Just as straw is set on fire by a spark, so powerful people will be destroyed by their own evil deeds, and no one will be able to stop the destruction.

The LORD will let everyone hear his majestic voice and feel the force of his anger. There will be flames, cloudbursts, hailstones, and torrents of rain.

Long ago a place was prepared where a huge fire will burn the emperor of Assyria. It is deep and wide, and piled high with wood. The LORD will breathe out a stream of flame to set it on fire.

You will crumble like rocks burned to make lime, like thorns burned to ashes.

This is the time when the LORD will rescue Zion and take vengeance on her enemies.

It will burn day and night, and smoke will rise from it forever. The land will lie waste age after age, and no one will ever travel through it again.

By fire and sword he will punish all the people of the world whom he finds guilty---and many will be put to death.

The LORD says, "The end is near for those who purify themselves for pagan worship, who go in procession to sacred gardens, and who eat pork and mice and other disgusting foods.

The people began to complain to the LORD about their troubles. When the LORD heard them, he became angry and sent fire on the people. It burned among them and destroyed one end of the camp.

So the place was named Taberah, because there the fire of the LORD burned among them.

My anger will flame up like fire and burn everything on earth. It will reach to the world below and consume the roots of the mountains.

Such wickedness should be punished by death.

It would be like a destructive, hellish fire, consuming everything I have.

I had another vision from the Sovereign LORD. In it I saw him preparing to punish his people with fire. The fire burned up the great ocean under the earth and started to burn up the land.

When he is angry, who can survive? Who can survive his terrible fury? He pours out his flaming anger; rocks crumble to dust before him.

Like tangled thorns and dry straw you drunkards will be burned up!

The LORD Almighty says, "The day is coming when all proud and evil people will burn like straw. On that day they will burn up, and there will be nothing left of them.

It will be like this at the end of the age: the angels will go out and gather up the evil people from among the good

and will throw them into the fiery furnace, where they will cry and gnash their teeth.

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Away from me, you that are under God's curse! Away to the eternal fire which has been prepared for the Devil and his angels!

So if your hand makes you lose your faith, cut it off ! It is better for you to enter life without a hand than to keep both hands and go off to hell, to the fire that never goes out.

And if your foot makes you lose your faith, cut it off ! It is better for you to enter life without a foot than to keep both feet and be thrown into hell.

And if your eye makes you lose your faith, take it out! It is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with only one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into hell.

"Everyone will be purified by fire as a sacrifice is purified by salt.

The LORD Almighty is going to send disease to punish those who are now well-fed. In their bodies there will be a fire that burns and burns.

The rich forests and farmlands will be totally destroyed, in the same way that a fatal sickness destroys someone.

I am no longer angry with the vineyard. If there were thorns and briers to fight against, I would burn them up completely.

But if it grows thorns and weeds, it is worth nothing; it is in danger of being cursed by God and will be destroyed by fire.

Tell the southern forest to hear what the Sovereign LORD is saying: Look! I am starting a fire, and it will burn up every tree in you, whether green or dry. Nothing will be able to put it out. It will spread from south to north, and everyone will feel the heat of the flames.

They will all see that I, the LORD, set it on fire and that no one can put it out."

So now, just as straw and dry grass shrivel and burn in the fire, your roots will rot and your blossoms will dry up and blow away, because you have rejected what the LORD Almighty, Israel's holy God, has taught us.

But the wicked will die; the enemies of the LORD will vanish like wild flowers; they will disappear like smoke.

And so these people will disappear like morning mist, like the dew that vanishes early in the day. They will be like chaff which the wind blows from the threshing place, like smoke from a chimney.

I will remove the locust army that came from the north and will drive some of them into the desert. Their front ranks will be driven into the Dead Sea, their rear ranks into the Mediterranean. Their dead bodies will stink. I will destroy them because of all they have done to you.

The smoke of the fire that torments them goes up forever and ever. There is no relief day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, for anyone who has the mark of its name."