“For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
That fierce and impetuous people
Who march throughout the earth
To seize dwelling places which are not theirs.

Your eyes are too pure to approve evil,
And You can not look on wickedness with favor.
Why do You look with favor
On those who deal treacherously?
Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up
Those more righteous than they?

Then the Lord answered me and said,
“Record the vision
And inscribe it on tablets,
That the one who reads it may run.

“Will not all of these take up a taunt-song against him,
Even mockery and insinuations against him
And say, ‘Woe to him who increases what is not his—
For how long—
And makes himself rich with loans?’

“Will not your creditors rise up suddenly,
And those who collect from you awaken?
Indeed, you will become plunder for them.

“Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house
To put his nest on high,
To be delivered from the hand of calamity!

“Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed
And founds a town with violence!

“Woe to you who make your neighbors drink,
Who mix in your venom even to make them drunk
So as to look on their nakedness!

“Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, ‘Awake!’
To a mute stone, ‘Arise!’
And that is your teacher?
Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,
And there is no breath at all inside it.

You pierced with his own spears
The head of his throngs.
They stormed in to scatter us;
Their exultation was like those
Who devour the oppressed in secret.

I heard and my inward parts trembled,
At the sound my lips quivered.
Decay enters my bones,
And in my place I tremble.
Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress,
For the people to arise who will invade us.