Zephaniah 2

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

2 Collect your thoughts, yes, unbend yourselves [in submission and see if there is no sense of shame and no consciousness of sin left in you], O shameless nation [not desirous or desired]!

² [The time for repentance is speeding by like chaff whirled before the wind!] Therefore consider, before God’s decree brings forth [the curse upon you], before the time [to repent] is gone like the drifting chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord comes upon you—yes, before the day of the wrath of the Lord comes upon you!

³ Seek the Lord [inquire for Him, inquire of Him, and require Him as the foremost necessity of your life], all you humble of the land who have acted in compliance with His revealed will and have kept His commandments; seek righteousness, seek humility [inquire for them, require them as vital]. It may be you will be hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger.

⁴ For [hear the fate of the Philistines:] Gaza shall be forsaken and Ashkelon shall become a desolation; the people of Ashdod shall be driven out at noonday and Ekron shall be uprooted.

⁵ Woe to the inhabitants of the seacoast, the nation of the Cherethites [in Philistia]! The word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines; I will destroy you until no inhabitant is left.

⁶ And the seacoast shall be pastures, with [deserted] dwelling places and caves for shepherds and folds for flocks.

⁷ The ^[a]seacoast shall belong to the remnant of the house of Judah; they shall pasture their flocks upon it; in the houses of [deserted Philistine] Ashkelon shall they of Judah lie down in the evening. For the Lord their [Judah’s] God shall visit them [for their relief] and restore them from their captivity.^(A)

⁸ I have heard the taunts of Moab and the revilings of the Ammonites by which they have reproached My people, and magnified themselves and made boasts against their territory.

⁹ Therefore, as I live, says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Moab shall become like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah, a land possessed by nettles and wild vetches and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation. The remnant of My people shall make a prey of them and what is left of My nation shall possess them.

¹⁰ This shall they have for their pride, because they have taunted and boasted against the people of the Lord of hosts.

¹¹ The Lord will be terrible to them, for He will make lean and famish all the gods of the earth; and men shall worship Him, every one from his place, even all the isles and coastlands of the nations.^(B)

¹² You Ethiopians also, you shall be slain by My sword.^(C)

¹³ And [the Lord] will stretch out His hand against the north and destroy Assyria and will make Nineveh a desolation, dry as the desert.^(D)

¹⁴ Herds shall lie down in the midst of [Nineveh], all the [wild] beasts of the nations and of every kind; both the pelican and the hedgehog shall lodge on the upper part of her [fallen] pillars; the voice [of the nesting bird] shall sing in the windows; desolation and drought shall be on the thresholds, for her cedar paneling will He lay bare.

¹⁵ This is the joyous and exultant city that dwelt carelessly [feeling so secure], that said in her heart, I am and there is none beside me. What a desolation she has become, a lair for [wild] beasts! Everyone who passes by her shall hiss and wave his hand [indicating his gratification].^(E)