1. I will take my stand at my post, and station myself on the rampart, and I will watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer regarding my argument.
2. Then Adonai answered me and said: “Write down the vision, make it plain on the tablets, so that the reader may run with it.
3. For the vision is yet for an appointed time. It hastens to the end and will not fail. If it should be slow in coming, wait for it, For it will surely come—it will not delay.”
4. Behold, the puffed up one— his soul is not right within him, But the righteous will live by his trust.
5. Indeed, because this wine betrays, a proud man never rests. He enlarges his desire like Sheol, Like death, he is never satisfied. So he gathers to himself all nations, and collects all peoples for himself.
6. Will not all take up a proverb against him or a scornful riddle about him? “Oy to one expanding what isn’t his! How long? Oy to one burdening himself with heavy debts!”
7. Will biting you arise suddenly, and those shaking you awaken, as you will become plunder for them?
8. Since you looted many nations, all the survivors will plunder you— because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, the city and all its inhabitants.
9. Oy to one surely getting unjust gain for his house— to set his nest on high, to escape the reach of calamity!
10. You schemed shame for your house, by cutting off many peoples, so going wrong yourself.
11. For a stone will cry out from a wall, and wooden beams will answer.
12. Oy to him who builds a city by bloodshed, and establishes a town with injustice!
13. Behold, is it not from Adonai-Tzva’ot that peoples toil to fuel a fire, and nations exhaust themselves for emptiness?