“Now I will rise up,” says the Lord. “Now I will exalt myself; now I will magnify myself. ¹ 

“Now, listen, Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen!”

How tragic that the once-faithful city has become a prostitute! ¹  She was once a center of ²  justice, fairness resided in her, but now only murderers. ³ 

So now, residents of Jerusalem, ¹  people ²  of Judah, you decide between me and my vineyard!

You have heard; now look at all the evidence! ¹  Will you not admit that what I say is true? ²  From this point on I am announcing to you new events that are previously unrevealed and you do not know about. ³ 

Now they come into being, ¹  not in the past; before today you did not hear about them, so you could not say, ‘Yes, ²  I know about them.’

Yes, your land lies in ruins; it is desolate and devastated. ¹  But now you will be too small to hold your residents, and those who devoured you will be far away.

Yet, ¹  Lord, you are our father. We are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the product of your labor. ² 

So this is what the Lord, the one who delivered Abraham, says to the family of Jacob: ¹  “Jacob will no longer be ashamed; their faces will no longer show their embarrassment. ² 

Now I will inform you what I am about to do to my vineyard: I will remove its hedge and turn it into pasture, ¹  I will break its wall and allow animals to graze there. ² 

So now, do not mock, or your chains will become heavier! For I have heard a message about decreed destruction, from the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, against the entire land. 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 

Your claim to have a strategy and military strength is just empty talk. ¹  In whom are you trusting, that you would dare to rebel against me?

Now make a deal with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, provided you can find enough riders for them.

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 

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 

¹ Certainly you must have heard! ²  Long ago I worked it out, in ancient times I planned ³  it, and now I am bringing it to pass. The plan is this: Fortified cities will crash into heaps of ruins. ⁴ 

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.

“Look, I am about to do something new. Now it begins to happen! ¹  Do you not recognize ²  it? Yes, I will make a road in the desert and paths ³  in the wilderness.

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