Isaiah 22

Proclamation Against Jerusalem

22The ¹burden against the Valley of Vision.

What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops,

²You who are full of noise,

A ²tumultuous city, ^aa joyous city?

Your slain men are not slain with the sword,

Nor dead in battle.

³All your rulers have fled together;

They are captured by the archers.

All who are found in you are bound together;

They have fled from afar.

⁴Therefore I said, “Look away from me,

^bI will weep bitterly;

Do not labor to comfort me

Because of the plundering of the daughter of my people.”

^5cFor it is a day of trouble and treading down and perplexity

^dBy the Lord God of hosts

In the Valley of Vision—

Breaking down the walls

And of crying to the mountain.

^6eElam bore the quiver

With chariots of men and horsemen,

And ^fKir uncovered the shield.

⁷It shall come to pass that your choicest valleys

Shall be full of chariots,

And the horsemen shall set themselves in array at the gate.

^8gHe removed the ³protection of Judah.

You looked in that day to the armor ^hof the House of the Forest;

⁹ⁱYou also saw the ⁴damage to the city of David,

That it was great;

And you gathered together the waters of the lower pool.

¹⁰You numbered the houses of Jerusalem,

And the houses you broke down

To fortify the wall.

^11jYou also made a reservoir between the two walls

For the water of the old ^kpool.

But you did not look to its Maker,

Nor did you have respect for Him who fashioned it long ago.

¹²And in that day the Lord God of hosts

^lCalled for weeping and for mourning,

^mFor baldness and for girding with sackcloth.

¹³But instead, joy and gladness,

Slaying oxen and killing sheep,

Eating meat and ⁿdrinking wine:

^o“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”

^14pThen it was revealed in my hearing by the Lord of hosts,

“Surely for this iniquity there ^qwill be no atonement for you,

Even to your death,” says the Lord God of hosts.

The Judgment on Shebna

¹⁵Thus says the Lord God of hosts:

“Go, proceed to this steward,

To ^rShebna, who is over the house, and say:

¹⁶‘What have you here, and whom have you here,

That you have hewn a sepulcher here,

As he ^swho hews himself a sepulcher on high,

Who carves a tomb for himself in a rock?

¹⁷Indeed, the Lord will throw you away violently,

O mighty man,

^tAnd will surely seize you.

¹⁸He will surely turn violently and toss you like a ball

Into a large country;

There you shall die, and there ^uyour glorious chariots

Shall be the shame of your master’s house.

¹⁹So I will drive you out of your office,

And from your position ⁵he will pull you down.

²⁰‘Then it shall be in that day,

That I will call My servant ^vEliakim the son of Hilkiah;

²¹I will clothe him with your robe

And strengthen him with your belt;

I will commit your responsibility into his hand.

He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem

And to the house of Judah.

²²The key of the house of David

I will lay on his ^wshoulder;

So he shall ^xopen, and no one shall shut;

And he shall shut, and no one shall open.

²³I will fasten him as ^ya peg in a secure place,

And he will become a glorious throne to his father’s house.

²⁴‘They will hang on him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the posterity, all vessels of small quantity, from the cups to all the pitchers. ²⁵In that day,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘the peg that is fastened in the secure place will be removed and be cut down and fall, and the burden that was on it will be cut off; for the Lord has spoken.’ ”