[1] The word about the valley of vision. Why have all your people gone up
to the house-tops? [2] You, who are full of loud voices, a town of
outcries, given up to joy; your dead men have not been put to the sword, or
come to their death in war. [3] All your rulers ... have gone in flight;
all your strong ones have gone far away. [4] For this cause I have said,
Let your eyes be turned away from me in my bitter weeping; I will not be
comforted for the wasting of the daughter of my people. [5] For it is a day
of trouble and of crushing down and of destruction from the Lord, the Lord
of armies, in the valley of vision; ... [6] And Elam was armed with arrows,
and Aram came on horseback; and the breastplate of Kir was uncovered. [7]
And your most fertile valleys were full of war-carriages, and the horsemen
took up their positions in front of the town. [8] He took away the cover of
Judah; and in that day you were looking with care at the store of arms in
the house of the woods. [9] And you saw all the broken places in the wall
of the town of David: and you got together the waters of the lower pool.
[10] And you had the houses of Jerusalem numbered, pulling down the houses
to make the wall stronger. [11] And you made a place between the two walls
for storing the waters of the old pool: but you gave no thought to him who
had done this, and were not looking to him by whom it had been purposed
long before. [12] And in that day the Lord, the Lord of armies, was looking
for weeping, and cries of sorrow, cutting off of the hair, and putting on
the clothing of grief: [13] But in place of these there was joy and
delight, oxen and sheep were being made ready for food, there was feasting
and drinking: men said, Now is the time for food and wine, for tomorrow
death comes. [14] And the Lord of armies said to me secretly, Truly, this
sin will not be taken from you till your death, says the Lord, the Lord of
armies. [15] The Lord, the Lord of armies, says, Go to this person in
authority, this Shebna, who is over the house; who has made himself a
resting-place on high, cutting out a place for himself in the rock, and
say, [16] Who are you, and by what right have you made for yourself a
resting-place here? [17] See, O strong man, the Lord will send you
violently away, gripping you with force, [18] Twisting you round and round
like a ball he will send you out into a wide country: there you will come
to your end, and there will be the carriages of your pride, O shame of your
lord's house! [19] And I will have you forced out of your place of
authority, and pulled down from your position. [20] And in that day I will
send for my servant, Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah: [21] And I will put your
robe on him, and put your band about him, and I will give your authority
into his hand: and he will be a father to the men of Jerusalem, and to the
family of Judah. [22] And I will give the key of the family of David into
his care; and what he keeps open will be shut by no one, and what he keeps
shut no one will make open. [23] And I will put him like a nail in a safe
place; and he will be for a seat of glory to his father's family. [24] And
all the glory of his father's family will be hanging on him, all their
offspring, every small vessel, even the cups and the basins. [25] In that
day, says the Lord of armies, will the nail fixed in a safe place give way;
and it will be cut down, and in its fall the weight hanging on it will be
cut off, for the Lord has said it.
