Come from far away and attack Babylonia! ¹  Open up the places where she stores her grain! Pile her up in ruins! ²  Destroy her completely! ³  Do not leave anyone alive! ⁴ 

This is what the sovereign Lord says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit but have seen nothing!

They turn to Baal; ¹  they are like an unreliable bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword because their prayers to Baal ²  have made me angry. So people will disdain them in the land of Egypt. ³ 

Who knows? Perhaps he will be compassionate and grant a reprieve, ¹  and leave blessing in his wake ²  – a meal offering and a drink offering for you to offer to the Lord your God! ³ 

Those who devise sinful plans are as good as dead, ¹  those who dream about doing evil as they lie in bed. ²  As soon as morning dawns they carry out their plans, ³  because they have the power to do so.

‘Don’t preach with such impassioned rhetoric,’ they say excitedly. ¹  ‘These prophets should not preach of such things; we will not be overtaken by humiliation.’ ² 

The one who builds his house by unjust gain is as good as dead. ¹  He does this so he can build his nest way up high and escape the clutches of disaster. ² 

“You who force your neighbor to drink wine ¹  are as good as dead ²  – you who make others intoxicated by forcing them to drink from the bowl of your furious anger, ³  so you can look at their genitals. ⁴ 

I am about to discipline your children ¹  and will spread offal ²  on your faces, ³  the very offal produced at your festivals, and you will be carried away along with it.

May the Lord cut off from the community ¹  of Jacob every last person who does this, ²  as well as the person who presents improper offerings to the Lord who rules over all!

Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! It ¹  is necessary that stumbling blocks come, but woe to the person through whom they come.

“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple is bound by nothing. ¹  But whoever swears by the gold of the temple is bound by the oath.’

“Woe to you, experts in the law ¹  and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

“Woe to you, experts in the law ¹  and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You ²  build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves ³  of the righteous.

Woe to you! ¹  You are like unmarked graves, and people ²  walk over them without realizing it!” ³ 

Woe to you experts in religious law! You have taken away ¹  the key to knowledge! You did not go in yourselves, and you hindered ²  those who were going in.”

One of the criminals who was hanging there railed at him, saying, “Aren’t ¹  you the Christ? ²  Save yourself and us!”

Then Jesus ¹  said to them again, ²  “I am going away, and you will look for me ³  but will die in your sin. ⁴  Where I am going you cannot come.”

Then they secretly instigated ¹  some men to say, “We have heard this man ²  speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God.”

For if I preach the gospel, I have no reason for boasting, because I am compelled to do this. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!