²⁵ Has it not come to your ears how I did it long before, purposing it in times long past? Now I have given effect to my design, so that by you strong towns might be turned into masses of broken walls.

⁷ I am the giver of light and the maker of the dark; causing blessing, and sending troubles; I am the Lord, who does all these things.

²⁶ Has it not come to your ears how I did it long before, purposing it in times long past? Now I have given effect to my design, so that by you strong towns might be turned into masses of broken walls.

²⁷ This is why their townsmen had no power, they were broken and put to shame; they were like the grass of the field, or a green plant; like the grass on the house-tops, which a cold wind makes waste.

¹¹ The Lord's purpose is eternal, the designs of his heart go on through all the generations of man.

¹⁰ The ... will give you praise; the rest of ...

⁵ Ho! Assyrian, the rod of my wrath, the instrument of my punishment!

⁶ I will send him against a nation of wrongdoers, and against the people of my wrath I will give him orders, to take their wealth in war, crushing them down like the dust in the streets.

¹⁵ Will the axe say high-sounding words against him who is using it, or the blade be full of pride against him who is cutting with it? As if a rod had the power of shaking him who is using it, or as if a stick might take up him who is not wood.

¹⁰ Making clear from the first what is to come, and from past times the things which have not so far come about; saying, My purpose is fixed, and I will do all my pleasure;

¹¹ Sending for a bird of strong flight from the east, the man of my purpose from a far country; I have said it, and I will give effect to it; the thing designed by me will certainly be done.

¹⁶ See, I have made the iron-worker, blowing on the burning coals, and making the instrument of war by his work; and I have made the waster for destruction.

²⁷ For, truly, in this town, against your holy servant, Jesus, who was marked out by you as Christ, Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, came together,

²⁸ To do that which had been fixed before by your hand and your purpose.