Bible in 90 Days Plan

¹An oracle concerning Damascus. Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins.

²The cities of Aroer are deserted; they will be for flocks, which will lie down, and none will make them afraid.

³The fortress will disappear from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus; and the remnant of Syria will be like the glory of the children of Israel, declares the LORD of hosts.

⁴And in that day the glory of Jacob will be brought low, and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.

⁵And it shall be as when the reaper gathers standing grain and his arm harvests the ears, and as when one gleans the ears of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.

⁶Gleanings will be left in it, as when an olive tree is beaten — two or three berries in the top of the highest bough, four or five on the branches of a fruit tree, declares the LORD God of Israel.

⁷In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel.

⁸He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense.

⁹In that day their strong cities will be like the deserted places of the wooded heights and the hilltops, which they deserted because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.

¹⁰For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge; therefore, though you plant pleasant plants and sow the vine-branch of a stranger,

¹¹though you make them grow on the day that you plant them, and make them blossom in the morning that you sow, yet the harvest will flee away in a day of grief and incurable pain.

¹²Ah, the thunder of many peoples; they thunder like the thundering of the sea! Ah, the roar of nations; they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!

¹³The nations roar like the roaring of many waters, but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away, chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind and whirling dust before the storm.

¹⁴At evening time, behold, terror! Before morning, they are no more! This is the portion of those who loot us, and the lot of those who plunder us.

¹Ah, land of whirring wings that is beyond the rivers of Cush,

²which sends ambassadors by the sea, in vessels of papyrus on the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide.

³All you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains, look! When a trumpet is blown, hear!

⁴For thus the LORD said to me: “I will quietly look from my dwelling like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

⁵For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away.

⁶They shall all of them be left to the birds of prey of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth. And the birds of prey will summer on them, and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

⁷At that time tribute will be brought to the LORD of hosts from a people tall and smooth, from a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide, to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the LORD of hosts.

¹An oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, the LORD is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt; and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.

²And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight, each against another and each against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom;

³and the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out, and I will confound their counsel; and they will inquire of the idols and the sorcerers, and the mediums and the necromancers;

⁴and I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a hard master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the Lord GOD of hosts.

⁵And the waters of the sea will be dried up, and the river will be dry and parched,

⁶and its canals will become foul, and the branches of Egypt's Nile will diminish and dry up, reeds and rushes will rot away.

⁷There will be bare places by the Nile, on the brink of the Nile, and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched, will be driven away, and will be no more.

⁸The fishermen will mourn and lament, all who cast a hook in the Nile; and they will languish who spread nets on the water.

⁹The workers in combed flax will be in despair, and the weavers of white cotton.

¹⁰Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed, and all who work for pay will be grieved.

¹¹The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish; the wisest counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel. How can you say to Pharaoh, “I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings”?

¹²Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you that they might know what the LORD of hosts has purposed against Egypt.

¹³The princes of Zoan have become fools, and the princes of Memphis are deluded; those who are the cornerstones of her tribes have made Egypt stagger.

¹⁴The LORD has mingled within her a spirit of confusion, and they will make Egypt stagger in all its deeds, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit.

¹⁵And there will be nothing for Egypt that head or tail, palm branch or reed, may do.

¹⁶In that day the Egyptians will be like women, and tremble with fear before the hand that the LORD of hosts shakes over them.

¹⁷And the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians. Everyone to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the purpose that the LORD of hosts has purposed against them.

¹⁸In that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the LORD of hosts. One of these will be called the City of Destruction.

¹⁹In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the LORD at its border.

²⁰It will be a sign and a witness to the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt. When they cry to the LORD because of oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and deliver them.

²¹And the LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the LORD in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows to the LORD and perform them.

²²And the LORD will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to the LORD, and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them.

²³In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.

²⁴In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth,

²⁵whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.”

¹In the year that the commander in chief, who was sent by Sargon the king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and fought against it and captured it —

²at that time the LORD spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go, and loose the sackcloth from your waist and take off your sandals from your feet,” and he did so, walking naked and barefoot.

³Then the LORD said, “As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Cush,

⁴so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptian captives and the Cushite exiles, both the young and the old, naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered, the nakedness of Egypt.

⁵Then they shall be dismayed and ashamed because of Cush their hope and of Egypt their boast.

⁶And the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, ‘Behold, this is what has happened to those in whom we hoped and to whom we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria! And we, how shall we escape?’”

¹The oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the Negeb sweep on, it comes from the wilderness, from a terrible land.

²A stern vision is told to me; the traitor betrays, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, O Elam; lay siege, O Media; all the sighing she has caused I bring to an end.

³Therefore my loins are filled with anguish; pangs have seized me, like the pangs of a woman in labor; I am bowed down so that I cannot hear; I am dismayed so that I cannot see.

⁴My heart staggers; horror has appalled me; the twilight I longed for has been turned for me into trembling.

⁵They prepare the table, they spread the rugs, they eat, they drink. Arise, O princes; oil the shield!

⁶For thus the Lord said to me: “Go, set a watchman; let him announce what he sees.

⁷When he sees riders, horsemen in pairs, riders on donkeys, riders on camels, let him listen diligently, very diligently.”

⁸Then he who saw cried out: “Upon a watchtower I stand, O Lord, continually by day, and at my post I am stationed whole nights.

⁹And behold, here come riders, horsemen in pairs!” And he answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the carved images of her gods he has shattered to the ground.”

¹⁰O my threshed and winnowed one, what I have heard from the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, I announce to you.

¹¹The oracle concerning Dumah. One is calling to me from Seir, “Watchman, what time of the night? Watchman, what time of the night?”

¹²The watchman says: “Morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire; come back again.”

¹³The oracle concerning Arabia. In the thickets in Arabia you will lodge, O caravans of Dedanites.

¹⁴To the thirsty bring water; meet the fugitive with bread, O inhabitants of the land of Tema.

¹⁵For they have fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the press of battle.

¹⁶For thus the Lord said to me, “Within a year, according to the years of a hired worker, all the glory of Kedar will come to an end.

¹⁷And the remainder of the archers of the mighty men of the sons of Kedar will be few, for the LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken.”

¹The oracle concerning the valley of vision. What do you mean that you have gone up, all of you, to the housetops,

²you who are full of shoutings, tumultuous city, exultant town? Your slain are not slain with the sword or dead in battle.

³All your leaders have fled together; without the bow they were captured. All of you who were found were captured, though they had fled far away.

⁴Therefore I said: “Look away from me; let me weep bitter tears; do not labor to comfort me concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people.”

⁵For 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.

⁶And Elam bore the quiver with chariots and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the shield.

⁷Your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen took their stand at the gates.

⁸He has taken away the covering of Judah. In that day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest,

⁹and you saw that the breaches of the city of David were many. You collected the waters of the lower pool,

¹⁰and you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall.

¹¹You 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 see him who planned it long ago.

¹²In that day the Lord GOD of hosts called for weeping and mourning, for baldness and wearing sackcloth;

¹³and behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

¹⁴The LORD of hosts has revealed himself in my ears: “Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die,” says the Lord GOD of hosts.

¹⁵Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him:

¹⁶What have you to do here, and whom have you here, that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock?

¹⁷Behold, the LORD will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you

¹⁸and whirl you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a wide land. There you shall die, and there shall be your glorious chariots, you shame of your master's house.

¹⁹I will thrust you from your office, and you will be pulled down from your station.

²⁰In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,

²¹and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash 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.

²²And 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.

²³And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father's house.

²⁴And they will hang on him the whole honor of his father's house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons.

²⁵In that day, declares the LORD of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a secure place will give way, and it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the LORD has spoken.”

¹The oracle concerning Tyre. Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for Tyre is laid waste, without house or harbor! From the land of Cyprus it is revealed to them.

²Be still, O inhabitants of the coast; the merchants of Sidon, who cross the sea, have filled you.

³And on many waters your revenue was the grain of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile; you were the merchant of the nations.

⁴Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying: “I have neither labored nor given birth, I have neither reared young men nor brought up young women.”

⁵When the report comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish over the report about Tyre.

⁶Cross over to Tarshish; wail, O inhabitants of the coast!

⁷Is this your exultant city whose origin is from days of old, whose feet carried her to settle far away?

⁸Who has purposed this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth?

⁹The LORD of hosts has purposed it, to defile the pompous pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth.

¹⁰Cross over your land like the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish; there is no restraint anymore.

¹¹He has stretched out his hand over the sea; he has shaken the kingdoms; the LORD has given command concerning Canaan to destroy its strongholds.

¹²And he said: “You will no more exult, O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon; arise, cross over to Cyprus, even there you will have no rest.”

¹³Behold the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people that was not; Assyria destined it for wild beasts. They erected their siege towers, they stripped her palaces bare, they made her a ruin.

¹⁴Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is laid waste.

¹⁵In that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:

¹⁶“Take a harp; go about the city, O forgotten prostitute! Make sweet melody; sing many songs, that you may be remembered.”

¹⁷At the end of seventy years, the LORD will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.

¹⁸Her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the LORD. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the LORD.

¹Behold, the LORD will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.

²And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the debtor.

³The earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered; for the LORD has spoken this word.

⁴The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and withers; the highest people of the earth languish.

⁵The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.

⁶Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched, and few men are left.

⁷The wine mourns, the vine languishes, all the merry-hearted sigh.

⁸The mirth of the tambourines is stilled, the noise of the jubilant has ceased, the mirth of the lyre is stilled.

⁹No more do they drink wine with singing; strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.

¹⁰The wasted city is broken down; every house is shut up so that none can enter.

¹¹There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine; all joy has grown dark; the gladness of the earth is banished.

¹²Desolation is left in the city; the gates are battered into ruins.

¹³For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done.

¹⁴They lift up their voices, they sing for joy; over the majesty of the LORD they shout from the west.

¹⁵Therefore in the east give glory to the LORD; in the coastlands of the sea, give glory to the name of the LORD, the God of Israel.

¹⁶From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise, of glory to the Righteous One. But I say, “I waste away, I waste away. Woe is me! For the traitors have betrayed, with betrayal the traitors have betrayed.”

¹⁷Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth!

¹⁸He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit, and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.

¹⁹The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken.

²⁰The earth staggers like a drunken man; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again.

²¹On that day the LORD will punish the host of heaven, in heaven, and the kings of the earth, on the earth.

²²They will be gathered together as prisoners in a pit; they will be shut up in a prison, and after many days they will be punished.

²³Then the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed, for the LORD of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and his glory will be before his elders.

¹O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you; I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.

²For you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the foreigners' palace is a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.

³Therefore strong peoples will glorify you; cities of ruthless nations will fear you.

⁴For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat; for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,

⁵like heat in a dry place. You subdue the noise of the foreigners; as heat by the shade of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless is put down.

⁶On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

⁷And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.

⁸He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.

⁹It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

¹⁰For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain, and Moab shall be trampled down in his place, as straw is trampled down in a dunghill.

¹¹And he will spread out his hands in the midst of it as a swimmer spreads his hands out to swim, but the LORD will lay low his pompous pride together with the skill of his hands.

¹²And the high fortifications of his walls he will bring down, lay low, and cast to the ground, to the dust.

¹In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: “We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks.

²Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.

³You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

⁴Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.

⁵For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust.

⁶The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.”

⁷The path of the righteous is level; you make level the way of the righteous.

⁸In the path of your judgments, O LORD, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.

⁹My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

¹⁰If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the LORD.

¹¹O LORD, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed. Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.

¹²O LORD, you will ordain peace for us, for you have indeed done for us all our works.

¹³O LORD our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone we bring to remembrance.

¹⁴They are dead, they will not live; they are shades, they will not arise; to that end you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them.

¹⁵But you have increased the nation, O LORD, you have increased the nation; you are glorified; you have enlarged all the borders of the land.

¹⁶O LORD, in distress they sought you; they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them.

¹⁷Like a pregnant woman who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, so were we because of you, O LORD;

¹⁸we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind. We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.

¹⁹Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.

²⁰Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by.

²¹For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.

¹In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.

²In that day, “A pleasant vineyard, sing of it!

³I, the LORD, am its keeper; every moment I water it. Lest anyone punish it, I keep it night and day;

⁴I have no wrath. Would that I had thorns and briers to battle! I would march against them, I would burn them up together.

⁵Or let them lay hold of my protection, let them make peace with me, let them make peace with me.”

⁶In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit.

⁷Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them? Or have they been slain as their slayers were slain?

⁸Measure by measure, by exile you contended with them; he removed them with his fierce breath in the day of the east wind.

⁹Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for, and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin: when he makes all the stones of the altars like chalkstones crushed to pieces, no Asherim or incense altars will remain standing.

¹⁰For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness; there the calf grazes; there it lies down and strips its branches.

¹¹When its boughs are dry, they are broken; women come and make a fire of them. For this is a people without discernment; therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them; he who formed them will show them no favor.

¹²In that day from the river Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt the LORD will thresh out the grain, and you will be gleaned one by one, O people of Israel.

¹³And in that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.

¹Ah, the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, and the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome with wine!

²Behold, the Lord has one who is mighty and strong; like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest, like a storm of mighty, overflowing waters, he casts down to the earth with his hand.

³The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden underfoot;

⁴and the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley, will be like a first-ripe fig before the summer: when someone sees it, he swallows it as soon as it is in his hand.

⁵In that day the LORD of hosts will be a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of his people,

⁶and a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.

⁷These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are swallowed by wine, they stagger with strong drink, they reel in vision, they stumble in giving judgment.

⁸For all tables are full of filthy vomit, with no space left.

⁹“To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast?

¹⁰For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.”

¹¹For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people,

¹²to whom he has said, “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”; yet they would not hear.

¹³And the word of the LORD will be to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

¹⁴Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scoffers, who rule this people in Jerusalem!

¹⁵Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement, when the overwhelming whip passes through it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter”;

¹⁶therefore thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’

¹⁷And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plumb line; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter.”

¹⁸Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it.

¹⁹As often as it passes through it will take you; for morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be sheer terror to understand the message.

²⁰For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in.

²¹For the LORD will rise up as on Mount Perazim; as in the Valley of Gibeon he will be roused; to do his deed — strange is his deed! and to work his work — alien is his work!

²²Now therefore do not scoff, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord GOD of hosts against the whole land.

²³Give ear, and hear my voice; give attention, and hear my speech.

²⁴Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground?

²⁵When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cumin, and put in wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and emmer as the border?

²⁶For he is rightly instructed; his God teaches him.

²⁷Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cart wheel rolled over cumin, but dill is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod.

²⁸Does one crush grain for bread? No, he does not thresh it forever; when he drives his cart wheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it.

²⁹This also comes from the LORD of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.

¹Ah, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts run their round.

²Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be moaning and lamentation, and she shall be to me like an Ariel.

³And I will encamp against you all around, and will besiege you with towers and I will raise siegeworks against you.

⁴And you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak, and from the dust your speech will be bowed down; your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost, and from the dust your speech shall whisper.

⁵But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff. And in an instant, suddenly,

⁶you will be visited by the LORD of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.

⁷And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her, shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.

⁸As when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating, and awakes with his hunger not satisfied, or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking, and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched, so shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion.

⁹Astonish yourselves and be astonished; blind yourselves and be blind! Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink!

¹⁰For the LORD has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes (the prophets), and covered your heads (the seers).

¹¹And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.”

¹²And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.”

¹³And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,

¹⁴therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”

¹⁵Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”

¹⁶You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?

¹⁷Is it not yet a very little while until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?

¹⁸In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.

¹⁹The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.

²⁰For the ruthless shall come to nothing and the scoffer cease, and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off,

²¹who by a word make a man out to be an offender, and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate, and with an empty plea turn aside him who is in the right.

²²Therefore thus says the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob: “Jacob shall no more be ashamed, no more shall his face grow pale.

²³For when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in his midst, they will sanctify my name; they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.

²⁴And those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur will accept instruction.”