The Day Our Father Fights for Jerusalem
The nations gather against Jerusalem and the city is taken — then our Father goes out to fight. The Mount of Olives splits open, living water flows summer and winter, he is king over all the earth, and even the cooking pots become holy.
14 1A day is coming for our Father, when your plunder will be divided among you. 2I will gather all nations against Jerusalem for battle. The city will be captured, houses plundered, women raped. Half the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. 3Then our Father will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights on a battle day. 4On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem, and it will split down the middle from east to west into a huge valley; half the mountain moving north, half south. 5You will flee through the valley of my mountains, for it will reach to Azal. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then my Father will come, and all the holy ones with him.
6On that day there will be no light, no cold or frost. 7It will be one unique day, known only to our Father—neither day nor night; but at evening there will be light.
8On that day living waters will flow from Jerusalem, half toward the eastern sea and half toward the western sea, in summer and winter alike. 9And our Father will be king over all the earth. On that day our Father will be one, and his name one. a a v9 Israel's great confession — that our Father is one — here becomes the song of the whole earth: the day when everyone everywhere knows the one Father as king.
10The whole land will become a plain, from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem will rise and stay in place, from the Benjamin Gate to the site of the First Gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's winepresses. 11People will live in it, never again doomed to destruction; Jerusalem will live in safety.
12This is the plague our Father will bring on every nation that fought against Jerusalem: their flesh rots as they stand, their eyes rot in the sockets, their tongues in their mouths. 13On that day a great panic from our Father will fall on them; each will grab his neighbor's hand, and his hand will rise against his neighbor's hand. 14Judah too will fight at Jerusalem, and the wealth of all surrounding nations will be gathered—gold, silver, and garments in great abundance. 15The same plague will strike the horses, mules, camels, donkeys, and all animals in those camps.
16Then every survivor of the nations that attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Father of heaven's armies, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths. b b v16 The Feast of Booths (Sukkot) was a week-long harvest festival in which Israelites lived in temporary shelters to remember God's provision during the wilderness years. 17Any family of the earth that does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Father of heaven's armies, will get no rain. 18If Egypt's family does not go up and present itself, no rain will fall on them; the plague will come with which our Father strikes the nations that don't go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths. 19This will be the punishment of Egypt and all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths.
20On that day "Holy to our Father" will be inscribed on the horses' bells, and the pots in our Father's house will be like the bowls before the altar. 21Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Father of heaven's armies, so all who sacrifice may come, take some, and cook in them. On that day no merchant will remain in the house of the Father of heaven's armies.
