Go west to the island of Cyprus, and send someone eastward to the land of Kedar. You will see that nothing like this has ever happened before.

And so I command the sky to shake with horror, to be amazed and astonished,

they were afraid, and said, "A god has come into their camp! We're lost! Nothing like this has ever happened to us before!

Has anyone ever seen or heard of such a thing? Has a nation ever been born in a day? Zion will not have to suffer long, before the nation is born.

Now, it is actually being said that there is sexual immorality among you so terrible that not even the heathen would be guilty of it. I am told that a man is sleeping with his stepmother!

for my people have committed two sins: they have turned away from me, the spring of fresh water, and they have dug cisterns, cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all.

The LORD commanded me to tell the people about my sorrow and to say: "May my eyes flow with tears day and night, may I never stop weeping, for my people are deeply wounded and are badly hurt.

Once again I will rebuild you. Once again you will take up your tambourines and dance joyfully.

Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah tore their clothes in grief and went and reported to the king what the Assyrian official had said.

"The Lord laughed at all my strongest soldiers; He sent an army to destroy my young men. He crushed my people like grapes in a wine press.

A terrible and shocking thing has happened in the land:

But I have seen the prophets in Jerusalem do even worse: they commit adultery and tell lies; they help people to do wrong, so that no one stops doing what is evil. To me they are all as bad as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.

I have seen a horrible thing in Israel: my people have defiled themselves by worshiping idols.