Zephaniah 2

The Lord will be awesome to them,
For He will reduce to nothing all the gods of the earth;
People shall worship Him,
Each one from his place,
Indeed all the shores of the nations. v.11

Read chapter 2
"Totally awesome dude!" Sounds like a surfer right?  The word awesome today can be so overused to loose it's impact.  We hear someone got engaged and we say-"awesome;" a little boy just learned to ride his bike- "awesome;" we taste a new food dish- "awesome."  The word awesome appears throughout the scriptures but not always a light hearted use that we use the word today.  The word awesome here in Zephaniah is actually the Hebrew word for terrible or fear.  It's a fear of reverence, to show respect or awe of something, to be righteous in behavior.  
Here in Zephaniah the Lord is speaking to the nations of Ammon and Moab, the two nations that came from the incest of Lot and his daughters after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  God's going to show Himself awesome to them by destroying their gods.   He will be awesome to them because He will destroy all the gods of the earth and that He alone is to be worshiped.  Just as this work of His destruction of the idols of the nations cause them to be full of awe, so the greatest terrible work of God of the crucifixion of His Son to save the world ought to cause us to stand in awe at our Awesome God.
Just think of the song "Awesome God" by Rich Mullins if he would have used the word terrible instead.  I don't think it would have been as great of a hit if he did.