¹Woe to the plunderer,

You who were not plundered,

And to the traitor,

Him whom no-one betrayed.

When you stop plundering,

You will be plundered,

When you finish betraying,

You will be betrayed.

²O Lord, be gracious to us;

We have put our hope in you.

Be their strong arm in the mornings,

And also our salvation

In a time of adversity.

³At the sound of a multitude,

The various peoples will flee;

At your exaltation,

The nations will be scattered.

⁴And your plunder will be gathered

Like a swarm of consuming locusts;

They will be greedy for it,

Like the greed of desert locusts.

⁵The Lord is exalted,

For he inhabits the heights;

He will fill Zion

With justice and righteousness.

⁶And the abundance of acts of salvation, wisdom and knowledge

Will be the mainstay of your times,

And fear of the Lord

Will be his treasure.

⁷Behold, their heroes will cry out in the open;

The messengers of peace will weep bitterly.

⁸The highways will be devastated;

The wayfarer will cease to be found.

He will break the covenant,

He will show contempt for the cities;

He will not consider man.

⁹The earth mourns and is languishing,

And Lebanon is ashamed and is withering.

Sharon has become like an arid tract,

And Bashan and Carmel

Have cast off their foliage.

¹⁰“Now I will arise”,

The Lord will say,

“Now I will be exalted;

Now I will be extolled.

¹¹You will conceive stubble;

You will give birth to chaff.

Your own fiery breath will consume you.

¹²And nations will be like the burning of lime;

They will be set on fire,

Like thorn plants that have been cut down.

¹³Hear, you who are far away,

What I have done,

And know, you who are nearby, my might.”

¹⁴The sinners in Zion will be afraid;

Trembling will seize the profane.

Who among us can withstand a consuming fire?

Who among us can withstand

Age-abiding burning?

¹⁵As for him who walks righteously

And speaks uprightly,

Rejecting unjust gain

From fraudulent practices,

Dismissing with a wave of his hands

Any offer of a bribe,

Shutting his ear

So as not to hear plots of bloodshed,

And closing his eyes

So as not to see plans for evil,

¹⁶He will dwell high up;

His high fort is a citadel of rock.

His food is provided for;

His water supply is reliable.

¹⁷Your eyes will see the king in his magnificence;

They will see a far-stretching land.

¹⁸Your heart will be taken up with dread.

Where is the scribe?

Where is the weigher?

Where is he who counts the towers?

¹⁹You will not see a fierce people,

Nor a people of unintelligible speech,

Jabbering in a tongue

Not understood.

²⁰Behold Zion,

Town of our festival times.

Your eyes will see Jerusalem,

A dwelling place at ease,

A tent which does not move around,

Whose pegs do not for ever journey,

And none of whose guylines are detached.

²¹For the mighty Lord will be there,

As our place of rivers

– Watercourses – very wide ones.

No galley will go into it,

And no mighty ship will pass through it.

²²For the Lord is our judge,

The Lord is our legislator,

The Lord is our king;

He will save us.

²³Your rigging has been loosened,

They have not strengthened the base of their mast;

They have not unfurled a sail.

Then the booty of much spoil is divided;

The lame grab the plunder.

²⁴And the inhabitant will not say,

“I am ill.”

The people who live in it

Are forgiven their iniquity.