"I will make youths their princes, and infants will rule over them.

People will oppress one another It will be man against man and neighbor against neighbor. The young will be disrespectful to the old, and the worthless to the honorable.

"For a man will grab his brother in his own father's house, and say, "You have a cloak, so you be our leader, and this heap of ruins will be under your rule!'

"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!"

"Tell the righteous that things will go well, because they will enjoy the fruit of their actions."

"How terrible it will be for the wicked! Disaster is headed their way, because what they did with their hand will be repaid to them.

The LORD will go to court to oppose the elders and princes of his people: "You're the ones who have been devouring the vineyard, the plunder of the poor is in your own houses!

therefore the LORD will afflict sores on the heads of Zion's women, and the LORD will expose their private parts.

"At that time, the LORD will take away the finery of the ankle bracelets, headbands, crescents,

"And it will come about that instead of fragrance there will be a stench; instead of a belt, a rope; instead of well-set hair, baldness; instead of a fine robe, sackcloth; and instead of beauty, shame.

Your men will die violently, while your forces fall in battle

and her gates lament and mourn. Ravaged, she will sit on the ground."

"At that time, seven women will cling tightly to one man and will make him this offer: "We'll provide our own bread. We'll provide our own clothes. Just let us marry you so we won't be stigmatized anymore.'"

"At that time, the LORD's branch will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel and Judah.

Whoever survives in Zion and whoever remains in Jerusalem will be called holy everyone who has been appointed to survive in Jerusalem

when the LORD will have washed away the filth of the women of Zion, cleaning up Jerusalem's guilt by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of tempest.

Then the LORD will create over the entire site of Mount Zion including over those who assemble there a cloud by day

I will sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: "The one I love had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

He plowed its land and cleared it of stones. Then he planted it with the choicest vines, built a watchtower in the middle of it, and dug a wine vat in it; He expected it to produce good grapes, but it produced only wild ones."

What more could I do in my vineyard, that I haven't already done? When I expected it to produce good grapes, why did it yield wild ones?

"Now, let me tell you, won't you please, what I'm going to do to my vineyard. "I'm going to take away its protective hedge, and it will be devoured; I'll break down its wall, and it will be trampled.

I'll make it a wasteland, and it won't be pruned or cultivated. Instead, briers and thorns will grow up. I'll also issue commands to the clouds, that they drop no rain upon it."

"How terrible it will be for you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you have settled yourselves alone in the middle of the land!"

The LORD of the Heavenly Armies has declared this so I could hear it: "Surely many houses will become desolate, great and beautiful houses, without occupants.

For ten acres of vineyard will produce only one bath, and one omer of seed will produce only one ephah."

"How terrible it will be for those who rise at dawn in order to grab a stiff drink, for those who stay up late at night as wine inflames them!

Therefore Sheol's appetite has grown; it has opened its mouth beyond limit. Jerusalem's nobility and her multitudes will go there, along with her brawlers and whoever is reveling within her.

Then the lambs will graze in their pasture; fatlings and foreigners will eat among the waste places of the rich."

"How terrible it will be for those who parade iniquity with cords of falsehood, who draw sin along as with a cart rope;

"How terrible it will be for those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute what is bitter for what is sweet and what is sweet for what is bitter!"

"How terrible it will be for those who are wise in their own opinion, and clever in their own reckoning!

"How terrible it will be for those who are heroes at drinking wine, and champions in mixing strong drink,

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.

The LORD will signal for nations far away, whistling for them to come from the ends of the earth. Look how quickly and how swiftly they come!

No one is weary, no one stumbles, and no one slumbers or sleeps. No belt around their waists will come undone, nor will their sandal straps be broken.

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.

"How terrible it will be for me!" I cried, "because I am ruined! I'm a man with unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips! And my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of the Heavenly Armies!"

Then I heard the voice of the LORD as he was asking, "Whom will I send? Who will go for us?" "Here I am!" I replied. "Send me."

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."

Because Aram's head is Damascus, and Rezin is its king, within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered as a people.

"Therefore the LORD himself will give you a sign. Watch! The virgin is conceiving a child, and will give birth to a son, and his name will be called Immanuel.

However, before the youth knows enough to reject what's wrong and choose what's right, the land whose two kings you dread will be devastated."

"The LORD will bring to you, to your people, and to your ancestor's house such a time as has never been since Ephraim broke away from Judah the king of Assyria will come.

"At that time, the LORD will call for flies that will come from far away from the headwaters of Egypt's rivers and for bees that are in the land of Assyria.

They will all come and settle in the steep ravines, in the rocky crevices, in all the thorn bushes, and in all the pastures.

At that time, the LORD will hire a barber to come from beyond the Euphrates River that is, the king of Assyria and he will shave your heads, your leg hair, and your beards, too.

"At that time, a man will keep alive a heifer and two sheep,

and because of the abundance of milk that they give, he will have cheese to eat, since whoever remains in the land will be eating cheese and honey.

"At that time, every place where once there were a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver, only briars and thorns will grow.

"People will come there armed with bows and arrows, because the entire land will be nothing but briers and thorns.

As for all the hills that used to be cultivated with a hoe, you won't go there, because you'll fear iron briars and thorns. Nevertheless, those hills will be reserved as a pasture where cattle will feed and where sheep will graze."

Then I will call Uriah the priest and Jeberechiah's son Zechariah as reliable witnesses to testify on my behalf."

for before the young lad knows how to call out to his father or mother, the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria."

"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!"

Take counsel together, but it will all be for nothing; go ahead and talk, but it will all be for nothing, for God is with us."

Then he will be a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel he'll also be a stone with which someone strikes himself, a rock one stumbles over, a trap and a snare to those who live in Jerusalem.

Many will stumble on them; They'll fall and be broken; They'll be snared and captured.

But there will be no gloom for her who was in distress. Formerly, he brought contempt to the region of Zebulun and the region of Naphtali, but in the future he will have made glorious the way of the sea, the territory beyond the Jordan Galilee of the nations.

For every boot of the tramping soldier in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be used for burning as fuel for a fire.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the growth of his government and peace there will be no end. He will rule over his kingdom, sitting on the throne of David, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of the Heavenly Armies will accomplish this.

"The LORD has sent a plague against Jacob, and it will fall on Israel;

"The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamore trees have been cut down, but we will replace them with cedars.'

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.

"How terrible it will be for the one who enacts unjust decrees, for those who write oppressive laws that they have prescribed

What will you do on the day of Judgment, in the calamity that will come from far away? To whom will you run for help, and where will you leave your wealth,

"How terrible it will be for Assyria, the rod of my anger! The club is in their hands!

will I not deal with Jerusalem and her idols as I have dealt with Samaria and her images?'"

"For the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and against Jerusalem; he will punish the speech that comes from that willful heart of Assyria's king and the haughty look in his eyes.

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 light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame, and it will burn and consume Assyria's thorns and briers in a single day.

The splendor of its forest and its fruitful land the LORD will destroy both soul and body and Assyria will be as when a dying man wastes away.

What survives of the trees in his forest will be so few that a child can count them."

At that time, the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer rely on the one who struck them down, but will truly rely on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel.

A remnant will return a remnant of Jacob to the Mighty God.

For even if your people of Israel number as many as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Overwhelming, righteous destruction is decreed,

because the Lord GOD of the Heavenly Armies will bring about destruction, as has been decreed, throughout the entire region.

In just a little while, my fury will come to an end, and my anger then will be directed to their destruction.

The LORD of the Heavenly Armies will brandish a whip against them, as when he struck Midian at the rock of Oreb; and as his staff was stretched out over the sea, so he will lift it up as he did in Egypt.

At that time, his burden will depart from your shoulder and his yoke from your neck. Indeed, the yoke will be broken, because you've become obese."

This very day he will halt at Nob; he will shake his fists at the mountain that is the Daughter of Zion, at Jerusalem's hill.

Behold, the Lord GOD of the Heavenly Armies will lop off its boughs with terrifying power; the tallest in height will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low.

He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon will fall by the Majestic One."

"A shoot will come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch will bear fruit from his roots.

The Spirit of the LORD will rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and power, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the LORD.

His delight will be in the fear of the LORD. He won't judge by what his eyes see, nor decide disputes by what his ears hear,

but with righteousness he will judge the needy, and decide with equity for earth's poor. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and the wicked will be killed with the breath of his lips.

Righteousness will be the sash around his loins, and faithfulness the belt around his waist."

"The wolf will live with the lamb; the leopard will lie down with the young goat. The calf and the lion will graze together, and a little child will lead them.

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

The nursing child will play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on vipers' dens.

They will neither harm nor destroy on my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea."

At that time, as to the root of Jesse, who will be standing as a banner for the nations, the nations will rally to him, and his resting place is glorious.

At that time, the LORD will reach out his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

He will raise a banner for the nations and will assemble the dispersed of Israel; he will gather the scattered people of Judah from the corners of the earth.

Ephraim's jealousy will vanish, and those who are hostile to Judah will be eliminated; Ephraim will no longer be jealous of Judah, and Judah will not be hostile to Ephraim.

But they will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines to the west, and they will plunder the people to the east. They'll lay their hands on Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them.

The LORD will totally destroy the gulf of the Sea of Egypt. He will sweep his hand over the Euphrates River with a violent wind, breaking it up into seven streams, and making a way for people to cross on foot.

And there will be a highway for the remnant that is left of his people out of Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.

At that time, you will say: "I will praise you, LORD, for although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away, and you have comforted me.