^{16     (A)}a day of trumpet blast and battle cry
^(B)against the fortified cities
    and against the lofty battlements.

^6 (A)Is a trumpet blown in a city,
    and the people are not afraid?
^(B)Does disaster come to a city,
    unless the Lord has done it?

8 Set ^(A)the trumpet to your lips!
    One ^(B)like a vulture is over the house of the Lord,
because ^(C)they have transgressed my covenant
    and rebelled against my law.

^19 (A)My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain!
    Oh the walls of my heart!
My heart is beating wildly;
    I cannot keep silent,
for I hear the sound of the trumpet,
    the alarm of war.
^20 (B)Crash follows hard on crash;
    the whole land is laid waste.
^(C)Suddenly my tents are laid waste,
    my curtains in a moment.

¹⁴ For the palace is forsaken,
    the populous city deserted;
the hill and the watchtower
    will become dens forever,
^(A)a joy of wild donkeys,
    a pasture of flocks;

⁶ He stood ^(A)and measured the earth;
    he looked and shook the nations;
then the ^(B)eternal mountains ^(C)were scattered;
    the everlasting hills sank low.
    His were ^(D)the everlasting ways.

⁶ For behold, ^(A)I am raising up the Chaldeans,
    that bitter and hasty nation,
^(B)who march through the breadth of the earth,
    ^(C)to seize dwellings not their own.
⁷ They are dreaded and fearsome;
    ^(D)their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.
^8 (E)Their horses are swifter than leopards,
    more fierce than ^(F)the evening wolves;
    their horsemen press proudly on.
Their horsemen come from afar;
    ^(G)they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
⁹ They all come ^(H)for violence,
    all their faces forward.
    They gather captives ^(I)like sand.
¹⁰ At kings they scoff,
    and at rulers they laugh.
^(J)They laugh at every fortress,
    for ^(K)they pile up earth and take it.