The enemy said, 'I will pursue them and catch them; I will divide their wealth and take all I want; I will draw my sword and take all they have.'

But one breath from you, LORD, and the Egyptians were drowned; they sank like lead in the terrible water.

They will all be terrified and overcome with pain, like the pain of a woman in labor. They will look at each other in fear, and their faces will burn with shame.

The day of the LORD is coming---that cruel day of his fierce anger and fury. The earth will be made a wilderness, and every sinner will be destroyed.

The sinful people of Zion are trembling with fright. They say, "God's judgment is like a fire that burns forever. Can any of us survive a fire like that?"

Everybody kept on eating and drinking, and men and women married, up to the very day Noah went into the boat and the flood came and killed them all.

It will be as it was in the time of Lot. Everybody kept on eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.

People will faint from fear as they wait for what is coming over the whole earth, for the powers in space will be driven from their courses.

When people say, "Everything is quiet and safe," then suddenly destruction will hit them! It will come as suddenly as the pains that come upon a woman in labor, and people will not escape.

But these people act by instinct, like wild animals born to be captured and killed; they attack with insults anything they do not understand. They will be destroyed like wild animals,

Then the kings of the earth, the rulers and the military chiefs, the rich and the powerful, and all other people, slave and free, hid themselves in caves and under rocks on the mountains.

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

Because of this, in one day she will be struck with plagues--- disease, grief, and famine. And she will be burned with fire, because the Lord God, who judges her, is mighty."

They stand a long way off, because they are afraid of sharing in her suffering. They say, "How terrible! How awful! This great and mighty city Babylon! In just one hour you have been punished!"