In their streets they have wrapped themselves with sackcloth;
On their [flat] housetops and in their open squares
Everyone is wailing, dissolved in tears.

And You have not given me into the hand of the enemy;
You have set my feet in a broad place.

Then all the people gathered together as one man at the open square in front of the Water Gate; and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel.

Then he read from it, in front of the open square which was in front of the Water Gate, from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and women, those who could understand; and all the people listened carefully to the Book of the Law.

“When I went out to the gate of the city,
When I took my seat [as a city father] in the square,

“Then indeed, He enticed you from the mouth of distress and confinement,
Into a broad place where there is no constraint or distress;
And that which was set on your table was full of fatness (rich food).

Then he (the angel) brought me to the nave (outer sanctuary) and measured the side pillars; six cubits wide on each side was the width of the side pillar.

Then he went to the gate which faced the east and went up its [seven] steps and measured the threshold of the gate, one rod in width; and the other threshold [of the gate inside the thick wall] was one rod in width.

You made men (charioteers) ride over our heads [in defeat];
We went through fire and through water,
Yet You brought us out into a [broad] place of abundance [to be refreshed].

When you enter, you will come to people [feeling] safe and secure with a spacious land [widely extended on all sides]; for God has given it into your hands—a place where there is no lack of anything that is on the earth.”

But there the mighty and magnificent Lord will be for us
A place of broad rivers and streams,
Where no oar-driven boat will go,
And on which no mighty and stately ship will pass.

Moses recorded their points of departure, as the Lord commanded, stage by stage; and these are their journeys according to their points of departure:

Everywhere you live, the cities will become waste and the high places will become deserted, so that your altars may bear their guilt and become deserted, your idols may be broken and destroyed, your incense altars [for sun-worship] may be cut down, and your works may be blotted out.

He walked in all the ways of Asa his father, without turning from them, doing right in the sight of the Lord. However, the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

After this event, Jeroboam [still] did not turn from his evil way, but again made priests for the high places from among all the people. He ordained anyone who was willing, so that there would be priests for the high places.

Only the high places were not removed; the people were still sacrificing and burning incense [to the Lord] on the high places [rather than at the temple].

However, the high places were not removed; the people were still sacrificing and burning incense on the high places.

Only [the altars on] the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places [instead of worshiping God at the temple].

Only [the altars on] the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places [rather than in the temple]. He built the upper gate of the house of the Lord.

They also feared the Lord and appointed from among themselves priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places.

Then Josiah brought all the [idolatrous] priests from the cities of Judah, and desecrated the high places where the priests had burned incense [to idols], from Geba to Beersheba, [that is, north to south]; and he tore down the high places of the gates which were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on one’s left at the city gate.

All the priests of the high places who were there he slaughtered on the altars, and burned human bones on them [to desecrate the places forever]. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

folly is set in many exalted places and in great dignity while the rich sit in humble places.

So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers which the Levites who were burned had offered, and they were hammered out [into broad sheets] as a plating for the [bronze] altar [of burnt offering],

“Roam back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem,
And look now and take note.
And look in her open squares
To see if you can find a man [as Abraham sought in Sodom],
One who is just, who [has integrity and moral courage and] seeks truth (faithfulness);
Then I will pardon Jerusalem—[for the sake of one uncompromisingly righteous person].

“The wise men are shamed,
They are dismayed and caught.
Behold, they have [manipulated and] rejected the [truth in the] word of the Lord,
And what kind of wisdom and insight do they have?

Thus says the Lord of hosts,

“The broad wall of Babylon will be completely overthrown and the foundations razed
And her high gates will be set on fire;
The peoples will labor in vain,
And the nations become exhausted [only] for fire [that will destroy their work].”

The guardroom was one rod long and one rod wide, and [the space] between the guardrooms was five cubits. And the threshold of the gate by the porch (portico) of the gate facing inward was one rod.

Moreover, there were four tables of hewn stone (ashlar) for the burnt offering, a cubit and a half long, a cubit and a half wide, and one cubit high, on which they lay the instruments with which they slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice.

He measured the courtyard, a hundred cubits long and a hundred cubits wide, a perfect square; and the altar was in front of the temple.

The building that was in front of the separate area on the side toward the west was seventy cubits wide; and the wall of the building was five cubits thick all around, and its length was ninety cubits.

Now the altar hearth shall be twelve cubits long by twelve wide, square in its four sides.

The ledge shall be fourteen cubits long by fourteen wide on its four sides, and the border around it shall be half a cubit; and its base shall be a cubit all around, and its steps shall face the east.”

In the four corners of the courtyard there were enclosed courtyards, forty cubits long and thirty wide; these four in the corners were the same size.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God of hosts, the Lord,

“There is wailing in all the public plazas,
And in all the streets they say, ‘Alas! Alas!’
And they call the farmers to mourning [for those who have died]
And professional mourners to wailing.

“It shall come about in that day,” says the Lord God,
“That I shall cause the sun to go down at noon,
And I shall darken the earth in broad daylight.

I have seen that all [human] perfection has its limits [no matter how grand and perfect and noble];
Your commandment is exceedingly broad and extends without limits [into eternity].

The chariots race madly in the streets;
They rush wildly in the broad plazas.
Their appearance is like torches;
They rush in various directions like forked lightning.

There is a sound of the shepherds’ wail,
For their splendor (grazing land) is ruined;
There is a sound of the young lions’ roar,
For the pride of the Jordan is ruined.

“I said ‘So I must arise now and go out into the city;
Into the streets and into the squares [places I do not know]
I must seek him whom my soul loves.’
I sought him but I did not find him.

Next to them Uzziel the son of Harhaiah, one of the goldsmiths, made repairs. Next to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers, made repairs, and they restored Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall.

The second choir went to the left; I followed with half of the people on the wall, above the Tower of the Furnaces, to the Broad Wall,

The land mourns and dries out,
Lebanon is shamed and [its lush foliage] withers;
Sharon is like a desert plain,
And Bashan and [Mount] Carmel shake off their leaves.

But Jacob journeyed [north] to Succoth, and built himself a house and made shelters for his livestock; so the name of the place is Succoth (huts, shelters).

Of the rest of the oil which is in his palm, the priest shall put some on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot, on top of the blood of the guilt offering.

I will be found by you,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and I will [free you and] gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’

“My people have become lost sheep;
Their shepherds have led them astray.
They have made them turn aside [to the seductive places of idolatry] on the mountains.
They have gone along [from one sin to another] from mountain to hill;
They have forgotten their [own] resting place.

Then all the men of Israel got up from their places and placed themselves in battle formation at Baal-tamar; and the men of Israel [who were] in ambush rushed from their place in the plain of Maareh-geba.

You took some of your clothes and made for yourself [decorated] high places and shrines of various colors and prostituted yourself on them—things which should never have come about and taken place.

I will also hand you over to your lovers, and they will tear down your shrines, demolish your high places, strip you of your clothing, take away your jewels, and they will leave you naked and bare.

then I will bring you down with those who descend into the pit (the place of the dead), to the people of old, and I will make you [Tyre] live in the depths of the earth, like the ancient ruins, with those who go down to the pit, so that you will not be inhabited; but I will set glory and splendor in the land of the living.

Jeroboam held a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the feast which is kept in Judah, and he went up to the altar; he did this in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.

For behold, the Lord is coming down from His place
He shall come down and tread [in judgment] on the high places of the earth.