Woe to Ariel! Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year, let the feasts come around;
then I will distress Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation. She will be to me as an altar hearth.
I will encamp against you all around you and will lay siege against you with posted troops. I will raise siege works against you.
You will be brought down and will speak out of the ground. Your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will be as of one who has a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and your speech will whisper out of the dust.
But the multitude of your foes will be like fine dust, and the multitude of the ruthless ones like chaff that blows away. Yes, it will be in an instant, suddenly.
She will be visited by Yahweh of Armies with thunder, with earthquake, with great noise, with whirlwind and storm and with the flame of a devouring fire.
The multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all who fight against her and her stronghold and who distress her will be like a dream, a vision of the night.
It will be like when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he eats, but he awakes and his hunger isn’t satisfied; or like when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he drinks, but he awakes, and behold, he is faint, and he is still thirsty. The multitude of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion will be like that.
Pause and wonder! Blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with beer.
For Yahweh has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets; and he has covered your heads, the seers.
All vision has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed, which men give to one who is educated, saying, “Read this, please,” and he says, “I cannot, because it is sealed,”
and the book is given to one who is not educated, saying, “Read this, please,” and he says, “I am not able to read.”
The Lord said, “Because this people draws near with their mouth and with their lips to honor me, but they have moved their heart far away from me and their fear of me is a commandment of men that has been taught,
therefore, behold, I am going to do wonders among this people, wonder upon wonder, and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their prudent men will be hidden.”
Woe to those who deeply hide their counsel from Yahweh and whose works are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us?” and “Who knows us?”
You turn things upside down! Should the potter be considered like the clay, that the thing made should say about the one who made it, “He did not make me,” or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding?”
Is it not yet only a very little while and Lebanon will be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field will be regarded as a forest?
In that day the deaf will hear the words of a book, and the eyes of the blind will see out of obscurity and out of darkness.
The afflicted will find joy in Yahweh once again, and the poor among humankind will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
For the ruthless person will be brought to nothing, and the scoffer will cease, and all those who watch for an opportunity to do evil will be cut off—
those who by a word make a person out to be an offender and lay a snare for the one who arbitrates at the city gate, and who deprive the innocent of justice by false testimony.
Therefore this is what Yahweh, who redeemed Abraham, says concerning the house of Jacob: “Jacob will no longer be ashamed, nor will his face grow pale.
But when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in his midst, they will keep my name holy; they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
And those who err in spirit will come to understanding, and those who grumble will accept instruction.”