³ All inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth:
^(B)When he lifts up a banner on the mountains, you see it;
And when he blows a trumpet, you hear it.
⁴ For so the Lord said to me,
“I will take My rest,
And I will ^[b]look from My dwelling place
Like clear heat in sunshine,
Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
⁵ For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect
And the sour grape is ripening in the flower,
He will both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks
And take away and cut down the branches.
⁶ They will be left together for the mountain birds of prey
And for the beasts of the earth;
The birds of prey will summer on them,
And all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

⁷ In that time ^(C)a present will be brought to the Lord of hosts
^[c]From a people tall and smooth of skin,
And from a people terrible from their beginning onward,
A nation powerful and treading down,
Whose land the rivers divide—
To the place of the name of the Lord of hosts,
To Mount Zion.

Behold, the Lord ^(E)rides on a swift cloud,
And will come into Egypt;
^(F)The idols of Egypt will ^[e]totter at His presence,
And the heart of Egypt will melt in its midst.

² “I will ^(G)set Egyptians against Egyptians;
Everyone will fight against his brother,
And everyone against his neighbor,
City against city, kingdom against kingdom.
³ The spirit of Egypt will fail in its midst;
I will destroy their counsel,
And they will ^(H)consult the idols and the charmers,
The mediums and the sorcerers.
⁴ And the Egyptians I will give
^(I)Into the hand of a cruel master,
And a fierce king will rule over them,”
Says the Lord, the Lord of hosts.

^5 (J)The waters will fail from the sea,
And the river will be wasted and dried up.
⁶ The rivers will turn foul;
The brooks ^(K)of defense will be emptied and dried up;
The reeds and rushes will wither.
⁷ The papyrus reeds by ^[f]the River, by the mouth of the River,
And everything sown by the River,
Will wither, be driven away, and be no more.
⁸ The fishermen also will mourn;
All those will lament who cast hooks into the River,
And they will languish who spread nets on the waters.
⁹ Moreover those who work in ^(L)fine flax
And those who weave fine fabric will be ashamed;
¹⁰ And its foundations will be broken.
All who make wages will be troubled of soul.

¹¹ Surely the princes of ^(M)Zoan are fools;
Pharaoh’s wise counselors give foolish counsel.
^(N)How do you say to Pharaoh, “I am the son of the wise,
The son of ancient kings?”
^12 (O)Where are they?
Where are your wise men?
Let them tell you now,
And let them know what the Lord of hosts has ^(P)purposed against Egypt.
¹³ The princes of Zoan have become fools;
^(Q)The princes of ^[g]Noph are deceived;
They have also ^[h]deluded Egypt,
Those who are the ^[i]mainstay of its tribes.
¹⁴ The Lord has mingled ^(R)a perverse spirit in her midst;
And they have caused Egypt to err in all her work,
As a drunken man staggers in his vomit.
¹⁵ Neither will there be any work for Egypt,
Which ^(S)the head or tail,
Palm branch or bulrush, may do.

As ^(AQ)whirlwinds in the South pass through,
So it comes from the desert, from a terrible land.
² A distressing vision is declared to me;
^(AR)The treacherous dealer deals treacherously,
And the plunderer plunders.
^(AS)Go up, O Elam!
Besiege, O Media!
All its sighing I have made to cease.

³ Therefore ^(AT)my loins are filled with pain;
^(AU)Pangs have taken hold of me, like the pangs of a woman in labor.
I was ^[n]distressed when I heard it;
I was dismayed when I saw it.
⁴ My heart wavered, fearfulness frightened me;
^(AV)The night for which I longed He turned into fear for me.
^5 (AW)Prepare the table,
Set a watchman in the tower,
Eat and drink.
Arise, you princes,
Anoint the shield!

⁶ For thus has the Lord said to me:
“Go, set a watchman,
Let him declare what he sees.”
⁷ And he saw a chariot with a pair of horsemen,
A chariot of donkeys, and a chariot of camels,
And he listened earnestly with great care.
^8 [o]Then he cried, “A lion, my Lord!
I stand continually on the ^(AX)watchtower in the daytime;
I have sat at my post every night.
⁹ And look, here comes a chariot of men with a pair of horsemen!”
Then he answered and said,
^(AY)“Babylon is fallen, is fallen!
And ^(AZ)all the carved images of her gods
He has broken to the ground.”

^10 (BA)Oh, my threshing and the grain of my floor!
That which I have heard from the Lord of hosts,
The God of Israel,
I have declared to you.

He calls to me out of ^(BC)Seir,
“Watchman, what of the night?
Watchman, what of the night?”
¹² The watchman said,
“The morning comes, and also the night.
If you will inquire, inquire;
Return! Come back!”

In the forest in Arabia you will lodge,
O you traveling companies ^(BE)of Dedanites.
¹⁴ O inhabitants of the land of Tema,
Bring water to him who is thirsty;
With their bread they met him who fled.
¹⁵ For they fled from the swords, from the drawn sword,
From the bent bow, and from the distress of war.

What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops,
² You who are full of noise,
A ^[s]tumultuous city, ^(BH)a joyous city?
Your slain men are not slain with the sword,
Nor dead in battle.
³ All your rulers have fled together;
They are captured by the archers.
All who are found in you are bound together;
They have fled from afar.
⁴ Therefore I said, “Look away from me,
^(BI)I will weep bitterly;
Do not labor to comfort me
Because of the plundering of the daughter of my people.”

^5 (BJ)For it is a day of trouble and treading down and perplexity
^(BK)By the Lord God of hosts
In the Valley of Vision—
Breaking down the walls
And of crying to the mountain.
^6 (BL)Elam bore the quiver
With chariots of men and horsemen,
And ^(BM)Kir uncovered the shield.
⁷ It shall come to pass that your choicest valleys
Shall be full of chariots,
And the horsemen shall set themselves in array at the gate.

^8 (BN)He removed the ^[t]protection of Judah.
You looked in that day to the armor ^(BO)of the House of the Forest;
^9 (BP)You also saw the ^[u]damage to the city of David,
That it was great;
And you gathered together the waters of the lower pool.
¹⁰ You numbered the houses of Jerusalem,
And the houses you broke down
To fortify the wall.
^11 (BQ)You also made a reservoir between the two walls
For the water of the old ^(BR)pool.
But you did not look to its Maker,
Nor did you have respect for Him who fashioned it long ago.

¹² And in that day the Lord God of hosts
^(BS)Called for weeping and for mourning,
^(BT)For baldness and for girding with sackcloth.
¹³ But instead, joy and gladness,
Slaying oxen and killing sheep,
Eating meat and ^(BU)drinking wine:
^(BV)“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”

^14 (BW)Then it was revealed in my hearing by the Lord of hosts,
“Surely for this iniquity there ^(BX)will be no atonement for you,
Even to your death,” says the Lord God of hosts.

“Go, proceed to this steward,
To ^(BY)Shebna, who is over the house, and say:
¹⁶ ‘What have you here, and whom have you here,
That you have hewn a sepulcher here,
As he ^(BZ)who hews himself a sepulcher on high,
Who carves a tomb for himself in a rock?
¹⁷ Indeed, the Lord will throw you away violently,
O mighty man,
^(CA)And will surely seize you.
¹⁸ He will surely turn violently and toss you like a ball
Into a large country;
There you shall die, and there ^(CB)your glorious chariots
Shall be the shame of your master’s house.
¹⁹ So I will drive you out of your office,
And from your position ^[v]he will pull you down.

²⁰ ‘Then it shall be in that day,
That I will call My servant ^(CC)Eliakim the son of Hilkiah;
²¹ I will clothe him with your robe
And strengthen him with your belt;
I will commit your responsibility into his hand.
He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem
And to the house of Judah.
²² The key of the house of David
I will lay on his ^(CD)shoulder;
So he shall ^(CE)open, and no one shall shut;
And he shall shut, and no one shall open.
²³ I will fasten him as ^(CF)a peg in a secure place,
And he will become a glorious throne to his father’s house.