Look, I have inscribed your name on my palms; your walls are constantly before me.

Can spoils be taken from a warrior, or captives be rescued from a conqueror?

Daughter Zion is left isolated, like a hut in a vineyard, or a shelter in a cucumber field; she is a besieged city.

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.

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?

Therefore I will again do an amazing thing for these people – an absolutely extraordinary deed. Wise men will have nothing to say, the sages will have no explanations.”

The Lord’s messenger went out and killed 185,000 troops in the Assyrian camp. When they got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses!

Look, the Lord announces to the entire earth: “Say to Daughter Zion, ‘Look, your deliverer comes! Look, his reward is with him and his reward goes before him!’”

At that time the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, called for weeping and mourning, for shaved heads and sackcloth.

A voice cries out, “In the wilderness clear a way for the Lord; construct in the desert a road for our God.

For look, the Lord comes with fire, his chariots come like a windstorm, to reveal his raging anger, his battle cry, and his flaming arrows.

Wash! Cleanse yourselves! Remove your sinful deeds from my sight. Stop sinning!

Tell the innocent it will go well with them, for they will be rewarded for what they have done.

They have stringed instruments, tambourines, flutes, and wine at their parties. So they do not recognize what the Lord is doing, they do not perceive what he is bringing about.

Men will be humiliated, they will be brought low; the proud will be brought low.

The people did not return to the one who struck them, they did not seek reconciliation with the Lord who commands armies.

At that time a root from Jesse will stand like a signal flag for the nations. Nations will look to him for guidance, and his residence will be majestic.

I will make human beings more scarce than pure gold, and people more scarce than gold from Ophir.

When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and went to the Lord’s temple.

Hezekiah said, “What is the confirming sign that I will go up to the Lord’s temple?”