Now therefore, what do I here, says the LORD, seeing that my people is taken away for nothing? those who rule over them do howl, says the LORD, and my name continually all the day is blasphemed.
The LORD said, *I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.
'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!*
Yeshaiyahu said to them, *Tell your master, 'Thus says the LORD, *Don't be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Ashur have blasphemed me.
I was angry with my people, I profaned my inheritance, and gave them into your hand: you did show them no mercy; on the aged have you very heavily laid your yoke.
Your sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as an antelope in a net; they are full of the wrath of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.
and I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you, who have said to your soul, Bow down, that we may go over; and you have laid your back as the ground, and as the street, to those who go over.
Yisra'el is a hunted sheep; the lions have driven him away: first, the king of Ashur devoured him; and now at last Nevukhadnetzar 1 king of Bavel has broken his bones.
They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me; All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have done it: You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they shall be like me.
He has cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Yisra'el; He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: He has burned up Ya`akov like a flaming fire, which devours round about.
But I worked for my name's sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, among which they were, in whose sight I made myself known to them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.
In that day, says the LORD, there will be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, a wailing from the second quarter, and a great crashing from the hills.
When they were by the house of Mikhah, they knew the voice of the young man the Levite; and they turned aside there, and said to him, Who brought you here? and what do you in this place? and what have you here?