8:7 The Lord confirms this oath 1 by the arrogance of Jacob: 2
“I swear 3 I will never forget all you have done! 4
8:8 Because of this the earth 5 will quake, 6
and all who live in it will mourn.
The whole earth 7 will rise like the River Nile, 8
it will surge upward 9 and then grow calm, 10 like the Nile in Egypt. 11
8:9 In that day,” says the sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun set at noon,
and make the earth dark in the middle of the day. 12
8:10 I will turn your festivals into funerals, 13
and all your songs into funeral dirges.
I will make everyone wear funeral clothes 14
and cause every head to be shaved bald. 15
I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; 16
when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day. 17
8:11 Be certain of this, 18 the time is 19 coming,” says the sovereign Lord,
“when I will send a famine through the land –
not a shortage of food or water
but an end to divine revelation! 20
8:12 People 21 will stagger from sea to sea, 22
and from the north around to the east.
They will wander about looking for a revelation from 23 the Lord,
but they will not find any. 24
8:13 In that day your 25 beautiful young women 26 and your 27 young men will faint from thirst. 28 8:14 These are the ones who now take oaths 29 in the name of the sinful idol goddess 30 of Samaria.
They vow, 31 ‘As surely as your god 32 lives, O Dan,’ or ‘As surely as your beloved one 33 lives, O Beer Sheba!’
But they will fall down and not get up again.”
9:1 I saw the sovereign One 34 standing by the altar 35 and he said, “Strike the tops of the support pillars, 36 so the thresholds shake!
Knock them down on the heads of all the people, 37
and I will kill the survivors 38 with the sword.
No one will be able to run away; 39
no one will be able to escape. 40
9:2 Even if they could dig down into the netherworld, 41
my hand would pull them up from there.
Even if they could climb up to heaven,
I would drag them down from there.
9:3 Even if they were to hide on the top of Mount Carmel,
I would hunt them down and take them from there.
Even if they tried to hide from me 42 at the bottom of the sea,
from there 43 I would command the Sea Serpent 44 to bite them.
9:4 Even when their enemies drive them into captivity, 45
from there 46 I will command the sword to kill them.
I will not let them out of my sight;
they will experience disaster, not prosperity.” 47
9:5 The sovereign Lord who commands armies will do this. 48
He touches the earth and it dissolves; 49
all who live on it mourn.
The whole earth 50 rises like the River Nile, 51
and then grows calm 52 like the Nile in Egypt. 53
9:6 He builds the upper rooms of his palace 54 in heaven
and sets its foundation supports 55 on the earth. 56
He summons the water of the sea
and pours it out on the earth’s surface.
The Lord is his name.
9:7 “You Israelites are just like the Ethiopians in my sight,” 57 says the Lord.
“Certainly I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt,
but I also brought the Philistines from Caphtor 58 and the Arameans from Kir. 59
9:8 Look, the sovereign Lord is watching 60 the sinful nation, 61
and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.
But I will not completely destroy the family 62 of Jacob,” says the Lord.
9:9 “For look, I am giving a command
and I will shake the family of Israel together with all the nations.
It will resemble a sieve being shaken,
when not even a pebble falls to the ground. 63
9:10 All the sinners among my people will die by the sword –
the ones who say, ‘Disaster will not come near, it will not confront us.’