7These too are addicted to wine,
clamouring in their cups:
priest and prophet are addicted to strong drink
and bemused with wine;
clamouring in their cups, confirmed topers ,
hiccuping in drunken stupor;
8every table is covered with vomit,
filth that leaves no clean spot.
9Who is it that the prophet hopes to teach,
to whom will what they hear make sense?
Are they babes newly weaned, just taken from the breast?
10It is all harsh cries and raucous shouts,
'A little more here, a little there!'
11So it will be with barbarous speech and strange tongue
that this people will hear God speaking,
12this people to whom he once said,
'This is true rest; let the exhausted have rest.
This is repose, and they refused to listen.
13Now to them the word of the LORD will be
harsh cries and raucous shouts,
'A little more here, a little there!—
and so, as they walk, they will stumble backwards,
they will be injured, trapped and caught.
14Listen then to the word of the LORD, you arrogant men
who rule this people in Jerusalem.
15You say, 'We have made a treaty with Death
and signed a pact with Sheol:
so that, when the raging flood sweeps by, it shall not touch us;
for we have taken refuge in lies
and sheltered behind falsehood.'
16These then are the words of the Lord GOD:
Look, I am laying a stone in Zion, a block of granite,
a precious corner-stone for a firm foundation;
he who has faith shall not waver.
17I will use justice as a plumb-line
and righteousness as a plummet;
hail shall sweep away your refuge of lies,
and flood-waters carry away your shelter.
18Then your treaty with Death shall be annulled
and your pact with Sheol shall not stand;
the raging waters will sweep by,
and you will be like land swept by the flood.
19As often as it sweeps by, it will take you;
morning after morning it will sweep by,
day and night.
The very thought of such tidings
will bring nothing but dismay;
20for 'The bed is too short for a man to stretch,
and the blanket too narrow to cover him.'
21But the LORD shall arise as he rose on Mount Perazim
and storm with rage as he did in the Vale of Gibeon
to do what he must do—how strange a deed!
to perform his work—how outlandish a work!
22But now have done with your arrogance,
lest your bonds grow tighter;
for I have heard destruction decreed
by the Lord GOD of Hosts for the whole land.
23Listen and hear what I say,
attend and hear my words.
24Will the ploughman continually plough for the sowing,
breaking his ground and harrowing it?
25Does he not, once he has levelled it,
broadcast the dill and scatter the cumin?
Does he not plant the wheat in rows
with barley and spelt along the edge?
26Does not his God instruct him and train him aright?
27Dill is not threshed with a sledge,
and the cartwheel is not rolled over cumin;
dill is beaten with a rod,
and cumin with a flail.
28Corn is crushed, but not to the uttermost,
not with a final crushing;
his cartwheels rumble over it and break it up,
but they do not grind it fine.
29This message, too, comes from the LORD of Hosts,
whose purposes are wonderful
and his power great.
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