6. Run away! Run for your lives! Run away like a weed blowing through the desert.
7. “You trust in the things you made and in your wealth, so you will be captured. The god Chemosh will be taken into captivity, and his priests and officials will be taken with him.
8. The Destroyer will come against every town. Not one town will escape. The valley will be ruined. The high plain will be destroyed. The Lord said this would happen, so it will happen.
9. Spread salt over the fields in Moab. The country will be an empty desert. Moab’s towns will become empty. No one will live in them.
10. Bad things will happen to those who don’t obey the Lord and don’t use their swords to kill those people.
11. “Moab has never known trouble. Moab is like wine left to settle. Moab has never been poured from one jar to another. He has not been taken into captivity. So he tastes as he did before, and his smell has not changed.”
12. This is what the Lord says: “But I will soon send men to pour you from your jars. Then they will empty the jars and smash them to pieces.”
13. Then the people of Moab will be ashamed of their false god, Chemosh. They will be like the people of Israel who trusted that god in Bethel but were ashamed when he did not help them.
14. “You cannot say, ‘We are good soldiers. We are brave men in battle.’
15. The enemy will attack Moab. The enemy will enter its towns and destroy them. Its best young men will be killed in the slaughter.” This message is from the King. The King’s name is the Lord All-Powerful.
16. “The end of Moab is near. Moab will soon be destroyed.
17. All you who live around Moab should cry for that country. You know how famous Moab is. So cry for it. Say, ‘The ruler’s power is broken. Moab’s power and glory is gone.’
18. “You people living in Dibon, come down from your place of honor. Sit on the ground in the dust, because the Destroyer is coming. And he will destroy your strong cities.
19. “You people living in Aroer, stand next to the road and watch. See the man running away. See that woman running away. Ask them what happened.
20. “Moab will be ruined and filled with shame. Moab will cry and cry. Announce at the Arnon River that Moab is destroyed.
21. People on the high plain have been punished. Judgment has come to the towns of Holon, Jahzah, and Mephaath.