Through your messengers you taunted the sovereign master, ¹  ‘With my many chariots ²  I climbed up the high mountains, the slopes of Lebanon. I cut down its tall cedars, and its best evergreens. I invaded its most remote regions, ³  its thickest woods.

“Is not God on high in heaven? ¹  And see ²  the lofty stars, ³  how high they are!

Ask me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, ¹  the ends of the earth as your personal property.

The Lord reigns! Let the earth be happy! Let the many coastlands rejoice!

the people of Dedan, Tema, Buz, ¹  all the desert people who cut their hair short at the temples; ² 

Then I will reply, ¹  ‘I will bring them back from the land of the north. I will gather them in from the distant parts of the earth. Blind and lame people will come with them, so will pregnant women and women about to give birth. A vast throng of people will come back here.

The Lord will raise up a distant nation against you, one from the other side of the earth ¹  as the eagle flies, ²  a nation whose language you will not understand,

The southern side started on the edge of Kiriath Jearim and extended westward to the spring of the waters of Nephtoah.

Now Saul was sitting under a pomegranate tree in Migron, on the outskirts of Gibeah. The army that was with him numbered about six hundred men.

At that time ¹  the Lord will whistle for flies from the distant streams of Egypt and for bees from the land of Assyria. ² 

You said to yourself, ¹  “I will climb up to the sky. Above the stars of El ²  I will set up my throne. I will rule on the mountain of assembly on the remote slopes of Zaphon. ³ 

One runner after another will come to the king of Babylon. One messenger after another will come bringing news. ¹  They will bring news to the king of Babylon that his whole city has been captured. ² 

And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet blast, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven ¹  to the other.

For this ¹  is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have appointed ²  you to be a light ³  for the Gentiles, to bring salvation ⁴  to the ends of the earth.’” ⁵ 

Through your messengers you taunted the sovereign master, ¹  ‘With my many chariots I climbed up the high mountains, the slopes of Lebanon. I cut down its tall cedars and its best evergreens. I invaded its most remote regions, ²  its thickest woods.

‘I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not close at hand. ¹  A star ²  will march forth ³  out of Jacob, and a scepter ⁴  will rise out of Israel. He will crush the skulls ⁵  of Moab, and the heads ⁶  of all the sons of Sheth. ⁷ 

The border then descended to the edge of the hill country near the Valley of Ben Hinnom located in the Valley of the Rephaites to the north. It descended through the Valley of Hinnom to the slope of the Jebusites to the south and then down to En Rogel.

From the ends of the earth we ¹  hear songs – the Just One is majestic. ²  But I ³  say, “I’m wasting away! I’m wasting away! I’m doomed! Deceivers deceive, deceivers thoroughly deceive!” ⁴ 

That is, I will punish the Egyptians, the Judeans, the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and all the desert people who cut their hair short at the temples. ¹  I will do so because none of the people of those nations are really circumcised in the Lord’s sight. ²  Moreover, none of the people of Israel ³  are circumcised when it comes to their hearts.” ⁴ 

Their camels will be taken as plunder. Their vast herds will be taken as spoil. I will scatter to the four winds those desert peoples who cut their hair short at the temples. ¹  I will bring disaster against them from every direction,” says the Lord. ²