Send rams as tribute to the ruler of the land, ¹  from Sela in the desert ²  to the hill of Daughter Zion.

Leave Babylon! Flee from the Babylonians! Announce it with a shout of joy! Make this known! Proclaim it throughout the earth! ¹  Say, ‘The Lord protects ²  his servant Jacob.

Look how you have fallen from the sky, O shining one, son of the dawn! ¹  You have been cut down to the ground, O conqueror ²  of the nations! ³ 

Now, O Lord our God, rescue us from his power, so all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.” ¹ 

I offered my back to those who attacked, ¹  my jaws to those who tore out my beard; I did not hide my face from insults and spitting.

Look all around you! ¹  They all gather and come to you – your sons come from far away and your daughters are escorted by guardians.

Syria from the east, and the Philistines from the west, they gobbled up Israelite territory. ¹  Despite all this, his anger does not subside, and his hand is ready to strike again. ² 

Trust in the Lord from this time forward, ¹  even in Yah, the Lord, an enduring protector! ² 

Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you since the very beginning? Have you not understood from the time the earth’s foundations were made?

But then one of the seraphs flew toward me. In his hand was a hot coal he had taken from the altar with tongs.

Hezekiah took the letter ¹  from the messengers and read it. ²  Then Hezekiah went up to the Lord’s temple and spread it out before the Lord.

We all growl like bears, we coo mournfully like doves; we wait for deliverance, ¹  but there is none, for salvation, but it is far from us.

It shatters in pieces like a clay jar, so shattered to bits that none of it can be salvaged. ¹  Among its fragments one cannot find a shard large enough ²  to scoop a hot coal from a fire ³  or to skim off water from a cistern.” ⁴ 

Indeed,” says the Lord, “captives will be taken from a warrior; spoils will be rescued from a conqueror. I will oppose your adversary and I will rescue your children.

There will be a highway leading out of Assyria for the remnant of his people, ¹  just as there was for Israel, when ²  they went up from the land of Egypt.

The Lord will bring on you, your people, and your father’s family a time ¹  unlike any since Ephraim departed from Judah – the king of Assyria!” ² 

Here is a message about Dumah: ¹  Someone calls to me from Seir, ²  “Watchman, what is left of the night? Watchman, what is left of the night?” ³ 

Your descendants would have been as numerous as sand, ¹  and your children ²  like its granules. Their name would not have been cut off and eliminated from my presence. ³ 

We have rebelled and tried to deceive the Lord; we turned back from following our God. We stir up ¹  oppression and rebellion; we tell lies we concocted in our minds. ² 

The one who lives ¹  uprightly ²  and speaks honestly; the one who refuses to profit from oppressive measures and rejects a bribe; ³  the one who does not plot violent crimes ⁴  and does not seek to harm others ⁵  –