1. This is a message about the Valley of Vision: What is wrong with you people? Why are you on your roofs?
2. This city was a very busy city, full of noise and wild parties. Now your people have been killed, but not with swords, nor did they die in battle.
3. All your leaders ran away together, but they have been captured without using a bow. All you who were captured tried to run away before the enemy came.
4. So I say, "Don't look at me. Let me cry loudly. Don't hurry to comfort me about the destruction of Jerusalem."
5. The Lord God All-Powerful has chosen a special day of riots and confusion. People will trample each other in the Valley of Vision. The city walls will be knocked down, and the people will cry out to the mountain.
6. The soldiers from Elam will gather their arrows and their chariots and men on horses. Kir will prepare their shields.
7. Your nicest valleys will be filled with chariots. Horsemen will be ordered to guard the gates of the city.
8. The walls protecting Judah will fall. the weapons kept at the Palace of the Forest.
9. You saw that the walls of Jerusalem had many cracks that needed repairing. You stored up water in the lower pool.
10. You counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you tore down houses to repair the walls with their stones.
11. You made a pool between the two walls to save water from the old pool, but you did not trust the God who made these things; you did not respect the One who planned them long ago.
12. The Lord God All-Powerful told the people to cry and be sad, to shave their heads and wear rough cloth.
13. But look, the people are happy and are having wild parties. They kill the cattle and the sheep; they eat the food and drink the wine. They say, "Let us eat and drink, because tomorrow we will die."
14. The Lord All-Powerful said to me: "You people will die before this guilt is forgiven." The Lord God All-Powerful said this.
15. This is what the Lord God All-Powerful says: "Go to this servant Shebna, the manager of the palace.
16. Say to him, 'What are you doing here? Who said you could cut out a tomb for your self here? Why are you preparing your tomb in a high place? Why are you carving out a tomb from the rock?
17. Look, mighty one! The Lord will throw you away. He will take firm hold of you
18. and roll you tightly into a ball and throw you into another country. There you will die, and there your fine chariots will remain. You are a disgrace to your master's house.
19. I will force you out of your important job, and you will be thrown down from your important place.'
20. "At that time I will call for my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah.
21. I will take your robe and put it on him and give him your belt. I will hand over to him the important job you have, and he will be like a father to the people of Jerusalem and the family of Judah.
22. I will put the key to the house of David around his neck. If he opens a door, no one will be able to close it; if he closes a door, no one will be able to open it.
23. He will be like an honored chair in his father's house. I will make him strong like a peg that is hammered into a strong board.
24. All the honored and important things of his family will depend on him; all the adults and little children will depend on him. They will be like bowls and jars hanging on him.
25. "At that time," says the Lord All-Powerful, "the peg hammered into the strong board will weaken. It will break and fall, and everything hanging on it will be destroyed." The Lord says this.