The Book of the Prophet Isaiah

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- Chapter 22 -

Yahweh gave this message about Jerusalem, about the valley where Yahweh showed me this vision. Why is everyone foolishly running up to their flat rooftops?

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.

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.

That is why I said, “Allow me to cry alone; do not try to comfort me about my people being slaughtered.”

Yahweh, Commander of the angel armies, 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.

The armies from Elam and Kir in Media will attack, driving chariots and carrying shields.

Our beautiful valleys will be filled with our enemies’ chariots, and the men who drive the chariots will stand outside our city gates.

God will cause the walls that protect the cities in Judah to fall down. You people of Jerusalem will run to get the weapons that are stored in the building called “the Hall of the Forest.”

You will see that there are many breaks in the walls of Jerusalem. You will store water in the lower pool in the city.

You will inspect the houses in Jerusalem, and some of them you will tear down to use the stones to repair the city wall.

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.

Yahweh, Commander of the angel armies, 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.

But instead of doing that, you were happy and celebrated; you slaughtered cattle and sheep in order to cook their meat and eat it and drink wine. You said, “Let us eat and drink all that we want to, because it is possible that we will die tomorrow!”

So Yahweh, Commander of the angel armies, revealed this to me: “I will never forgive my people for sinning like this!”

A Message for Shebna

Yahweh, Commander of the angel armies, said this to me: “Go to Shebna, the official who supervises the workers in the palace, and give this message to him:

’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?’”

You think that you are a great man, but Yahweh is about to hurl you away. It will be as though he had seized you,

rolled you into a ball, and thrown you away in 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.

Yahweh says, “I will force you to quit working in the palace; you will be forced out from your important position.

Then I will summon Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, who has served me well, to replace you.

I will make him wear your robe and fasten your sash around him, and I will give to him the authority that you had. He will be like a father to the people of Jerusalem and all the other towns in Judah.

I will give to him authority over what happens in the palace where King David lived; when he decides something, 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.

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 a nail that is firmly hammered into a wall.

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.

Yahweh, Commander of the angel armies, also says, “Shebna is like 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, and everything that he promoted will fail.” That will surely happen because Yahweh has said it.

The burden of the valley of vision. What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops?

You that are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, a joyous town, your slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle.

All your rulers fled away together. They were bound by the archers. All who were found by you were bound together. They fled far away.

Therefore I said, “Look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Don’t labor to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity from the Lord, the LORD of Armies, in the valley of vision, a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains.”

Elam carried his quiver, with chariots of men and horsemen; and Kir uncovered the shield.

Your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at the gate.

He took away the covering of Judah; and you looked in that day to the armor in the house of the forest.

You saw the breaches of David’s city, that they were many; and you gathered together the waters of the lower pool.

You counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall.

You also made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you didn’t look to him who had done this, neither did you have respect for him who planned it long ago.

In that day, the Lord, the LORD of Armies, called to weeping, to mourning, to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth;

and behold, there is joy and gladness, killing cattle and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine: “Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.”

The LORD of Armies revealed himself in my ears, “Surely this iniquity will not be forgiven you until you die,” says the Lord, the LORD of Armies.

A Message for Shebna

The Lord, the LORD of Armies says, “Go, get yourself to this treasurer, even to Shebna, who is over the house, and say,

‘What are you doing here? Who has you here, that you have dug out a tomb here?’ Cutting himself out a tomb on high, chiseling a habitation for himself in the rock!”

Behold, the LORD will overcome you and hurl you away violently. Yes, he will grasp you firmly.

He will surely wind you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a large country. There you will die, and there the chariots of your glory will be, you disgrace of your lord’s house.

I will thrust you from your office. You will be pulled down from your station.

It will happen in that day that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,

and I will clothe him with your robe, and strengthen him with your belt. I will commit your government into his hand; and he will be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.

I will lay the key of David’s house on his shoulder. He will open, and no one will shut. He will shut, and no one will open.

I will fasten him like a nail in a sure place. He will be for a throne of glory to his father’s house.

They will hang on him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the issue, every small vessel, from the cups even to all the pitchers.

“In that day,” says the LORD of Armies, “the nail that was fastened in a sure place will give way. It will be cut down and fall. The burden that was on it will be cut off, for the LORD has spoken it.”