11. So the Lord will use strange words and foreign languagesto speak to these people.
12. God said to them,“Here is a place of rest.Let the tired people come and rest.This is the place of peace.”But the people would not listen.
13. So the words of the Lord will be,“A command here, a command there.A rule here, a rule there.A lesson here, a lesson there.”They will fall back and will be defeated.They will be trapped and captured.
14. You who brag should listen to the Lord’s message.Pay attention, you leaders in Jerusalem.
15. You say, “We have made an agreement with death.We have a contract with death.When punishment passes by,it won’t hurt us.We will be safe with our lies.We will hide behind our tricks.”
16. Because of these things, this is what the Lord God says:“I will put a stone in the ground in Jerusalem.This will be a tested stone.Everything will be built on this important and precious rock.Anyone who trusts in it will never be disappointed.
17. I will use justice as a measuring line.I will use goodness to measure by.The lies you hide behind will be destroyed as if by hail.They will be washed away as if in a flood.
18. Your agreement with death will be erased.Your contract with death will not help you.When punishment comes,you will be crushed by it.
19. Whenever punishment comes, it will take you away.It will come morning after morning.It will defeat you by day and by night.Those who hear of this punishment will be terrified.”
20. You will be like the man who tried to sleepon a bed that was too short for him.And his blanket was too narrowto wrap around himself.
21. The Lord will fight as he did at Mount Perazim.He will be angry as he was in the Valley of Gibeon.Then the Lord will do his work, his strange work.He will finish his job, his strange job.
22. Now, you must not make fun of these things.If you do, the ropes around you will become tighter.The Lord of heaven’s armies has told me these things.He has told me how the whole earth will be destroyed.
23. Listen closely to what I tell you.Listen carefully to what I say.
24. A farmer does not plow his field all the time.He does not go on working the soil.