1I stand at my watch, and station myself on the watch-tower, and wait to see what He says to me, and what to answer when I am reproved.

2And יהוה answered me and said, “Write the vision and inscribe it on tablets, so that he who reads it runs.

3“For the vision is yet for an appointed time, and it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it lingers, wait for it, for it shall certainly come, it shall not delay.

4“See, he whose being is not upright in him is puffed up. But the righteous one lives by his steadfastness.

5“And also, because wine betrays him, a man is proud, and he does not stay at home. Because he enlarges his appetite as the grave, and he is like death, and is not satisfied, and gathers to himself all nations and heaps up for himself all peoples.

6“Shall not all these lift up a proverb against him, and a mocking riddle against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases what is not his! Till when is he to load on himself many pledges’?

7“Do not your creditors rise up suddenly? And those who make you tremble wake up and you be plunder for them?

8“Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the people shall plunder you, because of men’s blood, and doing violence to the land, to the city, and to all who dwell in it.

9“Woe to him who is getting evil gain for his house, in order to set his nest on high, to escape the clutches of evil!

10“You have counselled shame for your house, to cut off many peoples, and your being is sinning.

11“For a stone from the wall cries out, and a beam from the timbers answers it.

12“Woe to him who builds a town by blood, and establishes a city by unrighteousness!

13“See, it is not from יהוה of hosts that peoples labour only for fire, and nations weary themselves for naught,

14for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the esteem of יהוה, as the waters cover the seaa!

15“Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbour, pouring out your wineskin, and also making him drunk – in order to look on their nakedness!

16“You shall be filled with shame instead of esteem. Drink, you too, and be exposed as uncircumcised! The cup of the right hand of יהוה shall come around to you, and great shame upon your esteem.

17“For the violence done to Leḇanon is to overwhelm you – and the ravaging of beasts by which you made them afraid – because of men’s blood and the violence to the land, to the city and of all who dwell in it.

18“Of what use shall a carved image be? For its maker has carved it: a moulded image and teacher of falsehood! For the maker trusts what he has made: to make dumb idols!

19“Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ to silent stone, ‘Arise!’ Is it a teacher? See, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no spirit at all inside it.

20“But יהוה is in His set-apart Hĕḵal. Let all the earth be silent before Him.”