These men ¹  are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm, for whom the utter depths of darkness ²  have been reserved.

It will be ¹  a day of dreadful darkness, ²  a day of foreboding storm clouds, ³  like blackness ⁴  spread over the mountains. It is a huge and powerful army ⁵  – there has never been anything like it ever before, and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! ⁶ 

Show the Lord your God the respect that is due him. ¹  Do it before he brings the darkness of disaster. ²  Do it before you stumble ³  into distress like a traveler on the mountains at twilight. ⁴  Do it before he turns the light of deliverance you hope for into the darkness and gloom of exile. ⁵ 

You approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, a mountain ablaze to the sky above it ¹  and yet dark with a thick cloud. ² 

My strength leaves me; ¹  I am absolutely shocked. ² 

A cheerful heart ¹  brings good healing, ²  but a crushed spirit ³  dries up the bones. ⁴ 

“‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: On the day it ¹  went down to Sheol I caused observers to lament. ²  I covered it with the deep and held back its rivers; its plentiful water was restrained. I clothed Lebanon in black for it, and all the trees of the field wilted because of it.

When the people heard this troubling word ¹  they mourned; ²  no one put on his ornaments.

Yet I have not been silent because of the darkness, because of the thick darkness that covered my face. ¹ 

gaunt ¹  with want and hunger, they would gnaw ²  the parched land, in former time desolate and waste. ³ 

Have the gates of death been revealed to you? ¹  Have you seen the gates of deepest darkness? ² 

The path of life is upward ¹  for the wise person, ²  to ³  keep him from going downward to Sheol. ⁴ 

On this mountain he will swallow up the shroud that is over all the peoples, ¹  the woven covering that is over all the nations; ² 

Turn aside from the way, stray off the path. ¹  Remove from our presence the Holy One of Israel.” ² 

“The people of Judah are in mourning. The people in her cities are pining away. They lie on the ground expressing their sorrow. ¹  Cries of distress come up to me ²  from Jerusalem. ³ 

For the day is near, the day of the Lord is near; it will be a day of storm clouds, ¹  it will be a time of judgment ²  for the nations.

For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, ¹  but threw them into hell ²  and locked them up ³  in chains ⁴  in utter darkness, ⁵  to be kept until the judgment,

The Lord who commands armies will hold a banquet for all the nations on this mountain. ¹  At this banquet there will be plenty of meat and aged wine – tender meat and choicest wine. ² 

So the paths they follow will be dark and slippery. They will stumble and fall headlong. For I will bring disaster on them. A day of reckoning is coming for them.” ¹  The Lord affirms it! ² 

Moreover, ¹  we ²  possess the prophetic word as an altogether reliable thing. ³  You do well if you pay attention ⁴  to this ⁵  as you would ⁶  to a light shining in a murky place, until the day dawns and the morning star ⁷  rises in your hearts. ⁸