1 THE WORD OF THE VALLEY OF SION. What has happened to you, that now you have all gone up to the housetops? 2 In vain is the city filled with shouting men: your dead were not killed with swords, nor are your dead those who have died in battle. 3 All your princes have fled, and your captives are tightly bound, and the mighty men in you have fled far away. 4 Therefore I said, Let me alone, I will weep bitterly; do not labor to comfort me for the breach of the daughter of my people. 5 For it is a day of trouble, and of destruction, and of treading down, and there is perplexity sent from the Lord of hosts: they wander in the valley of Zion; they wander from the least to the greatest on the mountains. 6 And the Elamites took their quivers, and there were men mounted on horses, and there was a gathering for battle. 7 And it shall be that your choice valleys shall be filled with chariots, and horsemen shall block up your gates. 8 And they shall uncover the gates of Judah, and they shall look in that day on the choice houses of the city. 9 And they shall uncover the secret places of the houses of the citadel of David: and they saw that they were many, and that they had turned the water of the old pool into the city; 10 and that they had pulled down the houses of Jerusalem, to fortify the wall of the city. 11 And you procured to yourselves water between the two walls within the ancient pool: but you did not look to him that made it from the beginning, and did not regard him that created it. 12 And the Lord of hosts called in that day for weeping, and lamentation, and baldness, and for putting on sackcloth: 13 but they engaged in joy and gladness, slaughtering calves, and killing sheep, so as to eat flesh, and drink wine; saying, Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.⁠a 14 And these things are revealed in the ears of the Lord of hosts: for this sin shall not be forgiven you, until you die. 15 Thus says the Lord of hosts, Go into the chamber, to Shebna the treasurer, and say to him, 16 Why are you here? and what have you to do here, that you have here hewn yourself a tomb, and made yourself a tomb on high, and have carved for yourself a dwelling in the rock? 17 Look now, the Lord of hosts casts forth and will utterly destroy such a man, and will take away your robe, 18 and your glorious crown, and will cast you into a great and unmeasured land, and there you shall die: and he will bring your fair chariot to shame, and the house of your prince to be trodden down. 19 And you shall be removed from your stewardship, and from your place. 20 And it will happen in that day, that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah: 21 and I will put on him your robe, and I will grant him your crown with power, and I will give your stewardship into his hands: and he shall be as a father to those who dwell in Jerusalem, and to those who dwell in Judah. 22 And I will give him the glory of David; and he shall rule, and there shall be none to speak against him. 23 And I will make him a ruler in a sure place, and he shall be for a glorious throne of his father's house. 24 And every one that is glorious in the house of his father shall trust in him, from the least to the greatest; and they shall depend upon him. 25 In that day thus says the Lord of hosts, The man that is fastened in the sure place shall be removed, and shall fall; and the glory that is upon him shall be taken away: for the Lord has spoken it.