“I hate their deeds and thoughts! So I am coming ¹  to gather all the nations and ethnic groups; ²  they will come and witness my splendor.

Hear this, you peoples of the earth: ¹  ‘Take note! ²  I am about to bring disaster on these people. It will come as punishment for their scheming. ³  For they have paid no attention to what I have said, ⁴  and they have rejected my law.

So, this is what the Lord says: ‘I will assuredly ¹  make these people stumble to their doom. ²  Parents and children will stumble and fall to their destruction. ³  Friends and neighbors will die.’

I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors ¹  have known anything about. I will send people chasing after them with swords ²  until I have destroyed them.’” ³ 

So I said to the Lord, ¹  “O Lord who rules over all, ²  you are a just judge! You examine people’s hearts and minds. ³  I want to see you pay them back for what they have done because I trust you to vindicate my cause.” ⁴ 

O Lord who rules over all, ¹  you test and prove the righteous. You see into people’s hearts and minds. ²  Pay them back for what they have done because I trust you to vindicate my cause.

Egypt rises like the Nile, like its streams turbulent at flood stage. Egypt says, ‘I will arise and cover the earth. I will destroy cities and the people who inhabit them.’

Destructive forces will come against her horses and her ¹  chariots. Destructive forces will come against all the foreign troops within her; ²  they will be as frightened as women! ³  Destructive forces will come against her treasures; they will be taken away as plunder!

“‘What you plan ¹  will never happen. You say, “We will be ²  like the nations, like the clans of the lands, who serve gods of wood and stone.” ³ 

I will sell your sons and daughters to ¹  the people of Judah. ²  They will sell them to the Sabeans, ³  a nation far away. Indeed, the Lord has spoken!

Rush forth with ¹  the sickle, for the harvest is ripe! Come, stomp the grapes, ²  for the winepress is full! The vats overflow. Indeed, their evil is great! ³ 

Then I will surround my temple ¹  to protect it like a guard ²  from anyone crossing back and forth; so no one will cross over against them anymore as an oppressor, for now I myself have seen it.

But if any of the nations anywhere on earth refuse to go up to Jerusalem ¹  to worship the King, the Lord who rules over all, they will get no rain.

“Woe to you, experts in the law ¹  and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of everything unclean. ² 

You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, ¹  saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants ²  all the nations ³  of the earth will be blessed.’ ⁴ 

Immediately an angel of the Lord ¹  struck ²  Herod ³  down because he did not give the glory to God, and he was eaten by worms and died. ⁴ 

Against hope Abraham ¹  believed ²  in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations ³  according to the pronouncement, ⁴  “so will your descendants be.” ⁵ 

Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, ¹  to watch out for those who create dissensions and obstacles contrary to the teaching that you learned. Avoid them!

as you also join in helping us by prayer, so that many people may give thanks to God ¹  on our behalf for the gracious gift given to us through the help of many.

But their minds were closed. ¹  For to this very day, the same veil remains when they hear the old covenant read. ²  It has not been removed because only in Christ is it taken away. ³