12. The time has come, the day draws near. Let not the buyer rejoice nor the seller mourn, for wrath is upon all their multitude.
13. For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, even were they yet alive. For the vision [of punishment] is touching [Israel's] whole multitude; he shall not come back, neither shall any strengthen himself whose life is in his iniquity.
14. They have blown the trumpet and have made all ready, but none goes to the battle, for My wrath is upon all their multitude.
15. The sword is without and pestilence and famine are within. He who is in the field shall die by the sword, and him who is in the city shall famine and pestilence devour.
16. But those of them that escape shall escape, but shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, every one in his iniquity's [punishment].
17. All hands shall be feeble and all knees shall be weak as water. [Isa. 13:7; Jer. 6:24; Ezek. 21:7.]
18. They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth; horror and dismay shall cover them, and shame shall be upon all faces and baldness upon all their heads [as evidence of grief].
19. They shall cast their silver into the streets, and their gold shall be [discarded] like an unclean thing or rubbish; their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they shall not satisfy their animal cravings nor fill their stomachs with them, for [wealth] has been the stumbling block of their iniquity. [Prov. 11:4; Zeph. 1:18.]
20. As for the beauty of gold for ornament, they turned it to pride and made of it the images of their abominations (idols) and of their detestable things. Therefore I will make it to them as an unclean thing.
21. And I will give it for plunder into the hands of strangers and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil, and they shall profane it.
22. Also I will turn My face from them and they shall profane My secret treasure [the temple]; and robbers shall enter into it and profane it.
23. Prepare the chain [of imprisonment], for the land is full of bloodguiltiness [murders committed with pretended formalities of justice] and the city is full of violence.