They will no longer injure or destroy on my entire royal mountain. For there will be universal submission to the Lord’s sovereignty, just as the waters completely cover the sea.

The Lord who commands armies makes this solemn vow: “Be sure of this: Just as I have intended, so it will be; just as I have planned, it will happen.

For the waters of Nimrim are gone; the grass is dried up, the vegetation has disappeared, and there are no plants.

They will no longer trust in the altars their hands made, or depend on the Asherah poles and incense altars their fingers made.

For you ignore the God who rescues you; you pay no attention to your strong protector. So this is what happens: You cultivate beautiful plants and plant exotic vines.

The noisy city is full of raucous sounds; the town is filled with revelry. Your slain were not cut down by the sword; they did not die in battle.

You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool – but you did not trust in the one who made it; you did not depend on the one who formed it long ago!

Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea says this, O fortress of the sea: “I have not gone into labor or given birth; I have not raised young men or brought up young women.”

Look at the land of the Chaldeans, these people who have lost their identity! The Assyrians have made it a home for wild animals. They erected their siege towers, demolished its fortresses, and turned it into a heap of ruins.

Indeed, you have made the city into a heap of rubble, the fortified town into a heap of ruins; the fortress of foreigners is no longer a city, it will never be rebuilt.

Therefore, this is what the sovereign master, the Lord, says: “Look, I am laying a stone in Zion, an approved stone, set in place as a precious cornerstone for the foundation. The one who maintains his faith will not panic.

Your treaty with death will be dissolved; your agreement with Sheol will not last. When the overwhelming judgment sweeps by, you will be overrun by it.

Certainly caraway seed is not threshed with a sledge, nor is the wheel of a cart rolled over cumin seed. Certainly caraway seed is beaten with a stick, and cumin seed with a flail.

It shatters in pieces like a clay jar, so shattered to bits that none of it can be salvaged. Among its fragments one cannot find a shard large enough to scoop a hot coal from a fire or to skim off water from a cistern.”

You say, ‘No, we will flee on horses,’ so you will indeed flee. You say, ‘We will ride on fast horses,’ so your pursuers will be fast.

For people will live in Zion; in Jerusalem you will weep no more. When he hears your cry of despair, he will indeed show you mercy; when he hears it, he will respond to you.

Yet he too is wise and he will bring disaster; he does not retract his decree. He will attack the wicked nation, and the nation that helps those who commit sin.

The destroyer is as good as dead, you who have not been destroyed! The deceitful one is as good as dead, the one whom others have not deceived! When you are through destroying, you will be destroyed; when you finish deceiving, others will deceive you!

You will no longer see a defiant people whose language you do not comprehend, whose derisive speech you do not understand.

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.