1. What’s God going to say to my questions? I’m braced for the worst.I’ll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon.I’ll wait to see what God says,how he’ll answer my complaint.
2-3. And then God answered: “Write this.Write what you see.Write it out in big block lettersso that it can be read on the run.This vision-message is a witnesspointing to what’s coming.It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait!And it doesn’t lie.If it seems slow in coming, wait.It’s on its way. It will come right on time.
4. “Look at that man, bloated by self-importance—full of himself but soul-empty.But the person in right standing before Godthrough loyal and steady believingis fully alive, really alive.
12-14. “Who do you think you are—building a town by murder, a city with crime?Don’t you know that God-of-the-Angel-Armiesmakes sure nothing comes of that but ashes,Makes sure the harder you workat that kind of thing, the less you are?Meanwhile the earth fills upwith awareness of God’s gloryas the waters cover the sea.
15-17. “Who do you think you are—inviting your neighbors to your drunken parties,Giving them too much to drink,roping them into your sexual orgies?You thought you were having the time of your life.Wrong! It’s a time of disgrace.All the time you were drinking,you were drinking from the cup of God’s wrath.You’ll wake up holding your throbbing head, hung over—hung over from Lebanon violence,Hung over from animal massacres,hung over from murder and mayhem,From multiple violationsof place and people.
18-19. “What’s the use of a carved godso skillfully carved by its sculptor?What good is a fancy cast godwhen all it tells is lies?What sense does it make to be a pious god-makerwho makes gods that can’t even talk?Who do you think you are—saying to a stick of wood, ‘Wake up,’Or to a dumb stone, ‘Get up’?Can they teach you anything about anything?There’s nothing to them but surface.There’s nothing on the inside.
20. “But oh! God is in his holy Temple!Quiet everyone—a holy silence. Listen!”