Isaiah 22:1–14

¹The oracle concerning the valley of vision.

What do you mean that you have gone up,

all of you, to the housetops,

²you who are full of shoutings,

tumultuous city, exultant town?

Your slain are not slain with the sword

or dead in battle.

³All your rulers have fled together,

without the bow they were captured.

All of you who were found were captured,

though they had fled far away.^h

⁴Therefore I said:

“Look away from me,

let me weep bitter tears;

do not labor to comfort me

for the destruction of the

daughter of my people.”

⁵For the Lord GOD of hosts has a day

of tumult and trampling and confusion

in the valley of vision,

a battering down of walls

and a shouting to the mountains.

⁶And Elam bore the quiver

with chariots and horsemen,

and Kir uncovered the shield.

⁷Your choicest valleys were full of chariots,

and the horsemen took their stand at the gates.

⁸He has taken away the covering of Judah.

In that day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest, ⁹and you saw that the breaches of the city of David were many, and you collected the waters of the lower pool, ¹⁰and you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. ¹¹You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you did not look to him who did it, or have regard for him who planned it long ago.

¹²In that day the Lord GOD of hosts called to weeping and mourning,

to baldness and girding with sackcloth;

¹³and behold, joy and gladness,

slaying oxen and killing sheep,

eating flesh and drinking wine.

“Let us eat and drink,

for tomorrow we die.”

¹⁴The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears:

“Surely this iniquity will not be forgiven you

till you die,”

says the Lord GOD of hosts.