Zephaniah 3:2

²¹I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, ‘I will not listen.’ This has been your way from your youth, that you didn’t obey my voice.

³O LORD, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.

²³but this thing I commanded them, saying, ‘Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. Walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ ²⁴But they didn’t listen or turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. ²⁵Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. ²⁶Yet they didn’t listen to me or incline their ear, but made their neck stiff. They did worse than their fathers.

²⁷“You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you. ²⁸You shall tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to the LORD their God’s voice, nor received instruction. Truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’

²²because they didn’t believe in God, and didn’t trust in his salvation.

²⁸But it is good for me to come close to God. I have made the Lord GOD ^[+] my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.

¹⁵But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the LORD your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come on you and overtake you. ¹⁶You will be cursed in the city, and you will be cursed in the field. ¹⁷Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. ¹⁸The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock will be cursed. ¹⁹You will be cursed when you come in, and you will be cursed when you go out. ²⁰The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me. ²¹The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from off the land where you go in to possess it. ²²The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish. ²³Your sky that is over your head will be bronze, and the earth that is under you will be iron. ²⁴The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust. It will come down on you from the sky, until you are destroyed. ²⁵The LORD will cause you to be struck before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them. You will be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶Your dead bodies will be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there will be no one to frighten them away. ²⁷The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with the tumors, with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed. ²⁸The LORD will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with astonishment of heart. ²⁹You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you. ³⁰You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit. ³¹Your ox will be slain before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from before your face, and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you. ³²Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand. ³³A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always, ³⁴so that the sights that you see with your eyes will drive you mad. ³⁵The LORD will strike you in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil, of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. ³⁶The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone. ³⁷You will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away. ³⁸You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it. ³⁹You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off. ⁴¹You will father sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity. ⁴²Locusts will consume all of your trees and the fruit of your ground. ⁴³The foreigner who is among you will mount up above you higher and higher, and you will come down lower and lower. ⁴⁴He will lend to you, and you won’t lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.

⁴⁵All these curses will come on you, and will pursue you and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you. ⁴⁶They will be for a sign and for a wonder to you and to your offspring forever. ⁴⁷Because you didn’t serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things; ⁴⁸therefore you will serve your enemies whom the LORD sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you. ⁴⁹The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies: a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰a nation of fierce facial expressions, that doesn’t respect the elderly, nor show favor to the young. ⁵¹They will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish. ⁵²They will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you. ⁵⁴The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil toward his brother, toward the wife whom he loves, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining, ⁵⁵so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates. ⁵⁶The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil toward the husband that she loves, toward her son, toward her daughter, ⁵⁷toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates. ⁵⁸If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD^[+] your God, ⁵⁹then the LORD will make your plagues and the plagues of your offspring fearful, even great plagues, and of long duration, and severe sicknesses, and of long duration. ⁶⁰He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they will cling to you. ⁶¹Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, the LORD will bring them on you until you are destroyed. ⁶²You will be left few in number, even though you were as the stars of the sky for multitude, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice. ⁶³It will happen that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be plucked from the land that you are going in to possess. ⁶⁴The LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone. ⁶⁵Among these nations you will find no ease, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and pining of soul. ⁶⁶Your life will hang in doubt before you. You will be afraid night and day, and will have no assurance of your life. ⁶⁷In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening!” and at evening you will say, “I wish it were morning!” for the fear of your heart which you will fear, and for the sights which your eyes will see. ⁶⁸The LORD will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I told you that you would never see it again. There you will offer yourselves to your enemies for male and female slaves, and nobody will buy you.

¹³The Lord said, “Because this people draws near with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but they have removed their heart far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment of men which has been taught;

¹⁸He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only born Son of God. ¹⁹This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil.

⁴The wicked, in the pride of his face, has no room in his thoughts for God.

³³They have turned their backs to me, and not their faces. Although I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction.