9“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord,

“I will make the sun go down at noon

and darken the earth in broad daylight.

10I will turn your religious feasts into mourning

and all your singing into weeping.

I will make all of you wear sackcloth

and shave your heads.

I will make that time like mourning for an only son

and the end of it like a bitter day.

11“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord,

“when I will send a famine through the land—

not a famine of food or a thirst for water,

but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.

12Men will stagger from sea to sea

and wander from north to east,

searching for the word of the Lord,

but they will not find it.

13“In that day

“the lovely young women and strong young men

will faint because of thirst.

14They who swear by the shame^b of Samaria,

or say, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’

or, ‘As surely as the god^c of Beersheba lives’—

they will fall,

never to rise again.”