O my God, make them like dead thistles, ¹  like dead weeds blown away by ²  the wind!

he lived in ruined towns ¹  and in houses where ²  no one lives, where they are ready to crumble into heaps. ³ 

In a moment they die, in the middle of the night, ¹  people ²  are shaken ³  and they pass away. The mighty are removed effortlessly. ⁴ 

For this reason we do not fear ¹  when the earth shakes, ²  and the mountains tumble into the depths of the sea, ³ 

The Lord told me, ¹  “Tell the king and the queen mother, ‘Surrender your thrones, ²  for your glorious crowns will be removed ³  from your heads. ⁴ 

The fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the wild beasts, all the things that creep on the ground, and all people who live on the face of the earth will shake ¹  at my presence. The mountains will topple, the cliffs ²  will fall, and every wall will fall to the ground.

Though these people make an uproar as loud as the roaring of powerful waves, ¹  when he shouts at ²  them, they will flee to a distant land, driven before the wind like dead weeds on the hills, or like dead thistles ³  before a strong gale.

“Look, the grief I experienced was for my benefit. ¹  You delivered me ²  from the pit of oblivion. ³  For you removed all my sins from your sight. ⁴ 

With his horses’ hoofs he will trample all your streets. He will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will tumble down to the ground.

“I will turn Samaria ¹  into a heap of ruins in an open field – vineyards will be planted there! ²  I will tumble ³  the rubble of her stone walls ⁴  down into the valley, and tear down her fortifications to their foundations. ⁵ 

They did not ask: ‘Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt, who brought us through the wilderness, through a land of desert sands and rift valleys, through a land of drought and deep darkness, ¹  through a land in which no one travels, and where no one lives?’ ²