1. The oracle of the valley of vision: What business do you have going up, all of you, to the roofs,
2. noisy, tumultuous city, exultant town? Your slain are not slain by the sword, nor are they dead from battle.
3. All of your rulers have fled together without a bow; all of you who were found were captured. They were captured together; they had fled far away.
4. Therefore I said, “Look away from me, let me weep bitterly; you must not insist on comforting me for the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
5. For the Lord Yahweh of hosts has a day of tumult and trampling and confusion in the valley of vision, a tearing down of walls and a cry for help to the mountains.
6. And Elam lifted up the quiver, with chariots of men and cavalry. And Kir uncovered the shield.
7. And this happened: the choicest of your valleys were full of chariots, and the cavalry confidently stood at the gate.
8. And he uncovered the covering of Judah. And you looked, on that day, to the weapons of the House of the Forest,
9. and you saw that the breaches in the walls of the city of David were many, and you gathered the waters of the lower pool.
10. And you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall.
11. And you made a reservoir between the walls for the waters of the old pool, but you did not look to its maker, and you did not see the one who created it long ago.
12. And the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, called on that day for weeping and mourning, and for baldness and girding with sackcloth.
13. But look! Joy and gladness, the killing of oxen and the slaughtering of sheep, the eating of meat and the drinking of wine! “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”
14. And it was revealed in my ears by Yahweh of hosts: “Surely this sin will not be atoned for you until you die!” says the Lord, Yahweh of hosts.
15. The Lord, Yahweh of hosts, says this: “Go! Go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the house:
16. ‘What business do you have here, and who do you have here, that you have cut a grave cutting here for yourself, carving his grave on the height, a dwelling place for him in the rock?