This is the message which he told them to give to Isaiah: "Today is a day of suffering; we are being punished and are in disgrace. We are like a woman who is ready to give birth, but is too weak to do it.

This is the message which he told them to give Isaiah: "Today is a day of suffering; we are being punished and are in disgrace. We are like a woman who is ready to give birth, but is too weak to do it.

A terrible day is coming; no other day can compare with it--- a time of distress for my people, but they will survive."

How terrible it will be for you who long for the day of the LORD! What good will that day do you? For you it will be a day of darkness and not of light.

The day of the LORD will bring darkness and not light; it will be a day of gloom, without any brightness.

"Here is what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge around it, break down the wall that protects it, and let wild animals eat it and trample it down.

I sent Assyria to attack a godless nation, people who have made me angry. I sent them to loot and steal and trample the people like dirt in the streets."

The LORD will protect Mount Zion, but the people of Moab will be trampled down the way straw is trampled in manure.

At the king's command the decree was made public in the capital city of Susa, and runners carried the news to the provinces. The king and Haman sat down and had a drink while the city of Susa was being thrown into confusion.

Even the best and most honest of them are as worthless as weeds. The day has come when God will punish the people, as he warned them through their watchmen, the prophets. Now they are in confusion.

and his soldiers tore down the city walls.

Her enemies succeeded; they hold her in their power. The LORD has made her suffer for all her many sins; Her children have been captured and taken away.

The Lord destroyed without mercy every village in Judah And tore down the forts that defended the land. He brought disgrace on the kingdom and its rulers.

The hilltop shrines of Aven, where the people of Israel worship idols, will be destroyed. Thorns and weeds will grow up over their altars. The people will call out to the mountains, "Hide us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!"

"Then those who are in Judea must run away to the hills.

That will be the time when people will say to the mountains, 'Fall on us!' and to the hills, 'Hide us!'

They called out to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the eyes of the one who sits on the throne and from the anger of the Lamb!

The terrible day of their anger is here, and who can stand up against it?"