10  tI will turn your feasts into mourning

and all your songs into lamentation;

uI will bring sackcloth on every waist

uand baldness on every head;

vI will make it like the mourning for an only son

and the end of it like a bitter day.

11  “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,

“when wI will send a famine on the land—

not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,

xbut of hearing the words of the Lord.

12  xThey shall wander from sea to sea,

and from north to east;

they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord,

ybut they shall not find it.

13  z“In that day the lovely virgins and the young men

shall afaint for thirst.

14  Those who swear by bthe Guilt of Samaria,

and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’

and, ‘As cthe Way of dBeersheba lives,’

they shall fall, and never rise again.”

The Destruction of Israel

9 I saw the Lord standing beside1 the altar, and he said:

e“Strike the capitals until ethe thresholds fshake,

gand shatter them on the heads of all the people;2

and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword;

hnot one of them shall flee away;

not one of them shall escape.

2  i“If they dig into Sheol,

from there shall my hand take them;

iif they climb up to heaven,

from there I will bring them down.

3  If they hide themselves on jthe top of Carmel,

from there I will search them out and take them;

kand if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,

there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.

4  lAnd if they go into captivity before their enemies,

there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;

mand I will fix my eyes upon them

for evil and not for good.”