The Daily Audio Bible

15 A message about Moab:
In the cover of night, Moab was attacked and decimated.
    Both Ar and Kir were decimated in a single night.
² The whole community traipses up to the temple, to Dibon
    to weep and cry out to the gods.
Moab weeps and wails over the dead in Nebo and Medeba,
    every head and beard shaved in mourning.
³ They wander the streets dressed in sackcloth;
    on roofs and public places people wail, collapsing in abundance of tears.
⁴ The cries of Heshbon in the north and Elealeh nearby
    reach to Jahaz in the east.
Moab is shaken to the core, wracked with terror, sadness, and grief;
    even its bravest soldiers cry out.
⁵ It breaks my heart to hear Moab.
    Refugees make for Zoar at Edom’s border to Eglath-shelishiyah.
They climb, weeping, to the heights of Luhith and along roads to Horonaim.
They go with shattering cries.
    The land itself is destroyed, dead.
⁶ Where it had been green and rippling with tall grasses, now it’s brown and dusty.
    Where sweet water glistened all along Nimrim, now it’s dry and desolate.
⁷ So the people are carting away all their belongings.
    Whatever they’ve gathered, they carry along the brook lined with poplars.
⁸ And Moab cries; the whole country wails.
    From Eglaim to Beer-elim, you can hear the crying.
⁹ The waters of Dimon run red with blood.

16 A Refugee (to the Moabites): Bring tender lambs to the ruler of the land.
    From Sela through the desert
        to the beautiful mountain called Zion, maybe they’ll let us in.
²     And indeed like birds whose homes were demolished,
        like baby birds torn from their nests,
    Moab’s daughters, scattered and fluttering, arrive at the fords,
        ready to cross the Arnon River.

³     (to Jerusalem) Give us your best advice and do what is right.
        When the day is at its fiercest, hide us in your cool shade.
    Shield the trammeled and abused.
        Keep your mouth shut when our enemy comes looking, seeking us out.
⁴     Let these refugees of Moab come in and stay.
    Protect these tempest-tossed; be their hiding place,
        a shelter safe from the destroyer.

See, when the one who has squeezed and oppressed you is gone
    and the forces of crushing violence wane in the land,
⁵ Then God will establish a royal throne, in loyal love—
    the One who rules there will be utterly reliable,
With absolute integrity under the auspices of David.
    With a passion for justice, He will be quick to decide and do what is right.

⁶ Oh yes, we’ve heard of Moab, how much they think of themselves—
    so important, so valuable, so hot-tempered;
But we know it’s just idle boasts.
⁷ Let them bemoan their destruction and fall—every last one of them.
    Go ahead, mourn, all you who were struck down;
Cry for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth.

⁸ The productive fields of Heshbon are withering in the heat;
    the choice vines of Sibmah are decimated.
The rulers of the nations are wreaking havoc across the land,
    crushing its grape clusters and leveling its old stout vines.
Moab’s tender shoots spread from Jazer to the desert,
    then right down to the sea^[a] and even across it.

⁹ This is why I cry salty tears over Jazer,
    over the vines of Sibmah and over the fields of Heshbon.
And God’s-Ascent, Elealeh, I weep for you—over your branches,
    once so green and strong, now broken and brown with death.
No one rejoices anymore over your fruits and harvest.

¹⁰ What joy these fields and orchards brought, what pleasure and delight,
    with their beauty, with their bounty.
But no more cheerful shouts accompany the harvest of the vineyards.
    No one is left to press the grapes into wine.
I have silenced all your joyous shouting.
¹¹ My heart hums like a harp with grief for you, Moab.
    I ache with soul-sadness for Kir-hareseth.

Eternal One: So much for the “city of Damascus.”
        It’s done for. Soon it will be just a pile of rubble.
²     The towns around it^[b] will empty of people and be turned back to open land.
        Imagine—sheep grazing and lying down where people used to live.
    There won’t be a soul to scare them off.
³     The defenses of the Northern Kingdom, Israel, will fall—
        Ephraim’s fortress walls will tumble down;
    Damascus will no longer rule itself.
        Aram—what is left of them—will resemble Israel’s fading glory.

⁴ Eternal One: Israel will be humbled then too;
        our cousins, the children of Jacob, will lose their luster, their wealth and excess.
⁵     The land will resemble a field stripped until it is nearly bare,
        like when the harvest has come and gone,
        like the meager grain gleaned in the valley of Rephaim.

⁶     But some gleanings will remain
        like when olive trees are beaten,
    Where two or three olives remain at the top of a tree
        and four or five hold on tight to its fruitful branches.

⁷ Then, in that day, people will turn to the One who shaped them.
    They’ll look on the Creator, the Holy One of Israel,
⁸ And disregard the things they’d made into gods.
    They’ll turn away from worthless, handmade objects, sacred poles, and incense altars.

⁹ And then, in that day, their great cities will be abandoned
    like defenseless outposts in a hilly forest,
Like those deserted when the Israelites took the land;
    the scene will be eerily quiet and empty.

¹⁰ You have proven forgetful of God—how God pulls you clear of danger,
    how God stands firm, like a great Rock where you can take shelter.
Because you have forgotten the one True God,
    you planted pleasant gardens and set out tender vines of a strange god.
¹¹ They sprouted so quickly the day you set them out;
    they budded immediately the morning you planted them;
But you will never gather any sweet grapes from them.
    What you reap will be illness and pain; that day will be filled with sadness.

¹² Listen to the restless roar of the peoples!
    They roar like a fitful sea.
Listen to the crashing thunder of the nations;
    they thunder like a powerful surge of water.
¹³ But even if they thunder like a wall of water,
    when God rebukes them, they will run far away;
With a word they’ll be driven like chaff in a mountain gust
    or dust in a windstorm.
¹⁴ In the evening, look, their enemies terrorize them;
    but by morning, they’re gone.
So it will be for those who attack and steal from us;
    those who take, take, take will come to nothing and run away.

18 O land abuzz with the whirring of wings,
    far away past the Ethiopian rivers,
² With papyrus-reed boats shuttling ambassadors back and forth!
    Go quickly, you messengers, to those impressive people,
Those fearsome and terrifying people so lank and smooth.
    Theirs is a powerful nation divided by rivers.

³ All citizens of the world, every last inhabitant of the earth, pay attention!
    When you see a signal raised on the mountains, look!
When the trumpets sound the alarm, listen!
⁴ Because the Eternal told me,

Eternal One: I am in control—calm and serene.
        I am watching quietly from where I dwell
    Just as surely as the heat shimmers in the blazing sun
        and the dewy mists cool the warmth of a harvest day.

⁵ For even before the harvest begins, when the buds blossom
    and the flowers make way for the ripening grapes,
God will cut back their shoots with pruning shears,
    lop off and clear away the spreading branches.
⁶ He will leave the trimmings for the birds of prey
    and the wild animals on the mountain.
The vultures will feed on their flesh during the summer,
    and the wild animals will be nourished on their bones through the winter.

⁷ Then those terrifying peoples—the lank and smooth from far away,
    from the land divided by rivers, powerful and domineering—
Will honor the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, with gifts.
    These proud people will bring them to Mount Zion,
Where the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, has placed His special name.

³ Evildoers are naturally offensive, wayward at birth!
    They were born telling lies and willfully wandering from the truth.
⁴ Their bite is painful; their venom is like the deadly poison of a snake;
    they are like a cobra that closes up its ears
⁵ To escape the voice of the charmers,
    no matter how enchanting the spells may be.

⁶ O God, shatter their teeth in their mouths!
    Render the young lions harmless; break out their fangs, O Eternal One.
⁷ Let them run off like the waters of a flood,
    and though they aim their arrows, let them fly without their heads.
⁸ Let them melt like a snail that oozes along;
    may they be like a stillborn that never catches its first breath, never sees the sun.
⁹ Before your cook pots know the furious flame of a fire of thorns—
    whether green or burning—He will blow the wicked away.

¹⁰ Cheers will rise as the right-living watch Him settle the score,
    their feet washed in the blood after the onslaught of the wicked.
¹¹ And it will be heard, “Those who seek justice will be rewarded.
    Indeed, there is a God who brings justice to the earth!”