Category: Isaiah

[28:14] Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers, who rule this people in Jerusalem!

[28:15] Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement, when the overwhelming whip passes through it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter”;

[28:16] therefore thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’

[28:17] And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plumb line; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter.”

[28:18] Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it.

[28:19] As often as it passes through it will take you; for morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be sheer terror to understand the message.

[28:20] For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in.

[28:21] For the Lord will rise up as on Mount Perazim; as in the Valley of Gibeon he will be roused; to do his deed—strange is his deed! and to work his work—alien is his work!

[28:22] Now therefore do not scoff, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord God of hosts against the whole land.

[28:23] Give ear, and hear my voice; give attention, and hear my speech.

[28:24] Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground?

[28:25] When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cumin, and put in wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and emmer as the border?

[28:26] For he is rightly instructed; his God teaches him.

[28:27] Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cart wheel rolled over cumin, but dill is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod.

[28:28] Does one crush grain for bread? No, he does not thresh it forever; when he drives his cart wheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it.

[28:29] This also comes from the Lord of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.

[29:1] Ah, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts run their round.

[29:2] Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be moaning and lamentation, and she shall be to me like an Ariel.

[29:3] And I will encamp against you all around, and will besiege you with towers and I will raise siegeworks against you.

[29:4] And you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak, and from the dust your speech will be bowed down; your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost, and from the dust your speech shall whisper.

[29:5] But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff. And in an instant, suddenly,

[29:6] you will be visited by the Lord of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.

[29:7] And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her, shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.

[29:8] As when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating and awakes with his hunger not satisfied, or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched, so shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion.

[29:9] Astonish yourselves and be astonished; blind yourselves and be blind! Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink!

[29:10] For the Lord has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes (the prophets), and covered your heads (the seers).

[29:11] And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.”

[29:12] And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.”

[29:13] And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,

[29:14] therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”

[29:15] Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”

[29:16] You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?

[29:17] Is it not yet a very little while until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?

[29:18] In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.

[29:19] The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.

[29:20] For the ruthless shall come to nothing and the scoffer cease, and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off,

[29:21] who by a word make a man out to be an offender, and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate, and with an empty plea turn aside him who is in the right.

[29:22] Therefore thus says the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob: “Jacob shall no more be ashamed, no more shall his face grow pale.

[29:23] For when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in his midst, they will sanctify my name; they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.

[29:24] And those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur will accept instruction.”

[30:1] “Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord, “who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin;

[30:2] who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!

[30:3] Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.

[30:4] For though his officials are at Zoan and his envoys reach Hanes,

[30:5] everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace.”

[30:6] An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that cannot profit them.

[30:7] Egypt’s help is worthless and empty; therefore I have called her “Rahab who sits still.”

[30:8] And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever.

[30:9] For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord;

[30:10] who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions,

[30:11] leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”

[30:12] Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them,

[30:13] therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;

[30:14] and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”

[30:15] For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling,

[30:16] and you said, “No! We will flee upon horses”; therefore you shall flee away; and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”; therefore your pursuers shall be swift.

[30:17] A thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you shall flee, till you are left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain, like a signal on a hill.

[30:18] Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

[30:19] For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you.

[30:20] And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher.

[30:21] And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.

[30:22] Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”

[30:23] And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures,

[30:24] and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork.

[30:25] And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.

[30:26] Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.

[30:27] Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke; his lips are full of fury, and his tongue is like a devouring fire;

[30:28] his breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck; to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction, and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads astray.

[30:29] You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.

[30:30] And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and storm and hailstones.

[30:31] The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord, when he strikes with his rod.

[30:32] And every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres. Battling with brandished arm, he will fight with them.

[30:33] For a burning place has long been prepared; indeed, for the king it is made ready, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.

[31:1] Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord!

[31:2] And yet he is wise and brings disaster; he does not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.

[31:3] The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. When the Lord stretches out his hand, the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and they will all perish together.

[31:4] For thus the Lord said to me, “As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey, and when a band of shepherds is called out against him he is not terrified by their shouting or daunted at their noise, so the Lord of hosts will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its hill.

[31:5] Like birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it; he will spare and rescue it.”

[31:6] Turn to him from whom people have deeply revolted, O children of Israel.

[31:7] For in that day everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.

[31:8] “And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man; and a sword, not of man, shall devour him; and he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be put to forced labor.

[31:9] His rock shall pass away in terror, and his officers desert the standard in panic,” declares the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

[32:1] Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice.

[32:2] Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.

[32:3] Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention.

[32:4] The heart of the hasty will understand and know, and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly.

[32:5] The fool will no more be called noble, nor the scoundrel said to be honorable.

[32:6] For the fool speaks folly, and his heart is busy with iniquity, to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the Lord, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied, and to deprive the thirsty of drink.

[32:7] As for the scoundrel—his devices are evil; he plans wicked schemes to ruin the poor with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is right.

[32:8] But he who is noble plans noble things, and on noble things he stands.

[32:9] Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech.

[32:10] In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come.

[32:11] Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist.

[32:12] Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,

[32:13] for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers, yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city.

[32:14] For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks;

[32:15] until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.

[32:16] Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.

[32:17] And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.

[32:18] My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.

[32:19] And it will hail when the forest falls down, and the city will be utterly laid low.

[32:20] Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.

[33:1] Ah, you destroyer, who yourself have not been destroyed, you traitor, whom none has betrayed! When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betraying, they will betray you.

[33:2] O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble.

[33:3] At the tumultuous noise peoples flee; when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered,

[33:4] and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers; as locusts leap, it is leapt upon.

[33:5] The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness,

[33:6] and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is Zion’s treasure.

[33:7] Behold, their heroes cry in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly.

[33:8] The highways lie waste; the traveler ceases. Covenants are broken; cities are despised; there is no regard for man.

[33:9] The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is confounded and withers away; Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.

[33:10] “Now I will arise,” says the Lord, “now I will lift myself up; now I will be exalted.

[33:11] You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble; your breath is a fire that will consume you.

[33:12] And the peoples will be as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”

[33:13] Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my might.

[33:14] The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”

[33:15] He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil,

[33:16] he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; his water will be sure.

[33:17] Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar.

[33:18] Your heart will muse on the terror: “Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed the tribute? Where is he who counted the towers?”

[33:19] You will see no more the insolent people, the people of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend, stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand.

[33:20] Behold Zion, the city of our appointed feasts! Your eyes will see Jerusalem, an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent, whose stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken.

[33:21] But there the Lord in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor majestic ship can pass.

[33:22] For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver; the Lord is our king; he will save us.

[33:23] Your cords hang loose; they cannot hold the mast firm in its place or keep the sail spread out. Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided; even the lame will take the prey.

[33:24] And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.

[34:1] Draw near, O nations, to hear, and give attention, O peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes from it.

[34:2] For the Lord is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter.

[34:3] Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise; the mountains shall flow with their blood.

[34:4] All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree.

[34:5] For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction.

[34:6] The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood; it is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

[34:7] Wild oxen shall fall with them, and young steers with the mighty bulls. Their land shall drink its fill of blood, and their soil shall be gorged with fat.

[34:8] For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

[34:9] And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch.

[34:10] Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.

[34:11] But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness.

[34:12] Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom, and all its princes shall be nothing.

[34:13] Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches.

[34:14] And wild animals shall meet with hyenas; the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; indeed, there the night bird settles and finds for herself a resting place.

[34:15] There the owl nests and lays and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow; indeed, there the hawks are gathered, each one with her mate.

[34:16] Seek and read from the book of the Lord: Not one of these shall be missing; none shall be without her mate. For the mouth of the Lord has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them.

[34:17] He has cast the lot for them; his hand has portioned it out to them with the line; they shall possess it forever; from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.