The Lord Will Fight the Nations
14 A day is going to come for the Lord when the loot you have taken will be divided among you. 2 I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem for battle. The city will be captured, the houses looted, and the women raped. Half of the people in the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people won’t be taken from the city.
3 Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as he does when he fights a battle. 4 On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, just east of Jerusalem. The Mount of Olives will be split in two, forming a very large valley from east to west. Half of the mountain will move toward the north, and the other half will move toward the south. 5 Then you will flee to the valley of my mountains, because this valley between the mountains will go as far as Azel. You will flee as you did from the earthquake at the time of King Uzziah of Judah. The Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones will be with him.
6 On that day there will be neither heat nor freezing cold. 7 There will be one day—a day known to the Lord—with no difference between day and night. It will be light even in the evening.
Living Water from Jerusalem
8 On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it to the Dead Sea and the other half to the Mediterranean Sea. It will continue in summer and in winter.
9 The Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be the only Lord and his name the only name.
10 The whole earth will become like the plains from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem. Jerusalem will rise and remain on its site, from Benjamin Gate to the place of First Gate, Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s winepresses. 11 People will live there, and it will never be threatened with destruction. Jerusalem will live securely.
12 This will be the plague the Lord will use to strike all the people from the nations that have gone to war against Jerusalem. Their flesh will rot while they are standing on their feet. Their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.
13 On that day a large-scale panic from the Lord will spread among them. One person will grab the hand of another, and one will attack the other. 14 Judah will also fight in Jerusalem. The wealth of all the surrounding nations will be collected, a very large amount of gold, silver, and clothes. 15 A similar plague will also affect horses, mules, camels, donkeys, and all other animals in those camps.
16 Everyone who is left from all the nations that attacked Jerusalem will come every year to worship the king, the Lord of Armies, and to celebrate the Festival of Booths. 17 If any of the families on the earth won’t go to Jerusalem to worship the king, the Lord of Armies, then rain won’t fall on them. 18 If the people of Egypt won’t go or enter Jerusalem, then ⌞rain won’t fall⌟ on them. The plague the Lord uses to strike the nations will affect those who won’t come to celebrate the Festival of Booths. 19 This will be ⌞the punishment⌟ for Egypt’s sin and for the sin of all the nations that won’t go to celebrate the Festival of Booths.
20 On that day “Holy to the Lord” will be written on the bells of the horses. And the cooking pots in the house of the Lord will be like the bowls in front of the altar. 21 Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the Lord of Armies. All who come to sacrifice will take some of them and cook in them. On that day there will no longer be any Canaanite [a] in the house of the Lord of Armies.
Footnotes
- 14:21 Or “merchant.”