English Standard Version ESV
The Message Bible MSG
1 I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.
1
What's God going to say to my questions? I'm braced for the worst. I'll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon. I'll wait to see what God says, how he'll answer my complaint.
2 And the LORD answered me:"Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.
2
And then God answered: "Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run.
3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end--it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.
3
This vision-message is a witness pointing to what's coming. It aches for the coming - it can hardly wait! And it doesn't lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time.
4 "Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.
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"Look at that man, bloated by self-importance - full of himself but soul-empty. But the person in right standing before God through loyal and steady believing is fully alive, really alive.
5 "Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples."
5
"Note well: Money deceives. The arrogant rich don't last. They are more hungry for wealth than the grave is for cadavers. Like death, they always want more, but the 'more' they get is dead bodies. They are cemeteries filled with dead nations, graveyards filled with corpses.
6 Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say, "Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own-- for how long?-- and loads himself with pledges!"
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Don't give people like this a second thought. Soon the whole world will be taunting them: "'Who do you think you are - getting rich by stealing and extortion? How long do you think you can get away with this?'
7 Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be spoil for them.
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Indeed, how long before your victims wake up, stand up and make you the victim?
8 Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.
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You've plundered nation after nation. Now you'll get a taste of your own medicine. All the survivors are out to plunder you, a payback for all your murders and massacres.
9 "Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm!
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"Who do you think you are - recklessly grabbing and looting, Living it up, acting like king of the mountain, acting above it all, above trials and troubles?
10 You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life.
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You've engineered the ruin of your own house. In ruining others you've ruined yourself. You've undermined your foundations, rotted out your own soul.
11 For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond.
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The bricks of your house will speak up and accuse you. The woodwork will step forward with evidence.
12 "Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity!
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"Who do you think you are - building a town by murder, a city with crime?
13 Behold, is it not from the LORD of hosts that peoples labor merely for fire, and nations weary themselves for nothing?
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Don't you know that God-of-the-Angel-Armies makes sure nothing comes of that but ashes, Makes sure the harder you work at that kind of thing, the less you are?
14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
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Meanwhile the earth fills up with awareness of God's glory as the waters cover the sea.
15 "Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink-- you pour out your wrath and make them drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness!
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"Who do you think you are - inviting your neighbors to your drunken parties, Giving them too much to drink, roping them into your sexual orgies?
16 You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision! The cup in the LORD's right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory!
16
You thought you were having the time of your life. Wrong! It's a time of disgrace. All the time you were drinking, you were drinking from the cup of God's wrath.
17 The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.
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You'll wake up holding your throbbing head, hung over - hung over from Lebanon violence, Hung over from animal massacres, hung over from murder and mayhem, From multiple violations of place and people.
18 "What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols!
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"What's the use of a carved god so skillfully carved by its sculptor? What good is a fancy cast god when all it tells is lies? What sense does it make to be a pious god-maker who makes gods that can't even talk?
19 Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it.
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Who do you think you are - saying to a stick of wood, 'Wake up,' Or to a dumb stone, 'Get up'? Can they teach you anything about anything? There's nothing to them but surface. There's nothing on the inside.
20 But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him."
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"But oh! God is in his holy Temple! Quiet everyone - a holy silence. Listen!"
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.