12Their banquets are accompanied by lyre and harp, by tambourine and flute, and by wine;
         But they do not pay attention to the deeds of the LORD,
         Nor do they consider the work of His hands.

13Therefore My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge;
         And their honorable men are famished,
         And their multitude is parched with thirst.

14Therefore Sheol has enlarged its throat and opened its mouth without measure;
         And Jerusalem’s splendor, her multitude, her din of revelry and the jubilant within her, descend into it.

15So the common man will be humbled and the man of importance abased,
         The eyes of the proud also will be abased.

16But the LORD of hosts will be exalted in judgment,
         And the holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness.

17Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture,
         And strangers will eat in the waste places of the wealthy.

18Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood,
         And sin as if with cart ropes;

19Who say, “Let Him make speed, let Him hasten His work, that we may see it;
         And let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near
         And come to pass, that we may know it!”

20Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
         Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
         Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

21Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
         And clever in their own sight!

22Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine
         And valiant men in mixing strong drink,

23Who justify the wicked for a bribe,
         And take away the rights of the ones who are in the right!

24Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble
         And dry grass collapses into the flame,
         So their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust;
         For they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts
         And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

25On this account the anger of the LORD has burned against His people,
         And He has stretched out His hand against them and struck them down.
         And the mountains quaked, and their corpses lay like refuse in the middle of the streets.
         For all this His anger is not spent,
         But His hand is still stretched out.

26He will also lift up a standard to the distant nation,
         And will whistle for it from the ends of the earth;
         And behold, it will come with speed swiftly.

27No one in it is weary or stumbles,
         None slumbers or sleeps;
         Nor is the belt at its waist undone,
         Nor its sandal strap broken.

28Its arrows are sharp and all its bows are bent;
         The hoofs of its horses seem like flint and its chariot wheels like a whirlwind.

29Its roaring is like a lioness, and it roars like young lions;
         It growls as it seizes the prey
         And carries it off with no one to deliver it.

30And it will growl over it in that day like the roaring of the sea.
         If one looks to the land, behold, there is darkness and distress;
         Even the light is darkened by its clouds.

NASB ©1995

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