1: Draw in close now, nations. Listen carefully, you people. Pay attention! Earth, you too, and everything in you. World, and all that comes from you.
2: And here's why: GOD is angry, good and angry with all the nations, So blazingly angry at their arms and armies that he's going to rid earth of them, wipe them out.
3: The corpses, thrown in a heap, will stink like the town dump in midsummer, Their blood flowing off the mountains like creeks in spring runoff.
4: Stars will fall out of the sky like overripe, rotting fruit in the orchard, And the sky itself will be folded up like a blanket and put away in a closet. All that army of stars, shriveled to nothing, like leaves and fruit in autumn, dropping and rotting!
5: "Once I've finished with earth and sky, I'll start in on Edom. I'll come down hard on Edom, a people I've slated for total termination."
6: GOD has a sword, thirsty for blood and more blood, a sword hungry for well-fed flesh, Lamb and goat blood, the suet-rich kidneys of rams. Yes, GOD has scheduled a sacrifice in Bozrah, the capital, the whole country of Edom a slaughterhouse.
7: A wholesale slaughter, wild animals and farm animals alike slaughtered. The whole country soaked with blood, all the ground greasy with fat.
8: It's GOD's scheduled time for vengeance, the year all Zion's accounts are settled.
9: Edom's streams will flow sluggish, thick with pollution, the soil sterile, poisoned with waste, The whole country a smoking, stinking garbage dump--
10: The fires burning day and night, the skies black with endless smoke. Generation after generation of wasteland--no more travelers through this country!
11: Vultures and skunks will police the streets; owls and crows will feel at home there. God will reverse creation. Chaos! He will cancel fertility. Emptiness!
12: Leaders will have no one to lead. They'll name it No Kingdom There, A country where all kings and princes are unemployed.
13: Thistles will take over, covering the castles, fortresses conquered by weeds and thornbushes. Wild dogs will prowl the ruins, ostriches have the run of the place.
14: Wildcats and hyenas will hunt together, demons and devils dance through the night. The night-demon Lilith, evil and rapacious, will establish permanent quarters.
15: Scavenging carrion birds will breed and brood, infestations of ominous evil.
16: Get and read GOD's book: None of this is going away, this breeding, brooding evil. GOD has personally commanded it all. His Spirit set it in motion.
17: GOD has assigned them their place, decreed their fate in detail. This is permanent--generation after generation, the same old thing.