11-17. “Moab has always taken it easy—lazy as a dog in the sun,Never had to work for a living,never faced any trouble,Never had to grow up,never once worked up a sweat.But those days are a thing of the past.I’ll put him to work at hard labor.That will wake him up to the world of hard knocks.That will smash his illusions.Moab will be as ashamed of god Chemoshas Israel was ashamed of her Bethel calf-gods,the calf-gods she thought were so great.For how long do you think you’ll be saying, ‘We’re tough.We can beat anyone anywhere’?The destruction of Moab has already begun.Her choice young soldiers are lying dead right now.”The King’s Decree—his full name, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.“Yes. Moab’s doom is on countdown,disaster targeted and launched.Weep for Moab, friends and neighbors,all who know how famous he’s been.Lament, ‘His mighty scepter snapped in two like a toothpick,that magnificent royal staff!’
18-20. “Come down from your high horse, pampered beauty of Dibon.Sit in dog dung.The destroyer of Moab will come against you.He’ll wreck your safe, secure houses.Stand on the roadside,pampered women of Aroer.Interview the refugees who are running away.Ask them, ‘What’s happened? And why?’Moab will be an embarrassing memory, nothing left of the place.Wail and weep your eyes out!Tell the bad news along the Arnon river.Tell the world that Moab is no more.
21-24. “My judgment will come to the plateau cities: on Holon, Jahzah, and Mephaath; on Dibon, Nebo, and Beth-diblathaim; on Kiriathaim, Beth-gamul, and Beth-meon; on Kerioth, Bozrah, and all the cities of Moab, far and near.
25. “Moab’s link to power is severed.Moab’s arm is broken.” God’s Decree.
26-27. “Turn Moab into a drunken sot, drunk on the wine of my wrath, a dung-faced drunk, filling the country with vomit—Moab a falling-down drunk, a joke in bad taste. Wasn’t it you, Moab, who made crude jokes over Israel? And when they were caught in bad company, didn’t you cluck and gossip and snicker?
28. “Leave town! Leave! Look for a home in the cliffs,you who grew up in Moab.Try living like a dovewho nests high in the river gorge.
29-33. “We’ve all heard of Moab’s pride,that legendary pride,The strutting, bullying, puffed-up pride,the insufferable arrogance.I know”—God’s Decree—“his rooster-crowing pride,the inflated claims, the sheer nothingness of Moab.But I will weep for Moab,yes, I will mourn for the people of Moab.I will even mourn for the people of Kir-heres.I’ll weep for the grapevines of Sibmahand join Jazer in her weeping—Grapevines that once reached the Dead Seawith tendrils as far as Jazer.Your summer fruit and your bursting grapeswill be looted by brutal plunderers,Lush Moab strippedof song and laughter.And yes, I’ll shut down the winepresses,stop all the shouts and hurrahs of harvest.
34. “Heshbon and Elealeh will cry out, and the people in Jahaz will hear the cries. They will hear them all the way from Zoar to Horonaim and Eglath-shelishiyah. Even the waters of Nimrim will be dried up.