Your men will fall by the sword, your strong men will die in battle.

For this reason all hands hang limp, every human heart loses its courage.

The new wine dries up, the vines shrivel up, all those who like to celebrate groan.

Mourn over the field, over the delightful fields and the fruitful vine!

Hezekiah welcomed them and showed them his storehouse with its silver, gold, spices, and high-quality olive oil, as well as his whole armory and everything in his treasuries. Hezekiah showed them everything in his palace and in his whole kingdom.

Even youths get tired and weary; even strong young men clumsily stumble.

Listen to me, you stubborn people, you who distance yourself from doing what is right.

Kings will be your children’s guardians; their princesses will nurse your children. With their faces to the ground they will bow down to you and they will lick the dirt on your feet. Then you will recognize that I am the Lord; those who wait patiently for me are not put to shame.

The people will treat each other harshly; men will oppose each other; neighbors will fight. Youths will proudly defy the elderly and riffraff will challenge those who were once respected.

Jerusalem certainly stumbles, Judah falls, for their words and their actions offend the Lord; they rebel against his royal authority.

Here is why this will be so: Before the child knows how to reject evil and choose what is right, the land whose two kings you fear will be desolate.

Wild dogs will yip in her ruined fortresses, jackals will yelp in the once-splendid palaces. Her time is almost up, her days will not be prolonged.

Your mind will recall the terror you experienced, and you will ask yourselves, “Where is the scribe? Where is the one who weighs the money? Where is the one who counts the towers?”

Your claim to have a strategy and military strength is just empty talk. In whom are you trusting, that you would dare to rebel against me?

Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales. He lifts the coastlands as if they were dust.

Who acts and carries out decrees? Who summons the successive generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, am present at the very beginning, and at the very end – I am the one.

Bel kneels down, Nebo bends low. Their images weigh down animals and beasts. Your heavy images are burdensome to tired animals.

Those who empty out gold from a purse and weigh out silver on the scale hire a metalsmith, who makes it into a god. They then bow down and worship it.

Your descendants would have been as numerous as sand, and your children like its granules. Their name would not have been cut off and eliminated from my presence.

Pay attention to me, my people! Listen to me, my people! For I will issue a decree, I will make my justice a light to the nations.