 1 Woe to Ariel the city where David lived. Add year to year. Let them kill their sacrifices. 2 Then I will distress Ariel and there will be heaviness and sorrow. It will be to me like Ariel. 3 I will camp against you all around and lay siege against you with a mount. I will raise forts against you. 4 You will be brought down. You will speak out of the ground and your speech will be low out of the dust. Your voice will be like a spiritist out of the ground and your speech will whisper out of the dust. 5 The multitude of your strangers will be like small dust and the multitude of the terrible ones will be like chaff that passes away suddenly in an instant. 6 You will be visited by the Lord of hosts with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with storm, whirlwind, and flame of devouring fire. 7 The multitude of all the nations who fight against Ariel, even all who fight against her and her stronghold and who distress her will be like a dream of a night vision. 8 It will even be like when a hungry one dreams and eats but wakes and his soul is empty. Or like when a thirsty man dreams and drinks but awakes and is faint and his soul is longing. So it will be with the multitude of all the nations who fight against mount Zion. 9 Stand still and wonder. Blind your eyes and be blind. They are drunk but not with wine. They stagger but not with strong drink. 10 The Lord has poured out on you the spirit of deep sleep and has closed your eyes. He has covered the prophets and your heads, the seers. 11 The vision of all has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed, which they give to one who knows books saying, Please read this. And he says, I cannot, for it is sealed. 12 The book is delivered to him who does not know books saying, Please read this. And he says, I do not know books. 13 The Lord said, Because this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the command of men. 14 Therefore, behold, I will go on doing among this people, a wonder, even a wonder. For the wisdom of their wise ones shall perish, and the understanding of their intelligent ones shall be hidden. 15 Woe to those who go deep to hide their purpose from the Lord. And their works are in the dark, and they say, Who sees us? And who knows us? 16 O your perversity. Shall the former be counted as the potter's clay. For shall the work say of him who made it, He did not make me? Or shall the thing formed say to him who formed it, He had no understanding? 17 Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be counted as a forest? 18 In that day, the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of their gloom and darkness. 19 The meek shall increase joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. 20 For the terrible one is brought to nothing. The scorner is destroyed. All that watch for iniquity are cut off. 21 Those who make a man guilty by a word and lay a trap for the reprover in the gate and turn aside the just for a worthless thing. 22 Therefore thus says the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob: Jacob shall not now be ashamed, nor shall his face now become pale. 23 But when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in his midst, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy one of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel. 24 Those who erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and those who grumbled+ shall learn doctrine.
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