"The daughter of Zion is left abandoned, like a booth in a vineyard, like a hut in a cucumber field, or like a city under siege.

If the Lord of the Heavenly Armies hadn't left us a few survivors, we would be like Sodom; we would be like Gomorrah.

"Please come, and let's reason together," implores the LORD. "Even though your sins are like scarlet, they'll be white like snow. Though they're like crimson, they'll become like wool.

You'll be like an oak whose leaf is withering, like an unwatered garden.

Your strong one will be like tinder, and your work a spark; both of them will burn together, with no one to quench the flames that burn them."

For you have rejected your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with practices learned from the East and they are fortune-tellers like the Philistines. They cut deals with foreigners.

"The expressions on their faces give them away. They parade their sin around like Sodom; they don't even try to hide it. How horrible it will be for them, because they have brought disaster on themselves!"

Therefore, as flames of fire devour straw, as dry grass collapses in flames, so their root will be rotten, and their blossom will blow away like dust, because they have rejected the instruction of the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore the anger of the LORD burned against his people, so he stretched out his hands against them and afflicted them. The mountains quaked, and their corpses were like refuse in the middle of the streets. Throughout all of this, his anger has not turned away, and his hands are still stretched out to attack.

Their arrows are sharp, all their bows ready for action. Their horses' hooves seem like flint, and their chariot wheels spin like a whirlwind.

With a roar like a lion, they snarl, and like young lions, they growl; they seize their prey and then carry it off, with no one to rescue.

They will roar over it at that time, like the sea waves roar. If one surveys the land, watch out! There's darkness and distress; even the daylight is darkened by its clouds.

Even though a tenth of its people remain in it, it will once again be burned, like a terebinth or an oak tree, the stump of which, though the tree has been felled, still contains holy seed."

When it was reported to the house of David, "Aram has joined forces with Ephraim!" the heart of the people of Ahaz trembled like forest trees in a windstorm.

"It's the king of Assyria and all of his arrogance! He will rise over all of the river's channels and run over all of its banks. He will sweep on into Judah, overflowing as he passes through, like flood waters reaching up to a person's neck. His outstretched wings will flow as wide as your land, O Immanuel!"

for instruction and for testimony? Surely they are speaking like this because the truth hasn't dawned on them.

"For wickedness has burned like a blaze that consumes briers and thorns; it sets thickets of the forest on fire, and skyward they swirl in a column of smoke.

From the wrath of the LORD of the Heavenly Armies the land has been scorched, and the people have become like fuel for the fire; no one will spare his neighbor.

I'm sending my fury against a godless nation, and I'll command him against the people with whom I'm angry to seize loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets.

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

He keeps bragging: "I've done it by the strength of my hand, and by my wisdom, because I'm so clever. I removed the boundaries of nations, and plundered their treasures; like a bull I brought down those who sat on thrones.

Therefore, the Lord GOD of the Heavenly Armies will send a wasting disease among Assyria's sturdy warriors, and under its glory a conflagration will be kindled, like a blazing bonfire.

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

"Listen! There's a noise on the mountains like that of a great multitude! Listen! There's an uproar among the kingdoms, like that of nations massing together! The LORD of the Heavenly Armies is mustering an army for battle.

Wail out loud, because the Day of the LORD is near. It will come like destruction from the Almighty!

They will be terrified; pain and anguish will seize them; they'll writhe like a woman in labor. They'll look aghast at one another; and their faces will be ablaze with fear.

They will be like a hunted gazelle, or like sheep with no one to gather them, each will turn to his own people, and each will flee to his own land.

Babylon, that jewel of kingdoms, the splendor and pride of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah, when God overthrew them

In answer, all of them will tell you, "You've also become as weak as we are! You have become just like us!'

I'll ascend above the tops of the clouds; I'll make myself like the Most High.'

who made the world like a desert, who destroyed its cities, who would not open the jails for his prisoners?'

But you are cast away from your grave, like a repulsive branch, your clothing is the slain, those pierced by the sword; those who go down to the Pit. Like a dead body trampled underfoot,

Like fluttering birds, like an abandoned nest, so are the daughters of Moab at the fords of the Arnon River.

Therefore my insides moan like a lyre for Moab, and my innermost being for Kir-hareseth.

But now the LORD has spoken again: "Within three years, like the years of a contract worker, Moab's glory will be brought into contempt, in spite of all its great multitude, and its survivors will be very few and of no importance."

The fortress will disappear from Ephraim, and royal authority from Damascus; the survivors from Aram will be like the glory of the Israelis," declares the LORD of the Heavenly Armies.

"At that time, their fortified cities that they abandoned because of the Israelis will be like desolate places of the forests and hilltops there will be desolation.

"How terrible it will be for many nations, who rage like the roaring sea! Oh, how the uproar of nations is like the sound of rushing, mighty water How they roar!

The nations roar like the rushing of many waters, but the LORD will rebuke them, and they will run far away, chased like chaff blown down from the mountains or like thick dust that rolls along, blown along by a wind storm.

For this is what the LORD told me: "I will remain quiet and watch in my dwelling place like dazzling heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest."

The LORD has mixed within them a spirit of confusion; so they make Egypt stagger in all that it does, like a drunkard staggers around in his vomit.

At that time, the Egyptians will be like women they will shudder and be afraid before the uplifted hand of the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, when he brandishes his hand against her.

A message concerning the pasture by the Sea. "Like whirlwinds in the Negev sweep on, it comes from the desert, from a distant land.

Therefore my body is racked with pain; pangs have seized me, like the pangs of a woman in labor; I am so upset that I cannot hear; I am so frightened that I cannot see while I'm reeling around.

rolling you up tightly like a ball and throwing you into a large country. There you will die, and there your splendid chariots will lie. You're a disgrace to your master's house!

I'll set him like a peg into a secure place; he will become a throne of honor to his father's house.

"Cultivate your land like the Nile, you daughter of Tarshish; for there is no longer a harbor.

The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies so heavy upon it, that it falls, never to rise again.

For you have been a stronghold for the poor, a stronghold for the needy in distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat for the blistering attack from the ruthless is like a rainstorm beating against a wall,

and the noise of foreigners is like the heat of the desert. Just as you subdue heat by the shade of clouds, so the victory songs of violent men will be stilled.

"But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. Those who live in the dust will wake up and shout for joy! For your dew is like the dew of dawn, and the earth will give birth to the dead.

By this, then, Jacob's guilt will be atoned for, and this will be the full harvest that comes from the removal of his sin: when he makes all the altar stones like pulverized chalkstones, no Asherah poles or incense altars will be left standing.

For the fortified city stands desolate, a settlement abandoned and forsaken like the desert; calves graze there, and there they lie down and strip bare its branches.

Look! The LORD has one who is mighty and strong, like a hailstorm and destructive tempest, like a storm of mighty, overflowing water and he will give rest to the land.

And that fading flower, his glorious beauty, which sits on the heads of people bloated with food, will be like an early fig before summer whenever someone sees it, he swallows it as soon as it's in his hand.

Then I'll besiege Aruel, and there will be sorrow and mourning; she will become to me like an altar fireplace.

Then I'll encamp against you like David, and I'll lay siege to you with towers, raise siege works against you,

"But the hordes of your enemies will become like fine dust, and the hordes of tyrants like flying chaff. Then suddenly, in an instant,

Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Aruel, all that attack her and her fortification and besiege her, will become like a dream, with its visions in the night

"And this entire vision has become for you like the words of a sealed book. When people give it to someone who can read, and say, "Read this, please,' he answers, "I cannot, because it is sealed.'

Then the Lord said: "Because these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, worship of me has become merely like rules taught by human beings.

He has turned the tables on you as if the potter were thought to be like heat. Can what is made say of the one who made it, "He did not make me?' Or can what is formed say of the ones who formed it, "He has no skill?'

"In a very little while, will not Lebanon be turned into a garden of fruit, and the garden of fruit seem like a forest?

therefore, for you this sin will become like a breach in a high wall that is about to collapse, bulging out, and whose crash comes suddenly in an instant.

Its breaking will be like when potters' vessels are broken, shattered so ruthlessly that among its fragments not even a broken sliver will be found for taking fire from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern."

A thousand will flee at the threat of one; and run away, pursued by five, until you are left like a flagpole on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill."

Then you will defile your carved idols that are overlaid with silver and your images plated with gold. You'll throw them away like disgusting objects and say to them, "Away with you!"

Moreover, the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the sun's light will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.

See, the name of the LORD comes from far away, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke; his lips are full of fury, and his tongue is like a devouring fire.

His breath is like an overflowing torrent, and it rises right up to the neck, to shake the nations in the sieve of destruction, and to place in the jaws of the nations a bit that leads them astray.

For the Fire Pit has long been prepared; truly it is for the king; it will indeed be made ready. And its pyre will be deep and wide, with abundant fire and wood. Like a stream of burning sulfur, the breath of the LORD will set it ablaze.

Like birds hovering overhead, so the LORD of the Heavenly Armies will protect Jerusalem; he will shield and deliver it; and he will pass over and bring it to safety.

Each one will be like a shelter from the wind and a hiding place from storms, like streams of water in the desert, in the shadow of a great rock in an exhausted land.

until the Spirit from on high is poured upon us, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest."

Your plunder is gathered as when grasshoppers gather; just like locusts pounce, people have pounced on it.

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

And the nations will be burned as if to ashes; like cut thorn bushes, they will be set ablaze.

The valleys will be split, all the stars in the heavens will fall down, and the skies will be rolled up like a scroll. All their starry host will fade away like leaves withering on a vine, or fruit withering on a fig tree.

"The desert and the dry land will rejoice; the desert will celebrate and blossom. Like crocuses,

then the lame will leap like deer, and the tongues of speechless people will sing for joy. Yes, waters will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams will run through the desert;

Take note: you're relying on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces the palm of anyone who leans on it. This is what Pharaoh king of Egypt is like to everybody who depends on him!

But the field commander asked, "Was it only to all of you and to your master that my master sent me to speak these things? Wasn't it also to the men sitting on the wall who, like you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?"

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

Their inhabitants are devoid of power, and are terrified and put to shame. They've become like plants in the field, like green shoots, like grass on rooftops, scorched by the east wind.

My house has been plucked up and vanishes from me like a shepherd's tent; like a weaver, I've taken account of my life, and he cuts me off from the loom day and night you make an end of me.

I've been swept bare until morning; just like a lion, he breaks all my bones day and night you make an end of me.

Like a swallow or a crane I chirp, I moan like a dove. My eyes look weakly upward. O Lord, I am oppressed, so stand up for me!

A voice says, "Cry out!" So I asked, "What am I to cry out?" "All humanity is grass, and all its loyalty is like the flowers of the field.

Grass withers and flowers fade away when the LORD's breath blows on them; surely the people are like grass.

Like a shepherd, he tends his flock. He gathers the lambs in his arms, carries them close to his heart, and gently leads the mother sheep."

"Look! The nations are like a drop in a bucket, and are reckoned as dust on the scales. Look! He even lifts up the islands like powder!

"To whom, then, will you compare me, the One who is God? Or to what image will you liken me?

He's the one who sits above the disk of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He's the one who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in,

No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner have their stems taken root in the earth, than he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest sweeps them away like stubble.

but those who keep waiting for the LORD will renew their strength. Then they'll soar on wings like eagles; they'll run and not grow weary; they'll walk and not grow tired."

Those who quarrel with you will be as nothing; those who fight you like nothing at all!"

"See, I'm making you into a new, sharp, and multi-tooth threshing sledge. You'll thresh and crush the mountains, and make the hills like chaff.

"You are stirring up one from the north, and they are coming from the rising of the sun; and he will be called by his name. Rulers will arrive like mud; just like a potter, he will trample the clay.

The LORD marches out like a warrior; he stirs up his rage like a man of war; he makes his anger heard; he shouts aloud; he declares his mastery over his enemies:

"I have certainly stayed silent for a long time; I've kept still and held myself back. Now, like a woman giving birth, I'll cry out. All of a sudden I'll gasp and pant.