Woe to Jerusalem

29 Ah! Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped!

• Add year to year,
  • let festivals recur.
  • 2 Yet[fn] I will inflict Ariel, and there shall be mourning and lamentation,
  • and it shall be to me like an altar hearth.[fn]
  • 3 And I will encamp in a circle[fn] against you, and I will lay siege to you with towers[fn]
  • and I will raise up siegeworks against you.
  • 4 Then[fn] you shall be low; you shall speak from the earth,
  • and your words[fn] will be low, from dust.
• And your voice will be from the earth, like a ghost,
  • and your word will whisper from the dust.
  • 5 But[fn] the multitude of your strangers shall be like fine dust, and the multitude of tyrants like chaff that passes by.
    

And it will happen in an instant, suddenly.

6 You will be punished by Yahweh of hosts

• with thunder and earthquake and great sound,
  • storm wind and tempest and the flame of a devouring fire.
  • 7 And the multitude of all the nations who fight against Ariel, all those who fight against her and her stronghold,
    • and those who inflict her shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.
  • 8 And it shall be as when the hungry person dreams—look, he is eating! And he wakes up and his inner self is empty. Or[fn] as when the thirsty person dreams—look, he is drinking! And he wakes up and look, he is faint, and his inner self is longing for water.
    

So shall be the multitude of all the nations who fight against Mount Zion.

• 9 Be astonished and be amazed! Blind yourselves and be blinded!
• They are drunk but[fn] not from wine;
  • they stagger but[fn] not from strong drink.
  • 10 For Yahweh has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and he has shut your eyes, the prophets,
  • and he has covered your heads, the seers.
  
  

11 And the vision of all this has become for you like the words of a sealed document.

• When they give it to one who knows the[fn] document, saying, “ Read[fn] this now!” He says, “I am not able, for it is sealed.”
  • 12 And if the document is given to one who does not know how to read ,[fn] saying, “ Read[fn] this now!” he says, “I do not know how to read .”[fn]
  
  

13 And the Lord said,

• “Because this people draw near with its mouth,
  • and with its lips it honors me,
• and its heart is far from me,
  • and their fear of me is a commandment of men that has been taught,
  
  

14 therefore look, I am again doing something spectacular and a spectacle with this spectacular people.

• And the wisdom of its wise men shall perish,
  • and the discernment of its discerning ones shall keep itself hidden.”
  • 15 Ah! Those who make a plan deep, to hide it from Yahweh, and their deeds are[fn] in a dark place.
• And they say, “Who sees us?
  • And who knows us?”
  
  

16 Your perversity!

• As if a potter[fn] shall be regarded as the clay! That the product of its maker says, “He did not make me,”
  • and the thing made into shape says of its potter ,[fn] “He has no understanding.”