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The Siege of Jerusalem

29Ah, Ariel, Ariel,
   the city where David encamped!
Add year to year;
   let the festivals run their round.
² Yet I will distress Ariel,
   and there shall be moaning and lamentation,
   and Jerusalem^* shall be to me like an Ariel.^*
3 And like David^* I will encamp against you;
   I will besiege you with towers
   and raise siege-works against you.
⁴ Then deep from the earth you shall speak,
   from low in the dust your words shall come;
your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost,
   and your speech shall whisper out of the dust.

⁵ But the multitude of your foes^* shall be like fine dust,
   and the multitude of tyrants like flying chaff.
And in an instant, suddenly,
⁶   you will be visited by the Lord of hosts
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
   with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
⁷ And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
   all that fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her,
   shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.
⁸ Just as when a hungry person dreams of eating
   and wakes up still hungry,
or a thirsty person dreams of drinking
   and wakes up faint, still thirsty,
so shall the multitude of all the nations be
   that fight against Mount Zion.

⁹ Stupefy yourselves and be in a stupor,
   blind yourselves and be blind!
Be drunk, but not from wine;
   stagger, but not from strong drink!
¹⁰ For the Lord has poured out upon you
   a spirit of deep sleep;
he has closed your eyes, you prophets,
   and covered your heads, you seers.

11 The vision of all this has become for you like the words of a sealed document. If it is given to those who can read, with the command, ‘Read this’, they say, ‘We cannot, for it is sealed.’ ¹²And if it is given to those who cannot read, saying, ‘Read this’, they say, ‘We cannot read.’

¹³ The Lord said:
Because these people draw near with their mouths
   and honour me with their lips,
   while their hearts are far from me,
and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote;
¹⁴ so I will again do
   amazing things with this people,
   shocking and amazing.
The wisdom of their wise shall perish,
   and the discernment of the discerning shall be hidden.

¹⁵ Ha! You who hide a plan too deep for the Lord,
   whose deeds are in the dark,
   and who say, ‘Who sees us? Who knows us?’
¹⁶ You turn things upside down!
   Shall the potter be regarded as the clay?
Shall the thing made say of its maker,
   ‘He did not make me’;
or the thing formed say of the one who formed it,
   ‘He has no understanding’?

Hope for the Future

¹⁷ Shall not Lebanon in a very little while
   become a fruitful field,
   and the fruitful field be regarded as a forest?
¹⁸ On that day the deaf shall hear
   the words of a scroll,
and out of their gloom and darkness
   the eyes of the blind shall see.
¹⁹ The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,
   and the neediest people shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
²⁰ For the tyrant shall be no more,
   and the scoffer shall cease to be;
   all those alert to do evil shall be cut off—
²¹ those who cause a person to lose a lawsuit,
   who set a trap for the arbiter in the gate,
   and without grounds deny justice to the one in the right.

22 Therefore thus says the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:
No longer shall Jacob be ashamed,
   no longer shall his face grow pale.
²³ For when he sees his children,
   the work of my hands, in his midst,
   they will sanctify my name;
they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob,
   and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
²⁴ And those who err in spirit will come to understanding,
   and those who grumble will accept instruction.

The Futility of Reliance on Egypt

30Oh, rebellious children, says the Lord,
who carry out a plan, but not mine;
who make an alliance, but against my will,
   adding sin to sin;
² who set out to go down to Egypt
   without asking for my counsel,
to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh,
   and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt;
³ Therefore the protection of Pharaoh shall become your shame,
   and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt your humiliation.
⁴ For though his officials are at Zoan
   and his envoys reach Hanes,
⁵ everyone comes to shame
   through a people that cannot profit them,
that brings neither help nor profit,
   but shame and disgrace.

6 An oracle concerning the animals of the Negeb.
Through a land of trouble and distress,
   of lioness and roaring^* lion,
   of viper and flying serpent,
they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys,
   and their treasures on the humps of camels,
   to a people that cannot profit them.
⁷ For Egypt’s help is worthless and empty,
   therefore I have called her,
   ‘Rahab who sits still.’^*

A Rebellious People

⁸ Go now, write it before them on a tablet,
   and inscribe it in a book,
so that it may be for the time to come
   as a witness for ever.
⁹ For they are a rebellious people,
   faithless children,
children who will not hear
   the instruction of the Lord;
¹⁰ who say to the seers, ‘Do not see’;
   and to the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy to us what is right;
speak to us smooth things,
   prophesy illusions,
¹¹ leave the way, turn aside from the path,
   let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.’
¹² Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel:
Because you reject this word,
   and put your trust in oppression and deceit,
   and rely on them;
¹³ therefore this iniquity shall become for you
   like a break in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse,
   whose crash comes suddenly, in an instant;
¹⁴ its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel
   that is smashed so ruthlessly
that among its fragments not a sherd is found
   for taking fire from the hearth,
   or dipping water out of the cistern.

¹⁵ For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:
In returning and rest you shall be saved;
   in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.
But you refused ¹⁶and said,
‘No! We will flee upon horses’—
   therefore you shall flee!
and, ‘We will ride upon swift steeds’—
   therefore your pursuers shall be swift!
¹⁷ A thousand shall flee at the threat of one,
   at the threat of five you shall flee,
until you are left
   like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
   like a signal on a hill.

God’s Promise to Zion

¹⁸ Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you;
   therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
   blessed are all those who wait for him.

19 Truly, O people in Zion, inhabitants of Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you. ²⁰Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. ²¹And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’ ²²Then you will defile your silver-covered idols and your gold-plated images. You will scatter them like filthy rags; you will say to them, ‘Away with you!’

23 He will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and grain, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. On that day your cattle will graze in broad pastures; ²⁴and the oxen and donkeys that till the ground will eat silage, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. ²⁵On every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water—on a day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. ²⁶Moreover, the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days, on the day when the Lord binds up the injuries of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.

Judgement on Assyria

²⁷ See, the name of the Lord comes from far away,
   burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke;^*
his lips are full of indignation,
   and his tongue is like a devouring fire;
²⁸ his breath is like an overflowing stream
   that reaches up to the neck—
to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction,
   and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads them astray.

29 You shall have a song as in the night when a holy festival is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. ³⁰And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and tempest and hailstones. ³¹The Assyrian will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord, when he strikes with his rod. ³²And every stroke of the staff of punishment that the Lord lays upon him will be to the sound of timbrels and lyres; battling with brandished arm he will fight with him. ³³For his burning-place^* has long been prepared; truly it is made ready for the king,^* its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulphur, kindles it.

Alliance with Egypt Is Futile

31Alas for those who go down to Egypt for help
   and who rely on horses,
who trust in chariots because they are many
   and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel
   or consult the Lord!
² Yet he too is wise and brings disaster;
   he does not call back his words,
but will rise against the house of the evildoers,
   and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.
³ The Egyptians are human, and not God;
   their horses are flesh, and not spirit.
When the Lord stretches out his hand,
   the helper will stumble, and the one helped will fall,
   and they will all perish together.

⁴ For thus the Lord said to me,
As a lion or a young lion growls over its prey,
   and—when a band of shepherds is called out against it—
is not terrified by their shouting
   or daunted at their noise,
so the Lord of hosts will come down
   to fight upon Mount Zion and upon its hill.
⁵ Like birds hovering overhead, so the Lord of hosts
   will protect Jerusalem;
he will protect and deliver it,
   he will spare and rescue it.

6 Turn back to him whom you^* have deeply betrayed, O people of Israel. ⁷For on that day all of you shall throw away your idols of silver and idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.
⁸ ‘Then the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of mortals;
   and a sword, not of humans, shall devour him;
he shall flee from the sword,
   and his young men shall be put to forced labour.
⁹ His rock shall pass away in terror,
   and his officers desert the standard in panic,’
says the Lord, whose fire is in Zion,
   and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.