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¹ The burden of the valley of vision. What ails you now, that you are wholly gone up to the housetops?² O you that are full of shoutings, a tumultuous city, a joyous town; your slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle.³ All your rulers fled away together, they were bound by the archers; all that were found of you were bound together; they fled far off.⁴ Therefore I said, Look away from me, I will weep bitterly; don't labor to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people.⁵ For it is a day of discomfiture, and of treading down, and of perplexity, from the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, in the valley of vision; a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains.⁶ And Elam bore the quiver, with chariots of man [and] horsemen; and Kir uncovered the shield.⁷ And it came to pass, that your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at the gate.

⁸ And he took away the covering of Judah; and you looked in that day to the armor in the house of the forest.⁹ And you saw the breaches of the city of David, that they were many; and you gathered together the waters of the lower pool;¹⁰ and you numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall;¹¹ you also made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you didn't look to him that had done this, neither had you respect to him that purposed it long ago.¹² And in that day the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, called to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:¹³ but saw joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine: let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.¹⁴ And Yahweh of hosts revealed himself in my ears, Surely this iniquity shall not be forgiven you until you die, says the Lord, Yahweh of hosts.

¹⁵ Thus says the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, Go, get yourself to this treasurer, even to Shebna, who is over the house, [and say],¹⁶ What do you have here? and whom do you have here, that you have hewed yourself out here a tomb? hewing himself out a tomb on high, graving a habitation for himself in the rock!¹⁷ Look, Yahweh will hurl you away violently, O [prominent] man, and he will wrap you up closely.¹⁸ He will surely wind you round and round, [and toss you] like a ball into a large country; there you shall die, and there shall be the chariots of your glory, you shame of your lord's house.¹⁹ And I will thrust you from your office; and from your station he shall pull you down.²⁰ And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my slave Eliakim the son of Hilkiah:²¹ and I will clothe him with your robe, and strengthen 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 the key of the house of David I will lay on his shoulder; and 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 throne of glory to his father's house.²⁴ And they shall hang on him all the glory of his father's house, the offspring and the issue, every small vessel, from the cups even to all the flagons.²⁵ In that day, says Yahweh of hosts, shall the nail that was fastened in a sure place give way; and it shall be cut down, and fall; and the burden that was on it shall be cut off; for Yahweh has spoken it.