Doom to those who get up early and start drinking booze before breakfast, Who stay up all hours of the night drinking themselves into a stupor. They make sure their banquets are well-furnished with harps and flutes and plenty of wine, But they’ll have nothing to do with the work of God, pay no mind to what he is doing. Therefore my people will end up in exile because they don’t know the score. Their “honored men” will starve to death and the common people die of thirst. Sheol developed a huge appetite, swallowing people nonstop! Big people and little people alike down that gullet, to say nothing of all the drunks. The down-and-out on a par with the high-and-mighty, Windbag boasters crumpled, flaccid as a punctured bladder. But by working justice, God-of-the-Angel-Armies will be a mountain. By working righteousness, Holy God will show what “holy” is. And lambs will graze as if they owned the place, Kids and calves right at home in the ruins.

The princes of Zoan are fools, the advisors of Pharaoh stupid. How could any of you dare tell Pharaoh, “Trust me: I’m wise. I know what’s going on. Why, I’m descended from the old wisdom of Egypt”? There’s not a wise man or woman left in the country. If there were, one of them would tell you what God-of-the-Angel-Armies has in mind for Egypt. As it is, the princes of Zoan are all fools and the princes of Memphis, idiots. The honored pillars of your society have led Egypt into detours and dead ends. God has scrambled their brains, Egypt’s become a falling-down-in-his-own-vomit drunk. Egypt’s hopeless, past helping, a senile, doddering old fool. * * *

But there are some who will break into glad song. Out of the west they’ll shout of God’s majesty. Yes, from the east God’s glory will ascend. Every island of the sea Will broadcast God’s fame, the fame of the God of Israel. From the four winds and the seven seas we hear the singing: “All praise to the Righteous One!” But I said, “That’s all well and good for somebody, but all I can see is doom, doom, and more doom.” All of them at one another’s throats, yes, all of them at one another’s throats. Terror and pits and booby traps are everywhere, whoever you are. If you run from the terror, you’ll fall into the pit. If you climb out of the pit, you’ll get caught in the trap. Chaos pours out of the skies. The foundations of earth are crumbling. Earth is smashed to pieces, earth is ripped to shreds, earth is wobbling out of control, Earth staggers like a drunk, sways like a shack in a high wind. Its piled-up sins are too much for it. It collapses and won’t get up again.

God Will Speak in Baby Talk

Doom to the pretentious drunks of Ephraim, shabby and washed out and seedy— Tipsy, sloppy-fat, beer-bellied parodies of a proud and handsome past. Watch closely: God has someone picked out, someone tough and strong to flatten them. Like a hailstorm, like a hurricane, like a flash flood, one-handed he’ll throw them to the ground. Samaria, the party hat on Israel’s head, will be knocked off with one blow. It will disappear quicker than a piece of meat tossed to a dog.

These also, the priest and prophet, stagger from drink, weaving, falling-down drunks, Besotted with wine and whiskey, can’t see straight, can’t talk sense. Every table is covered with vomit. They live in vomit.

Drug yourselves so you feel nothing. Blind yourselves so you see nothing. Get drunk, but not on wine. Black out, but not from whiskey. For God has rocked you into a deep, deep sleep, put the discerning prophets to sleep, put the farsighted seers to sleep.

So wake up! Rub the sleep from your eyes! Up on your feet, Jerusalem! You’ve drunk the cup God handed you, the strong drink of his anger. You drank it down to the last drop, staggered and collapsed, dead-drunk. And nobody to help you home, no one among your friends or children to take you by the hand and put you in bed. You’ve been hit with a double dose of trouble —does anyone care? Assault and battery, hunger and death —will anyone comfort? Your sons and daughters have passed out, strewn in the streets like stunned rabbits, Sleeping off the strong drink of God’s anger, the rage of your God.

A call to the savage beasts: Come on the run. Come, devour, beast barbarians! For Israel’s watchmen are blind, the whole lot of them. They have no idea what’s going on. They’re dogs without sense enough to bark, lazy dogs, dreaming in the sun— But hungry dogs, they do know how to eat, voracious dogs, with never enough. And these are Israel’s shepherds! They know nothing, understand nothing. They all look after themselves, grabbing whatever’s not nailed down. “Come,” they say, “let’s have a party. Let’s go out and get drunk!” And tomorrow, more of the same: “Let’s live it up!”

“Then you’ll say, ‘This is what God says: Watch closely. I’m going to fill every person who lives in this country—the kings who rule from David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, the citizens of Jerusalem—with wine that will make them drunk. And then I’ll smash them, smash the wine-filled jugs—old and young alike. Nothing will stop me. Not an ounce of pity or mercy or compassion will slow me down. Every last drunken jug of them will be smashed!’”

The “Everything Will Turn Out Fine” Sermon

My head is reeling, my limbs are limp, I’m staggering like a drunk, seeing double from too much wine— And all because of God, because of his holy words.

God Puts the Human Race on Trial

This is a Message that the God of Israel gave me: “Take this cup filled with the wine of my wrath that I’m handing to you. Make all the nations where I send you drink it down. They’ll drink it and get drunk, staggering in delirium because of the killing that I’m going to unleash among them.”

“Tell them, ‘These are orders from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: Drink and get drunk and vomit. Fall on your faces and don’t get up again. You’re slated for a massacre.’

The Sheer Nothingness of Moab

“Turn Moab into a drunken lush, drunk on the wine of my wrath, a dung-faced drunk, filling the country with vomit—Moab a falling-down drunk, a joke in bad taste. Wasn’t it you, Moab, who made crude jokes over Israel? And when they were caught in bad company, didn’t you cluck and gossip and snicker?

“Get out of Babylon as fast as you can. Run for your lives! Save your necks! Don’t linger and lose your lives to my vengeance on her as I pay her back for her sins. Babylon was a fancy gold chalice held in my hand, Filled with the wine of my anger to make the whole world drunk. The nations drank the wine and they’ve all gone crazy. Babylon herself will stagger and crash, senseless in a drunken stupor—tragic! Get anointing balm for her wound. Maybe she can be cured.” * * *

“The Babylonians will be like lions and their cubs, ravenous, roaring for food. I’ll fix them a meal, all right—a banquet, in fact. They’ll drink themselves falling-down drunk. Dead drunk, they’ll sleep—and sleep, and sleep . . .  and they’ll never wake up.” God’s Decree. “I’ll haul these ‘lions’ off to the slaughterhouse like the lambs, rams, and goats, never to be heard of again. * * *

“I’ll get them drunk, the whole lot of them— princes, sages, governors, soldiers. Dead drunk, they’ll sleep—and sleep and sleep . . .  and never wake up.” The King’s Decree. His name? God-of-the-Angel-Armies!

Celebrate while you can, O Edom! Live it up in Uz! For it won’t be long before you drink this cup, too. You’ll find out what it’s like to drink God’s wrath, Get drunk on God’s wrath and wake up with nothing, stripped naked.

“‘You copied the life of your sister. Now I’ll let you drink the cup she drank. “‘This is the Message of God, the Master: “‘You’ll drink your sister’s cup, a cup canyon-deep and ocean-wide. You’ll be shunned and taunted as you drink from that cup, full to the brim. You’ll be falling-down-drunk and the tears will flow as you drink from that cup titanic with terror: It’s the cup of your sister Samaria. You’ll drink it dry, then smash it to bits and eat the pieces, and end up tearing at your breasts. I’ve given the word— Decree of God, the Master.

“Furthermore, they even sent out invitations by special messenger to men far away—and, sure enough, they came. They bathed themselves, put on makeup and provocative lingerie. They reclined on a sumptuous bed, aromatic with incense and oils—my incense and oils! The crowd gathered, jostling and pushing, a drunken rabble. They adorned the sisters with bracelets on their arms and tiaras on their heads.

“Son of man, God, the Master, says: Call the birds! Call the wild animals! Call out, ‘Gather and come, gather around my sacrificial meal that I’m preparing for you on the mountains of Israel. You’ll eat meat and drink blood. You’ll eat off the bodies of great heroes and drink the blood of famous princes as if they were so many rams and lambs, goats and bulls, the choicest grain-fed animals of Bashan. At the sacrificial meal I’m fixing for you, you’ll eat fat till you’re stuffed and drink blood till you’re drunk. At the table I set for you, you’ll stuff yourselves with horses and riders, heroes and fighters of every kind.’ Decree of God, the Master.

The Writing of a Disembodied Hand

King Belshazzar held a great feast for his one thousand nobles. The wine flowed freely. Belshazzar, heady with the wine, ordered that the gold and silver chalices his father Nebuchadnezzar had stolen from God’s Temple of Jerusalem be brought in so that he and his nobles, his wives and concubines, could drink from them. When the gold and silver chalices were brought in, the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines, drank wine from them. They drank the wine and drunkenly praised their gods made of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.

“You are his son and have known all this, yet you’re as arrogant as he ever was. Look at you, setting yourself up in competition against the Master of heaven! You had the sacred chalices from his Temple brought into your drunken party so that you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines, could drink from them. You used the sacred chalices to toast your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone—blind, deaf, and imbecile gods. But you treat with contempt the living God who holds your entire life from birth to death in his hand.

“‘In those times, many others will get into the act and go off to fight against the king of the south. Hotheads from your own people, drunk on dreams, will join them. But they’ll sputter out.

They Make a Picnic Out of Religion

“Wine and whiskey leave my people in a stupor. They ask questions of a dead tree, expect answers from a sturdy walking stick. Drunk on sex, they can’t find their way home. They’ve replaced their God with their genitals. They worship on the tops of mountains, make a picnic out of religion. Under the oaks and elms on the hills they stretch out and take it easy. Before you know it, your daughters are whores and the wives of your sons are sleeping around. But I’m not going after your whoring daughters or the adulterous wives of your sons. It’s the men who pick up the whores that I’m after, the men who worship at the holy whorehouses— a stupid people, ruined by whores! * * *

“They entertain the king with their evil circus, delight the princes with their acrobatic lies. They’re a bunch of overheated adulterers, like an oven that holds its heat From the kneading of the dough to the rising of the bread. On the royal holiday the princes get drunk on wine and the frenzy of the mocking mob. They’re like wood stoves, red-hot with lust. Through the night their passion is banked; in the morning it blazes up, flames hungrily licking. Murderous and volcanic, they incinerate their rulers. Their kings fall one by one, and no one pays any attention to me.