1-5. “Run for your lives, children of Benjamin!Get out of Jerusalem, and now!Give a blast on the ram’s horn in Blastville.Send up smoke signals from Smoketown.Doom pours out of the north—massive terror!I have likened my dear daughter Zionto a lovely meadow.Well, now ‘shepherds’ from the north have discovered herand brought in their flocks of soldiers.They’ve pitched camp all around her,and plan where they’ll ‘graze.’And then, ‘Prepare to attack! The fight is on!To arms! We’ll strike at noon!Oh, it’s too late? Day is dying?Evening shadows are upon us?Well, up anyway! We’ll attack by nightand tear apart her defenses stone by stone.’”
6-8. God-of-the-Angel-Armies gave the orders:“Chop down her trees.Build a siege ramp against Jerusalem,A city full of brutality,bursting with violence.Just as a well holds a good supply of water,she supplies wickedness nonstop.The streets echo the cries: ‘Violence! Rape!’Victims, bleeding and moaning, lie all over the place.You’re in deep trouble, Jerusalem.You’ve pushed me to the limit.You’re on the brink of being wiped out,being turned into a ghost town.”
9. More orders from God-of-the-Angel-Armies:“Time’s up! Harvest the grapes for judgment.Salvage what’s left of Israel.Go back over the vines.Pick them clean, every last grape.
10-11. “I’ve got something to say. Is anybody listening?I’ve a warning to post. Will anyone notice?It’s hopeless! Their ears are stuffed with wax—deaf as a post, blind as a bat.It’s hopeless! They’ve tuned out God.They don’t want to hear from me.But I’m bursting with the wrath of God.I can’t hold it in much longer.
11-12. “So dump it on the children in the streets.Let it loose on the gangs of youth.For no one’s exempt: Husbands and wives will be taken,the old and those ready to die;Their homes will be given away—all they own, even their loved ones—When I give the signalagainst all who live in this country.”God’s Decree.