Thomson(i)
1 I will send away as reptiles on the earth. Is Petra a desert? There is the mountain of the daughter of Sion [to fly to]
2 for thou shalt be [like the young of a flown bird carried away] Thou, Moab, shalt be a vassal; and after that there will be a greater tribute of lambs.
3 Take counsel [O Sion] and make for her every where a shelter from grief. In midnight darkness they will flee. They are confounded. Be not thou incensed.
4 Let the fugitives of Moab sojourn with thee. They will be a shelter to you from the face of a pursuer. Because thy share in the war is taken away; and the chief who trampled down is destroyed from this land;
5 therefore a throne shall be established with mercy, and on it one shall be seated with truth; in the tabernacle of David, executing justice, and searching out judgment and promoting righteousness.
6 [s] "We have heard of the haughtiness of Moab; he is very insolent." [J] This haughtiness I have totally removed. "Is not this, is not this the oracle concerning thee?
7 Moab shall raise the mournful cry, for in the country of Moab they shall all utter the cry of Woe, but to them who dwell in the habitations of Seth thou shalt extend care and shalt not be ashamed."
8 The plains of Esebon shall mourn; the vineyard Sebama. Ye who drink up the nations, trample down her vineyards to Jazer. You need not march in close array: roam through the wilderness. They who were dispatched were wholly given up, for they passed through quite to the sea.
9 [p] Let me therefore weep, as with the weeping of Jazer, for the vineyards of Sebama. He hath cut down thy trees, Esebon and Eleale. [J] Because in harvest and at thy vintage I will trample down and all shall be laid prostrate;
10 therefore gladness and the shout of joy shall be taken from the vineyards. And in thy vineyards they shall not rejoice, nor tread out wine in thy cisterns, for a stop is put to the shout of joy.
11 [p] For Moab therefore will my bowels sound like a kithara, and my entrails, as when thou didst consecrate a wall;
12 but it will be for the purpose of making thee ashamed. Because Moab had tired himself at the altars, therefore he will go in to the works of his hands; that they may intercede; but they shall not be able to deliver him.
13 This is the decree which the Lord pronounced against Moab, when he spoke.
14 And now I say, within three years of the years of an hireling the glory of Moab shall be debased with all his abundant wealth; and he shall be left few in number and of no estimation.