The people of Judah have disregarded their covenant with God and taken up the idolatrous practices of their pagan neighbours, and God announces their punishment through his prophet. It is the worst of times. Zephaniah prophesies that Judah will be conquered and the Israelites taken into captivity. They will suffer dire consequences as a result of their sin; the first two thirds of the book of Zephaniah are dreadfully hard to read.
After the good king Josiah died, it appears that God had laid it on the prophet Zephaniah’s heart to take up where the prophet Habakkuk left off, and to approach the difficult challenge of bringing God’s people into line; but from a somewhat different angle. So, Zephaniah appears on the scene to define the problem as pride, and he proposed humility as the solution, knowing that if the people refused to humble themselves, their pride would be defused by the Lord God who would humble them Himself. “Had you rather humble yourself before God, or would you prefer to be humbled by God?”