Song of Trust in God’s Protection
aIn that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
“We have a bstrong city;
He sets up walls and ramparts for csecurity.
2 “Open the agates, that the brighteous nation may enter,
The one that remains faithful.
3 “The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect apeace,
Because he trusts in You.
4 “aTrust in the Lord forever,
For in God the Lord, we have an everlasting bRock.
5 “For He has brought low those who dwell on high, the aunassailable city;
bHe lays it low, He lays it low to the ground, He casts it to the dust.
6 “aThe foot will trample it,
The feet of the bafflicted, the steps of the helpless.”
7 The away of the righteous is smooth;
O Upright One, bmake the path of the righteous level.
8 Indeed, while following the way of aYour judgments, O Lord,
We have waited for You eagerly;
bYour name, even Your cmemory, is the desire of our souls.
9 aAt night my soul longs for You,
Indeed, my spirit within me bseeks You diligently;
For when the earth experiences Your judgments
The inhabitants of the world clearn righteousness.
10 Though the wicked is shown favor,
He does not alearn righteousness;
He bdeals unjustly in the land of uprightness,
And does not perceive the majesty of the Lord.
11 O Lord, Your hand is lifted up yet they ado not see it.
They see bYour zeal for the people and are put to shame;
Indeed, cfire will devour Your enemies.
12 Lord, You will establish apeace for us,
Since You have also performed for us all our works.
13 O Lord our God, aother masters besides You have ruled us;
But through You alone we bconfess Your name.
14 aThe dead will not live, the departed spirits will not rise;
Therefore You have bpunished and destroyed them,
And You have wiped out all remembrance of them.
15 aYou have increased the nation, O Lord,
You have increased the nation, You are glorified;
You have bextended all the borders of the land.
16 O Lord, they sought You ain distress;
They could only whisper a prayer,
Your chastening was upon them.
17 aAs the pregnant woman approaches the time to give birth,
She writhes and cries out in her labor pains,
Thus were we before You, O Lord.
18 We were pregnant, we writhed in labor,
We agave birth, as it seems, only to wind.
We could not accomplish deliverance for the earth,
Nor were binhabitants of the world born.
19 Your adead will live;
Their corpses will rise.
You who lie in the dust, bawake and shout for joy,
For your dew is as the dew of the dawn,
And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.
20 Come, my people, aenter into your rooms
And close your doors behind you;
Hide for a little bwhile
Until cindignation runs its course.
21 For behold, the Lord is about to acome out from His place
To bpunish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;
And the earth will creveal her bloodshed
And will no longer cover her slain.
The Deliverance of Israel
In that day athe Lord will punish bLeviathan the fleeing serpent,
With His fierce and great and mighty sword,
Even Leviathan the twisted serpent;
And cHe will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.
2 In that day,
“A avineyard of wine, sing of it!
3 “I, the Lord, am its keeper;
aI water it every moment.
So that no one will damage it,
I bguard it night and day.
4 “I have no wrath.
Should someone give Me abriars and thorns in battle,
Then I would step on them, bI would burn them completely.
5 “Or let him arely on My protection,
Let him make peace with Me,
Let him bmake peace with Me.”
6 In the days to come Jacob awill take root,
Israel will bblossom and sprout,
And they will fill the whole world with cfruit.
7 Like the striking of Him who has struck them, has aHe struck them?
Or like the slaughter of His slain, have they been slain?
8 You contended with them by banishing them, by adriving them away.
With His fierce wind He has expelled them on the day of the beast wind.
9 Therefore through this Jacob’s iniquity will be aforgiven;
And this will be the full price of the bpardoning of his sin:
When he makes all the caltar stones like pulverized chalk stones;
When Asherim and incense altars will not stand.
10 For the fortified city is aisolated,
A homestead forlorn and forsaken like the desert;
bThere the calf will graze,
And there it will lie down and feed on its branches.
11 When its alimbs are dry, they are broken off;
Women come and make a fire with them,
For they are not a people of bdiscernment,
Therefore ctheir Maker dwill not have compassion on them.
And their Creator will not be gracious to them.
12 In that day the Lord awill start His threshing from the flowing stream of the bEuphrates to the brook of Egypt, and you will be cgathered up one by one, O sons of Israel. 13 It will come about also in that day that a great atrumpet will be blown, and those who were perishing in the land of bAssyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and cworship the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
Ephraim’s Captivity Predicted
Woe to the proud crown of the adrunkards of bEphraim,
And to the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
Which is at the head of the fertile valley
Of those who are overcome with wine!
2 Behold, the Lord has a strong and amighty agent;
As a storm of bhail, a tempest of destruction,
Like a storm of cmighty overflowing waters,
He has cast it down to the earth with His hand.
3 The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim is atrodden under foot.
4 And the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
Which is at the head of the fertile valley,
Will be like the afirst‑ripe fig prior to summer,
Which one sees,
And as soon as it is in his hand,
He swallows it.
5 In that day the aLord of hosts will become a beautiful bcrown
And a glorious diadem to the remnant of His people;
6 A aspirit of justice for him who sits in judgment,
A bstrength to those who repel the onslaught at the gate.
7 And these also areel with wine and stagger from strong drink:
bThe priest and cthe prophet reel with strong drink,
They are confused by wine, they stagger from dstrong drink;
They reel while having evisions,
They totter when rendering judgment.
8 For all the tables are full of filthy avomit, without a single clean place.
9 “To awhom would He teach knowledge,
And to whom would He interpret the message?
Those just bweaned from milk?
Those just taken from the breast?
10 “For He says,
‘aOrder on order, order on order,
Line on line, line on line,
A little here, a little there.’”
11 Indeed, He will speak to this people
Through astammering lips and a foreign tongue,
12 He who said to them, “Here is arest, give rest to the weary,”
And, “Here is repose,” but they would not listen.
13 So the word of the Lord to them will be,
“Order on order, order on order,
Line on line, line on line,
A little here, a little there,”
That they may go and astumble backward, be broken, snared and taken captive.
Judah Is Warned
14 Therefore, ahear the word of the Lord, O bscoffers,
Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem,
15 Because you have said, “We have made a acovenant with death,
And with Sheol we have made a pact.
bThe overwhelming scourge will not reach us when it passes by,
For we have made cfalsehood our refuge and we have dconcealed ourselves with deception.”
16 Therefore thus says the Lord God,
“aBehold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested bstone,
A costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed.
He who believes in it will not be disturbed.
17 “I will make ajustice the measuring line
And righteousness the level;
Then bhail will sweep away the refuge of lies
And the waters will overflow the secret place.
18 “Your acovenant with death will be bcanceled,
And your pact with Sheol will not stand;
When the aoverwhelming scourge passes through,
Then you become its ctrampling place.
19 “As aoften as it passes through, it will seize you;
For bmorning after morning it will pass through, anytime during the day or night,
And it will be sheer cterror to understand what it means.”
20 The bed is too short on which to stretch out,
And the ablanket is too small to wrap oneself in.
21 For the Lord will rise up as at Mount aPerazim,
He will be stirred up as in the valley of bGibeon,
To do His ctask, His dunusual task,
And to work His work, His extraordinary work.
22 And now do not carry on as ascoffers,
Or your fetters will be made stronger;
For I have heard from the Lord God of hosts
Of decisive bdestruction on all the earth.
23 Give ear and hear my voice,
Listen and hear my words.
24 Does the farmer plow continually to plant seed?
Does he continually turn and harrow the ground?
25 Does he not level its surface
And sow dill and scatter acummin
And plant bwheat in rows,
Barley in its place and rye within its area?
26 For his God instructs and teaches him properly.
27 For dill is not threshed with a athreshing sledge,
Nor is the cartwheel driven over cummin;
But dill is beaten out with a rod, and cummin with a club.
28 Grain for bread is crushed,
Indeed, he does not continue to thresh it forever.
Because the wheel of his cart and his horses eventually damage it,
He does not thresh it longer.
29 This also comes from the Lord of hosts,
Who has made His counsel awonderful and His wisdom bgreat.
Jerusalem Is Warned
Woe, O Ariel, Ariel the city where David once acamped!
Add year to year, bobserve your feasts on schedule.
2 I will bring distress to Ariel,
And she will be a city of lamenting and amourning;
And she will be like an Ariel to me.
3 I will acamp against you encircling you,
And I will set siegeworks against you,
And I will raise up battle towers against you.
4 Then you will abe brought low;
From the earth you will speak,
And from the dust where you are prostrate
Your words will come.
Your voice will also be like that of a spirit from the ground,
And your speech will whisper from the dust.
5 But the multitude of your enemies will become like fine adust,
And the multitude of the bruthless ones like the chaff which blows away;
And it will happen cinstantly, suddenly.
6 From the Lord of hosts you will be apunished with bthunder and earthquake and loud noise,
With whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a consuming fire.
7 And the amultitude of all the nations who wage war against Ariel,
Even all who wage war against her and her stronghold, and who distress her,
Will be like a dream, a bvision of the night.
8 It will be as when a hungry man dreams—
And behold, he is eating;
But when he awakens, his hunger is not satisfied,
Or as when a thirsty man dreams—
And behold, he is drinking,
But when he awakens, behold, he is faint
And his thirst is not quenched.
aThus the multitude of all the nations will be
Who wage war against Mount Zion.
9 aBe delayed and wait,
Blind yourselves and be blind;
They bbecome drunk, but not with wine,
They stagger, but not with strong drink.
10 For the Lord has poured over you a spirit of deep asleep,
He has bshut your eyes, the prophets;
And He has covered your heads, the seers.
11 The entire vision will be to you like the words of a sealed abook, which when they give it to the one who is literate, saying, “Please read this,” he will say, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” 12 Then the book will be given to the one who is illiterate, saying, “Please read this.” And he will say, “I cannot read.”
13 Then the Lord said,
“Because athis people draw near with their words
And honor Me with their lip service,
But they remove their hearts far from Me,
And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,
14 Therefore behold, I will once again deal amarvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous;
And bthe wisdom of their wise men will perish,
And the discernment of their discerning men will be concealed.”
15 Woe to those who deeply ahide their plans from the Lord,
And whose bdeeds are done in a dark place,
And they say, “cWho sees us?” or “Who knows us?”
16 You turn things around!
Shall the potter be considered as equal with the clay,
That awhat is made would say to its maker, “He did not make me”;
Or what is formed say to him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
Blessing after Discipline
17 Is it not yet just a little while
Before Lebanon will be turned into a afertile field,
And the fertile field will be considered as a forest?
18 On that day the adeaf will hear bwords of a book,
And out of their gloom and darkness the ceyes of the blind will see.
19 The aafflicted also will increase their gladness in the Lord,
And the bneedy of mankind will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the aruthless will come to an end and the bscorner will be finished,
Indeed call who are intent on doing evil will be cut off;
21 Who cause a person to be indicted by a word,
And aensnare him who adjudicates at the gate,
And bdefraud the one in the right with meaningless arguments.
22 Therefore thus says the Lord, who redeemed aAbraham, concerning the house of Jacob:
“Jacob bshall not now be ashamed, nor shall his face now turn pale;
23 But when he sees his achildren, the bwork of My hands, in his midst,
They will sanctify My name;
Indeed, they will csanctify the Holy One of Jacob
And will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
24 “Those who aerr in mind will bknow the truth,
And those who criticize will caccept instruction.