Yahweh Is Gracious and Just
18 Therefore Yahweh awaits with longing to be gracious to you,
And therefore He is on bhigh to have compassion on you.
For Yahweh is a cGod of justice;
How blessed are all those who dwait for Him.
19 O people in Zion, ainhabitant in Jerusalem, you will bweep no longer. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will canswer you. 20 The Lord has given you abread of distress and water of oppression; He, your Teacher will no longer bhide Himself, but your eyes will see your Teacher. 21 And your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the away, walk in it,” whenever you bturn to the right or to the left. 22 And you will defile your graven aimages overlaid with your silver, and your molten aimages plated with your gold. You will scatter them as an impure thing and say to them, “bBe gone!”
23 Then He will agive you rain for the seed which you will sow in the ground, and bread from the produce of the ground, and it will be rich and fat; on that day byour livestock will graze in a roomy pasture. 24 Also the oxen and the donkeys which work the ground will eat salted fodder, which has been awinnowed with shovel and fork. 25 And it will be that on every lofty mountain and on aevery lifted up hill there will be streams running with water on the day of the great bslaughter, when the towers fall. 26 aAnd the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day bYahweh binds up the cfracture of His people and dheals the bruise He has inflicted.
27 Behold, athe name of Yahweh comes from afar;
bBurning is His anger and heavy is His smoke;
His lips are filled with cindignation
And His tongue is like a dconsuming fire;
28 His abreath is like an overflowing torrent,
Which breaches to the neck,
To cshake the nations back and forth in a sieve of worthlessness,
And to put in the jaws of the peoples dthe bridle which staggers one to ruin.
29 You will have songs as in the night when you set yourself apart as holy for the festival,
And gladness of heart as when one marches to the sound of the flute,
To go to the mountain of Yahweh, to the Rock of Israel.
30 And Yahweh will cause His splendid voice to be heard,
And the descending of His arm to be seen in raging anger,
And in the flame of a consuming fire
In cloudburst, downpour, and hailstones.
31 For aat the voice of Yahweh bAssyria will be dismayed,
When He strikes with the crod.
32 And every blow of the aappointed staff,
Which Yahweh will cause to rest upon him,
Will be with the music of btambourines and lyres;
And in battles, cwaving weapons He will fight them.
33 For aTopheth has long been ready,
Indeed, it has been prepared for the king.
He has made it deep and large,
A pyre of fire with plenty of wood;
The bbreath of Yahweh, like a torrent of cbrimstone, sets it afire.