22
A message about Jerusalem
1 I received this message from Yahweh about Jerusalem, about the valley where Yahweh showed me this vision.
Why is everyone foolishly running up to their flat rooftops?
2 Everyone in the city seems to be shouting.
There are a lot of corpses in the city,
but they were not killed by their enemies’ swords.
They did not die in battles;
instead, they died from diseases and hunger.
3 All the leaders of the city fled.
But then they were captured because they did not have bows and arrows to defend themselves.
Your soldiers tried to flee while the enemy army was still far away,
but they also were captured.
4 That is why I said, “Allow me to cry alone;
do not try to comfort me about my people being slaughtered.”
5 The Commander of the armies of angels has chosen a time when there will be a great uproar, soldiers marching, and people being terrified
in the valley where I received this vision.
It will be a time when our city walls will be battered down
and the people’s cries for help will be heard in the mountains.
6 The armies from Elam and Kir in Media will attack,
driving chariots and carrying shields.
7 Our beautiful valleys will be filled with our enemies’ chariots
and the men who drive the chariots will stand outside our city gates.
8 The walls that protect the cities in Judah will fall down.
You people of Jerusalem will run to get the weapons that are stored in the building called “the Hall of the Forest”.
9 You will see that there are many breaks/holes in the walls of Jerusalem.
You will store water in the lower pool in the city.
10 You will inspect the houses in Jerusalem,
and some of them you will tear down to use the stones to repair the city wall.
11 Between the walls of the city you will build a reservoir to store water from the old pool.
But you will never request help from the one who made the city;
you have never depended on Yahweh, who planned this city long ago.
12 The Commander of the armies of angels told you to weep and mourn;
he told you to shave your heads and to wear rough sackcloth
to show that you were sorry for the sins that you had committed.
13 But instead of doing that, you were happy and celebrating;
you slaughtered cattle and sheep,
in order to cook their meat and eat it and drink wine.
You said, “Let’s eat and drink all that we want to,
because it is possible that we will die tomorrow!”
14 So the Commander of the armies of angels revealed this to me: “I will never forgive my people for sinning like this!”
A message for Shebna
15 The Commander of the armies of angels said this to me: “Go to Shebna, the official who supervises the workers in the palace, and give this message to him:
16 'Who do you think you are?
Who gave you the authority to build a beautiful tomb where you will be buried,
chiseling it out of the rocky cliff high above this valley?
17 You think that you are [IRO] a great man, but Yahweh is about to hurl you away.
It will be as though he will seize you,
18 and roll/crumple you into a ball
and throw you away into a large distant land.
You will die and be buried there,
and your beautiful chariots will stay there in the hands of your enemies.
And because of what happens to you, your master, the king, will be very ashamed/disgraced.
19 Yahweh will force you to quit working in the palace;
you will be demoted from your important position.
20 Then I will summon Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, who has served serve me well, to replace you. 21 I will allow him to wear your robe, and to fasten your sash around him, and I will give to him the authority that you had. He will be like [MET] a father to the people of Jerusalem and all the other towns in Judah. 22 I will give to him authority [MTY] over what happens in the palace where King David lived; when he decides something [MET], no one will be able to oppose it; when he refuses to do something, no one will be able to force him to do it. 23 I will cause his family to be greatly respected, because I will put him firmly in his position as supervisor of the workers in the palace, like [SIM] a nail that is firmly hammered into a wall. 24 Others will enable him to have much responsibility, with the result that all the members of his family, even the most insignificant ones, will be honored.' ”
25 But the Commander of the armies of angels also says, “Shebna is like [MET] a peg that is firmly fastened to the wall. But there will be a time when I will remove him from his position; he will lose his power/influence, and everything that he promoted [MET] will fail. That will surely happen because I, Yahweh, have said it.”