For I shall send him among those hypocritical people, among the people that have deserved my disfavour shall I send him: that he may utterly rob them, spoil them, and tread them down like the mire in the street.

In that day, shall Egypt be like unto women, - And shall start and tremble because of the brandishing of the hand of Yahweh of hosts, which he is about to brandish over it.

Thus saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts: Go, get thee in unto this steward, unto Shebna, who is over the house, and say,

"Come, go to this steward, to Shebna who is in charge of the household, and ask him: "What are you doing here, and who are your relatives here that you could carve out a grave for yourself here cutting out a tomb at the choicest location, chiseling out a resting place for yourself out of solid rock?

Is this the town which was full of joy, whose start goes back to times long past, whose wanderings took her into far-off countries?

At the end of seventy years the Lord will revive Tyre. She will start making money again by selling her services to all the earth's kingdoms.

The way of the righteous [those in right-standing with God—living in moral and spiritual integrity] is smooth and level;
O Upright One, make a level path for the just and righteous.

“I have no wrath.
Should anyone give Me briars and thorns in battle,
I would step on them, I would set them all on fire.

In that day the Lord will start His threshing from the flowing stream of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt, and you will be gathered up one by one, O sons of Israel.

But as for you, don't start mocking, or your chains will become tighter; for I have heard from the LORD of the Heavenly Armies about destruction, and it is decreed against the whole land.

Everyone will start to stink because of a people [that] cannot profit them, not for help and not for profiting, but for shame and also for disgrace."

Look! Their heroes cry out [in the] street; [the] messengers of peace weep bitterly.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

Whose purpose and work was it? His who sent out the generations from the start. I the Lord, the first, and with the last, I am he.

Who has given knowledge of it from the first, so that we may be certain of it? and from the start, so that we may say, His word is true? There is no one who gives news, or says anything, or who gives ear to your words.

He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.

And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.

I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:

I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will make straight all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let my exiles go free, not for price nor reward, saith Jehovah of hosts.

Small profit have you had from those who, from your earliest days, got great profit out of you; they have gone in flight, every one straight before him, and you have no saviour.

Come near to me, and give ear to this; from the start I did not keep it secret; from the time of its coming into existence I was there: and now the Lord God has sent me, and given me his spirit.

For, as for thy waste and thy desolate places, and thy land that hath been destroyed, surely now shalt thou be too strait for the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.

The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.

Look, all of you who start a fire and who equip yourselves with flaming arrows, walk in the light of the fire you started and among the flaming arrows you ignited! This is what you will receive from me: you will lie down in a place of pain.

Your children have fainted;
they lie at the head of every street
like an antelope in a net.
They are full of the Lord’s fury,
the rebuke of your God.

But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.

He enters into peace [through death];
They rest in their beds (graves),
Each one who walked uprightly [following God’s will, living with integrity].

Thou wentest straight to kings with oil and divers ointments - that is, thou hast sent thy messengers far off, and yet art thou fallen into the pit thereby.

And therefore thus he sayeth, "Make ready, make ready, and clean the street, take up what ye can out of the way that leadeth to my people."

They have no knowledge of the way of peace, and there is no sense of what is right in their behaviour: they have made for themselves ways which are not straight; whoever goes in them has no knowledge of peace.

And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.

When has such a story come to men's ears? who has seen such things? will a land come to birth in one day? will a nation be given birth in a minute? For when Zion's pains came on her, she gave birth to her children straight away.