Zephaniah 2

A Call to Repentance

¹Gather yourselves together; gather together, undesirable nation,²

³before the decree takes effect and the day passes like chaff, before the burning of the Lord’s anger overtakes you, before the day of the Lord’s anger overtakes you.⁴

⁵Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth, who carry out what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be concealed on the day of the Lord’s anger.⁶

Judgment against the Nations

⁷For Gaza will be abandoned, and Ashkelon will become a ruin. Ashdod will be driven out at noon, and Ekron will be uprooted.⁸

⁹Woe, inhabitants of the seacoast, nation of the Cherethites! The word of the Lord is against you, Canaan, land of the Philistines: I will destroy you until there is no one left.¹⁰

¹¹The seacoast will become pasturelands with caves for shepherds and pens for sheep.¹²

¹³The coastland will belong to the remnant of the house of Judah; they will find pasture there. They will lie down in the evening among the houses of Ashkelon, for the Lord their God will return to them and restore their fortunes.¹⁴

¹⁵I have heard the taunting of Moab and the insults of the Ammonites, who have taunted my people and threatened their territory.¹⁶

¹⁷Therefore, as I live — this is the declaration of the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel — Moab will be like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah: a place overgrown with weeds, a salt pit, and a perpetual wasteland. The remnant of my people will plunder them; the remainder of my nation will dispossess them.¹⁸

¹⁹This is what they get for their pride, because they have taunted and acted arrogantly against the people of the Lord of Armies.²⁰

²¹The Lord will be terrifying to them when he starves all the gods of the earth. Then all the distant coasts and islands of the nations will bow in worship to him, each in its own place.²²

²³You Cushites will also be slain by my sword.²⁴

²⁵He will also stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria; he will make Nineveh a desolate ruin, dry as the desert.²⁶

²⁷Herds will lie down in the middle of it, every kind of wild animal. Both eagle owls and herons will roost in the capitals of its pillars. Their calls will sound from the window, but devastation will be on the threshold, for he will expose the cedar work.²⁸

²⁹This is the jubilant city that lives in security, that says to herself: I exist, and there is no one else. What a desolation she has become, a place for wild animals to lie down! Everyone who passes by her scoffs and shakes his fist.³⁰