Tanakh & Talmud. Various Authors

and the spoiler spoileth.Go up, O Elam! besiege, O Media!All the sighing thereof have I made to cease.'³Therefore are my loins filled with convulsion;Pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman in travail;I am bent so that I cannot hear;I am affrighted so that I cannot see.⁴My heart is bewildered, terror hath overwhelmed me;The twilight that I longed for hath been turned for me into trembling.⁵They prepare the table, they light the lamps, they eat, they drink—'Rise up, ye princes, anoint the shield.' ⁶For thus hath the Lord said unto me:Go, set a watchman; let him declare what he seeth!⁷And when he seeth a troop, horsemen by pairs,A troop of asses, a troop of camels,He shall hearken diligently with much heed.⁸And he cried as a lion: 'Upon the watch-tower, O Lord,I stand continually in the day-time,And I am set in my ward all the nights.'⁹And, behold, there came a troop of men, horsemen by pairs.And he spoke and said:'Fallen, fallen is Babylon;And all the graven images of her gods are broken unto the ground.'¹⁰O thou my threshing, and the winnowing of my floor,That which I have heard from the Lord of hosts,The God of Israel, have I declared unto you.

       ¹¹The burden of Dumah.

      One calleth unto me out of Seir:'Watchman, what of the night?Watchman, what of the night?'¹²The watchman said:'The morning cometh, and also the night—If ye will inquire, inquire ye; return, come.'

       ¹³The burden upon Arabia.

      In the thickets in Arabia shall ye lodge, O ye caravans of Dedanites.¹⁴Unto him that is thirsty bring ye water!The inhabitants of the land of Tema did meet the fugitive with his bread.¹⁵For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword,And from the bent bow, and from the grievousness of war.

      ¹⁶For thus hath the Lord said unto me: 'Within a year, according to the years of a hireling, and all the glory of Kedar shall fail; ¹⁷and the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, shall be diminished; for the Lord, the God of Israel, hath spoken it.'

       22The burden concerning the Valley of Vision.

      What aileth thee now, that thou art wholly gone up to the housetops,²Thou that art full of uproar, a tumultuous city, a joyous town?Thy slain are not slain with the sword, nor dead in battle.³All thy rulers are fled together,Without the bow they are bound;All that are found of thee are bound together, they are fled afar off.⁴Therefore said I: 'Look away from me, I will weep bitterly;Strain not to comfort me, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.'⁵For it is a day of trouble, and of trampling, and of perplexity,From the Lord, the God of hosts, in the Valley of Vision;Kir shouting, and Shoa at the mount.⁶And Elam bore the quiver, with troops of men, even horsemen;And Kir uncovered the shield.⁷And it came to pass, when thy choicest valleys were full of chariots,And the horsemen set themselves in array at the gate,⁸And the covering of Judah was laid bare,

      that thou didst look in that day to the armour in the house of the forest. ⁹And ye saw the breaches of the city of David, that they were many; and ye gathered together the waters of the lower pool. ¹⁰And ye numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and ye broke down the houses to fortify the wall; ¹¹ye made also a basin between the two walls for the water of the old pool—

      But ye looked not unto Him that had done this,Neither had ye respect unto Him that fashioned it long ago.¹²And in that day did the Lord, the God of hosts, callTo weeping, and to lamentation, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth;¹³And behold joy and gladness,Slaying oxen and killing sheep,Eating flesh and drinking wine—'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die!'¹⁴And the Lord of hosts revealed Himself in mine ears:Surely this iniquity shall not be expiated by you till ye die,Saith the Lord, the God of hosts. ¹⁵Thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts:Go, get thee unto this steward,Even unto Shebna, who is over the house:¹⁶What hast thou here, and whom hast thou here,That thou hast hewed thee out here a sepulchre,Thou that hewest thee out a sepulchre on high,And gravest a habitation for thyself in the rock?¹⁷Behold, the Lord will hurl thee up and down with a man's throw;Yea, He will wind thee round and round;¹⁸He will violently roll and toss thee like a ball into a large country;There shalt thou die, and there shall be the chariots of thy glory,Thou shame of the lord's house.¹⁹And I will thrust thee from thy post,And from thy station shalt thou be pulled down.²⁰And it shall come to pass in that day,That I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah;²¹And I will clothe him with thy robe,And bind him with thy girdle,And I will commit thy government into his hand;And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.²²And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder;And he shall open, and none shall shut;And he shall shut, and none shall open.²³And I will fasten him as a peg in a sure place;And he shall be for a throne of honour to his father's house.

      ²⁴And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups even to all the vessels of flagons. ²⁵In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall the peg that was fastened in a sure place give way; and it shall be hewn down, and fall, and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off; for the Lord hath spoken it.

       23The burden of Tyre.

      Howl, ye ships of Tarshish,For it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in;From the land of Kittim it is revealed to them.²Be still, ye inhabitants of the coast-land;Thou whom the merchants of Zidon, that pass over the sea, have replenished.³And on great waters the seed of Shihor,The harvest of the Nile, was her revenue;And she was the mart of nations.⁴Be thou ashamed, O Zidon; for the sea hath spoken,The stronghold of the sea, saying:'I have not travailed, nor brought forth,Neither have I reared young men, nor brought up virgins.'⁵When the report cometh to Egypt,They shall be sorely pained at the report of Tyre. ⁶Pass ye over to Tarshish; howl, ye inhabitants of the coast-land.⁷Is this your joyous city,Whose feet in antiquity,In ancient days,Carried her afar off to sojourn?⁸Who hath devised this against Tyre, the crowning city,Whose merchants are princes,Whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth?⁹The Lord of hosts hath devised it,To pollute the pride of all glory,To bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth.¹⁰Overflow thy land as the Nile,O daughter of Tarshish! there is no girdle any more.¹¹He hath stretched out His hand over the sea,He hath shaken the kingdoms;The Lord hath given commandment concerning Canaan,To destroy the strongholds thereof;¹²And He said: 'Thou shalt no more rejoice.'O thou oppressed virgin daughter of Zidon,Arise, pass over to Kittim;Even there shalt thou have no rest.

      ¹³Behold, the land of the Chaldeans—this is the people that was not, when Asshur founded it for shipmen—they set up their towers, they overthrew the palaces thereof; it is made a ruin.

      ¹⁴Howl, ye ships of Tarshish,For your stronghold is laid waste.

       ¹⁵And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king; after the end of seventy years it shall fare with Tyre as in the song of the harlot:

      ¹⁶Take a harp,Go about the city,Thou harlot long forgotten;Make sweet melody,Sing many songs,That thou mayest be remembered.

      ¹⁷And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the Lord will remember Tyre, and she shall return to her hire, and shall have commerce with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth. ¹⁸And her gain and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord; it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her gain shall be for them that dwell before the Lord, to eat their fill, and for stately clothing.

      24Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty and maketh it waste,And turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.²And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest;As with the servant, so with his master;As with the maid, so with her mistress;As with the buyer, so with the seller;As with the lender, so with the borrower;As with the creditor, so with the debtor.³The earth shall be utterly emptied, and clean despoiled;For the Lord hath spoken this word.⁴The earth fainteth and fadeth