Zephaniah 3

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

³ Her officials within her
    are roaring lions;
her judges are evening wolves
    that leave nothing till the morning.
⁴ Her prophets are wanton,
    faithless men;
her priests profane what is sacred,
    they do violence to the law.
⁵ The Lord within her is righteous,
    he does no wrong;
every morning he shows forth his justice,
    each dawn he does not fail;
    but the unjust knows no shame.

⁶ “I have cut off nations;
    their battlements are in ruins;
I have laid waste their streets
    so that none walks in them;
their cities have been made desolate,
    without a man, without an inhabitant.
⁷ I said, ‘Surely she will fear me,
    she will accept correction;
she will not lose sight^[a]
    of all that I have enjoined upon her.’
But all the more they were eager
    to make all their deeds corrupt.”

⁹ “Yea, at that time I will change the speech of the peoples
    to a pure speech,
that all of them may call on the name of the Lord
    and serve him with one accord.
¹⁰ From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia
    my suppliants, the daughter of my dispersed ones,
    shall bring my offering.

¹¹ “On that day you shall not be put to shame
    because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me;
for then I will remove from your midst
    your proudly exultant ones,
and you shall no longer be haughty
    in my holy mountain.
¹² For I will leave in the midst of you
    a people humble and lowly.
They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord,
¹³     those who are left in Israel;
they shall do no wrong
    and utter no lies,
nor shall there be found in their mouth
    a deceitful tongue.
For they shall pasture and lie down,
    and none shall make them afraid.”