¹Seek refuge, children of Benjamin, from the midst of Jerusalem; and in Tekoa blow the horn, and over Beth Hakkerem raise a beacon, for disaster looks down from the north, and a great destruction.

²I have likened the daughter of Zion to the lovely one and the dainty one.

³Shepherds will come to her, and their flocks; they drive in their tents against her all around; each man grazes his own share.

⁴Set apart a battle against her! Rise, and let us go up at noon! Woe to us, for the day has turned, for the shadows of evening are stretched out.

⁵Rise, and let us go up by night, and let us ruin her palaces.

⁶For thus says Yahweh of hosts: cut down timber, and heap up a mound against Jerusalem. She is the city to be visited; all of her is oppression in her midst.

⁷As a well keeps cool its water, so she keeps cool her evil; violence and destruction are heard in her; before my face continually are sickness and a wound.

⁸Be disciplined, O Jerusalem, lest my being be torn away from you; lest I make you a wasteland, a land not dwelled in.

⁹Thus says Yahweh of hosts: they will thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel like a vine; return your hand like a grape gatherer over the branches.

¹⁰To whom shall I speak and warn, that they may hear? Look, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give attention. Look, the word of Yahweh has become a reproach to them; they take no delight in it.

¹¹And I am full of the anger of Yahweh; I am weary of holding it in. Pour it out on the infant in the street, and on the council of the young men together; for even a man with a wife will be caught, the old with the one full of days.

¹²And their houses will be turned over to others, fields and wives together; for I will stretch out my hand against the inhabitants of the land, the utterance of Yahweh.

¹³For from their smallest to their greatest, every one is gaining unjust profit; and from prophet to priest, every one practices falsehood.

¹⁴And they have healed the fracture of my people as a trifle, saying, "Wholeness, Wholeness," but there is no wholeness.

¹⁵Were they ashamed when they did an abomination? Indeed they were not at all ashamed; they did not even know how to be humiliated. Therefore they will fall among those who fall; at the time I visit them they will stumble, says Yahweh.

¹⁶Thus says Yahweh: Stand at the roads and look, and ask after the paths of forever, where the good way is, and walk in it, and find a resting place for your being. But they said, "We will not walk."

¹⁷And I raised up watchmen over you: pay attention to the sound of the horn. But they said, "We will not pay attention."

¹⁸Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them.

¹⁹Hear, O land: behold, I am bringing disaster to this people, the fruit of their thoughts, for they did not pay attention to my words, and my instruction—they rejected it.

²⁰Why is this to me: frankincense that comes from Sheba, and the good reed from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not for acceptance, and your sacrifices are not pleasing to me.

²¹Therefore thus says Yahweh: Behold, I am setting stumbling blocks before this people, and they will stumble over them—fathers and sons together, neighbor and his friend—and they will perish.

²²Thus says Yahweh: Behold, a people is coming from the land of the north, and a great nation is being roused from the far flanks of the land.

²³They take hold of bow and javelin; cruel are they, and they show no compassion. Their sound roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, drawn up like a man for war, against you, O daughter of Zion.

²⁴We have heard the report of it; our hands have gone slack; distress has taken hold of us, a pang like a woman giving birth.

²⁵Do not go out to the field, and do not walk on the road, for the enemy has a sword; terror is all around.

²⁶Daughter of my people, gird yourself with sackcloth and roll in the ashes; make for yourself mourning for an only child, a wailing of bitterness, for suddenly the one who devastates will come upon us.

²⁷I have set you among my people as an assayer, a fortification, that you may know and test their way.

²⁸All of them turn aside, stubborn ones, going about as slanderers; bronze and iron, all of them, they are corrupters.

²⁹The bellows are scorched; from the fire the lead is complete; in vain the refiner has refined and refined, and the evil ones were not torn away.

³⁰Rejected silver, people call them, for Yahweh has rejected them.