⁸ I have heard the taunting^(L) of Moab
and the insults of the Ammonites,^(M)
who have taunted my people
and threatened their territory.
⁹ Therefore, as I live –
this is the declaration of the Lord of Armies,
the God of Israel –
Moab will be like Sodom^(N)
and the Ammonites like Gomorrah:^(O)
a place overgrown with weeds,
a salt pit, and a perpetual wasteland.
The remnant of my people will plunder them;
the remainder of my nation will dispossess them.
¹⁰ This is what they get for their pride,
because they have taunted and acted arrogantly^(P)
against the people of the Lord of Armies.
¹¹ The Lord will be terrifying to them
when he starves all the gods of the earth.
Then all the distant coasts and islands of the nations
will bow in worship to him,
each in its own place.

¹² You Cushites will also be slain by my sword.^(Q)

¹³ He will also stretch out his hand against the north
and destroy Assyria;
he will make Nineveh a desolate ruin,^(R)
dry as the desert.
¹⁴ Herds will lie down in the middle of it,
every kind of wild animal.^[c]
Both eagle owls^[d] and herons^[e]
will roost in the capitals of its pillars.
Their calls will sound^[f] from the window,
but devastation^[g] will be on the threshold,
for he will expose the cedar work.^[h]
15 This is the jubilant^(S) city
that lives in security,
that says to herself:
I exist, and there is no one else.
What a desolation she has become,
a place for wild animals to lie down!
Everyone who passes by her
scoffs^[i] and shakes his fist.