1
The word about the valley of vision.
Why have all your people gone up to the house-tops?
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You, who are full of loud voices, a town of outcries, given up to joy;
your dead men have not been put to the sword, or come to their death in war.
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All your rulers … have gone in flight;
all your strong ones have gone far away.
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For this cause I have said, Let your eyes be turned away from me in my bitter weeping;
I will not be comforted for the wasting of the daughter of my people.
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For it is a day of trouble and of crushing down and of destruction from the Lord, the Lord of armies, in the valley of vision;
…
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And Elam was armed with arrows, and Aram came on horseback;
and the breastplate of Kir was uncovered.
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And your most fertile valleys were full of war-carriages, and the horsemen took up their positions in front of the town.
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He took away the cover of Judah;
and in that day you were looking with care at the store of arms in the house of the woods.
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And you saw all the broken places in the wall of the town of David: and you got together the waters of the lower pool.
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And you had the houses of Jerusalem numbered, pulling down the houses to make the wall stronger.
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And you made a place between the two walls for storing the waters of the old pool: but you gave no thought to him who had done this, and were not looking to him by whom it had been purposed long before.
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And in that day the Lord, the Lord of armies, was looking for weeping, and cries of sorrow, cutting off of the hair, and putting on the clothing of grief:
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But in place of these there was joy and delight, oxen and sheep were being made ready for food, there was feasting and drinking: men said, Now is the time for food and wine, for tomorrow death comes.
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And the Lord of armies said to me secretly, Truly, this sin will not be taken from you till your death, says the Lord, the Lord of armies.
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The Lord, the Lord of armies, says, Go to this person in authority, this Shebna, who is over the house;
who has made himself a resting-place on high, cutting out a place for himself in the rock, and say,
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Who are you, and by what right have you made for yourself a resting-place here?
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See, O strong man, the Lord will send you violently away, gripping you with force,
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Twisting you round and round like a ball he will send you out into a wide country: there you will come to your end, and there will be the carriages of your pride, O shame of your lord's house!
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And I will have you forced out of your place of authority, and pulled down from your position.
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And in that day I will send for my servant, Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah:
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And I will put your robe on him, and put your band about him, and I will give your authority into his hand: and he will be a father to the men of Jerusalem, and to the family of Judah.
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And I will give the key of the family of David into his care;
and what he keeps open will be shut by no one, and what he keeps shut no one will make open.
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And I will put him like a nail in a safe place;
and he will be for a seat of glory to his father's family.
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And all the glory of his father's family will be hanging on him, all their offspring, every small vessel, even the cups and the basins.
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In that day, says the Lord of armies, will the nail fixed in a safe place give way;
and it will be cut down, and in its fall the weight hanging on it will be cut off, for the Lord has said it.