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1 Woe to the proud crown of Ephraim’s drunkards, to the fading flower of its glorious beauty on the head of the fertile valley of those overcome by wine!
2 Behold, the Lord has one who is mighty and strong.
Like a hailstorm, a destroying tempest, like a flood of mighty, overflowing waters, he will cast it to the ground with his hand.
3 The proud crown of Ephraim’s drunkards shall be trampled underfoot.
4 The fading flower of its glorious beauty on the head of the fertile valley shall be like an early fig before summer: as soon as one sees it, he swallows it while it is still in his hand.
5 In that day the LORD of hosts shall be a crown of beauty and a diadem of splendor to the remnant of his people,
6 a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment, and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.
7 These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink.
Priest and prophet reel with strong drink;
they are swallowed up by wine and stagger with strong drink.
They err in vision and stumble in judgment.
8 For all the tables are full of vomit and filth;
no place is clean.
9 “Whom will he teach knowledge, and whom will he make understand the message?
Those weaned from milk, those taken from the breasts?
10 For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, a little there, a little there.”
11 Indeed, with stammering lips and another tongue he will speak to this people,
12 to whom he said, “This is rest;
give rest to the weary, and this is repose.”
But they would not listen.
13 So the word of the LORD will be to them, “Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, a little there, a little there,” that they may go and stumble backward, be broken, snared, and captured.
14 Therefore hear the word of the LORD, scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem.
15 For you have said, “We have made a covenant with death and an agreement with Sheol.
When the overwhelming scourge passes through, it will not reach us, for we have made lies our refuge and hidden ourselves in falsehood.”
16 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I am laying a stone as a foundation in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation.
The one who believes will not act in haste.
17 I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line.
Hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will flood the hiding place.
18 Your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand.
When the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be trampled by it.
19 Every time it passes, it will seize you, for morning after morning it will pass through, by day and by night.
It will be sheer terror to understand the message.”
20 For the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in.
21 For the LORD will rise as on Mount Perazim;
he will stir as in the Valley of Gibeon, to do his work, his strange work, and perform his task, his alien task.
22 Now do not scoff, lest your bonds grow stronger, for I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts of a decreed destruction upon all the earth.
23 Give ear and hear my voice;
pay attention and hear my words.
24 Does the plowman plow all day to sow?
Does he continually open and harrow his ground?
25 When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter black cumin and sow cumin, plant wheat in rows, barley in its appointed place, and spelt along its border?
26 His God instructs him in what is right and teaches him.
27 For black cumin is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over cumin.
Black cumin is beaten out with a staff, and cumin with a rod.
28 Grain for bread is ground, but he does not thresh it forever.
He drives his cartwheel and his horses over it, but does not pulverize it.
29 This also comes from the LORD of hosts, wonderful in counsel, great in sound wisdom.