The Righteous Will Live by His Faith

1I will stand on my guard post

And station myself on the fortification;

And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me

And how I may respond [†]when I am reproved.

2Then Yahweh answered me and said,

“Write down the vision

And write it on tablets distinctly,

That [†]the one who [†]reads it may run.

3For the vision is yet for the appointed time;

It pants toward its end, and it will not [†]lie.

Though it tarries, wait for it;

For it will certainly come; it will not delay.

4“Behold, as for the proud one,

His soul is not right within him;

But the righteous will live by his [†]faith.

5And indeed, wine betrays the haughty man

So that he does not stay at home.

He enlarges his appetite like Sheol,

And he is like death, never satisfied.

He also gathers to himself all nations

And assembles to himself all peoples.

6“Will not all of these lift up a taunt-song against him,

Even satire and riddles against him

And say, ‘Woe to him who increases what is not his—

For how long—

And makes himself [†]rich with loans?’

7Will not [†]your creditors rise up suddenly,

And those who make you tremble awaken?

Indeed, you will become spoil for them.

8Because you have taken many nations as spoil,

All that is left of the peoples will take you as spoil—

Because of human bloodshed and violence [†]done to the land,

To the town and all its inhabitants.

9“Woe to him who is greedy for evil gain for his house

To put his nest on high,

To be delivered from the hand of evil!

10You have counseled a shameful thing for your house

By cutting off many peoples;

So you are sinning against your own soul.

11Surely the stone will cry out from the wall,

And the rafter will answer it from the [†]framework.

12“Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed

And founds a town with injustice!

13Is it not, behold, from Yahweh of hosts

That peoples toil for fire,

And nations grow weary for nothing?

14For the earth will be filled

With the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh,

As the waters cover the sea.

15“Woe to you who make [†]your neighbors drink,

Who mix in your venom even to make them drunk

So as to look on their nakedness!

16You will be filled with disgrace rather than glory.

Now you yourself drink and [†]expose your own nakedness.

The cup in Yahweh’s right hand will come around to you,

And utter disgrace will come upon your glory.

17For the violence [†]done to Lebanon will cover you,

And the devastation of its beasts [†]by which you terrified them,

Because of human bloodshed and violence [†]done to the land,

To the town and all its inhabitants.

18“What profit is the graven image when its maker has engraved it,

Or a molten image, a teacher of [†]lies?

For its maker trusts in his own making

When he fashions speechless idols.

19Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, ‘Awake!’

To a mute stone, ‘Arise!’

And that is your teacher?

Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,

And there is no breath at all inside it.

20But Yahweh is in His holy temple.

[†]Let all the earth be silent before Him.”