For this is what the Lord has told me: “I will wait ¹  and watch from my place, like scorching heat produced by the sunlight, ²  like a cloud of mist ³  in the heat ⁴  of harvest.” ⁵ 

For this is what the sovereign master ¹  has told me: “Within exactly one year ²  all the splendor of Kedar will come to an end.

The Lord who commands armies told me this: ¹  “Certainly this sin will not be forgiven as long as you live,” ²  says the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies.

This is what the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, says: “Go visit this administrator, Shebna, who supervises the palace, ¹  and tell him: ² 

Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea ¹  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.” ² 

Therefore, this is what the sovereign master, the Lord, says: “Look, I am laying ¹  a stone in Zion, an approved ²  stone, set in place as a precious cornerstone for the foundation. ³  The one who maintains his faith will not panic. ⁴ 

Your thinking is perverse! ¹  Should the potter be regarded as clay? ²  Should the thing made say ³  about its maker, “He didn’t make me”? Or should the pottery say about the potter, “He doesn’t understand”?

For this reason this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “You have rejected this message; ¹  you trust instead in your ability to oppress and trick, ²  and rely on that kind of behavior. ³ 

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; ¹  if you calmly trusted in me you would find strength, ²  but you are unwilling.

Furthermore it was by the command of the Lord that I marched up against this land to destroy it. The Lord told me, ‘March up against this land and destroy it!’”’” ¹ 

A voice says, “Cry out!” Another asks, ¹  “What should I cry out?” The first voice responds: ²  “All people are like grass, ³  and all their promises ⁴  are like the flowers in the field.

The craftsman encourages the metalsmith, the one who wields the hammer encourages ¹  the one who pounds on the anvil. He approves the quality of the welding, ²  and nails it down so it won’t fall over.”

This is what the true God, ¹  the Lord, says – the one who created the sky and stretched it out, the one who fashioned the earth and everything that lives on it, ²  the one who gives breath to the people on it, and life to those who live on it: ³ 

But these people are looted and plundered; all of them are trapped in pits ¹  and held captive ²  in prisons. They were carried away as loot with no one to rescue them; they were carried away as plunder, and no one says, “Bring that back!” ³ 

Now, this is what the Lord says, the one who created you, O Jacob, and formed you, O Israel: “Don’t be afraid, for I will protect ¹  you. I call you by name, you are mine.

This is what the Lord says, your protector, ¹  the Holy One of Israel: ²  “For your sake I send to Babylon and make them all fugitives, ³  turning the Babylonians’ joyful shouts into mourning songs. ⁴ 

This is what the Lord, the one who made you, says – the one who formed you in the womb and helps you: “Don’t be afraid, my servant Jacob, Jeshurun, ¹  whom I have chosen!

This is what the Lord, Israel’s king, says, their protector, ¹  the Lord who commands armies: “I am the first and I am the last, there is no God but me.

This is what the Lord, your protector, ¹  says, the one who formed you in the womb: “I am the Lord, who made everything, who alone stretched out the sky, who fashioned the earth all by myself, ² 

This is what the Lord says, the Holy One of Israel, ¹  the one who formed him, concerning things to come: ²  “How dare you question me ³  about my children! How dare you tell me what to do with ⁴  the work of my own hands!