All the host of heaven will be dissolved,
And the skies will be rolled up like a scroll;
All their hosts [the stars and the planets] will also wither away
As a leaf withers from the vine,
And as a fig withers from the fig tree.

“And though a tenth [of the people] remain in the land,
It will again be subject to destruction [consumed and burned],
Like a massive terebinth tree or like an oak
Whose stump remains when it is chopped down.
The holy seed [the elect remnant] is its stump [the substance of Israel].”

The land mourns and dries out,
Lebanon is shamed and [its lush foliage] withers;
Sharon is like a desert plain,
And Bashan and [Mount] Carmel shake off their leaves.

And the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
Which is at the head of the rich valley,
Will be like the early fig before the summer,
Which one sees,
And as soon as it is in his hand
He [greedily] swallows it [and so will the Assyrians rapidly devour Samaria, Israel’s capital].

Do not listen to Hezekiah,’ for this is what the king of Assyria says, ‘Make peace with me and come out to me, and each one of you will eat from his own vine and each from his own fig tree and each [one of you] drink from the water of his own cistern,

For we all have become like one who is [ceremonially] unclean [like a leper],
And all our deeds of righteousness are like filthy rags;
We all wither and decay like a leaf,
And our wickedness [our sin, our injustice, our wrongdoing], like the wind, takes us away [carrying us far from God’s favor, toward destruction].

For you will be like an oak whose leaf withers and dies
And like a garden that has no water.