¹I wish my head were a well of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I could cry day and night for my people who have been killed.

²I wish I had a place to stay in the desert where I could get away from my people. They are all unfaithful, a mob of traitors.

³They are always ready to tell lies; dishonesty instead of truth rules the land. The Lord says, “My people do one evil thing after another and do not acknowledge me as their God.”

⁴Everyone must be on guard against their friends, and no one can trust their relatives; for all relatives are as deceitful as Jacob, and everyone slanders their friends.

^5-6They all mislead their friends, and no one tells the truth; they have taught their tongues to lie and will not give up their sinning. They do one violent thing after another, and one deceitful act follows another. The Lord says that his people reject him.

⁷Because of this the Lord Almighty says, “I will refine my people like metal and put them to the test. My people have done evil— what else can I do with them?

⁸Their tongues are like deadly arrows; they always tell lies. Everyone speaks friendly words to their neighbors, but they are really setting a trap for them.

⁹Will I not punish them for these things? Will I not take revenge on a nation like this? I, the Lord, have spoken.”

¹⁰I said, “I will mourn for the mountains and weep for the pastures, because they have dried up, and no one travels through them. The sound of livestock is no longer heard; birds and wild animals have fled and gone.”

¹¹The Lord says, “I will make Jerusalem a pile of ruins, a place where jackals live; the cities of Judah will become a desert, a place where no one lives.”

¹²I asked, “Lord, why is the land devastated and dry as a desert, so that no one travels through it? Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom have you explained it so that they can tell others?”

¹³The Lord answered, “This has happened because my people have abandoned the teaching that I gave them. They have not obeyed me or done what I told them.

¹⁴Instead, they have been stubborn and have worshiped the idols of Baal as their ancestors taught them to do.

¹⁵So then, listen to what I, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, will do: I will give my people bitter plants to eat and poison to drink.

¹⁶I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have heard about, and I will send armies against them until I have completely destroyed them.”

The People of Jerusalem Cry Out for Help

¹⁷The Lord Almighty said, “Think about what is happening! Call for the mourners to come, for the women who sing funeral songs.”

¹⁸The people said, “Tell them to hurry and sing a funeral song for us, until our eyes fill with tears, and our eyelids are wet from crying.”

¹⁹Listen to the sound of crying in Zion: “We are ruined! We are completely disgraced! We must leave our land; our homes have been torn down.”

²⁰I said, “Listen to the Lord, you women, and pay attention to his words. Teach your daughters how to mourn, and your friends how to sing a funeral song.

²¹Death has come in through our windows and entered our palaces; it has cut down the children in the streets and the young men in the marketplaces.

²²Dead bodies are scattered everywhere, like piles of manure on the fields, like grain cut and left behind by the reapers, grain that no one gathers. This is what the Lord has told me to say.”

²³The Lord says, “The wise should not boast of their wisdom, nor the strong of their strength, nor the rich of their wealth.

²⁴If any want to boast, they should boast that they know and understand me, because my love is constant, and I do what is just and right. These are the things that please me. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

^25-26The Lord says, “The time is coming when I will punish the people of Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and the desert people, who have their hair cut short. All these people are circumcised, but have not kept the covenant it symbolizes. None of these people and none of the people of Israel have kept my covenant.”

The Defeat of Gog

¹The Sovereign Lord said, “Mortal man, denounce Gog, the chief ruler of the nations of Meshech and Tubal, and tell him that I am his enemy.

²I will turn him in a new direction and lead him out of the far north until he comes to the mountains of Israel.

³Then I will knock his bow out of his left hand and his arrows out of his right hand.

⁴Gog and his army and his allies will fall dead on the mountains of Israel, and I will let their bodies be food for all the birds and wild animals.

⁵They will fall dead in the open field. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.

⁶I will start a fire in the land of Magog and along all the seacoasts where people live undisturbed, and everyone will know that I am the Lord.

⁷I will make sure that my people Israel know my holy name, and I will not let my name be disgraced any more. Then the nations will know that I, the Lord, am the holy God of Israel.”

⁸The Sovereign Lord said, “The day I spoke about is certain to come.

⁹The people who live in the cities of Israel will go out and collect the abandoned weapons for firewood. They will build fires with the shields, bows, arrows, spears, and clubs, and have enough to last for seven years.

¹⁰They will not have to gather firewood in the fields or cut down trees in the forest, because they will have the abandoned weapons to burn. They will loot and plunder those who looted and plundered them.” The Sovereign Lord has spoken.

The Burial of Gog

¹¹The Lord said, “When all this happens, I will give Gog a burial ground there in Israel, in Travelers' Valley, east of the Dead Sea. Gog and all his army will be buried there, and the valley will be called ‘The Valley of Gog's Army.’

¹²It will take the Israelites seven months to bury all the corpses and make the land clean again.

¹³Everyone in the land will help bury them, and they will be honored for this on the day of my victory. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.

¹⁴After the seven months are over, men will be chosen to travel through the land in order to find and bury those bodies remaining on the ground, so that they can make the land clean.

¹⁵As they go up and down the country, every time they find a human bone, they will put a marker beside it so that the gravediggers can come and bury it in the Valley of Gog's Army.

¹⁶(There will be a town nearby named after the army.) And so the land will be made clean again.”

¹⁷The Sovereign Lord said to me, “Mortal man, call all the birds and animals to come from all around to eat the sacrifice I am preparing for them. It will be a huge feast on the mountains of Israel, where they can eat meat and drink blood.

¹⁸They are to eat the bodies of soldiers and drink the blood of the rulers of the earth, all of whom will be killed like rams or lambs or goats or fat bulls.

¹⁹When I kill these people like sacrifices, the birds and animals are to eat all the fat they can hold and to drink blood until they are drunk.

²⁰At my table they will eat all they can hold of horses and their riders and of soldiers and fighting men. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.”

The Restoration of Israel

²¹The Lord said, “I will let the nations see my glory and show them how I use my power to carry out my just decisions.

²²The Israelites will know from then on that I am the Lord their God.

²³And the nations will know that the Israelites went into exile because of the sins which they committed against me. I turned away from them and let their enemies defeat them and kill them in battle.

²⁴I gave them what they deserved for their uncleanness and their wickedness, and I turned away from them.”

²⁵The Sovereign Lord said, “But now I will be merciful to Jacob's descendants, the people of Israel, and make them prosperous again. I will protect my holy name.

²⁶When they are once more living in safety in their own land, with no one to threaten them, they will be able to forget how they were disgraced for having betrayed me.

²⁷In order to show to the many nations that I am holy, I will bring my people back from all the countries where their enemies live.

²⁸Then my people will know that I am the Lord their God. They will know this, because I sent them into captivity and now gather them and bring them back into their own land, not leaving even one of them behind.

²⁹I will pour out my spirit on the people of Israel and never again turn away from them. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.”

¹A gentle answer quiets anger, but a harsh one stirs it up.

²When wise people speak, they make knowledge attractive, but stupid people spout nonsense.

³The Lord sees what happens everywhere; he is watching us, whether we do good or evil.

⁴Kind words bring life, but cruel words crush your spirit.