Zephaniah 1:7-18
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
7 Silence in the presence of the Lord God!
for near is the day of the Lord,
Yes, the Lord has prepared a sacrifice,
he has consecrated his guests.[a](A)
8 On the day of the Lord’s sacrifice
I will punish the officials and the king’s sons,
and all who dress in foreign apparel.
9 I will punish, on that day,
all who leap over the threshold,[b]
Who fill the house of their master
with violence and deceit.
10 On that day—oracle of the Lord—
A cry will be heard from the Fish Gate,
a wail from the Second Quarter,[c]
loud crashing from the hills.
11 Wail, O inhabitants of Maktesh!
for all the merchants are destroyed,
all who weigh out silver, done away with.
12 At that time,
I will search Jerusalem with lamps,
I will punish the people
who settle like dregs in wine,[d]
Who say in their hearts,
“The Lord will not do good,
nor will he do harm.”
13 Their wealth shall be given to plunder
and their houses to devastation;
They will build houses,
but not dwell in them;
They will plant vineyards,
but not drink their wine.(B)
14 Near is the great day of the Lord,
near and very swiftly coming.
The sound of the day of the Lord! Piercing—
there a warrior shrieks!
15 A day of wrath is that day,
a day of distress and anguish,
a day of ruin and desolation,
A day of darkness and gloom,
a day of thick black clouds,(C)
16 A day of trumpet blasts and battle cries
against fortified cities,
against lofty battlements.(D)
17 I will hem the people in
till they walk like the blind,
because they have sinned against the Lord;
And their blood shall be poured out like dust,
and their bowels like dung.
18 Neither their silver nor their gold
will be able to save them.
On the day of the Lord’s wrath,
in the fire of his passion,
all the earth will be consumed.
For he will make an end, yes, a sudden end,
of all who live on the earth.(E)
Footnotes
- 1:7 He has consecrated his guests: God has consecrated the troops, presumably foreign, who have been invited to share in the spoil on the day of slaughter.
- 1:9 Leap over the threshold: the reference may be to a religious ritual like that practiced by the priests of the Philistine deity Dagon (1 Sm 5:5).
- 1:10–11 The Second Quarter…Maktesh: sections of Jerusalem (cf. 2 Kgs 22:14).
- 1:12 Settle like dregs in wine: those who are overconfident because, like the sediment that settles to the bottom of a bottle of wine, they have remained at peace and undisturbed for a long time.
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