Zephaniah 2

2 ¹ Gather together, gather yourselves, you shameless nation, ² before the decree gives birth—the day passes like chaff—before the burning anger of our Father comes upon you, before the day of our Father's anger comes upon you. ³ Seek our Father, all you humble of the land, who carry out his justice; seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will be hidden on the day of our Father's anger. ⁴ For Gaza will be abandoned, and Ashkelon a desolation; Ashdod will be driven out at noon, and Ekron uprooted. ⁵ Woe to you who live by the sea, nation of the Cherethites! The word of our Father is against you, Canaan, land of the Philistines: "I will destroy you until no inhabitant is left. ⁶ And the seacoast will become pastures, with meadows for shepherds and folds for flocks. ⁷ The coast will belong to the remnant of the house of Judah; there they will graze, and in the houses of Ashkelon they will lie down at evening. For our Father will watch over them and restore their fortunes. ⁸ I have heard the taunts of Moab and the insults of the Ammonites, with which they taunted my people and boasted over their land.

⁹ Therefore, as I live, declares the Father of heaven's armies, our Father of Israel, Moab will become like Sodom, and the Ammonites like Gomorrah—a land of nettles and salt pits, a waste forever. The remnant of my people will plunder them, and the survivors of my nation will possess them. ¹⁰ This is what they will get for their pride, because they taunted and boasted against the people of the Father of heaven's armies. ¹¹ Our Father will be fearsome to them, for he will starve all the gods of the earth; and all the coastlands of the nations will bow down to him, each from its own place.

¹² You Cushites too will be slain by my sword.

¹³ And he will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria, and he will make Nineveh a desolation, dry as the desert. ¹⁴ Flocks will lie down in her midst, all kinds of wild animals; both the owl and the hedgehog will lodge on her pillar tops. A voice will sing in the windows, rubble on the threshold, for the cedar work is laid bare. ¹⁵ This is the carefree city that lived securely, that said in her heart, "I am, and there is no one besides me." What a ruin she has become, a lair for wild animals! Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist.