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29. Woe to David's City

¹ Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel,
   the city where David settled!
Add year to year
   and let your cycle of festivals go on.
² Yet I will besiege Ariel;
   she will mourn and lament,
   she will be to me like an altar hearth. The Hebrew for altar hearth sounds like the Hebrew for Ariel.
³ I will encamp against you on all sides;
   I will encircle you with towers
   and set up my siege works against you.
⁴ Brought low, you will speak from the ground;
   your speech will mumble out of the dust.
Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth;
   out of the dust your speech will whisper.

    ⁵ But your many enemies will become like fine dust,
   the ruthless hordes like blown chaff.
Suddenly, in an instant,
    ⁶ the LORD Almighty will come
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
   with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire.
⁷ Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
   that attack her and her fortress and besiege her,
will be as it is with a dream,
   with a vision in the night—
⁸ as when a hungry person dreams of eating,
   but awakens hungry still;
as when a thirsty person dreams of drinking,
   but awakens faint and thirsty still.
So will it be with the hordes of all the nations
   that fight against Mount Zion.

    ⁹ Be stunned and amazed,
   blind yourselves and be sightless;
be drunk, but not from wine,
   stagger, but not from beer.
¹⁰ The LORD has brought over you a deep sleep:
   He has sealed your eyes (the prophets);
   he has covered your heads (the seers).

¹¹ For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I can’t; it is sealed.” ¹² Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I don’t know how to read.”

¹³ The Lord says:

   “These people come near to me with their mouth
   and honor me with their lips,
   but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
   is based on merely human rules they have been taught. Hebrew; Septuagint They worship me in vain; / their teachings are merely human rules
¹⁴ Therefore once more I will astound these people
   with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
   the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”
¹⁵ Woe to those who go to great depths
   to hide their plans from the LORD,
who do their work in darkness and think,
   “Who sees us? Who will know?”
¹⁶ You turn things upside down,
   as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it,
   “You did not make me”?
Can the pot say to the potter,
   “You know nothing”?

    ¹⁷ In a very short time, will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field
   and the fertile field seem like a forest?
¹⁸ In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll,
   and out of gloom and darkness
   the eyes of the blind will see.
¹⁹ Once more the humble will rejoice in the LORD;
   the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
²⁰ The ruthless will vanish,
   the mockers will disappear,
   and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down—
²¹ those who with a word make someone out to be guilty,
   who ensnare the defender in court
   and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.

²² Therefore this is what the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, says to the descendants of Jacob:

   “No longer will Jacob be ashamed;
   no longer will their faces grow pale.
²³ When they see among them their children,
   the work of my hands,
they will keep my name holy;
   they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob,
   and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
²⁴ Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding;
   those who complain will accept instruction.”

14. Therefore, behold, I add to do. ²⁷⁴²⁷⁴ {Bogus footnote} He threatens that he will punish by blinding not only the ignorant or the ordinary ranks, but those wise men who were held in admiration by the people. From this vengeance we may easily learn how hateful a vice hypocrisy is, and how greatly it is abhorred by God, as the Prophet spoke a little before about human inventions; for what kind of punishment is more dreadful than blindness of mind and stupidity? This indeed is not commonly perceived by men, nor are they aware of the greatness of this evil; but it is the greatest and most wretched of all.

For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish. He does not speak of the common herd of men, but of their very leaders, who ought to have been like eyes. The common people in themselves are blind, like the other members of the body; and when the eyes are blinded, what shall become of the rest of the body? “If the light be darkness,” as Christ says, “how great shall be the darkness!” This is added in order to place that vengeance in a more striking light.

Hence also, we may infer how vain and foolish is the boasting of the Papists, who think that they have shut the mouths of all men, when they have brought forward the name of Bishops, or other titles of the same kind, such as Doctors, or Pastors, or the Apostolic See. They have perhaps a different kind of wisdom from that which was possessed by the Jews; but whence did they derive it? They pretend that it came from God; but we see that the Prophet does not speak of the wise men of the Chaldeans or Egyptians, but of the order of priesthood which God had appointed, of the teachers, and chief rulers, and ensign bearers, of the chosen people and of the only Church; for under this term “wise men,” he includes all superior excellence and authority among the people.