An Oracle Against Jerusalem
Isaiah 22The burden of the valley of vision.
What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops? You that are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, a joyous town, your slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle. All your rulers fled away together. They were bound by the archers. All who were found by you were bound together. They fled far away. Therefore I said, “Y’all look away from me! I will weep bitterly. Y’all must not try to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity from the Lord, YHWH Almighty, in the valley of vision, a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains.” Elam carried his quiver, with chariots of men and horsemen; and Kir uncovered the shield. Your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at the gate. He took away the covering of Judah; and you looked in that day to the armor in the house of the forest. Y’all saw the many breaches of the City of David. and y’all gathered together the waters of the lower pool. Y’all counted the houses of Jerusalem, and y’all tore down the houses to fortify the wall. Y’all also made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But y’all didn’t look one who made this, nor did y’all have respect for the one who planned it long ago.
In that day, the Lord, YHWH Almighty, called to weeping, to mourning, to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth. But look, there is joy and gladness, killing cattle and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine: “Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.” YHWH Almighty revealed this in my ears, “This sin of y’all’s will not be forgiven until y’all die,” says the Lord, YHWH Almighty.
The Lord, YHWH Almighty says, “Go, get yourself to this treasurer, even to Shebna, who is over the house, and say, ‘What are you doing here? Who has you here, that you have dug out a tomb here?’ Cutting himself out a tomb on high, chiseling a habitation for himself in the rock!” Surely, YHWH will overcome you and hurl you away violently. Yes, he will grasp-grasp you, you mighty man. He will wind-wind you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a vast country. There you will die, and there the chariots of your glory will be, you disgrace of your lord’s house. I will thrust you from your office. You will be pulled down from your station.
It will happen in that day that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and strengthen him with your belt. I will commit your government into his hand; and he will be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. I will lay the key of David’s house on his shoulder. He will open, and no one will shut. He will shut, and no one will open. I will fasten him like a nail in a sure place. He will be for a throne of glory to his father’s house. They will hang on him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the issue, every small vessel, from the cups even to all the pitchers. “In that day,” says YHWH Almighty, “the nail that was fastened in a sure place will give way. It will be cut down and fall. The burden that was on it will be cut off, for YHWH has spoken it.”