The earth ¹  dries up ²  and withers, the world shrivels up and withers; the prominent people of the earth ³  fade away.

The Lord is exalted, ¹  indeed, ²  he lives in heaven; ³  he fills Zion with justice and fairness.

Through your messengers you taunted the sovereign master, ¹  ‘With my many chariots I climbed up the high mountains, the slopes of Lebanon. I cut down its tall cedars and its best evergreens. I invaded its most remote regions, ²  its thickest woods.

‘What right do you have to be here? What relatives do you have buried here? ¹  Why ²  do you chisel out a tomb for yourself here? He chisels out his burial site in an elevated place, he carves out his tomb on a cliff.

Indeed, ¹  the Lord knocks down those who live in a high place, he brings down an elevated town; he brings it down to the ground, ²  he throws it down to the dust.

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 up at the sky! ¹  Who created all these heavenly lights? ²  He is the one who leads out their ranks; ³  he calls them all by name. Because of his absolute power and awesome strength, not one of them is missing.

For this is what the high and exalted one says, the one who rules ¹  forever, whose name is holy: “I dwell in an exalted and holy place, but also with the discouraged and humiliated, ²  in order to cheer up the humiliated and to encourage the discouraged. ³