Isaiah 29:2–13

²The Lord says, “Ariel, I will surround you.

Jerusalem, I will get ready to attack you.

Your people will sob.

They will sing songs of sadness.

I will make you like the front of an altar

that is covered with blood.

³I will be like an army that is camped against you on all sides.

I will surround you with towers in order to attack you.

I will build my ramps all around you and set up my ladders.

⁴You will be brought down to the grave.

You will speak from deep down inside the ground.

Your words will be barely heard out of the dust.

Your voice will sound like the voice of a ghost

coming from under the ground.

Your words will sound like a whisper out of the dust.”

⁵Jerusalem, all of your enemies will become like fine dust.

Their terrifying armies will become like straw

that the wind blows away.

All of a sudden, in an instant,

⁶the Lord who rules over all will come.

He will come with thunder, earthquakes and a lot of noise.

He’ll bring windstorms and rainstorms with him.

He’ll send a blazing fire that will burn everything up.

⁷Armies from all of the nations will fight against Ariel.

They will attack it and its fort.

They’ll surround it completely.

But suddenly those armies will disappear like a dream.

They will vanish like a vision in the night.

⁸They will be like a hungry person who dreams he is eating.

But when he wakes up, he’s still hungry.

They will be like a thirsty person who dreams he is drinking.

But when he wakes up, he is weak.

His thirst hasn’t been satisfied.

In the same way, the armies from all of the nations

that fight against Mount Zion will disappear.

⁹People of Jerusalem, be shocked and amazed.

Make yourselves blind so you can’t see anything.

Get drunk, but not from wine.

Be unsteady on your feet, but not because of beer.

¹⁰The Lord has made you fall into a deep sleep.

He has closed the eyes of your prophets.

He has covered the heads of your seers so they can’t see.

¹¹For you, this whole vision is like words that are sealed up in a scroll. Suppose you give it to someone who can read. And suppose you say to him, “Please read this for us.” Then he’ll answer, “I can’t. It’s sealed up.” ¹²Or suppose you give the scroll to someone who can’t read. And suppose you say, “Please read this for us.” Then he’ll answer, “I don’t know how to read.”

¹³The Lord says,

“These people worship me only with their words.

They honor me by what they say.

But their hearts are far away from me.

Their worship doesn’t mean anything to me.

They teach nothing but human rules.