1. “Flee for safety, you children of Benjamin, out of the middle of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise up a signal on Beth Haccherem; for evil looks out from the north, and a great destruction.
2. I will cut off the comely and delicate one, the daughter of Zion.
3. Shepherds with their flocks shall come to her; they shall pitch their tents against her all around; they shall feed everyone in his place.”
4. “Prepare war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe to us! For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.
5. Arise, and let us go up by night, and let us destroy her palaces.”
6. For Yahweh of Armies said, “Cut down trees, and cast up a mound against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression within her.
7. As a well produces its waters, so she produces her wickedness: violence and destruction is heard in her; before me continually is sickness and wounds.
8. Be instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from you; lest I make you a desolation, a land not inhabited.”
9. Yahweh of Armies says, “They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel like a vine. Turn again your hand as a grape gatherer into the baskets.”
10. To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they can’t listen. Behold, Yahweh’s word has become a reproach to them. They have no delight in it.
11. Therefore I am full of Yahweh’s wrath. I am weary with holding in. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him who is full of days.
12. Their houses shall be turned to others, their fields and their wives together; for I will stretch out my hand on the inhabitants of the land, says Yahweh.”