Does a farmer just keep on plowing at planting time? ¹  Does he keep breaking up and harrowing his ground?

This very day, standing in Nob, they shake their fist at Daughter Zion’s mountain ¹  – at the hill of Jerusalem.

The living person, the living person, he gives you thanks, as I do today. A father tells his sons about your faithfulness.

I ¹  post watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they should keep praying all day and all night. ²  You who pray to ³  the Lord, don’t be silent!

I spread out my hands all day long to my rebellious people, who lived in a way that is morally unacceptable, and who did what they desired. ¹ 

They say, ‘Keep to yourself! Don’t get near me, for I am holier than you!’ These people are like smoke in my nostrils, like a fire that keeps burning all day long.

“This is what Hezekiah says: ¹  ‘This is a day of distress, insults, ²  and humiliation, ³  as when a baby is ready to leave the birth canal, but the mother lacks the strength to push it through. ⁴ 

‘Look, a time is coming when everything in your palace and the things your ancestors ¹  have accumulated to this day will be carried away to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord.

Why do you forget ¹  the Lord, who made you, who stretched out the sky ²  and founded the earth? Why do you constantly tremble all day long ³  at the anger of the oppressor, when he makes plans to destroy? Where is the anger of the oppressor? ⁴ 

And now, what do we have here?” ¹  says the Lord. “Indeed my people have been carried away for nothing, those who rule over them taunt,” ²  says the Lord, “and my name is constantly slandered ³  all day long.