12  Are you not ^hfrom everlasting,

O Lord my God, my Holy One?

We shall not die.

O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment,

and you, O ⁱRock, have established them for reproof.

13  You who are of purer eyes than to see evil

and cannot look at wrong,

^jwhy do you idly look at traitors

and remain silent when the wicked swallows up

the man more righteous than he?

14  You make mankind like the fish of the sea,

like crawling things that have no ruler.

15  ^kHe¹ brings all of them up with a hook;

he drags them out with his net;

he gathers them in his dragnet;

so he rejoices and is glad.

16  Therefore he sacrifices to his net

and makes offerings to his dragnet;

for by them he lives in luxury,²

and his food is rich.

17  Is he then to keep on emptying his net

and mercilessly killing nations forever?

1  I will take my stand at my ^lwatchpost

and station myself on the tower,

and look out to see what he will say to me,

and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

^m“Write the vision;

make it plain on tablets,

so he may run who reads it.

3  For still ⁿthe vision awaits its ^oappointed time;

it hastens to the end—it will not lie.

^pIf it seems slow, wait for it;

^qit will surely come; it will not delay.

4  “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,

but ^rthe righteous shall live by his faith.³

5  “Moreover, ^swine⁴ is a traitor,

an arrogant man who is never at rest.⁵

His greed is as wide as ^tSheol;

like death he has never enough.

He gathers for himself all nations

and collects as his own all peoples.”

“Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own—

for how long?—

and loads himself with pledges!”

7  Will not your debtors suddenly arise,

and those awake who will make you tremble?

Then you will be spoil for them.

8  ^vBecause you have plundered many nations,

all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you,

^wfor the blood of man and violence to the earth,

to cities and all who dwell in them.

9  “Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house,

to ^xset his nest on high,

to be safe from the reach of harm!

10  You have devised shame for your house

by cutting off many peoples;

you have forfeited your life.

11  For the stone will cry out from the wall,

and the beam from the woodwork respond.

12  “Woe to him who ^ybuilds a town with blood

and founds a city on iniquity!

13  Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts

that ^zpeoples labor merely for fire,

and nations weary themselves for nothing?

14  For ^athe earth will be filled

with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.

15  “Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink—

you pour out your wrath and make them drunk,

in order to gaze at their nakedness!

16  You will have your fill of shame instead of glory.

Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision!

^bThe cup in the Lord’s right hand

will come around to you,

and utter shame will come upon your glory!

17  The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,

as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them,

for the blood of man and violence to the earth,

to cities and all who dwell in them.

18  “What ^cprofit is an idol

when its maker has shaped it,

a metal image, a teacher of lies?

For its maker trusts in his own creation

when he makes ^dspeechless idols!

19  Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake;

to a silent stone, Arise!

Can this teach?

Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,

and ^ethere is no breath at all in it.

20  But ^fthe Lord is in his holy temple;

^glet all the earth keep silence before him.”