Remember how you said to yourself, “I will ascend to heaven—reach higher and with more power— and set my throne high above God’s own stars?” Remember how you thought you could be a god, saying: “I will sit among them at the mount of assembly in the northern heights.

“Why are you here, anyway? Do you really belong here? What right do you have to build yourself an elegant tomb And stone monument here out of the rock on this hill?

Oh, how bad it will be for the one who ruins and is not yet ruined, who lies, cheats, and steals without experiencing the same in return. It will come back to you. When you’ve exhausted your destroying, you will find yourself destroyed, And your treachery will come back to haunt you at the treacherous hands of others.

Ah, you will see for yourself the beauty of the One who rules over all. Your eyes will take in a land that stretches far beyond the horizon.

You’ll say to yourself, “Where in the world did all these people come from? Could these really be mine? I thought I’d been desolated, left empty. Where have you all been? Where did you come from?”

Get up, power of God! Rise up and strengthen Yourself, arm of God. Get up and do like in the olden days, when You saved Your special people— Like when You cut Rahab, that dragon-monster of chaos, in two.

You declare your obedience to Me, but all hidden away—as if I couldn’t see; behind the very door and doorpost, you set up your shrine. You turned your back on Me and snuck off to be intimate with other deities; you made promises to them and bound yourself to them all tight and close.