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12 “Keep on using your ·tricks [magic spells; enchantments]
    and doing all your ·magic [sorceries]
    that you have ·used [practiced; labored at] since you were young.
Maybe ·they will help you [you will succeed/profit];
    maybe you will be able to ·scare someone [provoke terror].
13 You are tired of the ·advice [counsel] you have received.
    So let ·those who study the sky [the astrologers; L those who divide the heavens]
those who ·tell the future by looking at the stars and the new moons [L gaze at the stars to know the months]
    let them save you from what is about to happen to you.
14 But they are like straw;
    fire will quickly burn them up.
They cannot save themselves
    from the power of the fire.
They are not like coals that give warmth
    nor like a fire that you may sit beside.
15 You have ·worked [labored] with these people,
    and they have ·been [or done business] with you since you were young,
    but they will not be able to help you.
Everyone will ·go [or wander off] his own way,
    and there will be no one left to save you.”

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12 
“Persist, then, [Babylon] in your enchantments
And your many sorceries
With which you have labored from your youth;
Perhaps you will be able to profit [from them],
Perhaps you may prevail and cause trembling.
13 
“You [a]are wearied by your many counsels.
Just let the astrologers,
The stargazers,
Those who predict by the new moons [each month]
Stand up and save you from the things that will come upon you [Babylon].
14 
“In fact, they are like stubble;
Fire burns them.
They cannot save themselves from the power of the flame [much less save the nation],
There is no blazing coal for warming
Nor fire before which to sit!
15 
“This is how they have become to you, those [astrologers and sorcerers] with whom you have labored,
Those who have done business with you from your youth;
Each has wandered in his own way.
There is no one to save you.

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 47:13 Or struggle with...plans.