The character and fate of Jerusalem

The fate of Jerusalem

Initial check

29 Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel,

city where David encamped.

Let one or two years pass by,

a cycle of festivals more,

2 and distress I will bring upon Ariel,

moaning and lamentation,

and you will be Ariel indeed.

3 I will camp, like David, against you,

and circle there round with entrenchments,

and set up forts against you.

4 And low from the ground you will speak,

and your words from the dust will rise humbly

with voice like a ghost’s from the ground,

with twittering speech from the dust.

5 But the horde of your foes will become like fine dust,

and the horde of the tyrants like flying chaff.

Then swiftly and suddenly

6 the Lord of Hosts will visit you

with thunder and with earthquake,

and with din stupendous,

with whirlwind and with tempest,

and flame of devouring fire.

7 But the horde of all the nations

that fight against Ariel,

with all their entrenchments and forts

and all the hosts that distress her,

will be as a dream, as a vision of night.

8 Like a man who is hungry, who dreams that he eats

and wakes to find his desire unappeased;

like a man who is thirsty, who dreams that he drinks,

and wakes all faint, with his thirst unquenched:

even so will it be with the horde of all nations

that fight against Mount Zion.

The spiritual torpor and religious formality of the people

9 Utterly dazed you will be,

utterly blind you will be,

and drunken, though not with wine,

reeling, though not with strong drink.

10 For the Lord has poured upon you

a spirit of slumber deep;

the prophets, your eyes, he has sealed,

the seers, your heads, he has covered,

11 so that the sight of all this is to you

as the words on a scroll that is sealed.

If put into the hands of a scholar with the request that he read it, he will reply, ‘I cannot, it is sealed.’ 12 If, however, it be put into the hands of a man who is no scholar, with the request that he read it, he will reply, ‘I cannot, I am no scholar.’

13 And the Lord said:

because these people praise me with words,

honouring me with their lips,

while their hearts are far away –

their religion only a mockery,

formulate learned by rote –

14 I will deal with them therefore once more

in a fashion so wondrous strange

that their wise men’s wisdom will perish,

their prudent men’s prudence will vanish.

15 Woe to them who conceal

from the Lord their deep designs,

doing their deeds in the dark,

unseen, unperceived – so they think!