Send a lamb of tribute
To the ruler of the land,
From Sela across the wilderness
To the mountain of the daughter of Zion.

Like wandering birds,
Like a scattered nest,
Will the daughters of Moab be
At the fords of the Arnon.

Give us counsel,
Make a judgment concerning us.
Make your shadow at high noon
Like night to us.
Hide the outcasts;
Do not expose him who wanders.

 ¹Let the outcasts of Moab
Dwell with you;
Be a hiding place to them
From the destroyer.
When the extortioner finishes
And destruction ends,
When the oppressor is completely gone from the land,

Then will a throne be established in lovingkindness,
And upon it  ¹One will sit in  ²truth
In the tent of David,
Judging and pursuing justice
And hastening righteousness.

We have heard of the pride of Moab —
He is extremely proud —
Of his haughtiness and pride and insolence;
His boastings are all untrue.

Therefore Moab will howl for Moab;
They all will howl.
For the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth
You will mourn, utterly stricken.

Because the fields of Heshbon have withered,
And the vine of Sibmah, too.
The lords of the nations
Have trampled under its choicest vines,
Which reached as far as Jazer,
Which meandered into the desert.
Its shoots spread abroad;
They crossed over to the sea.

Therefore I will weep bitterly for Jazer,
For the vine of Sibmah;
I will soak you with my tears,
Heshbon and Elealeh.
For the harvest shout is hushed
Over your summer fruit and over your reapings.

Rejoicing is taken away, and exultation from the fruited field;
In the vineyards there will be no singing for joy; no shouts will be uttered.
The treader will not tread out wine in the presses —
I have made the harvest shout stop.

Therefore for Moab my bowels will moan like a lyre,
And my inward parts for Kir-heres.

And when Moab appears,
When they weary themselves at their high place,
And come to their sanctuary to pray,
It will not avail.

This is the word which Jehovah spoke concerning Moab long ago.

And now Jehovah has spoken, saying, Within three years, like the years of a hired man, the glory of Moab will be disgraced, with all its great multitude, and its remnant will be small — a mere trifle, nothing great.

The burden concerning Damascus:
See, Damascus — turned from being a city,
It will become a heap of ruin.

The cities of Aroer will be forsaken;
They will be for flocks
That lie down with no one to frighten them.

And fortified cities will cease to be in Ephraim,
As well as the kingdom in Damascus;
And the remnant of Syria
Will be like the glory of the children of Israel,
Declares Jehovah of hosts.

In that day the glory of Jacob will fade,
And the fat of his flesh will become lean.

And it will be as when the reaper gathers the standing grain,
And his arms reap the ears;
And it will be as when one gleans the ears
In the valley of Rephaim.

Yet gleanings will be left in it,
Like at the shaking of an olive tree —
Two or three fruit at the very top,
Four or five in the boughs of the fruiting tree —
Declares Jehovah the God of Israel.

In that day man will look to his Maker,
And his eyes will behold the Holy One of Israel.

And he will not look to the altars, the works of his hands;
And what his fingers have made he will not regard,
That is, the Asherahs and the images to the sun.

In that day his cities of protection will be
Like abandoned places of the forest and like the mountaintop
Which was abandoned before the children of Israel;
And there will be desolation.

For you have forgotten the  ¹God of your salvation,
And the Rock of your stronghold you have not remembered.
Therefore you plant plants of delight
And set them with plant cuttings to a strange god.

On the day that you plant them you fence them in carefully,
And in the morning you bring your seed to blossom;
But the harvest is a heap on a day of sickness
And incurable pain.

Woe! The roar of many peoples,
Who roar like the roaring of the seas;
The din of nations,
Who crash like the crashing of mighty waters!

The nations crash like the crashing of many waters.
But He will rebuke them;
And they will flee far away,
And will be chased like mountain chaff before the wind
And like a whirlwind of dust before storm wind.

At evening time, indeed, there is calamity;
Before the morning they are no more.
This is the portion of those who plunder us,
And the allotment of those who take us as spoil.

Woe to the land of the whirring of wings,
Which is beyond the rivers of  ¹Cush,

The land that sends envoys on the sea,
Even in papyrus vessels upon the surface of the water.
Go, swift messengers,
To a nation tall and smooth of skin
To a people feared from there and beyond,
A nation of command upon command and of treading down others,
Whose land the rivers cut through.

All you inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth,
When the standard is raised on the mountains, you will see it;
And when the horn is blown, you will hear it.

For thus has Jehovah spoken to me,
I will be quiet and observe in My lodging place,
Like glowing heat in the sunshine,
Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.

For before the harvest, when the bud is full
And the flower becomes the ripening grape,
He will cut off the sprigs with pruning knives,
And the tendrils He will remove and cut away.

They will be left together for the mountain birds
And for the beasts of the earth.
And the birds will spend summer on them,
And all the beasts of the earth will spend harvest time on them.

At that time a gift will be brought to Jehovah of hosts  ¹from a people tall and smooth of skin, even from a people feared from there and beyond, a nation of command upon command and of treading down others, whose land the rivers cut through, unto the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts, Mount Zion.