Chiastic Structures
The Old Testament
Chiastic Parallels
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A

1 Come near, you nations, and hear!
Pay attention, you peoples! Let the earth give heed, and all who are upon it,
the world, and all who spring from it. 2 Jehovah’s rage is upon all nations,
his fury upon all their hosts; he has doomed them,
consigned them to the slaughter.

B

3 Their slain shall be flung out
and their corpses emit a stench; their blood shall dissolve on the mountains,
4 their fat decompose [on the hills]—

C

when the heavens are rolled up as a scroll,
and their starry hosts shed themselves with one accord, like withered leaves from a vine,
or shriveled fruit from a fig tree. 5 When my sword drinks its fill in the heavens,
it shall come down on Edom in judgment, on the people I have sentenced to damnation.

C'

6 Jehovah has a sword that shall engorge with blood
and glut itself with fat— the blood of lambs and he-goats,
the kidney fat of rams. For Jehovah will hold a slaughter in Bozrah,
an immense massacre in the land of Edom;

B'

7 among them shall fall buffalo, bulls, and steers.
Their land shall be saturated with blood,
their soil enriched with fat.

A'

8 For it is Jehovah’s day of vengeance,
the year of retribution on behalf of Zion.