An Oracle Concerning Jerusalem
1 The
1oracle concerning
2the valley of vision. What do you mean that you have gone up, all of you, to the housetops,
2
you who are full of shoutings, tumultuous city,
3exultant town? Your slain are
4not slain with the sword or dead in battle.
3
5All your leaders have fled together; without the bow they were captured. All of you who were found were captured, though they had fled far away.
4
Therefore I said: "Look away from me;
6let me weep bitter tears; do not labor to comfort me concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people."
5
7For the Lord GOD of hosts has
8a day of tumult and
9trampling and
10confusion in
11the valley of vision, a battering down of walls and a shouting to the mountains.
6
And
12Elam bore the quiver with chariots and horsemen, and
13Kir uncovered the shield.
7
Your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen took their stand at the gates.
8
He has taken away
14the covering of Judah.In that day you looked to
15the weapons of the House of the Forest,
9
and you saw that
16the breaches of the city of David were many.
17You collected the waters of the lower pool,
10
and you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall.
11
18You made a reservoir between
19the two walls for the water of
20the old pool. But
21you did not look to him who did it, or see him who planned it long ago.
12
In that day
22the Lord GOD of hosts called for weeping and mourning, for
23baldness and
24wearing sackcloth;
13
and behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine.
25"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."
14
The LORD of hosts
26has revealed himself in my ears: "Surely
27this iniquity will not be atoned for you
28until you die," says the Lord GOD of hosts.
15
Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, "Come, go to this steward, to
29Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him:
16
What have you to do here, and whom have you here,
30that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you
31who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock?
17
Behold, the LORD will hurl you away violently, O you strong man.
32He will seize firm hold on you
18
and whirl you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a wide land. There you shall die, and there shall be
33your glorious chariots, you shame of your master's house.
19
34I will thrust you from your office, and you will be pulled down from your station.
20
In that day I will call my servant
35Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,
21
and
36I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be
37a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.
22
And I will place
38on his shoulder
39the key of the house of David.
40He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.
23
And I will fasten him
41like a peg in a secure place, and he will become
42a throne of honor to his father's house.
24
And they will hang on him the whole honor of his father's house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons.
25
In that day, declares the LORD of hosts,
43the peg that was fastened in a secure place will give way, and it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the LORD has spoken."