1Terrible things will happen to Samaria city, the capital of Israel!
2Listen to this: Yahweh will cause a great army to attack Samaria.
3The people of Samaria are proud,
4Yes, Samaria is beautiful, set on a hill above a fertile valley, but that beauty will disappear
5At that time, the Commander of the armies of angels will be like a glorious wreath of flowers for us Israeli people
6He will cause our judges to want to do what is fair/just
7But now, our leaders stagger/stumble
8All their tables are covered with their vomit;
9They ridicule Yahweh saying, “Who does he think that he is teaching?
10He continually tells us, ‘Do this, do that;’
11So now, Yahweh will need to force them to listen to Assyrians
12Yahweh told his people long ago,
13So Yahweh continues to tell the people of Samaria,
14Because of what will happen in Samaria,
15You boast saying,
16Therefore, Yahweh our Lord says this:
17I will test you people of Jerusalem to find out if you will act justly and righteously
18I will annul/destroy the agreement that you made with the leaders of Egypt.
19Their soldiers will come during the morning, at noontime, and at night,
20You have heard people say, “Your bed is very short, you will not be able to sleep in it;
21Yahweh will come and cause you to be defeated;
22The Commander of the armies of angels has told me that he is going to destroy the entire land.
23Listen [IDM] to what I say;
24When a farmer plows some ground, does he never plant seeds [RHQ]?
25No, he makes the ground very level,
26He does that because God has taught him the correct way to do it.
27Farmers never thresh caraway/dill with a heavy sledge/club;
28And grain for baking bread is crushed easily,
29The Commander of the armies of angels