18Therefore the LORD waits [expectantly] and longs to be gracious to you,

And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.

[d]For the LORD is a God of justice;

Blessed (happy, fortunate) are all those who long for Him [since He will never fail them].

19[e]O people in Zion, inhabitant in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. He will most certainly be gracious to you at the sound of your cry for help; when He hears it, He will answer you. 20Though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of oppression, yet your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will [constantly] see your Teacher. 21Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left. 22And you will defile your carved images overlaid with silver, and your cast images plated with gold. You will scatter them like a bloodstained cloth, and will say to them, “Be gone!”

23Then He will give you rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread [grain] from the produce of the ground, and it will be rich and plentiful. In that day your livestock will graze in large and roomy pastures. 24Also the oxen and the young donkeys that work the ground will eat salted fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and pitchfork. 25On every lofty mountain and on every high hill there will be streams of water on the day of the great slaughter (the day of the LORD), when the towers fall [and all His enemies are destroyed]. 26The light of the full moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days [concentrated in one], in the day the LORD binds up the fracture of His people and heals the wound He has inflicted [because of their sins].

27Now look, the [f]name of the LORD comes from far away,

Burning with His anger, and heavy with [g]smoke;

His lips are full of [h]indignation,

And His tongue is like a consuming fire.

28His breath is like an overflowing river,

Which reaches to the neck,

To sift the nations back and forth in a sieve [of disaster],

And to put in the jaws of the peoples the bridle which leads to ruin.

29You will have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept,

And joy of heart as when one marches [in procession] with a flute,

To go to the [temple on the] mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel.

30And the LORD will make His majestic voice heard,

And show the descending of His arm [striking] in [His] fierce anger,

And in the flame of a devouring fire,

In the crashing sound of heavy rain, cloudburst, and hailstones.

31For at the voice of the LORD the Assyrians will be terrified,

When He strikes [them] with the rod.

32And every blow of the rod of punishment,

Which the LORD will lay on them,

Will be to the music of Israel’s tambourines and lyres;

And in battles, brandishing weapons, He will fight Assyria.

33For [i]Topheth [in Hinnom] has long been ready;

Indeed, it has been prepared for the [Assyrian] king.

He has made it deep and wide,

A pit of fire with plenty of wood;

The breath of the LORD, like a river of brimstone (blazing sulfur), kindles and fans it.