1 ARST Yahweh gave this message about Jerusalem, about the valley where Yahweh showed me this vision. Why is everyone foolishly running up to their flat rooftops? BSB BSB: This is the burden against the Valley of Vision: What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the rooftops,
2 ARST Everyone in the city seems to be shouting. There are a lot of corpses in the city, but they were not killed by their enemies’ swords. They did not die in battles; instead, they died from diseases and hunger. BSB BSB: O city of commotion, O town of revelry? Your slain did not die by the sword, nor were they killed in battle.
3 ARST All the leaders of the city fled. But then they were captured because they did not have bows and arrows to defend themselves. Your soldiers tried to flee while the enemy army was still far away, but they also were captured. BSB BSB: All your rulers have fled together, captured without a bow. All your fugitives were captured together, having fled to a distant place.
4 ARST That is why I said,“Allow me to cry alone; do not try to comfort me about my people being slaughtered.” BSB BSB: Therefore I said, “Turn away from me, let me weep bitterly! Do not try to console me over the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
5 ARST Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, has chosen a time when there will be a great uproar, soldiers marching, and people being terrified in the valley where I received this vision. It will be a time when our city walls will be battered down and the people’ s cries for help will be heard in the mountains. BSB BSB: For the Lord GOD of Hosts has set a day of tumult and trampling and confusion in the Valley of Vision—of breaking down the walls and crying to the mountains.
6 ARST The armies from Elam and Kir in Media will attack, driving chariots and carrying shields. BSB BSB: Elam takes up a quiver, with chariots and horsemen, and Kir uncovers the shield.
7 ARST Our beautiful valleys will be filled with our enemies’ chariots, and the men who drive the chariots will stand outside our city gates. BSB BSB: Your choicest valleys are full of chariots, and horsemen are posted at the gates.
8 ARST God will cause the walls that protect the cities in Judah to fall down. You people of Jerusalem will run to get the weapons that are stored in the building called“the Hall of the Forest.” BSB BSB: He has uncovered the defenses of Judah. On that day you looked to the weapons in the House of the Forest.
9 ARST You will see that there are many breaks in the walls of Jerusalem. You will store water in the lower pool in the city. BSB BSB: You saw that there were many breaches in the walls of the City of David. You collected water from the lower pool.
11 ARST Between the walls of the city you will build a reservoir to store water from the old pool. But you will never request help from the one who made the city; you have never depended on Yahweh, who planned this city long ago. BSB BSB: You built a reservoir between the walls for the waters of the ancient pool, but you did not look to the One who made it, or consider Him who planned it long ago.
12 ARST Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, told you to weep and mourn; he told you to shave your heads and to wear rough sackcloth to show that you were sorry for the sins that you had committed. BSB BSB: On that day the Lord GOD of Hosts called for weeping and wailing, for shaven heads and the wearing of sackcloth.
13 ARST But instead of doing that, you were happy and celebrated; you slaughtered cattle and sheep in order to cook their meat and eat it and drink wine. You said,“Let us eat and drink all that we want to, because it is possible that we will die tomorrow!” BSB BSB: But look, there is joy and gladness, butchering of cattle and slaughtering of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”
14 ARST So Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, revealed this to me:“I will never forgive my people for sinning like this!” BSB BSB: The LORD of Hosts has revealed in my hearing: “Until your dying day, this sin of yours will never be atoned for,” says the Lord GOD of Hosts.
16 ARST ‘Who do you think you are? Who gave you the authority to build a beautiful tomb where you will be buried, chiseling it out of the rocky cliff high above this valley?’” BSB BSB: What are you doing here, and who authorized you to carve out a tomb for yourself here—to chisel your tomb in the height and cut your resting place in the rock?
17 ARST You think that you are a great man, but Yahweh is about to hurl you away. It will be as though he had seized you, BSB BSB: Look, O mighty man! The LORD is about to shake you violently. He will take hold of you,
18 ARST rolled you into a ball, and throw you away in a large distant land. You will die and be buried there, and your beautiful chariots will stay there in the hands of your enemies. And because of what happens to you, your master, the king, will be very ashamed. BSB BSB: roll you into a ball, and sling you into a wide land. There you will die, and there your glorious chariots will remain—a disgrace to the house of your master.
19 ARST Yahweh says,“I will force you to quit working in the palace; you will be forced out from your important position. BSB BSB: I will remove you from office, and you will be ousted from your position.
20 ARST Then I will summon Hilkiah’ s son Eliakim, who has served me well, to replace you. BSB BSB: On that day I will summon My servant, Eliakim son of Hilkiah.
21 ARST I will make him wear your robe and fasten your sash around him, and I will give to him the authority that you had. He will be like a father to the people of Jerusalem and all the other towns in Judah. BSB BSB: I will clothe him with your robe and tie your sash around him. I will put your authority in his hand, and he will be a father to the dwellers of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.
22 ARST I will give to him authority over what happens in the palace where King David lived; when he decides something, no one will be able to oppose it; when he refuses to do something, no one will be able to force him to do it. BSB BSB: I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.
23 ARST I will cause his family to be greatly respected, because I will put him firmly in his position as supervisor of the workers in the palace, like a nail that is firmly hammered into a wall. BSB BSB: I will drive him like a peg into a firm place, and he will be a throne of glory for the house of his father.
24 ARST Others will enable him to have much responsibility, with the result that all the members of his family, even the most insignificant ones, will be honored. BSB BSB: So they will hang on him all the glory of his father’s house: the descendants and the offshoots—all the lesser vessels, from bowls to every kind of jar.
25 ARST Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, also says,“Shebna is like a peg that is firmly fastened to the wall. But there will be a time when I will remove him from his position; he will lose his power, and everything that he promoted will fail.” That will surely happen because Yahweh has said it. BSB BSB: In that day, declares the LORD of Hosts, the peg driven into a firm place will give way; it will be sheared off and fall, and the load upon it will be cut down.” Indeed, the LORD has spoken.
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