Ésaïe 22

The valley of vision

¹An oracle about the valley of vision. \q What is wrong with you now, \q that all of you have climbed up onto the roofs?^{a 2}You are full of shouting, a city in uproar, a town in high spirits. \q Your dead were not cut down by the sword or killed in battle. ³All your leaders ran away together and were taken prisoner without a bow being drawn. \q All of you who were found were captured together, though they had fled far away.^{b 4}So I said, “Turn your eyes away from me; leave me to my bitter weeping. \q Do not rush to comfort me \q for the ruin of the daughter of my people.” ⁵For the Lord GOD of Armies brings a day of panic and trampling and confusion to the valley of vision, \q a day when walls are broken through and cries ring out toward the mountain.^{c 6}Elam shouldered its quiver, with chariots, men and horsemen, \q and Kir stripped the cover from its shield. ⁷Your finest valleys were filled with chariots, \q and horsemen took up their stations at the gates. ⁸Judah’s covering was torn off, \q and on that day you turned your eyes to the weapons in the House of the Forest. ⁹You saw how many breaches there were in the city of David, \q and you gathered in the water of the lower pool. ¹⁰You numbered the houses of Jerusalem \q and broke some of them down to make the wall stronger. ¹¹Between the two walls you made a basin to hold the water of the old pool. \q But you never looked to its maker, \q or paid heed to the one who formed it long ago. ¹²On that day the Lord GOD of Armies called \q for weeping and lament, \q for shaved heads and for the wearing of sackcloth. ¹³Instead, there was feasting and merriment, cattle killed and sheep butchered, \q meat eaten and wine poured. \q “Let us eat and drink,” you said, “because tomorrow we will die!” ¹⁴The LORD of Armies has made himself known to my ears: \q This guilt of yours will never be atoned for until the day you die, \q says the Lord GOD of Armies.

Shebna and Eliakim

¹⁵The Lord GOD of Armies says this: \q “Go to this steward, \q to Shebna, who is in charge of the palace, and say to him, ¹⁶‘What right do you have here, and who are your relatives here, \q that you have hewn a tomb for yourself here? \q He carves his grave high on the hill \q and hollows out a home for himself in the rock! ¹⁷Look out, you strong man! \q The LORD is going to fling you far away \q and grip you hard. ¹⁸He will wind you round and round and fling you like a ball \q into a broad, open country. \q There you will die, and there your splendid chariots will stay, \q you disgrace to your master’s house! ¹⁹I will drive you out of your office, \q and he will pull you down from your post. ²⁰When that day comes, I will call for my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah. ²¹I will dress him in your robe and bind your sash on him. I will place your authority in his hand, and he will be a father to the people of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. ²²I will lay the key of the house of David on his shoulder. When he opens, no one will close; when he closes, no one will open. ²³I will drive him in like a peg where the ground holds fast, and he will be a seat of honor for his father’s house. ²⁴They will hang on him the whole weight of his father’s family, its children and its descendants, every small vessel, from basins to every storage jar. ²⁵On that day, declares the LORD of Armies, the peg fixed in a secure place will work loose. It will be hacked off and fall, and everything it held will be cut away, for the LORD has spoken.’”^d