For the sovereign master, ¹  the Lord who commands armies, has planned a day of panic, defeat, and confusion. ²  In the Valley of Vision ³  people shout ⁴  and cry out to the hill. ⁵ 

So this sin will become your downfall. You will be like a high wall that bulges and cracks and is ready to collapse; it crumbles suddenly, in a flash. ¹ 

They hatch the eggs of a poisonous snake and spin a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, a poisonous snake is hatched. ¹ 

“Babylon, ¹  you are my war club, ²  my weapon for battle. I used you to smash nations. ³  I used you to destroy kingdoms.

Tell the ones who coat it with whitewash that it will fall. When there is a deluge of rain, hailstones ¹  will fall and a violent wind will break out. ² 

whenever I want to heal Israel, the sin of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria are exposed. For they do what is wrong; thieves break into houses, and gangs rob people out in the streets.

They ¹  charge ²  like warriors; they scale walls like soldiers. ³  Each one proceeds on his course; they do not alter ⁴  their path.

Then I took my staff “Pleasantness” and cut it in two to annul my covenant that I had made with all the people.

For circumcision ¹  has its value if you practice the law, but ²  if you break the law, ³  your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

And will not the physically uncircumcised man ¹  who keeps the law judge you who, despite ²  the written code ³  and circumcision, transgress the law?

Shout for joy, O sky, for the Lord intervenes; ¹  shout out, you subterranean regions ²  of the earth. O mountains, give a joyful shout; you too, O forest and all your trees! ³  For the Lord protects ⁴  Jacob; he reveals his splendor through Israel. ⁵ 

When I break off your supply of bread, ¹  ten women will bake your bread in one oven; they will ration your bread by weight, ²  and you will eat and not be satisfied.

Indeed you will go out with joy; you will be led along in peace; the mountains and hills will give a joyful shout before you, and all the trees in the field will clap their hands.

Then he said to me, “Son of man, I am about to remove the bread supply ¹  in Jerusalem. ²  They will eat their bread ration anxiously, and they will drink their water ration in terror

“‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: In my rage I will make a violent wind break out. In my anger there will be a deluge of rain and hailstones in destructive fury.

The trees of the field will yield their fruit and the earth will yield its crops. They will live securely on their land; they will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hand of those who enslaved them.

In the days of those kings the God of heaven will raise up an everlasting kingdom that will not be destroyed and a kingdom that will not be left to another people. It will break in pieces and bring about the demise of all these kingdoms. But it will stand forever.

“This is what he told me: ¹  ‘The fourth beast means that there will be a fourth kingdom on earth that will differ from all the other kingdoms. It will devour all the earth and will trample and crush it.

“Shout for joy, O barren one who has not given birth! Give a joyful shout and cry out, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one are more numerous than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord.

So we worked on, ¹  with half ²  holding spears, from dawn till dusk. ³