Chapter 24

¹ Behold, the Lord is about to lay waste the world, and will make it desolate, and will lay bare the surface of it, and scatter them that dwell therein. ² And the people shall be as the priest, and the servant as the lord, and the maid as the mistress; the buyer shall be as the seller, the lender as the borrower, and the debtor as his creditor.

³ The earth shall be completely laid waste, and the earth shall be utterly spoiled: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things. ⁴ The earth mourns, and the world is ruined, the lofty ones of the earth are mourning. ⁵ And she has sinned by reason of her inhabitants; because they have transgressed the law, and changed the ordinances, even the everlasting covenant. ⁶ Therefore a curse shall consume the earth, because the inhabitants thereof have sinned: therefore the dwellers in the earth shall be poor, and few men shall be left. ⁷ The wine shall mourn, the vine shall mourn, all the merry-hearted

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shall sigh. ⁸ The mirth of timbrels has ceased, the sound of the harp has ceased. ⁹ They are ashamed, they have not drunk wine; strong drink has become bitter to them that drink it. ¹⁰ All the city has become desolate: one shall shut his house so that none shall enter. ¹¹ There is a howling for the wine everywhere; all the mirth of the land has ceased, all the mirth of the land has departed. ¹² And cities shall be left desolate, and houses being left shall fall to ruin.

¹³ All this shall be in the land in the midst of the nations, as if one should strip an olive tree, so shall they strip them; but when the vintage is done, ¹⁴ these shall cry aloud; and they that are left on the land shall rejoice together in the glory of the Lord: the water of the sea shall be troubled. ¹⁵ Therefore shall the glory of the Lord be in the isles of the sea; the name of the Lord shall be glorious.

¹⁶ O Lord God of Israel, from the ends of the earth we have heard wonderful things, and there is hope to the godly: but they shall say, Woe to the despisers, that despise the law. ¹⁷ Fear, and a pit, and a snare, are upon you that dwell on the earth. ¹⁸ And it shall come to pass, that he that flees from the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that comes up out of the pit shall be caught by the snare: for windows have been opened in heaven, and the foundations of the earth shall be shaken, ¹⁹ the earth shall be utterly confounded, and the earth shall be completely perplexed. ²⁰ It reels as a drunkard and one oppressed with wine, and the earth shall be shaken as a storehouse of fruits; for iniquity has prevailed upon it, and it shall fall, and shall not be able to rise.

²¹ And God shall bring his hand upon the host of heaven, and upon the kings of the earth. ²² And they shall gather the multitude thereof into prisons, and they shall shut them into a strong hold: after many generations they shall be visited. ²³ And the brick shall decay, and the wall shall fall; for the Lord shall reign ¹from out of Sion, and out of Jerusalem, and shall be glorified before his elders.