¹The burden of the Valley of Vision.

What is the matter with you, then?

For you have all gone up to the roofs.

²You bustling city,

Full of noise,

Joyful town,

Your casualties are not casualties of the sword,

And are not dead from war.

³All your officers have fled together;

They have been brought into bondage by the bow.

All those present have been brought into bondage together;

They have fled far away.

⁴This is why I said,

“Look away from me;

I will weep bitterly.

Do not hasten to comfort me

About the devastation of the daughter of my people.”

⁵For it is a day of tumult and treading down and confusion of the Lord

– The Lord of hosts –

In the Valley of Vision,

Of undermining walls,

And crying out to the mountain.

⁶And Elam has borne the quiver,

With a manned chariot fleet and horsemen,

And Kir has bared the shield.

⁷And it came to pass that your choice valleys were full of chariots,

And the horsemen drew themselves up with vigour at the gate,

⁸And they removed Judah's covering,

And you saw on that day

The weaponry of the house of the Forest.

⁹And you have seen how numerous the breaches in the City of David are,

And you have collected the water of the lower pool.

¹⁰And you have counted the houses in Jerusalem,

And you have pulled down houses

To fortify the wall.

¹¹And you made a reservoir between the two walls

For the water of the old pool,

But you have not had respect to its maker

Or had regard for him who formed it long ago.

¹²And on that day,

My Lord the Lord of hosts proclaimed

Weeping and mourning and baldness

And girding up with sackcloth.

¹³But what he saw was

Rejoicing and merrymaking,

Killing the ox and slaughtering the sheep,

Eating meat and drinking wine, saying,

“Eat and drink,

For tomorrow we die.”

¹⁴And this was revealed in my ears

By the Lord of hosts:

“This iniquity of yours will certainly not be expiated

Until you die,

Says the Lord,

The Lord of hosts.”

¹⁵This is what my Lord the Lord of hosts says:

“Depart and go to this steward,

To Shebna, who is in charge of the house,

¹⁶And say, ‘What business do you have here?

And just who are you here,

That you should have hewn yourself a tomb here,

Like someone hewing his tomb high up,

Carving out an abode for himself in the rock?

¹⁷Look, the Lord is about to hurl you away with a mighty fling,

And to completely envelop you.

¹⁸He will wrap a wrapping right around you

And throw you like a ball into a very wide country,

And there you will die,

And there the chariots representing your glory

Will be to the shame of the house of your master.

¹⁹And I will thrust you from your station,

And he will pull you down from your high standing.

²⁰And it will come to pass on that day

That I will call for my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah.

²¹And I will clothe him with your gown,

And I will strengthen him with your girdle,

And I will put your dominion in his hand,

And he will become a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem

And to the house of Judah.

²²And I will put the key to the house of David on his shoulder,

²³And I will secure him like a peg in a secure place,

And he will become the occupier of the glorious throne

Of the house of his father.

²⁴And they will bestow on him

All the honour of his father's house,

The offspring and the offshoots

– All vessels of small capacity,

From vessels of the bowl kind

To all vessels of the jar kind.’

²⁵On that day, says the Lord of hosts,

The peg which was secured in a faithful place

Will be removed, and it will be cut down,

And it will fall,

And the burden on it will be withdrawn,

For the Lord has spoken.”

Reference(s) in Chapter 22: v.13 ↔ 1 Corinthians 15:32 ● v.22 ↔ Revelation 3:7.