Twist and strain, ¹  Daughter Zion, as if you were in labor! For you will leave the city and live in the open field. You will go to Babylon, but there you will be rescued. There the Lord will deliver ²  you from the power ³  of your enemies.

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing back. ¹  Then ²  your reward will be great, and you will be sons ³  of the Most High, ⁴  because he is kind to ungrateful and evil people. ⁵ 

All who encountered them devoured them. Their enemies who did this said, ‘We are not liable for punishment! For those people have sinned against the Lord, their true pasture. ¹  They have sinned against the Lord in whom their ancestors ²  trusted.’ ³ 

‘Surely our enemies ¹  are destroyed, and fire consumes their wealth.’

You know how I am insulted, humiliated and disgraced; you can see all my enemies. ¹ 

The enemies who chase me are numerous. ¹  Yet I do not turn aside from your rules.

For a short time your special ¹  nation possessed a land, ²  but then our adversaries knocked down ³  your holy sanctuary.

but only a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fury ¹  of fire that will consume God’s enemies. ² 

“‘As for ¹  the ones who remain among you, I will bring despair into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a blowing leaf will pursue them, and they will flee as one who flees the sword and fall down even though there is no pursuer.

When you go to war against your enemies and see chariotry ¹  and troops ²  who outnumber you, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you.

However, the women, little children, cattle, and anything else in the city – all its plunder – you may take for yourselves as spoil. You may take from your enemies the plunder that the Lord your God has given you.

I will sharpen my lightning-like sword, and my hand will grasp hold of the weapon of judgment; ¹  I will execute vengeance on my foes, and repay those who hate me! ² 

God will severely punish David, ¹  if I leave alive until morning even one male ²  from all those who belong to him!”

But Amaziah did not heed the warning, ¹  for God wanted to hand them over to Joash because they followed the gods of Edom. ² 

A psalm of David, written when he fled from his son Absalom. ²  Lord, how ³  numerous are my enemies! Many attack me. ⁴ 

From the mouths of children and nursing babies you have ordained praise on account of your adversaries, ¹  so that you might put an end to the vindictive enemy. ² 

The enemy’s cities have been reduced to permanent ruins; ¹  you destroyed their cities; ²  all memory of the enemies has perished. ³ 

My enemies’ taunts cut into me to the bone, ¹  as they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” ² 

But the horde of invaders will be like fine dust, the horde of tyrants ¹  like chaff that is blown away. It will happen suddenly, in a flash.

The mother who had seven children ¹  will grow faint. All the breath will go out of her. ²  Her pride and joy will be taken from her in the prime of their life. It will seem as if the sun had set while it was still day. ³  She will suffer shame and humiliation. ⁴  I will cause any of them who are still left alive to be killed in war by the onslaughts of their enemies,” ⁵  says the Lord.