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

For the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, has planned a day of panic, defeat, and confusion. In the Valley of Vision people shout and cry out to the hill.

So now, do not mock, or your chains will become heavier! For I have heard a message about decreed destruction, from the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, against the entire land.

For this is what the master, the Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: “If you repented and patiently waited for me, you would be delivered; if you calmly trusted in me you would find strength, but you are unwilling.

For just as the ground produces its crops and a garden yields its produce, so the sovereign Lord will cause deliverance to grow, and give his people reason to praise him in the sight of all the nations.

So here is what the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, says: “My people who live in Zion, do not be afraid of Assyria, even though they beat you with a club and lift their cudgel against you as Egypt did.

This is what the sovereign Lord says: “Look I will raise my hand to the nations; I will raise my signal flag to the peoples. They will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders.

The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has chosen me. He has commissioned me to encourage the poor, to help the brokenhearted, to decree the release of captives, and the freeing of prisoners,

When the Moabites plead with all their might at their high places, and enter their temples to pray, their prayers will be ineffective!

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.

From this day forward I am he; no one can deliver from my power; I will act, and who can prevent it?”

Though these people make an uproar as loud as the roaring of powerful waves, when he shouts at them, they will flee to a distant land, driven before the wind like dead weeds on the hills, or like dead thistles before a strong gale.

For with mocking lips and a foreign tongue he will speak to these people.

I announced them to you beforehand; before they happened, I predicted them for you, so you could never say, ‘My image did these things, my idol, my cast image, decreed them.’

Zion will be freed by justice, and her returnees by righteousness.

This is the message the Lord previously announced about Moab.

Open the gates so a righteous nation can enter – one that remains trustworthy.

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

So listen to this, oppressed one, who is drunk, but not from wine!

Look, the sovereign Lord who commands armies is about to remove from Jerusalem and Judah every source of security, including all the food and water,