“Thus says Hezekiah: A day of distress and rebuke, a day of disgrace is this day! Children are due to come forth, but the strength to give birth is lacking.
Against an impious nation I send him, and against a people under my wrath I order him To seize plunder, carry off loot, and to trample them like the mud of the street.
“Thus says Hezekiah: A day of distress and rebuke, a day of disgrace is this day! Children are due to come forth, but the strength to give birth is lacking.
“The wine press I have trodden alone, and from the peoples no one was with me. I trod them in my anger, and trampled them down in my wrath; Their blood spurted on my garments, all my apparel I stained.
Her foes have come out on top, her enemies are secure; Because the Lord has afflicted her for her many rebellions. Her children have gone away, captive before the foe.
The Lord has devoured without pity all of Jacob’s dwellings; In his fury he has razed daughter Judah’s defenses, Has brought to the ground in dishonor a kingdom and its princes.
The Lord was bent on destroying the wall of daughter Zion: He stretched out the measuring line; did not hesitate to devour, Brought grief on rampart and wall till both succumbed.
The high places of Aven will be destroyed, the sin of Israel; thorns and thistles will overgrow their altars. Then they will cry out to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall upon us!”
The best of them is like a brier, the most honest like a thorn hedge. The day announced by your sentinels! Your punishment has come; now is the time of your confusion.