471 "Get off your high horse and sit in the dirt, virgin daughter of Babylon. No more throne for you - sit on the ground, daughter of the Chaldeans. Nobody will be calling you 'charming' and 'alluring' anymore. Get used to it. 2 Get a job, any old job: Clean gutters, scrub toilets. Hock your gowns and scarves, put on overalls - the party's over. 3 Your nude body will be on public display, exposed to vulgar taunts. It's vengeance time, and I'm taking vengeance. No one gets let off the hook." You're Acting Like the Center of the Universe 4 Our Redeemer speaks, named God-of-the-Angel-Armies, The Holy of Israel: 5 "Shut up and get out of the way, daughter of Chaldeans. You'll no longer be called 'First Lady of the Kingdoms.' 6 I was fed up with my people, thoroughly disgusted with my progeny. I turned them over to you, but you had no compassion. You put old men and women to cruel, hard labor.
7 You said, 'I'm the First Lady. I'll always be the pampered darling.' You took nothing seriously, took nothing to heart, never gave tomorrow a thought. 8 Well, start thinking, playgirl. You're acting like the center of the universe, Smugly saying to yourself, 'I'm Number One. There's nobody but me. I'll never be a widow, I'll never lose my children.' 9 Those two things are going to hit you both at once, suddenly, on the same day: Spouse and children gone, a total loss, despite your many enchantments and charms. 10 You were so confident and comfortable in your evil life, saying, 'No one sees me.' You thought you knew so much, had everything figured out. What delusion! Smugly telling yourself, 'I'm Number One. There's nobody but me.' 11 Ruin descends - you can't charm it away. Disaster strikes - you can't cast it off with spells. Catastrophe, sudden and total - and you're totally at sea, totally bewildered! 12 But don't give up. From your great repertoire of enchantments there must be one you haven't yet tried. You've been at this a long time. Surely something will work. 13 I know you're exhausted trying out remedies, but don't give up. Call in the astrologers and stargazers. They're good at this. Surely they can work up something! 14 "Fat chance. You'd be grasping at straws that are already in the fire, A fire that is even now raging. Your 'experts' are in it and won't get out. It's not a fire for cooking venison stew, not a fire to warm you on a winter night! 15 That's the fate of your friends in sorcery, your magician buddies you've been in cahoots with all your life. They reel, confused, bumping into one another. None of them bother to help you.
31 The Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, is emptying Jerusalem and Judah Of all the basic necessities, plain bread and water to begin with. 2 He's withdrawing police and protection, judges and courts, pastors and teachers, 3 captains and generals, doctors and nurses, and, yes, even the repairmen and jacks-of-all-trades. 4 He says, "I'll put little kids in charge of the city. Schoolboys and schoolgirls will order everyone around. 5 People will be at each other's throats, stabbing one another in the back: Neighbor against neighbor, young against old, the no-account against the well-respected. 6 One brother will grab another and say, 'You look like you've got a head on your shoulders. Do something! Get us out of this mess.' 7 And he'll say, 'Me? Not me! I don't have a clue. Don't put me in charge of anything.' 8 "Jerusalem's on its last legs. Judah is soon down for the count. Everything people say and do is at cross-purposes with God, a slap in my face.
9 Brazen in their depravity, they flout their sins like degenerate Sodom. Doom to their eternal souls! They've made their bed; now they'll sleep in it. 10 "Reassure the righteous that their good living will pay off. 11 But doom to the wicked! Disaster! Everything they did will be done to them. 12 "Skinny kids terrorize my people. Silly girls bully them around. My dear people! Your leaders are taking you down a blind alley. They're sending you off on a wild goose chase." A City Brought to Her Knees by Her Sorrows 13 God enters the courtroom. He takes his place at the bench to judge his people. 14 God calls for order in the court, hauls the leaders of his people into the dock: "You've played havoc with this country. Your houses are stuffed with what you've stolen from the poor. 15 What is this anyway? Stomping on my people, grinding the faces of the poor into the dirt?" That's what the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, says.
16 God says, "Zion women are stuck-up, prancing around in their high heels, Making eyes at all the men in the street, swinging their hips, Tossing their hair, gaudy and garish in cheap jewelry." 17 The Master will fix it so those Zion women will all turn bald - Scabby, bald-headed women. The Master will do it. 18 The time is coming when the Master will strip them of their fancy baubles - 19 the dangling earrings, anklets and bracelets, 20 combs and mirrors and silk scarves, diamond brooches and pearl necklaces, 21 the rings on their fingers and the rings on their toes, 22 the latest fashions in hats, exotic perfumes and aphrodisiacs, gowns and capes, 23 all the world's finest in fabrics and design. 24 Instead of wearing seductive scents, these women are going to smell like rotting cabbages; Instead of modeling flowing gowns, they'll be sporting rags; Instead of their stylish hairdos, scruffy heads; Instead of beauty marks, scabs and scars. 25 Your finest fighting men will be killed, your soldiers left dead on the battlefield. 26 The entrance gate to Zion will be clotted with people mourning their dead - A city stooped under the weight of her loss, brought to her knees by her sorrows.
