Ariel Is Besieged Yet Her Enemies Vanish

¹ Woe to you, O Ariel, the city of Ariel where David camped! Year upon year let your festivals recur.

² And I will constrain Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation; she will be like an altar hearth before Me.

³ I will camp in a circle around you; I will besiege you with towers and set up siege works against you.

⁴ You will be brought low, you will speak from the ground, and out of the dust your words will be muffled. Your voice will be like a spirit from the ground; your speech will whisper out of the dust.

⁵ But your many foes will be like fine dust, the multitude of the ruthless like blowing chaff. Then suddenly, in an instant,

⁶ you will be visited by the LORD of Hosts with thunder and earthquake and loud noise, with windstorm and tempest and consuming flame of fire.

⁷ All the many nations going out to battle against Ariel—even all who war against her, laying siege and attacking her—will be like a dream, like a vision in the night,

⁸ as when a hungry man dreams he is eating, then awakens still hungry; as when a thirsty man dreams he is drinking, then awakens faint and parched. So will it be for all the many nations who go to battle against Mount Zion.