Chapter LXVII

¹And the black eleventh waters that you saw – these are the calamity that has now overtaken Zion. ²Do you imagine that the angels in the presence of the Mighty One experience no pain that Zion should be so delivered up, and when they see the Gentiles boasting in their hearts, and crowds before their idols saying,

She is now trodden down, she who so often trod others down, And she has been reduced to servitude, she who reduced others?

³Do you imagine the Most High rejoices at this, or that his name is thereby glorified? ⁴How will it serve towards his righteous judgement? ⁵Yet after this, great troubles will afflict those who are dispersed among the Gentiles, and wherever they may be living they will be humiliated. ⁶So long as Zion is delivered up and Jerusalem laid waste, idols will prosper in the Gentile cities; and while the sweet smoke of the incense of the righteousness which is according to the law no longer ascends in Zion, it will be replaced everywhere in Zion's neighbourhood by the smoke of godlessness. ¹ Lit. ‘…in Zion, and in the place of Zion everywhere, lo, there is the smoke of godlessness’. ⁷And the king of Babylon, who has now destroyed Zion, will exalt himself, and he will make great claims in the Most High's presence. ⁸,⁹But he also will come to grief at last. These are the black waters.