3. Your powerful voice makes people run away in fear. Your greatness causes the nations to run away.
4. You people stole things in war. Those things will be taken from you. Many will come and take your wealth. It will be like the times when locusts come and eat all your crops.
5. The Lord is very great. He lives in a very high place. He fills Zion with justice and goodness.
6. Jerusalem, you are rich with wisdom and knowledge of God. You are rich with salvation. You respect the Lord, and that makes you rich.
7. But listen! The messengers are crying outside. The messengers who bring peace are crying very hard.
8. The roads are empty; there is no one walking along the paths. People don’t respect each other. They have broken the agreements they made, and they refuse to believe what witnesses tell them.
9. The land is sick and dying. Lebanon is dying and Sharon Valley is dry and empty. Bashan and Carmel once grew beautiful plants—but now those plants have stopped growing.
21-23. because the Lord is our powerful leader there. That land is a place with streams and wide rivers, but there will be no enemy boats or powerful ships on those rivers. You men who work on such boats can stop your work with the ropes. You cannot make the mast strong enough. You will not be able to open your sails, because the Lord is our judge. He makes our laws. He is our king. He saves us. The Lord will give us our wealth. Even crippled people will get their share.
24. No one living there will say, “I am sick,” because everyone living there has had their guilt removed.