Isaiah 22
An Oracle Concerning Jerusalem
[1] The oracle concerning the valley of vision.
What do you mean that you have gone up,
all of you, to the housetops,
[2] you who are full of shoutings,
tumultuous city, exultant town?
Your slain are not slain with the sword
or dead in battle.
[3] All 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.
[4] Therefore 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.”
[5] For 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.
[6] And Elam bore the quiver
with chariots and horsemen,
and Kir uncovered the shield.
[7] Your choicest valleys were full of chariots,
and the horsemen took their stand at the gates.
[8] He has taken away the covering of Judah.
In that day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest, [9] and you saw that the breaches of the city of David were many. You collected the waters of the lower pool, [10] and you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. [11] You 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.
[12] In that day the Lord GOD of hosts
called for weeping and mourning,
for baldness and wearing sackcloth;
[13] and behold, joy and gladness,
killing oxen and slaughtering sheep,
eating flesh and drinking wine.
“Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.”
[14] The 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.
[15] Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him: [16] What 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? [17] Behold, the LORD will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you [18] and 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. [19] I will thrust you from your office, and you will be pulled down from your station. [20] In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, [21] and 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. [22] And 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. [23] And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house. [24] And 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. [25] In 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.” (ESV)
