Chapter 12

Burden of the Lord’s doom, where falls it now? On Israel. Word from the Lord, who spread heaven out, founded earth, fashions the life that beats in man!

This is my decree, that Jerusalem’s walls (ay, and the whole of Juda shall man those ramparts) be offered to all the nations round about for a fatal cup;

to all the world Jerusalem shall be a stone immoveable; lift it who will, shall be torn unmercifully. See where they muster to the attack, all the kingdoms of the world!

Time now, the Lord says, to dazzle steed and craze rider’s wits; for Juda, the sunshine of my regard, the heathen must ride in darkness.

Vainly do yonder chieftains of Juda look to the garrison of Jerusalem to be their succour, in the strength of the Lord their God;

chieftains of Juda themselves shall be my instruments then, fire-brand in the forest, spark among the dry sheaves, to devour all the nations right and left of them. Jerusalem shall stand, when all is over, where Jerusalem stood;

but to the country folk of Juda the Lord grants deliverance first; clan of David, citizens of Jerusalem shall not boast themselves better than the rest.

When that day comes, the men of Jerusalem shall have the Lord for their stay; the lowest fallen among them shall seem royal as David’s self, and David’s clansmen a race divine, as though an angel of the Lord marched at their head.

Never a nation that marched on Jerusalem but I will hunt it down, when that day comes, and make an end of it.

On David’s clan, on all the citizens of Jerusalem, I will pour out a gracious spirit of prayer; towards me they shall look, me whom they have pierced through.3 Lament for him they must, and grieve bitterly; never was such lament for an only son, grief so bitter over first-born dead.

When that day comes, great shall be the mourning in Jerusalem, great as Adadremmon’s mourning at Mageddo;

the whole land in mourning, all its families apart. Here the men of David’s clan, yonder their women,

here the men of Nathan’s, yonder their women, here the men of Levi’s, yonder their women, here the men of Semei’s, yonder their women;

apart they shall mourn, whatever families there be, and all their women-folk apart.