Yahweh Answers Again

1At my guard post I will stand,

and I will take my stand on the rampart,

and I will watch to see what He will say to me,

and what I will return upon my reproof.

2And YHWH answered me and said,

“Write the vision,

and make it plain upon the tablets,

that the one calling may run with it.

3For is yet the vision for an appointed time,

and it breathes of the end, and it will not lie;

if it lingers, wait for it,

because it will surely come and will not delay.†

4Behold, one is not puffed up whose soul is upright within him,†

and the righteous one will live by his faith.†

5And indeed because wealth† is treacherous,

a proud man who does not stay at home,

who enlarges his appetite like Sheol

and he is like death, and is not satisfied,

and he gathers to himself all the nations,

and he collects for himself all the peoples.

Woe to the Chaldeans

6Will not these, all of them, take up a clever saying against him,

and a taunt with riddles against him, and say,

‘Woe to the one multiplying what is not unto him.

Until when

will will he load on humself many pledges?’

7Will not your creditors suddenly rise up,

and your oppressors awaken?

And you will become as plunder for them!

8Because you have plundered many nations,

all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you

for the bloodshed of man

and the violence to the land,

to the city and all those dwelling in it!

9Woe to the one biting off

evil gain for his house,

to set his nest in the heights,

that he may be delivered from the hand of evil!

10You have devised shame for your house,

cutting off many peoples,

and sinning against your soul.†

11For a stone from the wall will cry out,

and a beam from the timbers will answer it:

12Woe to the one building a city with bloodshed,

and who establishes a town by injustice!

13Behold, Is it not from YHWH of Hosts

that the labor of the people is for feeding the fire,

and nations only in vain weary themselves?

14For the earth will be filled

to know the glory of YHWH,

as the waters cover over the sea.

15Woe to the one giving drink to his neighbor,

pouring out your rage and even to make him drunk,

in order to look upon his nakedness!

16You have been filled with shame instead of glory.

Drink, you also,

and expose your uncircumcision.†

It will turn around upon you—

the cup of the right hand of YHWH,

and disgrace be upon your glory.

17For the violence to Lebanon will cover you,

and the destruction of the beasts will terrify them,

from the bloodshed of man

and the violence to the land,

to the city and all those dwelling in it.

18What profit is an image

when its fashioner has carved it,

a molten image

and a teacher of falsehood?

For the one fashioning trusts upon it in his fashioning,

making mute idols.

19Woe to the one saying to the wood, ‘Awake!’

Or to a stone of silence, ‘Arise!’

Can it give instruction?

Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,

and not any breath is within it.”

20And YHWH is in the temple of His holiness;

let all the earth be silent before Him.