Daughter Zion is abandoned
like a shelter in a vineyard,
like a shack in a cucumber field,
like a besieged city.

If the Lord of Hosts
had not left us a few survivors,
we would be like Sodom,
we would resemble Gomorrah.

“Come, let us discuss this,”
says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they will be as white as snow;
though they are as red as crimson,
they will be like wool.

For you will become like an oak
whose leaves are withered,
and like a garden without water.

For You have abandoned Your people,
the house of Jacob,
because they are full of divination from the East
and of fortune-tellers like the Philistines.
They are in league with foreigners.

The look on their faces testifies against them,
and like Sodom, they flaunt their sin.
They do not conceal it.
Woe to them,
for they have brought evil on themselves.

Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes straw
and as dry grass shrivels in the flame,
so their roots will become like something rotten
and their blossoms will blow away like dust,
for they have rejected
the instruction of the Lord of Hosts,
and they have despised
the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against His people.
He raised His hand against them and struck them;
the mountains quaked,
and their corpses were like garbage in the streets.
In all this, His anger is not removed,
and His hand is still raised to strike.

Their arrows are sharpened,
and all their bows strung.
Their horses’ hooves are like flint;
their chariot wheels are like a whirlwind.

Their roaring is like a lion’s;
they roar like young lions;
they growl and seize their prey
and carry it off,
and no one can rescue it.

On that day they will roar over it,
like the roaring of the sea.
When one looks at the land,
there will be darkness and distress;
light will be obscured by clouds.

Though a tenth will remain in the land,
it will be burned again.
Like the terebinth or the oak
that leaves a stump when felled,
the holy seed is the stump.

When it became known to the house of David that Aram had occupied Ephraim, the heart of Ahaz and the hearts of his people trembled like trees of a forest shaking in the wind.

Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times when He humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. But in the future He will bring honor to the Way of the Sea, to the land east of the Jordan, and to Galilee of the nations.

For wickedness burns like a fire
that consumes thorns and briers
and kindles the forest thickets
so that they go up in a column of smoke.

The land is scorched
by the wrath of the Lord of Hosts,
and the people are like fuel for the fire.
No one has compassion on his brother.

I will send him against a godless nation;
I will command him to go
against a people destined for My rage,
to take spoils, to plunder,
and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

Isn’t Calno like Carchemish?
Isn’t Hamath like Arpad?
Isn’t Samaria like Damascus?

For he said:

I have done this by my own strength
and wisdom, for I am clever.
I abolished the borders of nations
and plundered their treasures;
like a mighty warrior, I subjugated the inhabitants.

My hand has reached out, as if into a nest,
to seize the wealth of the nations.
Like one gathering abandoned eggs,
I gathered the whole earth.
No wing fluttered;
no beak opened or chirped.

The cow and the bear will graze,
their young ones will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

Listen, a tumult on the mountains,
like that of a mighty people!
Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms,
like nations being gathered together!
The Lord of Hosts is mobilizing an army for war.

Wail! For the day of the Lord is near.
It will come like destruction from the Almighty.

They will be horrified;
pain and agony will seize them;
they will be in anguish like a woman in labor.
They will look at each other,
their faces flushed with fear.

Like wandering gazelles
and like sheep without a shepherd,
each one will turn to his own people,
each one will flee to his own land.

And Babylon, the jewel of the kingdoms,
the glory of the pride of the Chaldeans,
will be like Sodom and Gomorrah
when God overthrew them.

They all respond to you, saying:
“You too have become as weak as we are;
you have become like us!

I will ascend above the highest clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”

But you are thrown out without a grave,
like a worthless branch,
covered by those slain with the sword
and dumped into a rocky pit like a trampled corpse.

Like a bird fleeing,
forced from the nest,
the daughters of Moab
will be at the fords of the Arnon.

Therefore I moan like the sound of a lyre for Moab,
as does my innermost being for Kir-heres.

The fortress disappears from Ephraim,
and a kingdom from Damascus.
The remnant of Aram will be
like the splendor of the Israelites.
This is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts.

On that day their strong cities will be
like the abandoned woods and mountaintops
that were abandoned because of the Israelites;
there will be desolation.

Ah! The roar of many peoples—
they roar like the roaring of the seas.
The raging of the nations—
they rage like the raging of mighty waters.

The nations rage like the raging of many waters.
He rebukes them, and they flee far away,
driven before the wind like chaff on the hills
and like tumbleweeds before a gale.

For, the Lord said to me:

I will quietly look out from My place,
like shimmering heat in sunshine,
like a rain cloud in harvest heat.

On that day Egypt will be like women. She will tremble with fear because of the threatening hand of the Lord of Hosts when He raises it against her.

An oracle against the desert by the sea:

Like storms that pass over the Negev,
it comes from the desert, from the land of terror.

Therefore I am filled with anguish.
Pain grips me, like the pain of a woman in labor.
I am too perplexed to hear,
too dismayed to see.

I will clothe him with your robe and tie your sash around him. I will put your authority into his hand, and he will be like a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the House of Judah.

I will drive him, like a peg, into a firm place. He will be a throne of honor for his father’s house.

Overflow your land like the Nile, daughter of Tarshish;
there is no longer anything to restrain you.

For this is how it will be on earth
among the nations:
like a harvested olive tree,
like a gleaning after a grape harvest.

The earth staggers like a drunkard
and sways like a hut.
Earth’s rebellion weighs it down,
and it falls, never to rise again.

They will be gathered together
like prisoners in a pit.
They will be confined to a dungeon;
after many days they will be punished.

For You have been a stronghold for the poor,
a stronghold for the needy person in his distress,
a refuge from the rain, a shade from the heat.
When the breath of the violent
is like rain against a wall,

like heat in a dry land,
You subdue the uproar of barbarians.
As the shade of a cloud cools the heat of the day,
so He silences the song of the violent.

Did the Lord strike Israel
as He struck the one who struck Israel?
Was he killed like those killed by Him?

Therefore Jacob’s iniquity will be purged in this way,
and the result of the removal of his sin will be this:
when he makes all the altar stones
like crushed bits of chalk,
no Asherah poles or incense altars will remain standing.

For the fortified city will be deserted,
pastures abandoned and forsaken like a wilderness.
Calves will graze there,
and there they will spread out and strip its branches.

Look, the Lord has a strong and mighty one—
like a devastating hail storm,
like a storm with strong flooding waters.
He will bring it across the land with His hand.

The fading flower of his beautiful splendor,
which is on the summit above the rich valley,
will be like a ripe fig before the summer harvest.
Whoever sees it will swallow it
while it is still in his hand.

I will oppress Ariel,
and there will be mourning and crying,
and she will be to Me like an Ariel.

You will be brought down;
you will speak from the ground,
and your words will come from low in the dust.
Your voice will be like that of a spirit from the ground;
your speech will whisper from the dust.

Your many foes will be like fine dust,
and many of the ruthless, like blowing chaff.
Then suddenly, in an instant,

All the many nations
going out to battle against Ariel—
all the attackers, the siege works against her,
and those who oppress her—
will then be like a dream, a vision in the night.

It will be like a hungry one who dreams he is eating,
then wakes and is still hungry;
and like a thirsty one who dreams he is drinking,
then wakes and is still thirsty, longing for water.
So it will be for all the many nations
who go to battle against Mount Zion.

For you the entire vision will be like the words of a sealed document. If it is given to one who can read and he is asked to read it, he will say, “I can’t read it, because it is sealed.”

Isn’t it true that in just a little while
Lebanon will become an orchard,
and the orchard will seem like a forest?

this iniquity of yours will be
like a spreading breach,
a bulge in a high wall
whose collapse will come in an instant—suddenly!

Its collapse will be like the shattering
of a potter’s jar, crushed to pieces,
so that not even a fragment of pottery
will be found among its shattered remains—
no fragment large enough to take fire from a hearth
or scoop water from a cistern.”

One thousand will flee at the threat of one,
at the threat of five you will flee,
until you alone remain
like a solitary pole on a mountaintop
or a banner on a hill.

Then you will defile your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, and call them filth.

The moonlight will be as bright as the sunlight, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter—like the light of seven days—on the day that the Lord bandages His people’s injuries and heals the wounds He inflicted.

Look, Yahweh comes from far away,
His anger burning and heavy with smoke.
His lips are full of fury,
and His tongue is like a consuming fire.

His breath is like an overflowing torrent
that rises to the neck.
He comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction
and to put a bridle on the jaws of the peoples
to lead them astray.

Your singing will be like that
on the night of a holy festival,
and your heart will rejoice
like one who walks to the music of a flute,
going up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the Rock of Israel.

Indeed! Topheth has been ready
for the king for a long time now.
Its funeral pyre is deep and wide,
with plenty of fire and wood.
The breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone,
kindles it.

Like hovering birds,
so the Lord of Hosts will protect Jerusalem—
by protecting it, He will rescue it,
by sparing it, He will deliver it.

Each will be like a shelter from the wind,
a refuge from the rain,
like streams of water in a dry land
and the shade of a massive rock in an arid land.

until the Spirit from heaven is poured out on us.
Then the desert will become an orchard,
and the orchard will seem like a forest.

Your spoil will be gathered as locusts are gathered;
people will swarm over it like an infestation of locusts.

The land mourns and withers;
Lebanon is ashamed and decayed.
Sharon is like a desert;
Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.

The peoples will be burned to ashes,
like thorns cut down and burned in a fire.

All the heavenly bodies will dissolve.
The skies will roll up like a scroll,
and their stars will all wither
as leaves wither on the vine,
and foliage on the fig tree.

The wilderness and the dry land will be glad;
the desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose.

Then the lame will leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy,
for water will gush in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;

until I come and take you away to a land like your own land—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me
like a shepherd’s tent.
I have rolled up my life like a weaver;
He cuts me off from the loom.
You make an end of me from day until night.

I thought until the morning:
He will break all my bones like a lion;
You make an end of me day and night.

I chirp like a swallow or a crane;
I moan like a dove.
My eyes grow weak looking upward.
Lord, I am oppressed; support me.

A voice was saying, “Cry out!”
Another said, “What should I cry out?”
“All humanity is grass,
and all its goodness is like the flower of the field.

He protects His flock like a shepherd;
He gathers the lambs in His arms
and carries them in the fold of His garment.
He gently leads those that are nursing.

Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are considered as a speck of dust in the scales;
He lifts up the islands like fine dust.

God is enthroned above the circle of the earth;
its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like thin cloth
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

They are barely planted, barely sown,
their stem hardly takes root in the ground
when He blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind carries them away like stubble.

but those who trust in the Lord
will renew their strength;
they will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary;
they will walk and not faint.

Who has stirred him up from the east?
He calls righteousness to his feet.
The Lord hands nations over to him,
and he subdues kings.
He makes them like dust with his sword,
like wind-driven stubble with his bow.

See, I will make you into a sharp threshing board,
new, with many teeth.
You will thresh mountains and pulverize them
and make hills into chaff.

“I have raised up one from the north, and he has come,
one from the east who invokes My name.
He will march over rulers as if they were mud,
like a potter who treads the clay.

The Lord advances like a warrior;
He stirs up His zeal like a soldier.
He shouts, He roars aloud,
He prevails over His enemies.

“I have kept silent from ages past;
I have been quiet and restrained Myself.
But now, I will groan like a woman in labor,
gasping breathlessly.

Who is blind but My servant,
or deaf like My messenger I am sending?
Who is blind like My dedicated one,
or blind like the servant of the Lord?

who brings out the chariot and horse,
the army and the mighty one together
(they lie down, they do not rise again;
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick)—

They will sprout among the grass
like poplars by flowing streams.

Who, like Me, can announce the future?
Let him say so and make a case before Me,
since I have established an ancient people.
Let these gods declare the coming things,
and what will take place.

The woodworker stretches out a measuring line,
he outlines it with a stylus;
he shapes it with chisels
and outlines it with a compass.
He makes it according to a human likeness,
like a beautiful person,
to dwell in a temple.

I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud,
and your sins like a mist.
Return to Me,
for I have redeemed you.

“Who will you compare Me or make Me equal to?
Who will you measure Me with,
so that we should be like each other?

Remember what happened long ago,
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and no one is like Me.