1  Ah, Ariel, Ariel,

the city ^fwhere David encamped!

Add year to year;

let the feasts run their round.

2  Yet I will distress Ariel,

and there shall be moaning and lamentation,

and she shall be to me like an Ariel.¹

3  ^gAnd I will encamp against you all around,

and will besiege you ^hwith towers

and I will raise siegeworks against you.

4  ⁱAnd you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak,

and from the dust your speech will be bowed down;

your voice shall come from the ground like ^jthe voice of a ghost,

and from the dust your speech shall whisper.

5  But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like ^ksmall dust,

and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff.

^lAnd in an instant, suddenly,

6  ^myou will be visited by the Lord of hosts

with thunder and with earthquake and great noise,

with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.

7  And ⁿthe multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,

all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her,

shall be ^olike a dream, a vision of the night.

8  ^pAs when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating,

and awakes with his hunger not satisfied,

or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking,

and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched,

so shall the multitude of all the nations be

that fight against Mount Zion.

9  Astonish yourselves² and be astonished;

blind yourselves and be blind!

Be drunk,³ but not with wine;

^rstagger,⁴ but not with strong drink!

10  ^sFor the Lord has poured out upon you

a spirit of deep sleep,

and has closed your eyes (the prophets),

and covered your heads (the seers).

13  And the Lord said:

“Because ^uthis people ^vdraw near with their mouth

and honor me with their lips,

while their hearts are far from me,

and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,

14  therefore, behold, ^wI will again

do wonderful things with this people,

with wonder upon wonder;

and ^xthe wisdom of their wise men shall perish,

and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”

15  Ah, ^yyou who hide deep from the Lord your counsel,

whose deeds are ^zin the dark,

and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”

16  ^aYou turn things upside down!

Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,

that the thing made should say of its maker,

“He did not make me”;

or the thing formed say of him who formed it,

“He has no understanding”?

17  Is it not yet a very little while

^buntil Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,

and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?

18  In that day ^cthe deaf shall hear

^dthe words of a book,

and out of their gloom and darkness

^ethe eyes of the blind shall see.

19  ^fThe meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,

and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.

20  For the ruthless shall come to nothing

and ^gthe scoffer cease,

and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off,

21  who by a word make a man out to be an offender,

and ^hlay a snare for him who reproves in the gate,

and with an empty plea ⁱturn aside him who is in the right.

“Jacob shall no more be ashamed,

no more shall his face grow pale.

23  For when he sees his children,

^kthe work of my hands, in his midst,

they will sanctify my name;

^lthey will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob

and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.

24  And those ^mwho go astray in spirit will come to understanding,

and those who murmur will accept instruction.”

1  “Ah, ⁿstubborn children,” declares the Lord,

^o“who carry out a plan, but not mine,

and who make ^pan alliance,⁵ but not of my Spirit,

that they may add sin to sin;

2  ^qwho set out to go down to Egypt,

without asking for my direction,

to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh

and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!

3  ^rTherefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame,

and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.

4  For though his officials are at ^sZoan

and ^this envoys reach ^uHanes,

5  everyone comes to shame

through ^va people that cannot profit them,

that brings neither help nor profit,

but shame and disgrace.”

Through a land of trouble and anguish,

from where come the lioness and the lion,

the adder and the ^zflying fiery serpent,

they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys,

and their treasures on the humps of camels,

to a people that cannot profit them.

7  Egypt’s ^ahelp is worthless and empty;

therefore I have called her

^b“Rahab who sits still.”

8  And now, go, ^cwrite it before them on a tablet

and inscribe it in a book,

that it may be for the time to come

as a witness forever.⁶

9  ^dFor they are a rebellious people,

lying children,

children unwilling to hear

the instruction of the Lord;

10  ^ewho say to ^fthe seers, “Do not see,”

and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right;

speak to us ^gsmooth things,

prophesy illusions,

11  leave the way, turn aside from the path,

let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”

12  Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel,

“Because you despise this word

and trust in ^hoppression and perverseness

and rely on them,

13  therefore this iniquity shall be to you

ⁱlike a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse,

whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;

14  and its breaking is ^jlike that of a potter’s vessel

that is smashed so ruthlessly

that among its fragments not a shard is found

with which to take fire from the hearth,

or to dip up water out of the cistern.”

15  For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,

“In ^kreturning⁷ and ^lrest you shall be saved;

in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

But you were unwilling, 16 and you said,

“No! We will flee upon ^mhorses”;

therefore you shall flee away;

and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”;

therefore your pursuers shall be swift.

17  ⁿA thousand shall flee at the threat of one;

at the threat of five you shall flee,

till you are left

like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,

like a signal on a hill.

18  Therefore the Lord ^owaits to be gracious to you,

and therefore he ^pexalts himself to show mercy to you.

For the Lord is a God of justice;

^qblessed are all those who wait for him.

27  Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar,

burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke;⁸

his lips are full of fury,

and his tongue is like a devouring fire;

28  ^ghis breath is ^hlike an overflowing stream

that reaches up to the neck;

to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction,

and to place on the jaws of the peoples ⁱa bridle that leads astray.