The children of your oppressors will come bowing to you; all who treated you with disrespect will bow down at your feet. They will call you, ‘The City of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel.’ ¹ 

The snorting of the enemy’s horses is already being heard in the city of Dan. The sound of the neighing of their stallions ¹  causes the whole land to tremble with fear. They are coming to destroy the land and everything in it! They are coming to destroy ²  the cities and everyone who lives in them!”

Their widows will become in my sight more numerous ¹  than the grains of sand on the seashores. At noontime I will bring a destroyer against the mothers of their young men. ²  I will cause anguish ³  and terror to fall suddenly upon them. ⁴ 

The Lord says, “I will restore the ruined houses of the descendants of Jacob. I will show compassion on their ruined homes. ¹  Every city will be rebuilt on its former ruins. ²  Every fortified dwelling will occupy its traditional site. ³ 

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.’

The destroyer will come against every town. Not one town will escape. The towns in the valley will be destroyed. The cities on the high plain will be laid waste. ¹  I, the Lord, have spoken! ² 

ל (Lamed) Children ¹  say to their mothers, ²  “Where are food and drink?” ³  They faint ⁴  like a wounded warrior in the city squares. They die slowly ⁵  in their mothers’ arms. ⁶ 

“And you, son of man, take a brick ¹  and set it in front of you. Inscribe ²  a city on it – Jerusalem.

Then say, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: O city, who spills blood within herself (which brings on her doom), ¹  and who makes herself idols (which results in impurity),

He will cover you with the dust kicked up by his many horses. ¹  Your walls will shake from the noise of the horsemen, wheels, and chariots when he enters your gates like those who invade through a city’s broken walls. ² 

By means of divine visions ¹  he brought me to the land of Israel and placed me on a very high mountain, ²  and on it was a structure like a city, to the south.

While I was watching in my mind’s visions ¹  on my bed, a holy sentinel ²  came down from heaven.

Then the king of the north will advance and will build siege mounds and capture a well-fortified city. ¹  The forces of the south will not prevail, not even his finest contingents. ²  They will have no strength to prevail.

People from ¹  two or three cities staggered into one city to get ²  water, but remained thirsty. ³  Still you did not come back to me.” The Lord is speaking!

The sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his very own life. ¹  The Lord, the God who commands armies, is speaking: “I despise Jacob’s arrogance; I hate their ²  fortresses. I will hand over to their enemies ³  the city of Samaria ⁴  and everything in it.”

So Jonah went immediately to Nineveh, as the Lord had said. (Now Nineveh was an enormous city ¹  – it required three days to walk through it!) ² 

The Lord says, ‘I have returned to Zion and will live within Jerusalem. ¹  Now Jerusalem will be called “truthful city,” “mountain of the Lord who rules over all,” “holy mountain.”’

Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and departed with all kinds of gifts from his master at his disposal. ¹  He journeyed ²  to the region of Aram Naharaim ³  and the city of Nahor.

For Heshbon was the city of King Sihon of the Amorites. Now he had fought against the former king of Moab and had taken all of his land from his control, ¹  as far as the Arnon.

Now from these towns that you will give to the Levites you must select six towns of refuge to which a person who has killed someone may flee. ¹  And you must give them forty-two other towns.