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Add year to year;
let the festivals go on.
2 Yet I will distress Ariel;
there will be mourning and lamenting,
and she will be to Me as an altar hearth.
3 I will encamp against you all around;
I will lay siege against you with towers,
and raise earthen ramps against you,
4 and you will collapse.
“From the dirt you will mumble,
from low in the dust your words will stutter;
your voice will be like that of a spirit from the ground,
your speech will whisper from the dust.
5 The multitude of your enemies will be like fine dust,
and the ruthless hordes, like chaff that blows away.
“Then suddenly, in an instant,
6you will be visited by the Lord of Hosts
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.
7 The multitude of nations that fight against Ariel,
all who attack her and her fortress, and distress her,
will be like a nightmare,
a taunting vision through the night.
8 It will be as when a hungry man dreams he is eating,
but when he awakes he is still hungry,
or as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking,
but when he awakes he is faint, and his thirst is not quenched.
So will the multitude of nations be
that fight against Mount Zion.”
9 Stay yourselves, and wonder,
blind yourselves, and be blind!
They are drunk, but not with wine;
they stagger, but not with strong drink.
10 For the Lord has poured out upon you
the spirit of deep sleep;
He has closed your eyes, the prophets,
He has covered your heads, the seers.
11 The vision of all this has become to you as the words of a scroll that is sealed:
If you give this scroll to someone who can read, and tell him, “Read this, please,” he will answer, “I cannot, because it is sealed.”
12 Or if the scroll is given to someone who cannot read, and say, “Read this, please,” he will say, “I do not know how to read.”
13 The Lord said:
“Because these people draw near Me with their mouths,
and honour Me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from Me,
and their worship of Me
is merely rules taught by men—
14 therefore I will again astound these people
with wonder upon wonder.
The wisdom of their wise men will perish,
and the understanding of their discerning men will be hidden.”
15 Woe to those who go to great lengths
to hide their plans from the Lord,
who carry out their works in the darkness,
then say, “Who sees us?”
and “Who can know about us?”
16 You turn things upside down,
as if the potter can be thought to be the same as the clay!
Can what is made say of its maker,
“He did not make me;”
or can the pot that was formed say of him who formed it,
“He knows nothing?”
17 Is it not true, that in a short time,
Lebanon will become a fertile field,
and the fertile and productive field will seem like a forest?
18 On that day the deaf shall hear
the words of the scroll,
and out of gloom and darkness
the eyes of the blind shall see.
19 Once more, the humble will find their joy in the Lord;
the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the ruthless will vanish,
and mockers will be consumed,
and all who look to do evil will be cut down—
21 those who with a word make a man out to be guilty,
who set a trap for the mediator at the gate,
and without grounds deny justice to the one who is innocent.
22 Therefore this is what the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, says about the house of Jacob:
“No longer will Jacob be ashamed,
no longer will his face grow pale.
23 For when he sees his children,
the work of My hands, in his midst,
they will set My name apart as holy;
they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob,
and stand in awe of the God of Israel.
24 Those also who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding,
and those who grumble will accept instruction.”