3  I myself have commanded my consecrated ones,

and have summoned my mighty men to execute my anger,

my proudly exulting ones.¹

4  The sound of a tumult is on the mountains

as of a great multitude!

The sound of an uproar of kingdoms,

of nations gathering together!

The Lord of hosts is mustering

a host for battle.

5  They come from a distant land,

from the end of the heavens,

the Lord and the weapons of his indignation,

to destroy the whole land.²

6  ^eWail, ^ffor the day of the Lord is near;

as destruction from the Almighty³ it will come!

7  Therefore all hands will be feeble,

and every human heart will melt.

8  They will be dismayed:

^gpangs and agony will seize them;

they will be in anguish like a woman in labor.

They will look aghast at one another;

their faces will be aflame.

9  Behold, the day of the Lord comes,

cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,

to make the land a desolation

and to destroy its sinners from it.

10  For the stars of the heavens and their constellations

^hwill not give their light;

the sun will be dark at its rising,

and the moon will not shed its light.

11  I will ⁱpunish the world for its evil,

and the wicked for their iniquity;

I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant,

and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.

12  I will make people more rare than fine gold,

and mankind than the gold of ^jOphir.

13  Therefore I will make the ^kheavens tremble,

and the earth will be shaken out of its place,

at the wrath of the Lord of hosts

in the day of his fierce anger.

14  And like a hunted gazelle,

or like sheep with none to gather them,

^leach will turn to his own people,

and each will flee to his own land.

15  Whoever is found will be thrust through,

and whoever is caught will fall by the sword.

16  Their infants will be ^mdashed in pieces

before their eyes;

their houses will be plundered

and their wives ravished.

2  In that day,

“A pleasant ^wvineyard,¹ sing of it!

3  I, the Lord, am its keeper;

every moment I water it.

Lest anyone punish it,

I keep it night and day;

4  I have no wrath.

Would that I had thorns and briers to battle!

I would march against them,

I would burn them up together.

5  Or let them lay hold of my protection,

let them make peace with me,

let them make peace with me.”

6  In days to come² Jacob ^xshall take root,

Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots

and fill the whole world with fruit.

7  Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them?

Or have they been slain as their slayers were slain?

8  Measure by measure,³ by exile you contended with them;

he removed them with his fierce breath⁴ in the day of the east wind.

9  Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for,

and this will be the full fruit of ^ythe removal of his sin:⁵

when he makes all the stones of the altars

like chalkstones crushed to pieces,

no ^zAsherim or incense altars will remain standing.

10  For the fortified city is solitary,

a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;

there the calf grazes;

there it lies down and strips its branches.

11  When its boughs are dry, they are broken;

women come and make a fire of them.

For this is a people ^awithout discernment;

therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them;

he who formed them will show them no favor.