The Hebrew Prophets

this iniquity of yours is like a breach about to fail, a bulge in a high wall, whose collapse will come suddenly— in an instant!

It will break in pieces like a potter’s jar, shattered so that no fragment can be found. Not a shard will be found in the dust large enough to scoop the coals from a hearth or to skim the water from a cistern.”

For the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “By repentance and rest you would be saved; your strength would lie in quiet confidence— but you were not willing.”

“No,” you say, “we will flee on horses.” Therefore you will flee! “We will ride swift horses,” but your pursuers will be faster.

A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee, until you are left alone like a pole on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.

Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore He rises to show you compassion, for the LORD is a just God. Blessed are all who wait for Him.

O people in Zion who dwell in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. He will surely be gracious when you cry for help; when He hears, He will answer you.

The Lord will give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, but your Teacher will no longer hide Himself—with your own eyes you will see Him.

And whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.”

So you will desecrate your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, saying to them, “Be gone!”

Then He will send rain for the seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food that comes from your land will be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle will graze in open pastures.

The oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat salted fodder, winnowed with shovel and pitchfork.

And from every high mountain and every raised hill, streams of water will flow in the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall.

The light of the moon will be as bright as the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter—like the light of seven days—on the day that the LORD binds up the brokenness of His people and heals the wounds He has inflicted.

Behold, the Name of the LORD comes from afar, with burning anger and dense smoke. His lips are full of fury, and His tongue is like a consuming fire.

His breath is like a rushing torrent that rises to the neck. He comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction; He bridles the jaws of the peoples to lead them astray.

You will sing as on the night of a holy festival, and your heart will rejoice like one who walks to the music of a flute, going up to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel.

And the LORD will cause His majestic voice to be heard and His mighty arm to be revealed, striking in angry wrath with a flame of consuming fire, and with cloudburst, storm, and hailstones.

For Assyria will be shattered at the voice of the LORD; He will strike them with His scepter.

And with every stroke of the rod of punishment that the LORD brings down on them, the tambourines and lyres will sound as He battles with weapons brandished.

For Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its funeral pyre is deep and wide, with plenty of fire and wood. The breath of the LORD, like a torrent of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze.

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the LORD.

Yet He too is wise and brings disaster; He does not call back His words. He will rise up against the house of the wicked and against the allies of evildoers.

But the Egyptians are men, not God; their horses are flesh, not spirit. When the LORD stretches out His hand, the helper will stumble, and the one he helps will fall; both will perish together.

For this is what the LORD has said to me: “Like a lion roaring or a young lion over its prey— and though a band of shepherds is called out against it, it is not terrified by their shouting or subdued by their clamor— so the LORD of Hosts will come down to do battle on Mount Zion and its heights.