⁴ For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation; they shall drive out Ashdod at noonday, and Ekron shall be rooted up.

⁵ Ashkelon shall see it, and fear; Gaza also, and shall be sore pained; and Ekron, for her expectation shall be put to shame; and the king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited.

⁶ And a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines.

⁷ And I will take away his blood out of his mouth, and his abominations from between his teeth; and he also shall be a remnant for our God; and he shall be as a chieftain in Judah, and Ekron as a Jebusite.

⁶ Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Gaza, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they carried away captive the whole people, to deliver them up to Edom:

⁷ but I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.

⁸ And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon; and I will turn my hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord Jehovah.

⁴ Prepare ye war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe unto us! for the day declineth, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.

⁸ Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas; I have brought upon them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday: I have caused anguish and terrors to fall upon her suddenly.

²⁰ and all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of the Uz, and all the kings of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Gaza, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod;

¹ The word of Jehovah that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines, before that Pharaoh smote Gaza.

² Thus saith Jehovah: Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall become an overflowing stream, and shall overflow the land and all that is therein, the city and them that dwell therein; and the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall wail.

³ At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers look not back to their children for feebleness of hands;

⁴ because of the day that cometh to destroy all the Philistines, to cut off from Tyre and Sidon every helper that remaineth: for Jehovah will destroy the Philistines, the remnant of the isle of Caphtor.

⁵ Baldness is come upon Gaza; Ashkelon is brought to nought, the remnant of their valley: how long wilt thou cut thyself?

⁶ O thou sword of Jehovah, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard; rest, and be still.

⁷ How canst thou be quiet, seeing Jehovah hath given thee a charge? Against Ashkelon, and against the sea-shore, there hath he appointed it.

¹⁵ Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because the Philistines have dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with despite of soul to destroy with perpetual enmity;

¹⁶ therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will stretch out my hand upon the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites, and destroy the remnant of the sea coast.

¹⁷ And I will execute great vengeance upon them with wrathful rebukes; and they shall know that I am Jehovah, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.

⁶ For the pestilence that walketh in darkness, Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.