Seventy men from the elders of the house of Israel ¹  (with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them) were standing in front of them, each with a censer in his hand, and fragrant ²  vapors from a cloud of incense were swirling upward.

In Tahpanhes the day will be dark ¹  when I break the yoke of Egypt there. Her confident pride will cease within her; a cloud will cover her, and her daughters will go into captivity.

The Lord is slow to anger ¹  but great in power; ²  the Lord will certainly not ³  allow the wicked ⁴  to go unpunished.He marches out ⁵  in the whirlwind and the raging storm; dark storm clouds billow like dust ⁶  under his feet. ⁷ 

Jesus said to him, “You have said it yourself. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand ¹  of the Power ²  and coming on the clouds of heaven.” ³ 

(Look! He is returning with the clouds, ¹  and every eye will see him, even ²  those who pierced him, ³  and all the tribes ⁴  on the earth will mourn because ⁵  of him. This will certainly come to pass! ⁶  Amen.) ⁷ 

Then ¹  I saw another powerful angel descending from heaven, wrapped ²  in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head; his face was like the sun and his legs were like pillars of fire. ³ 

Then ¹  another angel came out of the temple, shouting in a loud voice to the one seated on the cloud, “Use ²  your sickle and start to reap, ³  because the time to reap has come, since the earth’s harvest is ripe!”

For this is what the Lord has told me: “I will wait ¹  and watch from my place, like scorching heat produced by the sunlight, ²  like a cloud of mist ³  in the heat ⁴  of harvest.” ⁵ 

Consider Assyria, ¹  a cedar in Lebanon, ²  with beautiful branches, like a forest giving shade, and extremely tall; its top reached into the clouds.

“‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because it was tall in stature, and its top reached into the clouds, and it was proud of its height,

like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds after the rain. ¹  This was the appearance of the surrounding brilliant light; it looked like the glory of the Lord. When I saw ²  it, I threw myself face down, and I heard a voice speaking.

Then ¹  the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, ²  and ³  all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They ⁴  will see the Son of Man arriving on the clouds of heaven ⁵  with power and great glory.

It will be ¹  a day of dreadful darkness, ²  a day of foreboding storm clouds, ³  like blackness ⁴  spread over the mountains. It is a huge and powerful army ⁵  – there has never been anything like it ever before, and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! ⁶ 

The Israelites and the men hiding in ambush had arranged a signal. When the men hiding in ambush ¹  sent up a smoke signal from the city,

Ask the Lord for rain in the season of the late spring rains ¹  – the Lord who causes thunderstorms – and he will give everyone showers of rain and green growth in the field.

Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he lives in thick darkness.

But now, the sun ¹  cannot be looked at ²  – it is bright in the skies – after a wind passed and swept the clouds away. ³ 

Acknowledge God’s power, ¹  his sovereignty over Israel, and the power he reveals in the skies! ² 

O fire and hail, snow and clouds, ¹  O stormy wind that carries out his orders, ² 

These men ¹  are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm, for whom the utter depths of darkness ²  have been reserved.