17. I will make justice the measuring line, and righteousness the plumb line. The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters will overflow the hiding place.
18. Your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol shall not stand. When the overflowing scourge passes through, then you will be trampled down by it.
19. As often as it passes through, it will seize you; for morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be nothing but terror to understand the message.”
20. For the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket is too narrow to wrap oneself in.
21. For the Lord will rise up as on Mount Perazim. He will be angry as in the valley of Gibeon; that he may do his work, his unusual work, and bring to pass his act, his extraordinary act.
22. Now therefore don’t be scoffers, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, on the whole earth.
23. Give ear, and hear my voice! Listen, and hear my speech!
24. Does he who plows to sow plow continually? Does he keep turning the soil and breaking the clods?
25. When he has leveled its surface, doesn’t he plant the dill, and scatter the cumin seed, and put in the wheat in rows, the barley in the appointed place, and the spelt in its place?
26. For his God instructs him in right judgment, and teaches him.
27. For the dill are not threshed with a sharp instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned over the cumin; but the dill is beaten out with a stick, and the cumin with a rod.
28. Bread flour must be ground; so he will not always be threshing it. Although he drives the wheel of his threshing cart over it, his horses don’t grind it.
29. This also comes out from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom.