⁷ The way of the righteous is level;
Righteous One, you smooth the path for the righteous.
⁸ Following the way of your judgments,
we put our hope in you.
The desire of all our soul
is to remember you and your name.
⁹ My soul desires you at night,
my spirit in me seeks you at dawn;
for when your judgments are here on earth,
the people in the world learn what righteousness is.
¹⁰ Even if pity is shown to the wicked,
he still doesn’t learn what righteousness is.
In a land of uprightness he will still act wrongly
and fail to see the majesty of Adonai.
¹¹ Adonai, you raised your hand,
but they still didn’t see.
Yet with shame they will see your zeal for the people.
Yes, fire will destroy your enemies.
¹² Adonai, you will grant us peace;
because all we have done, you have done for us.
¹³ Adonai our God, other lords
besides you have ruled us,
but only you do we invoke
by name.
¹⁴ The dead will not live again,
the ghosts will not rise again;
for you punished and destroyed them,
wiped out all memory of them.
¹⁵ You enlarged the nation, Adonai,
you enlarged the nation;
and thus you glorified yourself;
you extended all the frontiers of the country.
¹⁶ Adonai, when they were troubled,
they sought you.
When you chastened them,
they poured out a silent prayer.
¹⁷ As a pregnant woman about to give birth
cries out and writhes in her labor pains,
so we have been at your presence, Adonai —
¹⁸ we have been pregnant and been in pain.
But we, as it were, have given birth to wind;
we have not brought salvation to the land,
and those inhabiting the world have not come to life.
¹⁹ Your dead will live, my corpses will rise;
awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust;
for your dew is like the morning dew,
and the earth will bring the ghosts to life.

²⁰ Come, my people, enter your rooms,
and shut your doors behind you.
Hide yourselves for a little while
until the wrath is past.
²¹ For see! Adonai emerges from his place
to punish those on earth for their sin.
Then the earth will reveal the blood shed on it
and no longer conceal its slain.

27 On that day Adonai,
with his great, strong, relentless sword,
will punish Livyatan the fleeing serpent,
the twisting serpent Livyatan;
he will slay the sea monster.

² On that day, a pleasant vineyard —
sing about it!

³ “I, Adonai, guard it.
Moment to moment I water it.
So that no harm will come to it,
I guard it night and day.
⁴ I have no anger in me.
If it gives me briars and thorns,
then, as in war, I will trample it down
and burn it up at once;
⁵ unless it takes hold of my strength,
in order to make peace with me,
yes, to make peace with me.”

⁶ The time is coming when Ya‘akov will take root;
Isra’el will bud and flower,
and fill the whole world with a harvest.
⁷ [Adonai] will not strike Isra’el,
as he did others who struck Isra’el;
he will not kill them,
as he did the others.
⁸ Your controversy with her is fully resolved
by sending her [into exile].
He removes her with a rough gust of wind
on a day when it’s blowing from the east.
⁹ So the iniquity of Ya‘akov is atoned for by this,
and removing his sin produces this result:
he chops up all the altar stones like chalk —
sacred poles and sun-pillars stand no more.
¹⁰ For the fortified city is alone,
abandoned and deserted, like the desert.
Calves graze and lie down there,
stripping its branches bare.
¹¹ When its harvest dries up, it is broken off;
women come and set it on fire.
For this is a people without understanding.
Therefore he who made them will not pity them,
he who formed them will show them no mercy.

¹² On that day Adonai will beat out the grain
between the Euphrates River and the Vadi of Egypt;
and you will be gathered, one by one,
people of Isra’el!

¹³ On that day a great shofar will sound.
Those lost in the land of Ashur will come,
also those scattered through the land of Egypt;
and they will worship Adonai
on the holy mountain in Yerushalayim.

28 Woe to the haughty crown of Efrayim’s drunks,
to the fading flower of its proud splendor,
located at the head of the rich valley
belonging to people overcome by wine!
² Adonai has someone strong and powerful.
He comes like a hailstorm, a destructive tempest,
like a flood of water, rushing, overwhelming;
with his hand he hurls them to the ground.
³ The haughty crown of Efrayim’s drunks
is trampled underfoot;
⁴ and the fading flower of its proud splendor,
located at the head of the rich valley,
is like the first ripe fig of summer —
whoever sees it picks and eats it.
⁵ On that day, Adonai-Tzva’ot
will be a glorious crown,
a brilliant diadem
for the remnant of his people.
⁶ He will also be a spirit of justice
for whoever sits as a judge,
and a source of strength for those
repelling enemy attacks at the gate.

⁷ But there are others reeling from wine,
staggering about because of strong liquor;
cohen and prophet reel from strong liquor,
they are confused by wine.
Led astray by strong liquor,
they err in their visions and stumble when judging.
⁸ All tables are covered with vomit and feces,
not a single place is clean.
⁹ Can no one be taught anything?
Can no one understand the message?
Must one teach barely weaned toddlers,
babies just taken from the breast,
¹⁰ so that [one has to use nursery rhymes]? —
Tzav la-tzav, tzav la-tzav,
kav la-kav, kav la-kav
z‘eir sham, z‘eir sham
[Precept by precept, precept by precept,
line by line, line by line,
a little here, a little there].
¹¹ So with stammering lips, in a foreign accent,
[Adonai] will speak to this people.
¹² He once told this people, “It’s time to rest,
the exhausted can rest, now you can relax” —
but they wouldn’t listen.
¹³ So now the word of Adonai for them comes
“precept by precept, precept by precept,
line by line, line by line,
a little here, a little there,”
so that when they walk, they stumble backward,
and are broken, trapped and captured!

²² Therefore, here are the words of Adonai, who redeemed Avraham, concerning the house of Ya‘akov:
“Ya‘akov will no longer be ashamed,
no longer will his face grow pale.
²³ When his descendants see the work of my hands
among them, they will consecrate my name.
Yes, they will consecrate the Holy one of Ya‘akov
and stand in awe of the God of Isra’el.