World's Stillest Serpent
- God prohibits Israel from trying to make an alliance with Egypt and Pharaoh to receive their protection, even though they're already doing it.
- It will all come to humiliation and shame. Pharaoh can't protect them.
- People in the desert try to bring trade-goods and gifts to Egypt, but it all amounts to nothing. Egypt is the same as the serpent, Rahab: a great beast that just sits still.
- As for the people of Israel and Judah, they refuse to do what is right and listen to their prophets and seers.
- The people only want to hear illusions and deceit.
- For doing all this, they'll be punished in the same way that a wall suddenly collapses on an unsuspecting person.
- The devastation will be so massive, it'll be like a clay pot smashed into uselessly tiny bits.
- Instead of turning to quietness, peace, and goodness, they will try to simply flee from the destruction. This won't work out.
Souped Up Sun
- But God is going to show mercy in the end, anyway.
- God will answer their cry and comfort them. They'll finally get to see their teacher and will turn away from their bad deeds and abandon their idols.
- They'll hear a voice telling them the right things to do.
- Everything will be prosperous. The fields will be full, the cows and oxen will be able to graze, and tons of brooks will run down mountains and hills. But somehow, this will also be the same as the day of destruction.
- The light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the sun will be seven times brighter.
- God will heal all the injuries that have been afflicted on his people.
Gettin' Toasty
- The anger of the Lord (now, aimed at everyone) is pretty scary: God's tongue is like fire, his breath like a stream that inundates people. He'll bridle people just to lead them astray.
- People will cheerfully be heading to God's festival and at that same time he's dishing out divine vengeance—his arm will descend in fury, and there'll be cloudbursts and storms and hailstones.
- The Assyrians will cower before God, as he destroys them.
- And God has also prepared a "burning place" for their king.