In light of all this, ¹  how can you still hold back, Lord? How can you be silent and continue to humiliate us?

¹ Why do you insist on being battered? Why do you continue to rebel? ²  Your head has a massive wound, ³  your whole body is weak. ⁴ 

I replied, “How long, sovereign master?” He said, “Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated, and houses are uninhabited, and the land is ruined and devastated,

O my downtrodden people, crushed like stalks on the threshing floor, ¹  what I have heard from the Lord who commands armies, the God of Israel, I have reported to you.

So a treaty curse ¹  devours the earth; its inhabitants pay for their guilt. ²  This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, ³  and are reduced to just a handful of people. ⁴ 

You will be shocked and amazed! ¹  You are totally blind! ²  They are drunk, ³  but not because of wine; they stagger, ⁴  but not because of beer.

What can I say? He has decreed and acted. ¹  I will walk slowly all my years because I am overcome with grief. ² 

To make a contribution one selects wood that will not rot; ¹  he then seeks a skilled craftsman to make ²  an idol that will not fall over.

He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon; ¹  its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. ²  He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, ³  and spreads it out ⁴  like a pitched tent. ⁵ 

“I, I am the one who consoles you. ¹  Why are you afraid of mortal men, of mere human beings who are as short-lived as grass? ²