The Hebrew Prophets

So this is what the Lord GOD says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; the one who believes will never be shaken.

I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the level. Hail will sweep away your refuge of lies, and water will flood your hiding place.

Your covenant with death will be dissolved, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be trampled by it.

As often as it passes through, it will carry you away; it will sweep through morning after morning, by day and by night.” The understanding of this message will bring sheer terror.

Indeed, the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket too small to wrap around you.

For the LORD will rise up as at Mount Perazim. He will rouse Himself as in the Valley of Gibeon, to do His work, His strange work, and to perform His task, His disturbing task.

So now, do not mock, or your shackles will become heavier. Indeed, I have heard from the Lord GOD of Hosts a decree of destruction against the whole land.

Listen and hear my voice. Pay attention and hear what I say.

Does the plowman plow for planting every day? Does he continuously loosen and harrow the soil?

When he has leveled its surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cumin? He plants wheat in rows and barley in plots, and rye within its border.

For his God instructs and teaches him properly.

Surely caraway is not threshed with a sledge, and the wheel of a cart is not rolled over the cumin. But caraway is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod.

Grain for bread must be ground, but it is not endlessly threshed. Though the wheels of the cart roll over it, the horses do not crush it.

This also comes from the LORD of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.

Woe to you, O Ariel, the city of Ariel where David camped! Year upon year let your festivals recur.

And I will constrain Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation; she will be like an altar hearth before Me.

I will camp in a circle around you; I will besiege you with towers and set up siege works against you.

You will be brought low, you will speak from the ground, and out of the dust your words will be muffled. Your voice will be like a spirit from the ground; your speech will whisper out of the dust.

But your many foes will be like fine dust, the multitude of the ruthless like blowing chaff. Then suddenly, in an instant,

you will be visited by the LORD of Hosts with thunder and earthquake and loud noise, with windstorm and tempest and consuming flame of fire.

All the many nations going out to battle against Ariel— even all who war against her, laying siege and attacking her— will be like a dream, like a vision in the night,

as when a hungry man dreams he is eating, then awakens still hungry; as when a thirsty man dreams he is drinking, then awakens faint and parched. So will it be for all the many nations who go to battle against Mount Zion.

Stop and be astonished; blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not from strong drink.

For the LORD has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep. He has shut your eyes, O prophets; He has covered your heads, O seers.

And the entire vision will be to you like the words sealed in a scroll. If it is handed to someone to read, he will say, “I cannot, because it is sealed.”