⁷ The rich rule over the poor,
    and the borrower is slave to the lender.

⁸ Whoever sows injustice reaps calamity,
    and the rod they wield in fury will be broken.

⁹ The generous will themselves be blessed,
    for they share their food with the poor.

¹⁰ Drive out the mocker, and out goes strife;
    quarrels and insults are ended.

¹¹ One who loves a pure heart and who speaks with grace
    will have the king for a friend.

¹² The eyes of the Lord keep watch over knowledge,
    but he frustrates the words of the unfaithful.

¹³ The sluggard says, ‘There’s a lion outside!
    I’ll be killed in the public square!’

¹⁴ The mouth of an adulterous woman is a deep pit;
    a man who is under the Lord’s wrath falls into it.

¹⁵ Folly is bound up in the heart of a child,
    but the rod of discipline will drive it far away.

¹⁶ One who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth
    and one who gives gifts to the rich – both come to poverty.

Like whirlwinds sweeping through the southland,
    an invader comes from the desert,
    from a land of terror.

² A dire vision has been shown to me:
    the traitor betrays, the looter takes loot.
Elam, attack! Media, lay siege!
    I will bring to an end all the groaning she caused.

³ At this my body is racked with pain,
    pangs seize me, like those of a woman in labour;
I am staggered by what I hear,
    I am bewildered by what I see.
⁴ My heart falters,
    fear makes me tremble;
the twilight I longed for
    has become a horror to me.

⁵ They set the tables,
    they spread the rugs,
    they eat, they drink!
Get up, you officers,
    oil the shields!

‘Go, post a lookout
    and let him report what he sees.
⁷ When he sees chariots
    with teams of horses,
riders on donkeys
    or riders on camels,
let him be alert,
    fully alert.’

‘Day after day, my lord, I stand on the watchtower;
    every night I stay at my post.
⁹ Look, here comes a man in a chariot
    with a team of horses.
And he gives back the answer:
    “Babylon has fallen, has fallen!
All the images of its gods
    lie shattered on the ground!”’

¹⁰ My people who are crushed on the threshing-floor,
    I tell you what I have heard
from the Lord Almighty,
    from the God of Israel.

Someone calls to me from Seir,
    ‘Watchman, what is left of the night?
    Watchman, what is left of the night?’
¹² The watchman replies,
    ‘Morning is coming, but also the night.
If you would ask, then ask;
    and come back yet again.’

You caravans of Dedanites,
    who camp in the thickets of Arabia,
¹⁴     bring water for the thirsty;
you who live in Tema,
    bring food for the fugitives.
¹⁵ They flee from the sword,
    from the drawn sword,
from the bent bow
    and from the heat of battle.

What troubles you now,
    that you have all gone up on the roofs,
² you town so full of commotion,
    you city of tumult and revelry?
Your slain were not killed by the sword,
    nor did they die in battle.
³ All your leaders have fled together;
    they have been captured without using the bow.
All you who were caught were taken prisoner together,
    having fled while the enemy was still far away.
⁴ Therefore I said, ‘Turn away from me;
    let me weep bitterly.
Do not try to console me
    over the destruction of my people.’

⁵ The Lord, the Lord Almighty, has a day
    of tumult and trampling and terror
    in the Valley of Vision,
a day of battering down walls
    and of crying out to the mountains.
⁶ Elam takes up the quiver,
    with her charioteers and horses;
    Kir uncovers the shield.
⁷ Your choicest valleys are full of chariots,
    and horsemen are posted at the city gates.

⁸ The Lord stripped away the defences of Judah,
    and you looked in that day
    to the weapons in the Palace of the Forest.
⁹ You saw that the walls of the City of David
    were broken through in many places;
you stored up water
    in the Lower Pool.
¹⁰ You counted the buildings in Jerusalem
    and tore down houses to strengthen the wall.
¹¹ You built a reservoir between the two walls
    for the water of the Old Pool,
but you did not look to the One who made it,
    or have regard for the One who planned it long ago.

¹² The Lord, the Lord Almighty,
    called you on that day
to weep and to wail,
    to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth.
¹³ But see, there is joy and revelry,
    slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep,
    eating of meat and drinking of wine!
‘Let us eat and drink,’ you say,
    ‘for tomorrow we die!’

‘Go, say to this steward,
    to Shebna the palace administrator:
¹⁶ what are you doing here and who gave you permission
    to cut out a grave for yourself here,
hewing your grave on the height
    and chiselling your resting-place in the rock?

¹⁷ ‘Beware, the Lord is about to take firm hold of you
    and hurl you away, you mighty man.
¹⁸ He will roll you up tightly like a ball
    and throw you into a large country.
There you will die
    and there the chariots you were so proud of
    will become a disgrace to your master’s house.
¹⁹ I will depose you from your office,
    and you will be ousted from your position.

Wail, you ships of Tarshish!
    For Tyre is destroyed
    and left without house or harbour.
From the land of Cyprus
    word has come to them.

² Be silent, you people of the island
    and you merchants of Sidon,
    whom the seafarers have enriched.
³ On the great waters
    came the grain of the Shihor;
the harvest of the Nile^[e] was the revenue of Tyre,
    and she became the market-place of the nations.

⁴ Be ashamed, Sidon, and you fortress of the sea,
    for the sea has spoken:
‘I have neither been in labour nor given birth;
    I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters.’
⁵ When word comes to Egypt,
    they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre.

⁶ Cross over to Tarshish;
    wail, you people of the island.
⁷ Is this your city of revelry,
    the old, old city,
whose feet have taken her
    to settle in far-off lands?
⁸ Who planned this against Tyre,
    the bestower of crowns,
whose merchants are princes,
    whose traders are renowned in the earth?
⁹ The Lord Almighty planned it,
    to bring down her pride in all her splendour
    and to humble all who are renowned on the earth.

¹⁰ Till^[f] your land as they do along the Nile,
    Daughter Tarshish,
    for you no longer have a harbour.
¹¹ The Lord has stretched out his hand over the sea
    and made its kingdoms tremble.
He has given an order concerning Phoenicia
    that her fortresses be destroyed.
¹² He said, ‘No more of your revelling,
    Virgin Daughter Sidon, now crushed!

‘Up, cross over to Cyprus;
    even there you will find no rest.’
¹³ Look at the land of the Babylonians,^[g]
    this people that is now of no account!
The Assyrians have made it
    a place for desert creatures;
they raised up their siege towers,
    they stripped its fortresses bare
    and turned it into a ruin.

¹⁴ Wail, you ships of Tarshish;
    your fortress is destroyed!

¹⁶ ‘Take up a harp, walk through the city,
    you forgotten prostitute;
play the harp well, sing many a song,
    so that you will be remembered.’