[1] The oracle concerning the 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, exultant town? Your slain are not slain with
the sword or dead in battle. [3] All your rulers 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, let me weep bitter tears; do not labor to comfort me for the
destruction of the daughter of my people." [5] For 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 shouting to the mountains. [6] And Elam bore
the quiver with chariots and horsemen, and Kir 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 the covering of Judah. In that
day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest, [9] and you saw
that the breaches of the city of David were many, and you 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] You 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. [12] In
that day the Lord GOD of hosts called to weeping and mourning, to baldness
and girding with sackcloth; [13] and behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen
and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. "Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die." [14] The LORD of hosts has revealed himself in my
ears: "Surely this iniquity will not be forgiven you till you die," says
the Lord GOD of hosts. [15] Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, "Come, go to
this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him: [16]
What have you to do here and whom have you here, that you have hewn here a
tomb for yourself, you who hew a tomb on the height, and carve a habitation
for yourself in the rock? [17] Behold, the LORD will hurl you away
violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you, [18] and whirl
you round and round, and throw you like a ball into a wide land; there you
shall die, and there shall be your splendid chariots, you shame of your
master's house. [19] I will thrust you from your office, and you will be
cast down from your station. [20] In that day I will call my servant
Eli'akim the son of Hilki'ah, [21] and I will clothe him with your robe,
and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his
hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the
house of Judah. [22] And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house
of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none
shall open. [23] And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, and he
will become a throne of honor to his father's house. [24] And they will
hang on him the whole weight of his father's house, the offspring and
issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons. [25] In that
day, says the LORD of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a sure place will
give way; and it will be cut down and fall, and the burden that was upon it
will be cut off, for the LORD has spoken."
