Arrange the table, lay out ¹  the carpet, eat and drink! ²  Get up, you officers, smear oil on the shields! ³ 

“Indeed, there are wicked scoundrels among my people. They lie in wait like bird catchers hiding in ambush. ¹  They set deadly traps ²  to catch people.

Why do you complain about your injuries, that your pain is incurable? I have done all this to you because your wickedness is so great and your sin is so much.

“Or suppose I were to send a plague into that land, and pour out my rage on it with bloodshed, killing both people and animals.

There will be great earthquakes, and famines ¹  and plagues in various places, and there will be terrifying sights ²  and great signs ³  from heaven.

“Their throats are open graves, ¹  they deceive with their tongues, the poison of asps is under their lips.” ² 

For sadness as intended by God produces a repentance that leads to salvation, leaving no regret, but worldly sadness brings about death.

I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. ¹  Although ²  you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands. ³ 

or with any stone large enough that a man could die, without seeing him, and throws it at him, and he dies, even though he was not his enemy nor sought his harm,

The Lord attacked ¹  the residents of Ashdod severely, bringing devastation on them. He struck the people of ²  both Ashdod and the surrounding area with sores. ³ 

The day you begin cultivating, you do what you can to make it grow; ¹  the morning you begin planting, you do what you can to make it sprout. Yet the harvest will disappear ²  in the day of disease and incurable pain.

Its soldiers are armed with bows and spears. They are cruel and show no mercy. They sound like the roaring sea as they ride forth on their horses. Lined up in formation like men going into battle, they are coming against you, fair Babylon! ¹ 

“For this is what the sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send my four terrible judgments – sword, famine, wild animals, and plague – to Jerusalem ¹  to kill both people and animals!

I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and I will place my sword in his hand, but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he will groan like the fatally wounded before the king of Babylon. ¹ 

I will make up for the years ¹  that the ‘arbeh-locust ²  consumed your crops ³  – the yeleq-locust, the hasil-locust, and the gazam-locust – my great army ⁴  that I sent against you.

Furthermore, I will strike her followers ¹  with a deadly disease, ²  and then all the churches will know that I am the one who searches minds and hearts. I will repay ³  each one of you ⁴  what your deeds deserve. ⁵ 

In those days Hezekiah was stricken with a terminal illness. ¹  The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz visited him and told him, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Give your household instructions, for you are about to die; you will not get well.’” ² 

Surely, no one ¹  knows his appointed time! ²  Like fish that are caught in a deadly ³  net, and like birds that are caught in a snare – just like them, all people ⁴  are ensnared ⁵  at an unfortunate ⁶  time that falls upon them suddenly.

This is a message ¹  about the animals in the Negev: Through a land of distress and danger, inhabited by lionesses and roaring lions, ²  by snakes and darting adders, ³  they transport ⁴  their wealth on the backs of donkeys, their riches on the humps of camels, to a nation that cannot help them. ⁵ 

But you, Lord, know all their plots to kill me. Do not pardon their crimes! Do not ignore their sins as though you had erased them! ¹  Let them be brought down in defeat before you! Deal with them while you are still angry! ²