In the land of Judah:
Ours is a mighty city;
He makes victory our inner and outer wall.
2Open the gates, and let
A righteous nation enter,
[A nation] that keeps faith.
3The confident mind You guard in safety,
In safety because it trusts in You.
4Trust in the LORD for ever and ever,
For in Yah the LORD you have an everlasting Rock.
5For He has brought low those who dwelt high up,
Has humbled the secure city,
Humbled it to the ground,
Leveled it with the dust—
6To be trampled underfoot,
By the feet of the needy,
By the soles of the poor.
7The path is level for the righteous man;
O Just One, You make smooth the course of the righteous.
8For Your just ways, O LORD, we look to You;
We long for the name by which You are called.
9At night I yearn for You with all my being,
I seek You with all a-the spirit within me.-a
For when Your judgments are wrought on earth,
The inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
10But when the scoundrel is spared, he learns not righteousness;
In a place of integrity, he does wrong—
He ignores the majesty of the LORD.
11O LORD!
They see not Your hand exalted.
Let them be shamed as they behold
Your zeal for Your people
And fire consuming Your adversaries.
12bO LORD!
May You appoint well-being for us,
Since You have also requited all our misdeeds.
13O LORD our God!
Lords other than You possessed us,
But only Your name shall we utter.
14They are dead, they can never live;
Shades, they can never rise;
Of a truth, You have dealt with them and wiped them out,
Have put an end to all mention of them.
15cWhen You added to the nation, O LORD,
When You added to the nation,
Extending all the boundaries of the land,
You were honored.
16O LORD! In their distress, they sought You;
Your chastisement reduced them
To anguishedd whispered prayer.
17Like a woman with child
Approaching childbirth,
Writhing and screaming in her pangs,
So are we become because of You, O LORD.
18We were with child, we writhed—
It is as though we had given birth to wind;
We have won no victory on earth;
The inhabitants of the world have not e-come to life!-e
19Oh, let Your dead revive!
Let corpsesf arise!
Awake and shout for joy,
You who dwell in the dust!—
For Your dew is like the dew on fresh growth;
You make the land of the shades e-come to life.-e
20Go, my people, enter your chambers,
And lock your doors behind you.
Hide but a little moment,
Until the indignation passes.
21For lo!
The LORD shall come forth from His place
To punish the dwellers of the earth
For their iniquity;
And the earth shall disclose its bloodshed
And shall no longer conceal its slain.
27 In that day the LORD will punish,
With His great, cruel, mighty sword
Leviathan the Elusivea Serpent—
Leviathan the Twistinga Serpent;
He will slay the Dragon of the sea.b
2In that day,
They shall sing of it:c
“Vineyard of Delight.”d
3I the LORD keep watch over it,
I water it every moment;
e-That no harm may befall it,-e
I watch it night and day.
4There is no anger in Me:
a If one offers Me thorns and thistles,
I will march to battle against him,
And set all of them on fire.-a
5But if he holds fast to My refuge,
a He makes Me his friend;
He makes Me his friend.-a
6[In days] to come Jacob shall strike root,
Israel shall sprout and blossom,
And the face of the world
Shall be covered with fruit.
7Was he beaten as his beater has been?
Did he suffer such slaughter as his slayers?
8f-Assailing them-f with fury unchained,
His pitiless blast bore them off
On a day of gale.
9gAssuredly, by this alone
Shall Jacob’s sin be purged away;
This is the only price
For removing his guilt:
That he make all the altar-stones
Like shattered blocks of chalk—
With no sacred post left standing,
Nor any incense altar.
10Thus fortified cities lie desolate,
Homesteads deserted, forsaken like a wilderness;
There calves graze, there they lie down
h-And consume its boughs.
11When its crown is withered, they break;-h
Women come and make fires with them.
For they are a people without understanding;
That is why
Their Maker will show them no mercy,
Their Creator will deny them grace.
12And in that day, the LORD will beat out [the peoples like grain] from the channel of the Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt; and you shall be picked up one by one, O children of Israel!
13And in that day, a great ram’s horn shall be sounded; and the strayed who are in the land of Assyria and the expelled who are in the land of Egypt shall come and worship the LORD on the holy mount, in Jerusalem.
28 Ah, the proud crowns of the drunkards of Ephraim,
Whose glorious beauty is but wilted flowers
On the heads of men bloateda with rich food,
Who are overcome by wine!
2Lo, my Lord has something strong and mighty,
Like a storm of hail,
A shower of pestilence.
Something like a storm of massive, torrential rainb
Shall be hurled with force to the ground.
3Trampled underfoot shall be
The proud crowns of the drunkards of Ephraim,
4The wilted flowers—
On the heads of men bloateda with rich food—
That are his glorious beauty.
They shall be like an early fig
Before the fruit harvest;
Whoever sees it devours it
While it is still c-in his hand. -c
5In that day, the LORD of Hosts shall become a crown of beauty and a diadem of glory for the remnant of His people, 6and a spirit of judgment for him who sits in judgment and of valor for those who repel attacks at the gate.
7But these are also muddled by wine
And dazed by liquor:
Priest and prophet
Are muddled by liquor;
They are confused by wine,
They are dazed by liquor;
They are muddled in their visions,
They stumble in judgment.
8Yea, all tables are covered
With vomit and filth,
So that no space is left.
9d“To whom would he give instruction?
To whom expound a message?
To those newly weaned from milk,
Just taken away from the breast?
10That same mutter upon mutter,
Murmur upon murmur,
Now here, now there!”
11Truly, as one who speaks to that people in a stammering jargon and an alien tongue 12is he who declares to them, “This is the resting place, let the weary rest;e this is the place of repose.” They refuse to listen. 13To them the word of the LORD is:
“Mutter upon mutter,
Murmur upon murmur,
Now here, now there.”
And so they will march,f
But they shall fall backward,
And be injured and snared and captured.
14Hear now the word of the LORD,
You men of mockery,
g-Who govern that people-g
In Jerusalem!
15For you have said,
“We have made a covenant with Death,
Concluded a pact with Sheol.
When the sweeping flood passes through,
It shall not reach us;
For we have made falsehood our refuge,
Taken shelter in treachery.”
16Assuredly,
Thus said the Lord GOD:
“Behold, I will found in Zion,
Stone by stone,
h-A tower of precious cornerstones,-h
Exceedingly firm;
He who trusts need not fear.
17But I will apply judgment as a measuring line
And retributioni as weights;j
Hail shall sweep away the refuge of falsehood,
And flood-waters engulf your shelter.
18Your covenant with Death shall be annulled,
Your pact with Sheol shall not endure;
When the sweeping flood passes through,
You shall be its victims.
19It shall catch you
Every time it passes through;
It shall pass through every morning,
Every day and every night.
And it shall be sheer horror
To grasp the message.”
20The couch is too short for stretching out,
And the cover too narrow for curling up!
21For the LORD will arise
As on the hill of Perazim,
He will rouse Himself
As in the vale of Gibeon,
To do His work—
Strange is His work!
And to perform His task—
Astounding is His task!k
22Therefore, refrain from mockery,
Lest your bonds be tightened.
For I have heard a decree of destruction
From my Lord GOD of Hosts
Against all the land.
23Give diligent ear to my words,
Attend carefully to what I say.
24Does he who plows to sow
Plow all the time,
Breaking up and furrowing his land?
25When he has smoothed its surface,
Does he not rather broadcast black cumin
And scatter cumin.
Or set wheat in a row,l
Barley in a strip,
And emmer in a patch?
26For He teaches him the right manner,
His God instructs him.
27So, too, black cumin is not threshed with a threshing board,
Nor is the wheel of a threshing sledge rolled over cumin;
But black cumin is beaten out with a stick
And cumin with a rod.
28It is cereal that is crushed.m
For n-even if-n he threshes it thoroughly,
And the wheel of his sledge-hand his horses overwhelm it,-h
He does not crush it.
29That, too, is ordered by the LORD of Hosts;
His counsel is unfathomable,
His wisdom marvelous.
29 “Ah, Ariel,a Ariel,
City where David camped!
Add year to year,
Let festivals come in their cycles!
2And I will harass Ariel,
And there shall be sorrow and sighing.
b-She shall be to Me like Ariel.-b
3And I will camp against you c-round about; -c
I will lay siege to you b-with a mound,-b
And I will set up siegeworks against you.
4And you shall speak from lower than the ground,
Your speech shall be humbler than the sod;
Your speech shall sound like a ghost’s from the ground,
Your voice shall chirp from the sod.
5And like fine dust shall be
The multitude of d-your strangers;-d>
And like flying chaff,
The multitude of tyrants.”
And suddenly, in an instant,
6She shall be remembered of the LORD of Hosts
With roaring, and shaking, and deafening noise,
Storm, and tempest, and blaze of consuming fire.
7Then, like a dream, a vision of the night,
Shall be the multitude of nations
That war upon Ariel,
And all her besiegers, and the siegeworks against her,
And those who harass her.
8Like one who is hungry
And dreams he is eating,
But wakes to find himself empty;
And like one who is thirsty
And dreams he is drinking,
But wakes to find himself faint
And utterly parched—
So shall be all the multitude of nations
That war upon Mount Zion.
9Act stupid and be stupefied!
Act blind and be blinded!
(They are drunk, but not from wine,
They stagger, but not from liquor.)
10For the LORD has spread over you
A spirit of deep sleep,
And has shut your eyes, the prophets,
And covered your heads, the seers;
11So that all prophecy has been to you
Like the words of a sealed document.
If it is handed to one who can read and he is asked to read it, he will say, “I can’t, because it is sealed”; 12and if the document is handed to one who cannot read and he is asked to
