15 The mournful, inspired prediction (a burden to be lifted up) concerning Moab: Because in a night Ar of Moab is laid waste and brought to silence! Because in a night Kir of Moab is laid waste and brought to silence!

² They are gone up to Bayith and to Dibon, to the high places to weep. Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba; on all their heads is baldness, and every beard is cut off [as a sign of deep sorrow and humiliation].^(A)

³ In their streets they gird themselves with sackcloth; on the tops of their houses and in their broad places everyone wails, weeping abundantly.

⁴ And Heshbon and Elealeh [cities in possession of Moab] cry out; their voice is heard even to Jahaz. Therefore the armed soldiers of Moab cry out; [Moab’s] life is grievous and trembles within him.

⁵ My heart cries out for Moab; his nobles and other fugitives flee to Zoar, to Eglath-shelishiyah [like a heifer three years old]. For with weeping they go up the ascent of Luhith; for on the road to Horonaim they raise a cry of destruction.^(B)

⁶ For the waters of Nimrim are desolations, for the grass is withered away and the new growth fails; there is no green thing.

⁷ Therefore the abundance [of possessions] they have acquired and stored away they [now] carry over the willow brook and to the valley of the Arabians.

⁸ For the cry [of distress] has gone round the borders of Moab; the wailing has reached to Eglaim, and the prolonged and mournful cry to Beer-elim.

⁹ For the waters of Dimon are full of blood; yet I [the Lord] will bring even more on Dimon—a lion upon those of Moab who escape and upon the remnant of the land.

16 You [Moabites, now fugitives in Edom, which is ruled by the king of Judah] send ^[a]lambs to the ruler of the land, from Sela or Petra through the desert and wilderness to the mountain of the Daughter of Zion [Jerusalem].^(C)

² For like wandering birds, like a brood cast out and a scattered nest, so shall the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the [river] Arnon.

³ [Say to the ruler] Give counsel, execute justice [for Moab, O king of Judah]; make your shade [over us] like night in the midst of noonday; hide the outcasts, betray not the fugitive to his pursuer.

⁴ Let our outcasts of Moab dwell among you; be a sheltered hiding place to them from the destroyer. When the extortion and the extortioner have been brought to nought, and destruction has ceased, and the oppressors and they who trample men are consumed and have vanished out of the land,

⁵ Then in mercy and loving-kindness shall a throne be established, and ^[b] One shall sit upon it in truth and faithfulness in the tent of David, judging and seeking justice and being swift to do righteousness.^(D)

⁶ We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud—even of his arrogance, his conceit, his wrath, his untruthful boasting.

⁷ Moab therefore shall wail for Moab; everyone shall wail. For the ruins, flagons of wine, and the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth you shall sigh and mourn, utterly stricken and discouraged.

⁸ For the fields of Heshbon languish and wither, and the vines of Sibmah; the lords of the nations have broken down [Moab’s] choice vine branches, which reached even to Jazer, wandering into the wilderness; its shoots stretched out abroad, they passed over [the shores of] the [Dead] Sea.

⁹ Therefore I [Isaiah] will weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vines of Sibmah. I will drench you with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh; for upon your summer fruits and your harvest the shout [of alarm and the cry of the enemy] has fallen.

¹⁰ And gladness is taken away, and joy out of the plentiful field; and in the vineyards there is no singing, nor is there joyful sound; the treaders tread out no wine in the presses, for the shout of joy has been made to cease.

¹¹ Wherefore my heart sounds like a harp [in mournful compassion] for Moab, and my inner being [goes out] for Kir-hareseth [for those brick-walled citadels of his].

¹² It shall be that when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself [worshiping] on the high place [of idolatry], he will come to his sanctuary [of Chemosh, god of Moab], but he will not prevail. [Then will he be ashamed of his god.]^(E)

¹³ This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning Moab since that time [when Moab’s pride and resistance to God were first known].

¹⁴ But now the Lord has spoken, saying, Within ^[c]three years, as the years of a hireling [who will not serve longer than the allotted time], the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt, in spite of all his mighty multitudes of people; and the remnant that survives will be very small, feeble, and of no account.

¹⁰ For the hand of the Lord shall rest on this Mount [Zion], and Moab shall be threshed and trodden down in his place as straw is trodden down in the [filthy] water of a [primitive] cesspit.

¹¹ And though [Moab] stretches forth his hands in the midst of [the filthy water] as a swimmer stretches out his hands to swim, the Lord will bring down [Moab’s] pride in spite of the skillfulness of his hands and together with the spoils of his hands.

¹² And the high fortifications of your walls [the Lord] will bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust.

⁸ Thus says the Lord God: Because Moab says, as does Seir [Edom], Behold, the house of Judah is like all the [heathen] nations,

⁹ Therefore behold, I will lay open the flank of Moab from the cities, from its cities on its frontiers and in every quarter, the glory of the country, Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim.

¹⁰ I will give it along with the children of Ammon to the people of the East for a possession, that it and the children of Ammon may not be [any more seriously] remembered among the nations.

¹¹ And I will execute judgments and punishments upon Moab, and they shall know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord [the Sovereign Ruler, Who calls forth loyalty and obedient service].^(A)

2 Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Moab [descendants of Lot] and for four [for multiplied delinquencies], I will not reverse the punishment of it or revoke My word concerning it, because he burned the bones of the king of Edom [Esau’s descendant] into lime.

² So I will send a fire upon Moab and it shall devour the strongholds of Kerioth, and Moab shall die amid uproar, shouting, and the sound of the trumpet.

³ And I will cut off the ruler from its midst and will slay all its princes with him, says the Lord.

⁸ I have heard the taunts of Moab and the revilings of the Ammonites by which they have reproached My people, and magnified themselves and made boasts against their territory.

⁹ Therefore, as I live, says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Moab shall become like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah, a land possessed by nettles and wild vetches and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation. The remnant of My people shall make a prey of them and what is left of My nation shall possess them.

¹⁰ This shall they have for their pride, because they have taunted and boasted against the people of the Lord of hosts.

¹¹ The Lord will be terrible to them, for He will make lean and famish all the gods of the earth; and men shall worship Him, every one from his place, even all the isles and coastlands of the nations.^(A)