A voice says, “Cry out!” Another asks, “What should I cry out?” The first voice responds: “All people are like grass, and all their promises are like the flowers in the field.

Wild animals and wild dogs will congregate there; wild goats will bleat to one another. Yes, nocturnal animals will rest there and make for themselves a nest.

Then I will summon as my reliable witnesses Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah.”

Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted! Issue your orders, but they will not be executed! For God is with us!

Look, the Lord’s hand is not too weak to deliver you; his ear is not too deaf to hear you.

He lifts a signal flag for a distant nation, he whistles for it to come from the far regions of the earth. Look, they come quickly and swiftly.

Those who trust in idols will turn back and be utterly humiliated, those who say to metal images, ‘You are our gods.’”

the one who led chariots and horses to destruction, together with a mighty army. They fell down, never to rise again; they were extinguished, put out like a burning wick:

Now they come into being, not in the past; before today you did not hear about them, so you could not say, ‘Yes, I know about them.’

I post watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they should keep praying all day and all night. You who pray to the Lord, don’t be silent!

Oppressors treat my people cruelly; creditors rule over them. My people’s leaders mislead them; they give you confusing directions.

for before the child knows how to cry out, ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”

The Egyptians will panic, and I will confuse their strategy. They will seek guidance from the idols and from the spirits of the dead, from the pits used to conjure up underworld spirits, and from the magicians.

“Speak kindly to Jerusalem, and tell her that her time of warfare is over, that her punishment is completed. For the Lord has made her pay double for all her sins.”

Who is like me? Let him make his claim! Let him announce it and explain it to me – since I established an ancient people – let them announce future events!

I have not spoken in secret, in some hidden place. I did not tell Jacob’s descendants, ‘Seek me in vain!’ I am the Lord, the one who speaks honestly, who makes reliable announcements.

Persist in trusting your amulets and your many incantations, which you have faithfully recited since your youth! Maybe you will be successful – maybe you will scare away disaster.

No, this is the kind of fast I want. I want you to remove the sinful chains, to tear away the ropes of the burdensome yoke, to set free the oppressed, and to break every burdensome yoke.