Nahum 1:10

The Amorites, who lived in that hill country, came out against you and chased you as bees do, and beat you down in Seir, even to Hormah.

For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity.

Ah sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken Yahweh. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are estranged and backward.

For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity, from the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, in the valley of vision, a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains.”

This is the joyous city that lived carelessly, that said in her heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.” How she has become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in! Everyone who passes by her will hiss, and shake their fists.

“I came to throw fire on the earth. I wish it were already kindled.

For a fire is kindled in my anger, that burns to the lowest Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.

Haven’t I commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be dismayed, for Yahweh your God is with you wherever you go.”

So they sat down, ate, and drank, both of them together. Then the young lady’s father said to the man, “Please be pleased to stay all night, and let your heart be merry.”

Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel!

His roots will be dried up beneath. His branch will be cut off above.

Behold, and answer me, Yahweh, my God. Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death;

You will make them as a fiery furnace in the time of your anger. Yahweh will swallow them up in his wrath. The fire shall devour them.

But the wicked shall perish. The enemies of Yahweh shall be like the beauty of the fields. They will vanish— vanish like smoke.

Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns, he will sweep away the green and the burning alike.

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

Rise up, you women who are at ease! Hear my voice! You careless daughters, give ear to my speech!

Behold, they are like stubble. The fire will burn them. They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It won’t be a coal to warm at or a fire to sit by.

“As I live,” says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies, “surely like Tabor among the mountains, and like Carmel by the sea, so he will come.

You, son of man, don’t be afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you, and you dwell among scorpions. Don’t be afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.

The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool, and the man who is inspired to be insane, because of the abundance of your sins, and because your hostility is great.

The mountains melt under him, and the valleys split apart, like wax before the fire, like waters that are poured down a steep place.

When the man rose up to depart, he, and his concubine, and his servant, his father-in-law, the young lady’s father, said to him, “Behold, now the day draws toward evening, please stay all night. Behold, the day is ending. Stay here, that your heart may be merry; and tomorrow go on your way early, that you may go home.”

As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain wicked fellows, surrounded the house, beating at the door; and they spoke to the master of the house, the old man, saying, “Bring out the man who came into your house, that we can have sex with him!”

When Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. She came softly, uncovered his feet, and laid down.

She said to her young men, “Go on before me. Behold, I am coming after you.” But she didn’t tell her husband, Nabal.

After two full years, Absalom had sheep shearers in Baal Hazor, which is beside Ephraim: and Absalom invited all the king’s sons.

The mountains melt like wax at the presence of Yahweh, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.

Wine is a mocker and beer is a brawler. Whoever is led astray by them is not wise.

Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glory of his majesty.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the Most High!”

Therefore the Holy One of Israel says, “Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely on it,

I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh; and they will be drunk on their own blood, as with sweet wine. Then all flesh shall know that I, Yahweh, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

“Come,” say they, “I will get wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow will be as today, great beyond measure.”

They will drink, and reel back and forth, and be insane, because of the sword that I will send among them.”

“You shall tell them, ‘Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Drink, and be drunk, vomit, fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.” ’

Moab is laid waste, and they have gone up into his cities, and his chosen young men have gone down to the slaughter,” says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.

“Make him drunken; for he magnified himself against Yahweh. Moab will wallow in his vomit, and he also will be in derision.

You will be for fuel to the fire. Your blood will be in the middle of the land. You will be remembered no more; for I, Yahweh, have spoken it.” ’ ”

In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean King was slain.

Therefore they will be like the morning mist, and like the dew that passes away early, like the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the threshing floor, and like the smoke out of the chimney.

Like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountains, they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array.

The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes.

Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.

The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion.

“But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderers’ soap;

Now we call the proud happy; yes, those who work wickedness are built up; yes, they tempt God, and escape.’

“For, behold, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up,” says Yahweh of Armies, “that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes.

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.”

But if that evil servant should say in his heart, ‘My lord is delaying his coming,’

punishing those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus,

but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is rejected and near being cursed, whose end is to be burned.

But the heavens that exist now and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

In the greatness of your excellency, you overthrow those who rise up against you. You send out your wrath. It consumes them as stubble.

But all the ungodly will be as thorns to be thrust away, because they can’t be taken with the hand,

They surrounded me like bees. They are quenched like the burning thorns. In Yahweh’s name I cut them off.

The light of Israel will be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame; and it will burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day.

Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man, on animal, on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and will not be quenched.”

Arise! Go up to a nation that is at ease, that dwells without care,” says Yahweh; “that has neither gates nor bars, that dwells alone.

You also will be drunken. You will be hidden. You also will seek a stronghold because of the enemy.

whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor, and will gather the wheat into his barn; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

You have lived in luxury on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.

So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw.

Abigail came to Nabal; and behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. Therefore she told him nothing until the morning light.

Absalom commanded his servants, saying, “Mark now, when Amnon’s heart is merry with wine; and when I tell you, ‘Strike Amnon,’ then kill him. Don’t be afraid. Haven’t I commanded you? Be courageous, and be valiant!”

His servant Zimri, captain of half his chariots, conspired against him. Now he was in Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, who was over the household in Tirzah;

How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?

He says in his heart, “I shall not be shaken. For generations I shall have no trouble.”

As smoke is driven away, so drive them away. As wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.

As the fire that burns the forest, as the flame that sets the mountains on fire,

Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

For wickedness burns like a fire. It devours the briers and thorns; yes, it kindles in the thickets of the forest, and they roll upward in a column of smoke.

My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.

Wrath is not in me, but if I should find briers and thorns, I would do battle! I would march on them and I would burn them together.

“Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me. I won’t sit as a widow, neither will I know the loss of children.’

When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunk, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says Yahweh.

I will make her princes, her wise men, her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men drunk. They will sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.

It is sharpened that it may make a slaughter. It is polished that it may be as lightning. Should we then make mirth? The rod of my son condemns every tree.

Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.

I will also cause all her celebrations to cease: her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies.

Therefore they will now go captive with the first who go captive; and the feasting and lounging will end.

I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.

The house of Jacob will be a fire, the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble. They will burn among them, and devour them. There will not be any remaining to the house of Esau.” Indeed, Yahweh has spoken.

Woe to you, you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.

“But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared—whose will they be?’

For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman. Then they will in no way escape.