From the sole of the foot even to the head
There is nothing healthy in the nation’s body,
Only bruises, welts, and raw wounds,
Not pressed out or bandaged,
Nor softened with oil [as a remedy].

If the Lord of hosts
Had not left us a few survivors,
We would be like Sodom,
We would be like Gomorrah.

“What more could have been done for My vineyard that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to produce good grapes, why did it yield worthless ones?

“The bricks have fallen down,
But we will rebuild [all the better] with ashlar (hewed stones);
The sycamores have been cut down,
But we will replace them with [expensive] cedars.”

“Is not Calno [conquered] like Carchemish [on the Euphrates]?
Is not Hamath [subdued] like Arpad [her neighbor]?
Is not Samaria [in Israel] like Damascus [in Aram]?

They [of Babylon] will be shocked and terrified,
Pains and anguish will grip them;
They will be in pain like a woman in childbirth.
They will stare aghast and horrified at one another,
Their faces aflame [from the effects of the unprecedented warfare].

The peoples will take them along and bring them to their own place (Judea), and the house of Israel will possess them as an inheritance in the land of the Lord as male and female servants; and they will take captive those whose captives they have been, and they will rule over their [former] oppressors.

And it will be in the day when the Lord gives you rest from your pain and turmoil and from the harsh service in which you have been enslaved,

“Even the cypress trees rejoice over you [kings of Babylon], even the cedars of Lebanon, saying,
‘Since you were laid low, no woodcutter comes up against us.’

“How you have fallen from heaven,
O star of the morning [light-bringer], son of the dawn!
You have been cut down to the ground,
You who have weakened the nations [king of Babylon]!

“Let our outcasts of Moab live among you;
Be a [sheltered] hiding place to them from the destroyer.”
For the extortioner has come to an end, destruction has ceased,
Oppressors [who trample men] have completely disappeared from the land,

Gladness and joy are taken away from the fruitful field;
In the vineyards there will be no singing or joyful sound;
No treader treads out wine in the presses,
For I (God) put an end to the joyful shouting.

Because you [Judah] have forgotten the God of your salvation
And have not remembered the Rock of your Stronghold—
Therefore you plant lovely plants
And set the grounds with vine slips of a strange god,

In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in,
And in the morning you bring your seed to blossom;
Yet [promising as it is] the harvest will be a heap [of ruins that passes away]
In the day of sickness and incurable pain.

My mind reels, horror overwhelms me;
The twilight I longed for has been turned into fear and trembling for me.

All your leaders have fled together [with your king],
And have been captured without the bow [which they had thrown away];
All of you who were found were taken captive together,
Though they had fled far away.

Wail, O ships of Tarshish,
For your stronghold [of Tyre] is destroyed.

Now in that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the prostitute’s song:

From the ends of the earth we hear songs, “Glory and honor to the Righteous One,”
But I say, “I waste away, I waste away. Woe to me!
The treacherous deal treacherously,
Indeed, the treacherous deal very treacherously.”

For You have been a stronghold for the helpless,
A stronghold for the poor in his distress,
A shelter from the storm, a shade from the heat;
For the breath of tyrants
Is like a rainstorm against a wall.

As a woman with child approaches the time to give birth,
She is in pain and struggles and cries out in her labor,
So we were before You, O Lord.

We have been with child, we have twisted and struggled in labor;
We gave birth, as it seems, only to wind.
We could not accomplish salvation for the earth,
Nor were inhabitants of the world born.

Like the striking by Him who has struck them, has He struck them?
Or like the slaughter of His slain, have they been slain?

Also the oxen and the young donkeys that work the ground will eat salted fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and pitchfork.

For Topheth [in Hinnom] has long been ready;
Indeed, it has been prepared for the [Assyrian] king.
He has made it deep and wide,
A pit of fire with plenty of wood;
The breath of the Lord, like a river of brimstone (blazing sulfur), kindles and fans it.

For My sword is satiated [with blood] in heaven;
Indeed, it will come down for judgment on Edom
And on the people whom I have doomed for destruction.

This is the writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after he had been sick and had recovered from his illness:

At that time Merodach-baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent [messengers with] letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he had heard that he had been sick and had recovered.

Do you [who worship idols] not know? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told to you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth [the omnipotence of God and the stupidity of bowing to idols]?

“I will put the cedar in the wilderness,
The acacia, the myrtle and the olive tree;
I will place the juniper in the desert
Together with the box tree and the cypress,

“I have stirred up and put into action one from the north [the king of Persia, Cyrus the Great], and he has come;
From the rising of the sun he will call on My Name [in prayer].
And he will trample on [the Babylonian] officials as on mortar,
Even as a potter treads clay.”

Sing to the Lord a new song,
Sing His praise from the end of the earth!
You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it,
You islands and coastlands, and those who inhabit them [sing His praise]!

“I [the Lord] have been silent for a long time,
I have been still and restrained Myself.
Now I will moan like a woman in labor,
I will both gasp and pant.

Who is blind but My servant [Israel],
Or deaf like My messenger whom I send?
Who is blind like the one who is at peace with Me [in a covenant relationship],
Or so blind as the servant of the Lord?

“Yet you have not called on Me [in prayer and worship], O Jacob;
But you have grown weary of Me, O Israel.

“So I will profane the officials of the sanctuary,
And I will consign Jacob to destruction and [I will subject] Israel to defamation and abuse.

“Listen to Me,” [says the Lord], “O house of Jacob,
And all the remnant of the house of Israel,
You who have been carried by Me from your birth
And have been carried [in My arms] from the womb,

“You have not heard, you have not known;
Even from long ago your ear has not been open.
For I [the Lord] knew that you [Israel] would act very treacherously;
You have been called a transgressor and a rebel from birth.

“Oh, that you had paid attention to My commandments!
Then your peace and prosperity would have been like a [flowing] river,
And your righteousness [the holiness and purity of the nation] like the [abundant] waves of the sea.

“Your offspring would have been like the sand,
And your descendants [in number] like the grains of sand;
Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from My presence.”

The Lord God has opened My ear,
And I have not been rebellious
Nor have I turned back.

For the Lord God helps Me,
Therefore, I have not been ashamed or humiliated.
Therefore, I have made My face like flint,
And I know that I shall not be put to shame.

But now, what do I have here,” declares the Lord, “seeing that My people have been taken away without reason? Those who rule over them howl [with taunting and mockery of salvation],” declares the Lord, “and My name is continually blasphemed all day long.

So He will sprinkle many nations [with His blood, providing salvation],
Kings will shut their mouths because of Him;
For what they had not been told they will see,
And what they had not heard they will understand.

Who has believed [confidently trusted in, relied on, and adhered to] our message [of salvation]?
And to whom [if not us] has the arm and infinite power of the Lord been revealed?

“About whom were you worried and fearful
That you lied and did not remember Me,
Nor give Me a thought?
Was I not silent even for a long time
And [as a result] you do not fear Me?

“The glory of Lebanon will come to you,
The cypress, the juniper, and the cedar together,
To beautify the place of My sanctuary;
And I will honor and make the place of My feet glorious.

“Whereas you [Jerusalem] have been abandoned and hated
With no one passing through,
I will make you an object of pride forever,
A joy from generation to generation.

“Indeed, My servants will shout for joy from a happy heart,
But you will cry out with a heavy heart,
And you shall wail and howl from a broken spirit.

“Before she (Zion) was in labor, she gave birth;
Before her labor pain came, she gave birth to a boy.