All of us have become like something unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment;
all of us wither like a leaf,
and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.

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

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

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.

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.

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?

Look up to the heavens,
and look at the earth beneath;
for the heavens will vanish like smoke,
the earth will wear out like a garment,
and its inhabitants will die like gnats.
But My salvation will last forever,
and My righteousness will never be shattered.

We grope along a wall like the blind;
we grope like those without eyes.
We stumble at noon as though it were twilight;
we are like the dead among those who are healthy.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.