Jeremiah 48:1-47
48 * For Moab:Says Israel’s God Jehovah of Armies, Ha for Nebo, because she is ravaged! Kirjathaim is taken, the fastness is brought to shame and dismay.
2 Moab’s praise no longer exists; in Heshbon there has been mischief planned against her, “come, let us cut short her nationhood.” You too, Madmen, shall be made mute; swords shall go after you.
3 The sound of an outcry from Horonaim, a great rapine and ruin!
4 * Moab is ruined, they have made their outcry heard to Shogar.
5 For up Luhith slope goes a weeper in tears; for down Horonaim slope they hear a cry of ruin.
6 * Be off, save your lives, to become like a wild ass in the wilderness.
7 For since you put confidence in your works and your hoards, you too shall be taken, and Kemosh shall go out to deportation, his priests and his generals together;
8 and a ravager shall come to every city, and not a city shall escape; and the vale shall perish and the tableland be devastated, as Jehovah said.
9 * Give Moab wings, because she has to fly! and her cities shall become a desolation with nobody living in them.
10 Cursed be he who does Jehovah’s work sluggishly, and cursed be he who holds his sword back from bloodshedding!
11 Moab has been at ease ever since its youth; it is lying quiet on its lees and has never been emptied from one container into another, and has never gone away in deportation; therefore its taste has stood still in it and it has had no change of odor.
12 * So here are days coming, quoth Jehovah, when I will send it tilters who will tilt it and empty its containers and smash their jars;
13 and Moab shall be disappointed in Kemosh as the house of Israel were disappointed in their reliance Bethel.
14 How should you say “we are champions and stalwart men for war”?
15 * the ravager of Moab has climbed up to its cities, and the choicest of its young men have gone down in slaughter, quoth the King, whose name is Jehovah of Armies.
16 Moab’s ruin is close at hand and its disaster is hastening fast;
17 lament for it, all you neighbors around it and all you that know its name, say “How it is broken, the staff of strength, the mace of magnificence!”
18 * Come down out of glory and sit in a thirsty place, dame of Dibon, for the ravager of Moab has climbed up on you, has broken up your fortifications.
19 Stand by a roadside and watch, dame of ʽAroʽer, ask a fugitive man or a refugee woman; say “What has happened?”
20 * Moab is put to shame because it has gone to pieces; howl and cry out! report at the Arnon that Moab is ravaged.
21 And judgment has come to the tableland, to Holon and Jahsah and Mephaʽath
22 and Dibon and Nebo and Beth-Diblathaim
23 and Kirjathaim and Beth-Gamul and Beth-meʽon
24 and Kerijoth and Bosrah and all the cities of the Moabite country, far and near.
25 Moab’s horn is chopped off and his arm is broken, quoth Jehovah.
26 Get him drunk, because he blustered against Jehovah, and let Moab splash down into his vomit and be a butt for laughter himself;
27 or was Israel not a butt of yours? or was he found among thieves, that as often as you speak of him you give a shake?
28 Leave cities and perch on the crag, inhabitants of Moab, and be like the dove that nests in the far side of the mouth of a sinkhole.
29 We have heard of Moab’s pride, very proud, his high mightiness and pride and conceit and lofty notions;
30 * I know his aggressiveness, quoth Jehovah; and his fine words are not reliable, unreliably they act.
31 * Therefore I will howl over Moab and for all Moab I will cry out; sigh over the men of Kir-Heres!
32 Beyond Jaʽzer’s weeping I will weep for you, vine of Sibmah; your runners went over sea, reached to the sea of Jaʽzer; on your summer fruit and your vintage the picker’s whoop has fallen.
33 * And gladness and glee are to be gathered off out of Carmel and out of Moab, and I have abolished wine out of presses; the treader does not tread, the whoop is no whoop.
34 From the outcry of Heshbon they have sent their voice through to Elealeh, to Jahas, from Soghar to Horonaim, Third ʽEglath; for even Leopard Water will be a desolation.
35 I have abolished for Moab, quoth Jehovah, offerer on height and burner of incense to his god.
36 Therefore my heart rings like a flute for Moab, and my heart rings like a flute for the men of Kir-Heres; therefore the rest of his making have perished.
37 For every head is bald and every beard cut off, there are gashes on all arms and sackcloth on waist;
38 on all the roofs of Moab and in all its squares everything is wailing, because I have broken Moab like an unsatisfactory dish, quoth Jehovah;
39 how it smashed! howl! How Moab has turned his back! for shame! and Moab has become an object of laughter and dismay to all around him.
40 For Jehovah says,
41 The towns are taken and the fastnesses are stormed,
42 and Moab is stamped out from being a people, because it blustered against Jehovah.
43 Dread and chasm and trap are at you, inhabitant of Moab, quoth Jehovah;
44 he who takes flight from the dread will come to fall into the chasm, and he who gets up out of the chasm will be caught in the trap; for I will bring these things to Moab in the year of their punishment, quoth Jehovah.
45 Fugitives halted in the shadow of Heshbon for want of breath, because a fire has gone out from Heshbon, a flame from Sihon’s town, and will devour Moab’s brow and the crown of the sons of tumult.
46 * Woe to you, Moab! you are lost, people of Kemosh! because your sons are taken into foreign slavery, and your daughters likewise.
47 But I will bring Moab back from slavery in the future days, quoth Jehovah. Thus far the judgment on Moab.
Footnotes
^ 48:1 (last words) Susp.
^ 48:4 Var. is ruined, her little ones have made an outcry heard. For up
^ 48:6 Var. like ʽAroʽer in the wilderness Var. like a savin-bush in the wilderness
^ 48:9 (wings) Unc.; susp.
^ 48:12 Var. its jars
^ 48:15 Codd. the ravager of Moab and its cities has climbed up, and
^ 48:18 Conj. and sit in filth
^ 48:20 (has gone to pieces) Unc.
^ 48:30 Codd.* quoth Jehovah, and unreliability. His diviners have acted unreliably. Therefore
^ 48:31 Var. he shall sigh
^ 48:33 (last words) Unc.; susp.; codd. tread with whoop, a whoop that is no whoop
^ 48:46 Lit. and your daughters into foreign slavery with a change in the form of the word
