But look, there is outright celebration! You say, “Kill the ox and slaughter the sheep, eat meat and drink wine. Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”

This is what the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, says: “Go visit this administrator, Shebna, who supervises the palace, and tell him:

The Lord who commands armies planned it – to dishonor the pride that comes from all her beauty, to humiliate all the dignitaries of the earth.

So a treaty curse devours the earth; its inhabitants pay for their guilt. This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, and are reduced to just a handful of people.

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.

At that time this song will be sung in the land of Judah: “We have a strong city! The Lord’s deliverance, like walls and a rampart, makes it secure.

The dead do not come back to life, the spirits of the dead do not rise. That is because you came in judgment and destroyed them, you wiped out all memory of them.

Those who try to hide their plans from the Lord are as good as dead, who do their work in secret and boast, “Who sees us? Who knows what we’re doing?”

The sovereign master will give you distress to eat and suffering to drink; but your teachers will no longer be hidden; your eyes will see them.

For at that time everyone will get rid of the silver and gold idols your hands sinfully made.

For the fortress is neglected; the once-crowded city is abandoned. Hill and watchtower are permanently uninhabited. Wild donkeys love to go there, and flocks graze there.

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.

Furthermore it was by the command of the Lord that I marched up against this land to destroy it. The Lord told me, ‘March up against this land and destroy it!’”’”

The chief adviser then stood there and called out loudly in the Judahite dialect, “Listen to the message of the great king, the king of Assyria.

The king heard that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia was marching out to fight him. He again sent messengers to Hezekiah, ordering them:

Were the nations whom my predecessors destroyed – the nations of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden in Telassar – rescued by their gods?

Now, O Lord our God, rescue us from his power, so all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.”

Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you since the very beginning? Have you not understood from the time the earth’s foundations were made?

Why do you say, Jacob, Why do you say, Israel, “The Lord is not aware of what is happening to me, My God is not concerned with my vindication”?

“Listen to me in silence, you coastlands! Let the nations find renewed strength! Let them approach and then speak; let us come together for debate!