21 “This is the word that the Lord has spoken against him:

‘She has despised you and mocked you,

aThe virgin daughter of Zion;

She bhas shaken her head behind you,

The daughter of Jerusalem!

22 ‘Whom have you areproached and bblasphemed?

And against whom have you raised your voice,

And 1haughtily lifted up your eyes?

Against the cHoly One of Israel!

23 ‘aThrough your messengers you have reproached the Lord,

And you have said, “With my many chariots

I came up to the heights of the mountains,

To the remotest parts of Lebanon;

And I 1cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypresses.

And I 1entered its farthest lodging place, its bthickest forest.

24 “I dug wells and drank foreign waters,

And with the sole of my feet I 1adried up

All the rivers of 2Egypt.”

25 ‘aHave you not heard?

Long ago I did it;

From ancient times I planned it.

bNow I have brought it to pass,

That you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

26 ‘Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength,

They were dismayed and put to shame;

They were aas the vegetation of the field and as the green herb,

As grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up.

27 ‘But aI know your sitting down,

And your going out and your coming in,

And your raging against Me.

28 ‘Because of your raging against Me,

And because your 1arrogance has come up to My ears,

Therefore I awill put My hook in your nose,

And My bridle in your lips,

And bI will turn you back by the way which you came.

29 ‘Then this shall be athe sign for you: 1you will eat this year what grows of itself, in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.

30 ‘aThe surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward.

31 ‘For out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant, and aout of Mount Zion 1survivors. bThe zeal of 2the Lord will perform this.

32 ‘Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, “aHe will not come to this city or shoot an arrow there; and he will not come before it with a shield or throw up a siege ramp against it.

33 “aBy the way that he came, by the same he will return, and he shall not come to this city,” ’ declares the Lord.

34 ‘aFor I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and bfor My servant David’s sake.’ ”