Zephaniah 2

¹Gather together, gather,

O shameless nation,

²before you are driven away

like the drifting chaff,

before there comes upon you

the fierce anger of the Lord,

before there comes upon you

the day of the Lord’s wrath.

³Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,

who do his commands;

seek righteousness, seek humility;

perhaps you may be hidden

on the day of the Lord’s wrath.

⁴For Gaza shall be deserted,

and Ashkelon shall become a desolation;

Ashdod’s people shall be driven out at noon,

and Ekron shall be uprooted.

⁵Ah, inhabitants of the seacoast,

you nation of the Cherethites!

The word of the Lord is against you,

O Canaan, land of the Philistines;

and I will destroy you until no inhabitant is left.

⁶And you, O seacoast, shall be pastures,

meadows for shepherds

and folds for flocks.

⁷The seacoast shall become the possession

of the remnant of the house of Judah,

on which they shall pasture,

and in the houses of Ashkelon

they shall lie down at evening.

For the Lord their God will be mindful of them

and restore their fortunes.

⁸I have heard the taunts of Moab

and the revilings of the Ammonites,

how they have taunted my people

and made boasts against their territory.

⁹Therefore, as I live, says the Lord of hosts,

the God of Israel,

Moab shall become like Sodom

and the Ammonites like Gomorrah,

a land possessed by nettles and salt pits,

and a waste forever.

The remnant of my people shall plunder them,

and the survivors of my nation shall possess them.

¹⁰This shall be their lot in return for their pride,

because they scoffed and boasted

against the people of the Lord of hosts.

¹¹The Lord will be terrible against them;

he will shrivel all the gods of the earth,

and to him shall bow down,

each in its place,

all the coasts and islands of the nations.

¹²You also, O Ethiopians,

shall be killed by my sword.

¹³And he will stretch out his hand against the north,

and destroy Assyria;

and he will make Nineveh a desolation,

a dry waste like the desert.

¹⁴Herds shall lie down in it,

every wild animal;

the desert owl and the screech owl

shall lodge on its capitals;

the owl shall hoot at the window,

the raven croak on the threshold;

for its cedar work will be laid bare.

¹⁵Is this the exultant city

that lived secure,

that said to itself,

“I am, and there is no one else”?

What a desolation it has become,

a lair for wild animals!

Everyone who passes by it

hisses and shakes the fist.