Zephaniah 2:1-15
2 * Get in your straw, get in your straw, nation unabashed,
2 ** before you become like chaff blowing along, before the day of Jehovah’s anger comes upon you.
3 Go looking for Jehovah, all you humble of the earth, you who have put his law in practice; look out for honesty, for humility—you may be screened on the day of Jehovah’s anger.
4 * For Ghaza shall be abandoned, and Ashkelon become a desolation; Ashdod they shall oust at noon, and ‘Ekron shall be uprooted.
5 Ha, inhabitants of the seacoast strip, nation of the Cretans! Jehovah’s word is against you, Canaan, country of the Philistines, and I will destroy you to the last inhabitant;
6 and the Cretan country shall be shepherds’ pastures and folds for sheep.
7 *** And the seacoast strip shall belong to the remnant of the house of Judah, they shall pasture on them, they shall have the flocks lie down at evening in the houses of Ashkelon, because their God Jehovah will take up their case and come back to them.
8 I have heard Moab’s taunts and the insults of the Bene-ʽAmmon, with which they have taunted my people and blustered against their territory.
9 * So by my life, quoth Israel’s God Jehovah of Armies, Moab shall become like Sodom and the Bene-ʽAmmon like Ghomorrah, a place for brakes of weeds and for digging salt and a desolation forever; the remnant of my people shall plunder them, what is left of my nation shall fall heir to them;
10 this is what they get for their pride, for having taunted and blustered against the people of Jehovah of Armies.
11 * Jehovah is terrible over them, because he has dwindled all the gods of the earth, and all the coasts of the nations shall do reverence to him each man at his own place.
12 * You too, Nubians, are run through by Jehovah’s sword.
13 * And he will stretch out his hand over the north and destroy Assyria and render Nineveh a dried-out desolation like the wilderness.
14 **** And flocks shall lie down in the middle of her, every beast of pasture; both barn-owl and porcupine shall lodge in the capitals of her columns; there is a great owl’s voice in the window, a raven’s on the threshold.
15 This is the hilarious city that was seated in security, that said to herself “There’s me and that’s all!” how she has become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down! everyone who passes her shall whistle and wave his hand.
Footnotes
^ 2:1 Unc.
^ 2:2 Var. before a rule gives birth (or is born) like chaff
^ 2:2 Var. before Jehovah’s anger comes upon you, before the day of Jehovah’s anger comes upon you
^ 2:4 In the Hebrew some of the verbs here make puns with the names of the cities
^ 2:7 Conj. shall be (something to which them can refer) for the remnant
^ 2:7 Codd.* they (that is, the flocks) shall lie down
^ 2:7 Or and restore them
^ 2:9 (brakes of weeds) Unc.
^ 2:11 Lit. from his own place
^ 2:12 Codd. his sword
^ 2:13 Conj. I will stretch out my hand
^ 2:14 Codd. every beast of a nation
^ 2:14 Or both pelican and
^ 2:14 Codd. a voice shall sing in the window, a raven (var. desolation shall be) on
^ 2:14 (end) Codd. add because cedar work (unc.) is laid bare
