1. The day when the Lord will sit in judgement is near. Then Jerusalem will be looted, and the loot will be divided up before your eyes.
2. The Lord will bring all the nations together to make war on Jerusalem. The city will be taken, the houses looted, and the women raped. Half the people will go into exile, but the rest of them will not be taken away from the city.
3. Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he has fought in times past.
4. At that time he will stand on the Mount of Olives, to the east of Jerusalem. Then the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west by a large valley. Half the mountain will move northwards and half of it southwards.
5. You will escape through this valley that divides the mountain in two. You will flee as your ancestors did when the earthquake struck in the time of King Uzziah of Judah. The Lord my God will come, bringing all the angels with him.
6. When that time comes, there will no longer be cold or frost,
7. nor any darkness. There will always be daylight, even at night-time. When this will happen is known only to the Lord.
8. When that day comes, fresh water will flow from Jerusalem, half of it to the Dead Sea and the other half to the Mediterranean. It will flow all the year round, in the dry season as well as the wet.
9. Then the Lord will be king over all the earth; everyone will worship him as God and know him by the same name.
10. The whole region, from Geba in the north to Rimmon in the south, will be made level. Jerusalem will tower above the land round it; the city will reach from the Benjamin Gate to the Corner Gate, where there had been an earlier gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the royal winepresses.
11. The people will live there in safety, no longer threatened by destruction.
12. The Lord will bring a terrible disease on all the nations that make war on Jerusalem. Their flesh will rot away while they are still alive; their eyes and their tongues will rot away.
13. At that time the Lord will make them so confused and afraid that everyone will seize the man next to him and attack him.
14. The men of Judah will fight to defend Jerusalem. They will take as loot the wealth of all the nations — gold, silver, and clothing in great abundance.