the children of Ammon and restore their fortunes, says the Lord.

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 49:6 As complete and continuous as the desolation of Moab and Ammon was for so many long centuries, yet God is keeping His word for their restoration “in the latter days” (Jer. 48:47) in a remarkable manner. For instance, Amman, the capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (formerly called Transjordania, and in Bible times the ancient Rabbah of Ammon), was a mere village in 1900, but by 1960 it was a city of 200,000 inhabitants. One can only stand in awe and reverent amazement at the precision with which the prophecies of the Word of God are being carried out in the present day and age.

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