“We have a strong city;
^(B)God will appoint salvation for walls and bulwarks.
^2 (C)Open the gates,
That the righteous nation which ^[a]keeps the truth may enter in.
³ You will keep him in perfect ^(D)peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
⁴ Trust in the Lord forever,
^(E)For in Yah, the Lord, is ^[b]everlasting strength.
⁵ For He brings ^[c]down those who dwell on high,
^(F)The lofty city;
He lays it low,
He lays it low to the ground,
He brings it down to the dust.
⁶ The foot shall ^[d]tread it down—
The feet of the poor
And the steps of the needy.”

⁷ The way of the just is uprightness;
^(G)O Most Upright,
You ^[e]weigh the path of the just.
⁸ Yes, ^(H)in the way of Your judgments,
O Lord, we have ^(I)waited for You;
The desire of our soul is for Your name
And for the remembrance of You.
^9 (J)With my soul I have desired You in the night,
Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early;
For when Your judgments are in the earth,
The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

^10 (K)Let grace be shown to the wicked,
Yet he will not learn righteousness;
In ^(L)the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly,
And will not behold the majesty of the Lord.
¹¹ Lord, when Your hand is lifted up, ^(M)they will not see.
But they will see and be ashamed
For ^[f]their envy of people;
Yes, the fire of Your enemies shall devour them.

¹² Lord, You will establish peace for us,
For You have also done all our works ^[g]in us.
¹³ O Lord our God, ^(N)masters besides You
Have had dominion over us;
But by You only we make mention of Your name.
¹⁴ They are dead, they will not live;
They are deceased, they will not rise.
Therefore You have punished and destroyed them,
And made all their memory to ^(O)perish.
¹⁵ You have increased the nation, O Lord,
You have ^(P)increased the nation;
You are glorified;
You have expanded all the ^[h]borders of the land.

¹⁶ Lord, ^(Q)in trouble they have visited You,
They poured out a prayer when Your chastening was upon them.
¹⁷ As ^(R)a woman with child
Is in pain and cries out in her ^[i]pangs,
When she draws near the time of her delivery,
So have we been in Your sight, O Lord.
¹⁸ We have been with child, we have been in pain;
We have, as it were, ^[j]brought forth wind;
We have not accomplished any deliverance in the earth,
Nor have ^(S)the inhabitants of the world fallen.

^19 (T)Your dead shall live;
Together with ^[k]my dead body they shall arise.
^(U)Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust;
For your dew is like the dew of herbs,
And the earth shall cast out the dead.

⁶ Those who come He shall cause ^(I)to take root in Jacob;
Israel shall blossom and bud,
And fill the face of the world with fruit.

^7 (J)Has He struck ^[b]Israel as He struck those who struck him?
Or has He been slain according to the slaughter of those who were slain by Him?
^8 (K)In measure, by sending it away,
You contended with it.
^(L)He removes it by His rough wind
In the day of the east wind.
⁹ Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be covered;
And this is all the fruit of taking away his sin:
When he makes all the stones of the altar
Like chalkstones that are beaten to dust,
^[c]Wooden images and incense altars shall not stand.

¹⁰ Yet the fortified city will be ^(M)desolate,
The habitation forsaken and left like a wilderness;
There the calf will feed, and there it will lie down
And consume its branches.
¹¹ When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off;
The women come and set them on fire.
For ^(N)it is a people of no understanding;
Therefore He who made them will ^(O)not have mercy on them,
And ^(P)He who formed them will show them no favor.

¹² And it shall come to pass in that day
That the Lord will thresh,
From the channel of ^[d]the River to the Brook of Egypt;
And you will be ^(Q)gathered one by one,
O you children of Israel.

^13 (R)So it shall be in that day:
^(S)The great trumpet will be blown;
They will come, who are about to perish in the land of Assyria,
And they who are outcasts in the land of ^(T)Egypt,
And shall ^(U)worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem.

⁵ In that day the Lord of hosts will be
For a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty
To the remnant of His people,
⁶ For a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment,
And for strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.

⁷ But they also ^(B)have erred through wine,
And through intoxicating drink are out of the way;
^(C)The priest and the prophet have erred through intoxicating drink,
They are swallowed up by wine,
They are out of the way through intoxicating drink;
They err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
⁸ For all tables are full of vomit and filth;
No place is clean.

⁹ “Whom^(D) will he teach knowledge?
And whom will he make to understand the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just drawn from the breasts?
^10 (E)For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little.”

¹¹ For with ^(F)stammering lips and another tongue
He will speak to this people,
¹² To whom He said, “This is the ^(G)rest with which
You may cause the weary to rest,”
And, “This is the refreshing”;
Yet they would not hear.
¹³ But the word of the Lord was to them,
“Precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little,”
That they might go and fall backward, and be broken
And snared and caught.

¹⁴ Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men,
Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem,
¹⁵ Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death,
And with Sheol we are in agreement.
When the overflowing scourge passes through,
It will not come to us,
^(H)For we have made lies our refuge,
And under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.”

“Behold, I lay in Zion ^(I)a stone for a foundation,
A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation;
Whoever believes will not act hastily.
¹⁷ Also I will make justice the measuring line,
And righteousness the plummet;
The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies,
And the waters will overflow the hiding place.
¹⁸ Your covenant with death will be annulled,
And your agreement with Sheol will not stand;
When the overflowing scourge passes through,
Then you will be trampled down by it.
¹⁹ As often as it goes out it will take you;
For morning by morning it will pass over,
And by day and by night;
It will be a terror just to understand the report.”

²⁰ For the bed is too short to stretch out on,
And the covering so narrow that one cannot wrap himself in it.
²¹ For the Lord will rise up as at Mount ^(J)Perazim,
He will be angry as in the Valley of ^(K)Gibeon—
That He may do His work, ^(L)His awesome work,
And bring to pass His act, His ^[c]unusual act.
²² Now therefore, do not be mockers,
Lest your bonds be made strong;
For I have heard from the Lord God of hosts,
^(M)A ^[d]destruction determined even upon the whole earth.

²⁷ For the black cummin is not threshed with a threshing sledge,
Nor is a cartwheel rolled over the cummin;
But the black cummin is beaten out with a stick,
And the cummin with a rod.
²⁸ Bread flour must be ground;
Therefore he does not thresh it forever,
Break it with his cartwheel,
Or crush it with his horsemen.
²⁹ This also comes from the Lord of hosts,
^(N)Who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in ^[f]guidance.