4. Therefore I said, ‘Turn away from me;let me weep bitterly.Do not try to console meover the destruction of my people.’
5. The Lord, the Lord Almighty, has a dayof tumult and trampling and terrorin the Valley of Vision,a day of battering down wallsand of crying out to the mountains.
6. Elam takes up the quiver,with her charioteers and horses;Kir uncovers the shield.
7. Your choicest valleys are full of chariots,and horsemen are posted at the city gates.
8. The Lord stripped away the defences of Judah,and you looked in that dayto the weapons in the Palace of the Forest.
9. You saw that the walls of the City of Davidwere broken through in many places;you stored up waterin the Lower Pool.
10. You counted the buildings in Jerusalemand tore down houses to strengthen the wall.
11. You built a reservoir between the two wallsfor the water of the Old Pool,but you did not look to the One who made it,or have regard for the One who planned it long ago.
12. The Lord, the Lord Almighty,called you on that dayto weep and to wail,to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth.
13. But see, there is joy and revelry,slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep,eating of meat and drinking of wine!‘Let us eat and drink,’ you say,‘for tomorrow we die!’
14. The Lord Almighty has revealed this in my hearing: ‘Till your dying day this sin will not be atoned for,’ says the Lord, the Lord Almighty.
15. This is what the Lord, the Lord Almighty, says:‘Go, say to this steward,to Shebna the palace administrator:
16. what are you doing here and who gave you permissionto cut out a grave for yourself here,hewing your grave on the heightand chiselling your resting place in the rock?
17. ‘Beware, the Lord is about to take firm hold of youand hurl you away, you mighty man.