I will bring terror on you from every side,” says the Lord God who rules over all. “You will be scattered in every direction. No one will gather the fugitives back together.

“‘This is because they have led my people astray saying, “All is well,” when things are not well. When anyone builds a wall without mortar, they coat it with whitewash.

I will vent my rage against the wall, and against those who coated it with whitewash. Then I will say to you, “The wall is no more and those who whitewashed it are no more –

those prophets of Israel who would prophesy about Jerusalem and would see visions of peace for it, when there was no peace,” declares the sovereign Lord.’

They will no longer be prey for the nations and the wild beasts will not devour them. They will live securely and no one will make them afraid.

They will bear their shame for all their unfaithful acts against me, when they live securely on their land with no one to make them afraid.

For they were in three stories and had no pillars like the pillars of the courts; therefore the upper chambers were set back from the ground more than the lower and upper ones.

I saw that the ram was butting westward, northward, and southward. No animal was able to stand before it, and there was none who could deliver from its power. It did as it pleased and acted arrogantly.

I, Daniel, was exhausted and sick for days. Then I got up and again carried out the king’s business. But I was astonished at the vision, and there was no one to explain it.

However, I will first tell you what is written in a dependable book. (There is no one who strengthens me against these princes, except Michael your prince.

Then the king of the north will advance and will build siege mounds and capture a well-fortified city. The forces of the south will not prevail, not even his finest contingents. They will have no strength to prevail.

He will pitch his royal tents between the seas toward the beautiful holy mountain. But he will come to his end, with no one to help him.

I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a young lion to the house of Judah. I myself will tear them to pieces, then I will carry them off, and no one will be able to rescue them!

For a nation has invaded our land. There are so many of them they are too numerous to count. Their teeth are like those of a lion; they tear apart their prey like a lioness.

You will be convinced that I am in the midst of Israel. I am the Lord your God; there is no other. My people will never again be put to shame.

Seek the Lord so you can live! Otherwise he will break out like fire against Joseph’s family; the fire will consume and no one will be able to quench it and save Bethel.

Each will sit under his own grapevine or under his own fig tree without any fear. The Lord who commands armies has decreed it.

Where now is the den of the lions, the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion, lioness, and lion cub once prowled and no one disturbed them?

The charioteers will charge ahead; their swords will flash and their spears will glimmer! There will be many people slain; there will be piles of the dead, and countless casualties – so many that people will stumble over the corpses.

I struck all the products of your labor with blight, disease, and hail, and yet you brought nothing to me,’ says the Lord.