33. The earth will be left desolate, and its fields will be taken over by thornbushes, and its roads and all its paths will sprout thorns, because sheep won’t pass on them.
34. Virgins will mourn, having no bridegrooms; women will mourn, having no husbands; their daughters will mourn, having no support.
35. Their grooms will be killed in war, and their husbands will perish from famine.
36. Listen to these things and understand them, you servants of the Lord.
37. Here is the Lord’s word. Accept it. Don’t disbelieve the things that the Lord speaks about.
38. Look, the disasters are approaching and won’t be delayed.
39. A woman in the ninth month of pregnancy, when the hour for giving birth arrives, experiences great pains around her womb for two or three hours beforehand, but when the infant is ready to come forth from the womb she doesn’t delay for a moment.
40. In the same way, these disasters won’t delay to come forth on the earth, but the world will groan and pangs will envelop it.
41. Hear the word, my people. Prepare yourselves for battle, and in the midst of disasters be like strangers on earth.
42. Let the person who sells be like a person who is about to run away, and let the person who buys be like a person who is about to lose.
43. Let one who does business be as one who makes no profit; one who builds as one who won’t get to live in the building;
44. one who sows as one who will not reap; one who prunes as one who will not harvest;
45. those who get married as people who will have no children; and those who don’t marry as though they were widowed,
46. because those who toil, toil for no reason.
47. Foreigners will gather their fruits, plunder their wealth, knock down their houses, and take their children captive, for in captivity and hunger they will produce their offspring.
48. Those who transact business do so only to be plundered. The longer they adorn their cities and houses, possessions and persons,
49. the more I will be enraged against them on account of their sins, says the Lord.
50. Just as a proper and good woman is enraged at a woman who is promiscuous,