17. One thousand will flee at the threat of one. At the threat of five, you will flee until you are left like a beacon on the top of a mountain, and like a banner on a hill.
18. Therefore the Lord will wait, that he may be gracious to you; and therefore he will be exalted, that he may have mercy on you, for the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for him.
19. For the people will dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. You will weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the voice of your cry. When he hears you, he will answer you.
20. Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers won’t be hidden any more, but your eyes will see your teachers;
21. and when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way. Walk in it.”
22. You shall defile the overlaying of your engraved images of silver, and the plating of your molten images of gold. You shall cast them away as an unclean thing. You shall tell it, “Go away!”
23. He will give the rain for your seed, with which you will sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your livestock will feed in large pastures.
24. The oxen likewise and the young donkeys that till the ground will eat savoury feed, which has been winnowed with the shovel and with the fork.
25. There shall be brooks and streams of water on every lofty mountain and on every high hill in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
26. Moreover the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord binds up the fracture of his people, and heals the wound they were struck with.
27. Behold, the Lord’s name comes from far away, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke. His lips are full of indignation, and his tongue is as a devouring fire.
28. His breath is as an overflowing stream that reaches even to the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction; and a bridle that leads to ruin will be in the jaws of the peoples.
29. You will have a song, as in the night when a holy feast is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goes with a flute to come to the Lord’s mountain, to Israel’s Rock.
30. The Lord will cause his glorious voice to be heard, and will show the descent of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and the flame of a devouring fire, with a blast, storm, and hailstones.
31. For through the Lord’s voice the Assyrian will be dismayed. He will strike him with his rod.
32. Every stroke of the rod of punishment, which the Lord will lay on him, will be with the sound of tambourines and harps. He will fight with them in battles, brandishing weapons.
33. For his burning place has long been ready. Yes, for the king it is prepared. He has made its pyre deep and large with fire and much wood. The Lord’s breath, like a stream of sulpher, kindles it.