Isaiah 22:1-14 - Oracle Against Jerusalem

1 The word about the valley of vision. Why have all your people gone up to the house-tops? 2 You, who are full of loud voices, a town of outcries, given up to joy; your dead men have not been put to the sword, or come to their death in war. 3 All your rulers ... have gone in flight; all your strong ones have gone far away. 4 For this cause I have said, Let your eyes be turned away from me in my bitter weeping; I will not be comforted for the wasting of the daughter of my people. 5 For it is a day of trouble and of crushing down and of destruction from the Lord, the Lord of armies, in the valley of vision; ... 6 And Elam was armed with arrows, and Aram came on horseback; and the breastplate of Kir was uncovered. 7 And your most fertile valleys were full of war-carriages, and the horsemen took up their positions in front of the town. 8 He took away the cover of Judah; and in that day you were looking with care at the store of arms in the house of the woods. 9 And you saw all the broken places in the wall of the town of David: and you got together the waters of the lower pool. 10 And you had the houses of Jerusalem numbered, pulling down the houses to make the wall stronger. 11 And you made a place between the two walls for storing the waters of the old pool: but you gave no thought to him who had done this, and were not looking to him by whom it had been purposed long before.

12 And in that day the Lord, the Lord of armies, was looking for weeping, and cries of sorrow, cutting off of the hair, and putting on the clothing of grief: 13 But in place of these there was joy and delight, oxen and sheep were being made ready for food, there was feasting and drinking: men said, Now is the time for food and wine, for tomorrow death comes. 14 And the Lord of armies said to me secretly, Truly, this sin will not be taken from you till your death, says the Lord, the Lord of armies.


Basic English, produced by Mr C. K. Ogden of the Orthological Institute - public domain