Jerusalem and the Nations
1The day when the Lord will sit in judgment is near. Then Jerusalem will be looted, and the loot will be divided up before your eyes. 2The Lord will bring all the nations together to make war on Jerusalem. The city will be taken, the houses looted, and the women raped. Half of the people will go into exile, but the rest of them will not be taken away from the city. 3Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he has fought in times past. 4At that time he will stand on the Mount of Olives, to the east of Jerusalem. Then the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west by a large valley. Half of the mountain will move northward, and half of it southward. 5You will escape through this valley that divides the mountain in two. You will flee as your ancestors did when the earthquake struck in the time of King Uzziah of Judah. The Lord my God will come, bringing all the angels with him.
6When that time comes, there will no longer be cold or frost, 7nor any darkness. There will always be daylight, even at nighttime. When this will happen is known only to the Lord.
8 When that day comes, fresh water will flow from Jerusalem, half of it to the Dead Sea and the other half to the Mediterranean. It will flow all year long, in the dry season as well as the wet. 9Then the Lord will be king over all the earth; everyone will worship him as God and know him by the same name.
10The whole region, from Geba in the north to Rimmon in the south, will be made level. Jerusalem will tower above the land around it; the city will reach from the Benjamin Gate to the Corner Gate, where there had been an earlier gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the royal wine presses. 11 The people will live there in safety, no longer threatened by destruction.
12The Lord will bring a terrible disease on all the nations that make war on Jerusalem. Their flesh will rot away while they are still alive; their eyes and their tongues will rot away.
13At that time the Lord will make them so confused and afraid that everyone will seize the man next to him and attack him. 14The men of Judah will fight to defend Jerusalem. They will take as loot the wealth of all the nations—gold, silver, and clothing in great abundance.
15A terrible disease will also fall on the horses, the mules, the camels, and the donkeys—on all the animals in the camps of the enemy.
16 Then all of the survivors from the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go there each year to worship the Lord Almighty as king and to celebrate the Festival of Shelters. 17If any nation refuses to go and worship the Lord Almighty as king, then rain will not fall on their land. 18If the Egyptians refuse to celebrate the Festival of Shelters, then they will be struck by the same disease that the Lord will send on every nation that refuses to go. 19This will be the punishment that will fall on Egypt and on all the other nations if they do not celebrate the Festival of Shelters.
20At that time even the harness bells of the horses will be inscribed with the words “Dedicated to the Lord.” The cooking pots in the Temple will be as sacred as the bowls before the altar. 21Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in all Judah will be set apart for use in the worship of the Lord Almighty. The people who offer sacrifices will use them for boiling the meat of the sacrifices. When that time comes, there will no longer be any merchant in the Temple of the Lord Almighty.