9Raise the war cry, you nations, and be shattered!
Listen, all you distant lands.
Prepare for battle, and be shattered!
Prepare for battle, and be shattered!
10Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted;
propose your plan, but it will not stand,
for God is with us.
Fear God
11The Lord spoke to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people. He said:
12“Do not call conspiracy
everything that these people call conspiracy;
do not fear what they fear,
and do not dread it.
13The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy,
he is the one you are to fear,
he is the one you are to dread,
14and he will be a sanctuary;
but for both houses of Israel he will be
a stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.
And for the people of Jerusalem he will be
a trap and a snare.
15Many of them will stumble;
they will fall and be broken,
they will be snared and captured.”
16Bind up the testimony
and seal up the law among my disciples.
17I will wait for the Lord,
who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob.
I will put my trust in him.
18Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion.
19When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? 20To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. 21Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. 22Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.
