The Daily Audio Bible

What ails you now,
    that you all have gone up to the housetops,
² you who were full of noise,
    a tumultuous city, a joyous city?
Your slain are not slain with the sword,
    nor did they die in battle.
³ All your rulers have fled together;
    they are captured by the archers.
All of you who were found were taken captive together,
    although they had fled from afar.
⁴ Therefore, I say, “Look away from me,
    I will weep bitterly;
do not try to comfort me
    because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.”

⁵ For it is a day of trouble and of treading down and of perplexity
    by the Lord God of Hosts
    in the Valley of Vision,
a breaking down of the walls
    and a crying to the mountains.
⁶ Elam took up the quiver
    with chariots of men and horsemen,
    and Kir uncovered the shield.
⁷ Your choicest valleys shall be full of chariots,
    and the horsemen shall set themselves in array at the gate.

⁸ And He shall remove the protection of Judah.
    You shall depend in that day
    on the weapons of the house of the forest;
⁹ you have seen also that the breaches
    of the City of David are many;
and you gathered together the waters
    of the lower pool.
¹⁰ You have numbered the houses of Jerusalem,
    and the houses you have broken down to fortify the wall.
¹¹ You also made a reservoir between the two walls
    for the water of the old pool.
But you have not looked to its Maker,
    nor did you respect Him who fashioned it long ago.

¹² In that day the Lord God of Hosts
    called you to weeping and mourning,
    and to tear your hair and wear sackcloth.
¹³ Yet, there is joy and gladness,
    slaying of oxen and killing of sheep,
    eating of meat and drinking wine:
“Let us eat and drink,
    for tomorrow we may die.”

Come, go to this treasurer,
    even to Shebna, who is over the royal household, and say:
¹⁶ What right do you have here? And whom do you have here
    that you have dug out for yourself a tomb here,
as he who hews out for himself a tomb on high,
    and who cuts a habitation for himself in a rock?

¹⁷ Indeed, the Lord is about to hurl you headlong, O man;
    He is about to seize you firmly.
¹⁸ He will surely violently turn
    and toss you like a ball into a large country;
there you shall die,
    and there the chariots of your glory shall be
    the shame of your lord’s house.
¹⁹ I will drive you from your office
    and pull you down from your station.

Wail, O ships of Tarshish,
    for Tyre is laid waste
    so that there is no house or harbor;
from the land of Cyprus
    it is reported to them.

² Be still, you inhabitants of the coastland,
    you merchants of Sidon;
    your messengers passed over the sea,
³ and were on many waters;
    the grain of the Nile,
the harvest of the River^[a] was her revenue;
    and she was the market of nations.

⁴ Be ashamed, O Sidon; for the sea has spoken,
    even the stronghold of the sea, saying,
“I have not travailed nor brought forth children;
    neither have I brought up young men nor raised virgins.”
⁵ When the report reaches Egypt,
    they shall be sorely pained at the report of Tyre.

⁶ Pass over to Tarshish;
    wail, O inhabitants of the coastland.
⁷ Is this your joyous city,
    whose origin is from ancient days,
whose feet used to carry her
    to sojourn in distant locations?
⁸ Who has planned this against Tyre,
    the crowning city,
whose merchants are princes,
    whose traffickers are the honorable of the earth?
⁹ The Lord of Hosts has purposed it,
    to stain the pride of all glory
    and to bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth.

¹⁰ Pass through your land as the Nile,
    O daughter of Tarshish;
    there is no more restraint.
¹¹ He stretched out His hand over the sea,
    He shook the kingdoms;
the Lord has given a command against the merchant city,
    to destroy its strongholds.
¹² He said: You shall rejoice no more,
    O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon.

Arise, pass over to Cyprus;
    there also you shall have no rest.
¹³ Look at the land of the Chaldeans;
    this was a people who was not;
Assyria founded it
    for those who dwell in the wilderness.
They set up their siege towers,
    they stripped its palaces,
    and brought it to ruin.

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

¹⁶ Take your harp, go about the city,
    O forgotten harlot;
make sweet melody, sing many songs,
    that you may be remembered.

⁴ The earth mourns and fades away,
    the world languishes and fades away,
    the haughty people of the earth languish.
⁵ The earth also is defiled by its inhabitants
    because they have transgressed the laws,
violated the ordinances,
    broken the everlasting covenant.
⁶ Therefore, the curse devours the earth,
    and those who dwell in it are held guilty.
Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned,
    and few men are left.
⁷ The new wine fails, the vine languishes,
    all the merry-hearted sigh.
⁸ The joy of tambourines ceases,
    the noise of those who rejoice ends,
    the joy of the harp ceases.
⁹ They shall not drink wine with song;
    strong drink shall be bitter to those who drink it.
¹⁰ The city of confusion is broken down;
    every house is shut up so that no one may come in.
¹¹ There is an outcry for wine in the streets,
    all joy is turned to gloom,
    the joyfulness of the earth is gone.
¹² Desolation is left in the city,
    and the gate is battered to destruction.
¹³ For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth
    among the peoples,
as the shaking of an olive tree,
    and as the gleaning of grapes when the vintage is done.

¹⁴ They lift up their voices; they sing for the majesty of the Lord;
    they cry aloud from the west.
¹⁵ Therefore glorify the Lord in the east,
    even the name of the Lord God of Israel
    in the coastlands of the sea.
¹⁶ From the uttermost part of the earth we hear songs,
    that is, “Glory to the Righteous One.”

But I say, Woe to me! Woe to me!
    Alas for me!
The treacherous deal treacherously;
    indeed, the treacherous deal very treacherously.
¹⁷ Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you,
    O inhabitant of the earth.
¹⁸ He who flees from the report of disaster
    shall fall into the pit,
and he who comes up out of the midst of the pit
    shall be taken in the snare.

For the windows from on high are open,
    and the foundations of the earth shake.
¹⁹ The earth is utterly broken down,
    the earth is split through,
    the earth is shaken violently.
²⁰ The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard,
    and it totters like a shack,
and its transgression is heavy upon it,
    and it shall fall, never to rise again.

²¹ In that day the Lord shall punish
    the host of heaven on high
    and the kings of the earth on the earth.
²² They shall be gathered together,
    as prisoners are gathered in the dungeon,
and shall be shut up in the prison,
    and after many days they shall be punished.
²³ Then the moon shall be humiliated and the sun ashamed,
    when the Lord of Hosts reigns
in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
    and His glory shall be before His elders.

⁵ That Your beloved ones may be delivered,
    save with Your right hand and answer us.
⁶ God has spoken in His holiness:
    “I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem,
    and measure out the Valley of Sukkoth.
⁷ Gilead is Mine, and Manasseh is Mine;
    Ephraim also is My helmet;
    Judah is My scepter;
⁸ Moab is My wash basin;
    over Edom I will cast My shoe;
    shout the alarm, O Philistia, because of Me.”

⁹ Who will bring me into the fortified city?
    Who will lead me into Edom?
¹⁰ You, O God, have You not cast us off?
    And You, O God, did not go out with our armies.
¹¹ Give us help from trouble,
    for the help of man is worthless.
¹² Through God we will do valiantly,
    for He will tread down our enemies.