Bible Browser

22The oracle concerning the valley of vision. What do you mean that you have gone up, all of you, to the housetops, ²you that are full of shoutings, tumultuous city, exultant town? Your slain are not slain by the sword, nor are they dead in battle. ³Your rulers have all fled together; they were captured without the use of a bow. All of you who were found were captured, though they had fled far away. ⁴Therefore I said: Look away from me, let me weep bitter tears; do not try to comfort me for the destruction of my beloved people. ⁵For the Lord God of hosts has a day of tumult and trampling and confusion in the valley of vision, a battering down of walls and a cry for help to the mountains. ⁶Elam bore the quiver with chariots and cavalry, and Kir uncovered the shield. ⁷Your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the cavalry took their stand at the gates.

⁸He has taken away the covering of Judah. On that day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest, ⁹and you saw that there were many breaches in the city of David, and you collected the waters of the lower pool. ¹⁰You counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. ¹¹You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you did not look to him who did it, or have regard for him who planned it long ago. ¹²In that day the Lord God of hosts called to weeping and mourning, to baldness and putting on sackcloth; ¹³but instead there was joy and festivity, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating meat and drinking wine. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” ¹⁴The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears: Surely this iniquity will not be forgiven you until you die, says the Lord God of hosts.

¹⁵Thus says the Lord God of hosts: Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is master of the household, and say to him: ¹⁶What right do you have here? Who are your relatives here, that you have cut out a tomb here for yourself, cutting a tomb on the height, and carving a habitation for yourself in the rock? ¹⁷The Lord is about to hurl you away violently, my fellow. He will seize firm hold on you, ¹⁸whirl you round and round, and throw you like a ball into a wide land; there you shall die, and there your splendid chariots shall lie, O you disgrace to your master’s house! ¹⁹I will thrust you from your office, and you will be pulled down from your post. ²⁰On that day I will call my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah, ²¹and will clothe him with your robe and bind your sash on him. I will commit your authority to his hand, and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. ²²I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open. ²³I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his ancestral house. ²⁴And they will hang on him the whole weight of his ancestral house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons. ²⁵On that day, says the Lord of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a secure place will give way; it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will perish, for the Lord has spoken.

23The oracle concerning Tyre. Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your fortress is destroyed. When they came in from Cyprus they learned of it. ²Be still, O inhabitants of the coast, O merchants of Sidon, your messengers crossed over the sea ³and were on the mighty waters; your revenue was the grain of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile; you were the merchant of the nations. ⁴Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the fortress of the sea, saying: “I have neither labored nor given birth, I have neither reared young men nor brought up young women.” ⁵When the report comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish over the report about Tyre. ⁶Cross over to Tarshish— wail, O inhabitants of the coast! ⁷Is this your exultant city whose origin is from days of old, whose feet carried her to settle far away? ⁸Who has planned this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth? ⁹The Lord of hosts has planned it— to defile the pride of all glory, to shame all the honored of the earth. ¹⁰Cross over to your own land, O ships of Tarshish; this is a harbor no more. ¹¹He has stretched out his hand over the sea, he has shaken the kingdoms; the Lord has given command concerning Canaan to destroy its fortresses. ¹²He said: You will exult no longer, O oppressed virgin daughter Sidon; rise, cross over to Cyprus— even there you will have no rest. ¹³Look at the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people; it was not Assyria. They destined Tyre for wild animals. They erected their siege towers, they tore down her palaces, they made her a ruin. ¹⁴Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your fortress is destroyed.

¹⁵From that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the lifetime of one king. At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song about the prostitute: ¹⁶Take a harp, go about the city, you forgotten prostitute! Make sweet melody, sing many songs, that you may be remembered. ¹⁷At the end of seventy years, the Lord will visit Tyre, and she will return to her trade, and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth. ¹⁸Her merchandise and her wages will be dedicated to the Lord; her profits will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who live in the presence of the Lord.

24Now the Lord is about to lay waste the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants. ²And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the debtor. ³The earth shall be utterly laid waste and utterly despoiled; for the Lord has spoken this word. ⁴The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers; the heavens languish together with the earth. ⁵The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. ⁶Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled, and few people are left. ⁷The wine dries up, the vine languishes, all the merry-hearted sigh. ⁸The mirth of the timbrels is stilled, the noise of the jubilant has ceased, the mirth of the lyre is stilled. ⁹No longer do they drink wine with singing; strong drink is bitter to those who drink it. ¹⁰The city of chaos is broken down, every house is shut up so that no one can enter. ¹¹There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine; all joy has reached its eventide; the gladness of the earth is banished. ¹²Desolation is left in the city, the gates are battered into ruins.

¹³For thus it shall be on the earth and among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is ended. ¹⁴They lift up their voices, they sing for joy; they shout from the west over the majesty of the Lord. ¹⁵Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord; in the coastlands of the sea glorify the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹⁶From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise, of glory to the Righteous One. But I say, I pine away, I pine away. Woe is me! For the treacherous deal treacherously, the treacherous deal very treacherously. ¹⁷Terror, and the pit, and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth! ¹⁸Whoever flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit; and whoever climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble. ¹⁹The earth is utterly broken, the earth is torn asunder, the earth is violently shaken. ²⁰The earth staggers like a drunkard, it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again. ²¹On that day the Lord will punish the host of heaven in heaven, and on earth the kings of the earth. ²²They will be gathered together like prisoners in a pit; they will be shut up in a prison, and after many days they will be punished. ²³Then the moon will be abashed, and the sun ashamed; for the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his elders he will manifest his glory.

25O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure. ²For you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the palace of aliens is a city no more, it will never be rebuilt. ³Therefore strong peoples will glorify you; cities of ruthless nations will fear you. ⁴For you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat. When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm, ⁵the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place, you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds; the song of the ruthless was stilled.

⁶On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. ⁷And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. ⁸Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.

⁹It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. ¹⁰For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain. The Moabites shall be trodden down in their place as straw is trodden down in a dung-pit. ¹¹Though they spread out their hands in the midst of it, as swimmers spread out their hands to swim, their pride will be laid low despite the struggle of their hands. ¹²The high fortifications of his walls will be brought down, laid low, cast to the ground, even to the dust.

26On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; he sets up victory like walls and bulwarks. ²Open the gates, so that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. ³Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace— in peace because they trust in you. ⁴Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord God you have an everlasting rock.

⁵For he has brought low the inhabitants of the height; the lofty city he lays low. He lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust. ⁶The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy. ⁷The way of the righteous is level; O Just One, you make smooth the path of the righteous. ⁸In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and your renown are the soul’s desire. ⁹My soul yearns for you in the night, my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. ¹⁰If favor is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness they deal perversely and do not see the majesty of the Lord. ¹¹O Lord, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed. Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.

¹²O Lord, you will ordain peace for us, for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us. ¹³O Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but we acknowledge your name alone. ¹⁴The dead do not live; shades do not rise— because you have punished and destroyed them, and wiped out all memory of them. ¹⁵But you have increased the nation, O Lord, you have increased the nation; you are glorified; you have enlarged all the borders of the land. ¹⁶O Lord, in distress they sought you, they poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them. ¹⁷Like a woman with child, who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near her time, so were we because of you, O Lord; ¹⁸we were with child, we writhed, but we gave birth only to wind. We have won no victories on earth, and no one is born to inhabit the world. ¹⁹Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead.

²⁰Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past. ²¹For the Lord comes out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no longer cover its slain.