So ¹  the sovereign master ²  will afflict the foreheads of Zion’s women ³  with skin diseases, ⁴  the Lord will make the front of their heads bald.” ⁵ 

So I say: “Don’t look at me! ¹  I am weeping bitterly. Don’t try ²  to console me concerning the destruction of my defenseless people.” ³ 

Whom have you taunted and hurled insults at? At whom have you shouted and looked so arrogantly? ¹  At the Holy One of Israel! ² 

Look, I create the craftsman, who fans the coals into a fire and forges a weapon. ¹  I create the destroyer so he might devastate.

like heat ¹  in a dry land, you humble the boasting foreigners. ²  Just as the shadow of a cloud causes the heat to subside, ³  so he causes the song of tyrants to cease. ⁴ 

This is what the Lord says to his chosen ¹  one, to Cyrus, whose right hand I hold ²  in order to subdue nations before him, and disarm kings, ³  to open doors before him, so gates remain unclosed:

I will give you hidden treasures, ¹  riches stashed away in secret places, so you may recognize that I am the Lord, the one who calls you by name, the God of Israel.

Why, Lord, do you make us stray ¹  from your ways, ²  and make our minds stubborn so that we do not obey you? ³  Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your inheritance!

to keep the poor from getting fair treatment, and to deprive ¹  the oppressed among my people of justice, so they can steal what widows own, and loot what belongs to orphans. ² 

So now, listen to this, O one who lives so lavishly, ¹  who lives securely, who says to herself, ²  ‘I am unique! No one can compare to me! ³  I will never have to live as a widow; I will never lose my children.’ ⁴ 

They say, “Let him hurry, let him act quickly, ¹  so we can see; let the plan of the Holy One of Israel ²  take shape ³  and come to pass, then we will know it!”

“Let them produce evidence! Let them tell us what will happen! Tell us about your earlier predictive oracles, ¹  so we may examine them ²  and see how they were fulfilled. ³  Or decree for us some future events!

So he poured out his fierce anger on them, along with the devastation ¹  of war. Its flames encircled them, but they did not realize it; ²  it burned against them, but they did notice. ³ 

I announced them to you beforehand; before they happened, I predicted them for you, so you could never say, ‘My image did these things, my idol, my cast image, decreed them.’

Your gates will remain open at all times; they will not be shut during the day or at night, so that the wealth of nations may be delivered, with their kings leading the way. ¹ 

Now go, write it ¹  down on a tablet in their presence, ²  inscribe it on a scroll, so that it might be preserved for a future time as an enduring witness. ³ 

You are my witnesses,” says the Lord, “my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may consider ¹  and believe in me, and understand that I am he. No god was formed before me, and none will outlive me. ² 

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 

So I weep along with Jazer ¹  over the vines of Sibmah. I will saturate you ²  with my tears, Heshbon and Elealeh, for the conquering invaders shout triumphantly over your fruit and crops. ³ 

Did you not dry up the sea, the waters of the great deep? Did you not make ¹  a path through the depths of the sea, so those delivered from bondage ²  could cross over?