Isaiah 22

¹The oracle concerning the valley of vision . What do you mean that you have gone up , all of you, to the housetops ,

²you who are full of shoutings , tumultuous city , exultant town ? Your slain are not slain with the sword or dead in battle .

³All your leaders have fled together ; without the bow they were captured . All of you who were found were captured , though they had fled far away .

⁴Therefore I said : Look away from me; let me weep bitter tears ; do not labor to comfort me concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people .

⁵For the Lord God of hosts has a day of tumult and trampling and confusion in the valley of vision , a battering down of walls and a shouting to the mountains .

⁶And Elam bore the quiver with chariots and horsemen , and Kir uncovered the shield .

⁷Your choicest valleys were full of chariots , and the horsemen took their stand at the gates .

⁸He has taken away the covering of Judah . In that day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest ,

⁹and you saw that the breaches of the city of David were many . You collected the waters of the lower pool ,

¹⁰and you counted the houses of Jerusalem , and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall .

¹¹You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool . But you did not look to him who did it , or see him who planned it long ago .

¹²In that day the Lord God of hosts called for weeping and mourning , for baldness and wearing sackcloth ;

¹³and behold , joy and gladness , killing oxen and slaughtering sheep , eating flesh and drinking wine . Let us eat and drink , for tomorrow we die .

¹⁴The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears : Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die , says the Lord God of hosts .

¹⁵Thus says the Lord God of hosts , Come , go to this steward , to Shebna , who is over the household , and say to him:

¹⁶What have you to do here , and whom have you here , that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock ?

¹⁷Behold , the Lord will hurl you away violently , O you strong man . He will seize firm hold on you

¹⁸and whirl you around and around , and throw you like a ball into a wide land . There you shall die , and there shall be your glorious chariots , you shame of your master’s house .

¹⁹I will thrust you from your office , and you will be pulled down from your station .

²⁰In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah ,

²¹and I will clothe him with your robe , and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand . And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah .

²²And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David . He shall open , and none shall shut ; and he shall shut , and none shall open .

²³And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place , and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house .

²⁴And they will hang on him the whole honor of his father’s house , the offspring and issue , every small vessel , from the cups to all the flagons .

²⁵In that day , declares the Lord of hosts , the peg that was fastened in a secure place will give way , and it will be cut down and fall , and the load that was on it will be cut off , for the Lord has spoken .