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¹ THE prophecy concerning the valley of vision. What do you see here, that you are all gone up to the housetops?² The city is full of tumult, the mighty city is full of noise; your slain men are not slain with the sword nor dead in battle.³ All your princes are fled together, they are surrounded by the archers; all that were found in you are bound together; they have fled to far off places.⁴ Therefore said I, Leave me alone, I will weep bitterly; trouble not yourself to comfort me, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.⁵ For it is a day of trouble and of treading down and of weeping before the LORD God of hosts in the valley of vision; they have surveyed the walls, and shouted upon the mountains.⁶ And Elam bore the quiver with the chariots of men and horsemen, and the shields were seen on the wall.⁷ And it shall come to pass that your choicest valleys shall be full of chariots, and the horsemen shall set themselves in array at the gates.

⁸ And the defenses of Judah shall be laid bare, and you shall see on that day the armour of the house of the forest.⁹ You have seen also the breaches of the city of David, that they are many; and you have gathered together the waters of the lower pool.¹⁰ And you have supplied the houses of Jerusalem with water, and you have broken down the houses to fortify the walls.¹¹ And you made ditches between the two walls for the water of the old pool; but you have not looked to the maker thereof, neither had respect to him who fashioned it long ago.¹² And in that day the LORD God of hosts called to weeping and to mourning and to baldness and to girding with sackcloth;¹³ And behold joy and gladness, slaughtering oxen and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine; let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.¹⁴ And it was revealed in my ears by the LORD of hosts, saying, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till you die, says the LORD God of hosts.

¹⁵ Thus says the LORD God of hosts: Go, get to this treasurer, even to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him,¹⁶ What do you here? And what have you here, that you have hewn a tomb for yourself, as he who hews for himself a tomb on high and carves a habitation for himself in a rock?¹⁷ Behold, O man, the LORD will surely cast you away, and will surely forsake you.¹⁸ And he shall afflict you like the affliction of a company of soldiers besieged in a fortress from which there is no escape; there shall you die, and there the chariots of your glory shall be the shame of your masters house.¹⁹ And I will take away your glory, and will cast you down from your position.²⁰ And it shall come to pass in that day, says the LORD, I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah;²¹ And I will clothe him with your robe and will gird him with your girdle, and I will commit your government into his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.²² And I will place upon his shoulder the keys of the house of David; so he shall open and none shall shut, and he shall shut and none shall open.²³ And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his fathers house.²⁴ And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his fathers house, both the honorable men and the glorious men, and all small vessels, from instruments of music to the harp.²⁵ In that day, says the LORD of hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in a sure place be removed and be overthrown and fall; and the burden that was upon it shall be destroyed; for the LORD has spoken it.