Next, I decided to consider wisdom, as well as foolish behavior and ideas. For what more can the king’s successor do than what the king has already done?

The wise man can see where he is going, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I also realized that the same fate happens to them both.

But better than both is the one who has not been born and has not seen the evil things that are done on earth.

There was once a small city with a few men in it, and a mighty king attacked it, besieging it and building strong siege works against it.

My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look! There he stands behind our wall, gazing through the window, peering through the lattice.

An ox recognizes its owner, a donkey recognizes where its owner puts its food; but Israel does not recognize me, my people do not understand.”

Your land is devastated, your cities burned with fire. Right before your eyes your crops are being destroyed by foreign invaders. They leave behind devastation and destruction.

Those who get up early to drink beer are as good as dead, those who keep drinking long after dark until they are intoxicated with wine.

Those who call evil good and good evil are as good as dead, who turn darkness into light and light into darkness, who turn bitter into sweet and sweet into bitter.

The Lord told me, “Take a large tablet and inscribe these words on it with an ordinary stylus: ‘Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.’

I have given orders to my chosen soldiers; I have summoned the warriors through whom I will vent my anger, my boasting, arrogant ones.

The fishermen will mourn and lament, all those who cast a fishhook into the river, and those who spread out a net on the water’s surface will grieve.

The earth will stagger around like a drunk; it will sway back and forth like a hut in a windstorm. Its sin will weigh it down, and it will fall and never get up again.

For the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket is too narrow to wrap around oneself.

Now go, write it down on a tablet in their presence, inscribe it on a scroll, so that it might be preserved for a future time as an enduring witness.

For the Lord is angry at all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will annihilate them and slaughter them.

Night and day it will burn; its smoke will ascend continually. Generation after generation it will be a wasteland and no one will ever pass through it again.

Remember these things, O Jacob, O Israel, for you are my servant. I formed you to be my servant; O Israel, I will not forget you!

I am the one who forms light and creates darkness; the one who brings about peace and creates calamity. I am the Lord, who accomplishes all these things.

They will disappoint you, those you have so faithfully dealt with since your youth. Each strays off in his own direction, leaving no one to rescue you.”