The Lord will destroy the earth
1The Lord will destroy the earth,
and this will happen soon.
He will destroy the earth,
He will break it down,
and He will chase away all the people on earth.
2Everyone will suffer, the priest as well as the people.
The slaves and slave women
will suffer like their owners.
The people who sell things will suffer
like the people who buy them.
The people who borrow money
will suffer like the people who lend it to them.
The people who owe money will suffer
like the people to whom they must pay it back.
3The people will destroy the land
and they will take things from each other,
because the Lord said it must happen.
4The plants on the earth
will become dry and die.
The sky will also
become as dry as the earth.
5The people on earth have made it impure
because they have not done what the Lord wants.
They broke the covenant
that should be there forever.
6That is why the Lord will curse
the people on earth.
He will punish them because they are guilty.
A lot of them will die and there will
be only a few of them that will stay alive.
7The vines will become dry
and there will be no wine.
All the people who were always happy
after drinking wine will cry.
8There will be no more music
of tambourines and lyres.
The people who celebrated
and made a noise will be quiet.
9They will not drink wine or sing anymore,
and the beer will taste bitter.
10The city will be only a heap of stones,
and no people will live there.
The houses will be closed,
and no one will be able to go in.
11On the streets people will cry
because there is no wine.
Everyone will be sad.
No one on earth will be happy.
12Everything in the city will be destroyed,
and the gates will be broken down.
13Yes, that is how it will be
among the people on earth.
There will be only a few nations.
There will be as few of them
as the bunches of grapes or the olives that are left over
after people have picked grapes
or picked olives from the olive trees.
We will hear people singing everywhere on earth
14The people who are still_alive
will start to sing.
The people in the west will rejoice
because the Lord is King.
15And the people in the east
will also praise the Lord.
People in the lands near the sea
will glorify his name,
the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.
16We will hear the people sing
everywhere on earth.
We will hear them praise the Righteous God.
The Lord will punish everyone
But I, the prophet, say:
‘I am getting weak, and there is no hope for me.
People betray each other, and they do not stop.
They keep on betraying each other.’
17You, who live on earth,
you will become afraid.
You will fall into holes and traps,
and they will catch you with nets.
18When one of you becomes afraid
and runs away because
the enemies are shouting,
he will fall into a hole,
and if he gets out of the hole,
they will catch him with a net.
Yes, it will rain a lot and the earth will tremble.
19The earth will be broken,
and it will be torn into pieces.
The earth will tremble,
20and it will fall down like a man who is drunk.
It will break as easily as a house
that was built from branches
when someone wanted to sleep there
for only one night.
The sin of the earth will be too heavy to carry.
The earth will fall
and it will not be able to get up again.
21On that day the Lord will punish all the angels in heaven that have done wrong. He will punish all the kings on earth, everyone who thinks that he is strong. 22He will take all of them together and put them in a jail and lock them in a deep hole. After a long time He will punish them. 23The moon and the sun will stop shining when the Lord becomes King on Mount_Zion and in Jerusalem. He will show all the leaders that He is the King.
