All of them have shaved their heads and cut off their beards. They have all made gashes on their hands, and everyone is wearing sackcloth.

The people of Dibon climb the hill to weep at the shrine. The people of Moab wail in grief over the cities of Nebo and Medeba; they have shaved their heads and their beards in grief.

They will put on sackcloth and they will tremble all over. Their heads will be shaved, and they will all be disgraced.

People of Judah, cut off your hair in mourning for the children you love. Make yourselves as bald as vultures, because your children will be taken away from you into exile.

Before the king of Egypt attacked Gaza, the LORD spoke to me about Philistia.

The LORD says, "The people of Gaza have sinned again and again, and for this I will certainly punish them. They carried off a whole nation and sold them as slaves to the people of Edom.

I will remove the rulers of the cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon. I will punish the city of Ekron, and all the Philistines who are left will die."

No one will be left in the city of Gaza. Ashkelon will be deserted. The people of Ashdod will be driven out in half a day, and the people of Ekron will be driven from their city.

Your land by the sea will become open fields with shepherd's huts and sheep pens.

The city of Ashkelon will see this and be afraid. The city of Gaza will see it and suffer great pain. So will Ekron, and her hopes will be shattered. Gaza will lose her king, and Ashkelon will be left deserted.

They will no longer eat meat with blood in it, or other forbidden food. All the survivors will become part of my people and be like a clan in the tribe of Judah. Ekron will become part of my people, as the Jebusites did.

The time has come to destroy Philistia, to cut off from Tyre and Sidon all the help that remains. I, the LORD, will destroy the Philistines, all who came from the shores of Crete.

(SEE 25:19)

And so I am announcing that I will attack the Philistines and wipe them out. I will destroy everyone left living there on the Philistine Plain.

Again the LORD spoke to me and said,

eighty men arrived from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria. They had shaved off their beards, torn their clothes, and gashed themselves. They were taking grain and incense to offer in the Temple.

All of them have shaved their heads and cut off their beards. They have all made gashes on their hands, and everyone is wearing sackcloth.

or tattoo yourselves or cut gashes in your body to mourn for the dead. I am the LORD.

"No priest shall shave any part of his head or trim his beard or cut gashes on his body to show that he is in mourning.

"You are the people of the LORD your God. So when you mourn for the dead, don't gash yourselves or shave the front of your head, as other people do.

So the prophets prayed louder and cut themselves with knives and daggers, according to their ritual, until blood flowed.

Day and night he wandered among the tombs and through the hills, screaming and cutting himself with stones.