Category: Isaiah

[25:6] Here on Mount Zion the Lord Almighty will prepare a banquet for all the nations of the world—a banquet of the richest food and the finest wine.

[25:7] Here he will suddenly remove the cloud of sorrow that has been hanging over all the nations.

[25:8] The Sovereign Lord will destroy death forever! He will wipe away the tears from everyone's eyes and take away the disgrace his people have suffered throughout the world. The Lord himself has spoken.

[25:9] When it happens, everyone will say, “He is our God! We have put our trust in him, and he has rescued us. He is the Lord! We have put our trust in him, and now we are happy and joyful because he has saved us.”

[25:10] The Lord will protect Mount Zion, but the people of Moab will be trampled down the way straw is trampled in manure.

[25:11] They will reach out their hands as if they were trying to swim, but God will humiliate them, and their hands will sink helplessly.

[25:12] He will destroy the fortresses of Moab with their high walls and bring them tumbling down into the dust.

[26:1] A day is coming when the people will sing this song in the land of Judah: Our city is strong! God himself defends its walls!

[26:2] Open the city gates and let the faithful nation enter, the nation whose people do what is right.

[26:3] You, Lord, give perfect peace to those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in you.

[26:4] Trust in the Lord forever; he will always protect us.

[26:5] He has humbled those who were proud; he destroyed the strong city they lived in, and sent its walls crashing into the dust.

[26:6] Those who were oppressed walk over it now and trample it under their feet.

[26:7] Lord, you make the path smooth for good people; the road they travel is level.

[26:8] We follow your will and put our hope in you; you are all that we desire.

[26:9] At night I long for you with all my heart; when you judge the earth and its people, they will all learn what justice is.

[26:10] Even though you are kind to the wicked, they never learn to do what is right. Even here in a land of righteous people they still do wrong; they refuse to recognize your greatness.

[26:11] Your enemies do not know that you will punish them. Lord, put them to shame and let them suffer; let them suffer the punishment you have prepared. Show them how much you love your people.

[26:12] You will give us prosperity, Lord; everything that we achieve is the result of what you do.

[26:13] Lord our God, we have been ruled by others, but you alone are our Lord.

[26:14] Now they are dead and will not live again; their ghosts will not rise, for you have punished them and destroyed them. No one remembers them any more.

[26:15] Lord, you have made our nation grow, enlarging its territory on every side; and this has brought you honor.

[26:16] You punished your people, Lord, and in anguish they prayed to you.

[26:17] You, Lord, have made us cry out, as a woman in labor cries out in pain.

[26:18] We were in pain and agony, but we gave birth to nothing. We have won no victory for our land; we have accomplished nothing.

[26:19] Those of our people who have died will live again! Their bodies will come back to life. All those sleeping in their graves will wake up and sing for joy. As the sparkling dew refreshes the earth, so the Lord will revive those who have long been dead.

[28:1] The kingdom of Israel is doomed! Its glory is fading like the crowns of flowers on the heads of its drunken leaders. Their proud heads are well perfumed, but there they lie, dead drunk.

[28:2] The Lord has someone strong and powerful ready to attack them, someone who will come like a hailstorm, like a torrent of rain, like a rushing, overpowering flood, and will overwhelm the land.

[28:3] The pride of those drunken leaders will be trampled underfoot.

[28:4] The fading glory of those proud leaders will disappear like the first figs of the season, picked and eaten as soon as they are ripe.

[28:5] A day is coming when the Lord Almighty will be like a glorious crown of flowers for his people who survive.

[28:6] He will give a sense of justice to those who serve as judges, and courage to those who defend the city gates from attack.

[28:7] Even the prophets and the priests are so drunk that they stagger. They have drunk so much wine and liquor that they stumble in confusion. The prophets are too drunk to understand the visions that God sends, and the priests are too drunk to decide the cases that are brought to them.

[28:8] The tables where they sit are all covered with vomit, and not a clean spot is left.

[28:9] They complain about me. They say, “Who does that man think he's teaching? Who needs his message? It's only good for babies that have just stopped nursing!

[28:10] He is trying to teach us letter by letter, line by line, lesson by lesson.”

[28:11] If you won't listen to me, then God will use foreigners speaking some strange-sounding language to teach you a lesson.

[28:12] He offered rest and comfort to all of you, but you refused to listen to him.

[28:13] That is why the Lord is going to teach you letter by letter, line by line, lesson by lesson. Then you will stumble with every step you take. You will be wounded, trapped, and taken prisoner.

[28:14] Now you arrogant leaders who rule here in Jerusalem over this people, listen to what the Lord is saying.

[28:15] You boast that you have made a treaty with death and reached an agreement with the world of the dead. You are certain that disaster will spare you when it comes, because you depend on lies and deceit to keep you safe.

[28:16] This, now, is what the Sovereign Lord says: “I am placing in Zion a foundation that is firm and strong. In it I am putting a solid cornerstone on which are written the words, ‘Faith that is firm is also patient.’

[28:17] Justice will be the measuring line for the foundation, and honesty will be its plumb line.” Hailstorms will sweep away all the lies you depend on, and floods will destroy your security.

[28:18] The treaty you have made with death will be abolished, and your agreement with the world of the dead will be canceled. When disaster sweeps down, you will be overcome.

[28:19] It will strike you again and again, morning after morning. You will have to bear it day and night. Each new message from God will bring new terror!

[28:20] You will be like the person in the proverb, who tries to sleep in a bed too short to stretch out on, with a blanket too narrow to wrap himself in.

[28:21] The Lord will fight as he did at Mount Perazim and in the valley of Gibeon, in order to do what he intends to do—strange as his actions may seem. He will complete his work, his mysterious work.

[28:22] Don't laugh at the warning I am giving you! If you do, it will be even harder for you to escape. I have heard the Lord Almighty's decision to destroy the whole country.

[28:23] Listen to what I am saying; pay attention to what I am telling you.

[28:24] Farmers don't constantly plow their fields and keep getting them ready for planting.

[28:25] Once they have prepared the soil, they plant the seeds of herbs such as dill and cumin. They plant rows of wheat and barley, and at the edges of their fields they plant other grain.

[28:26] They know how to do their work, because God has taught them.

[28:27] They never use a heavy club to beat out dill seeds or cumin seeds; instead they use light sticks of the proper size.

[28:28] They do not ruin the wheat by threshing it endlessly, and they know how to thresh it by driving a cart over it without bruising the grains.

[28:29] All this wisdom comes from the Lord Almighty. The plans God makes are wise, and they always succeed.

[29:1] God's altar, Jerusalem itself, is doomed! The city where David camped is doomed! Let another year or two come and go, with its feasts and festivals,

[29:2] and then God will bring disaster on the city that is called “God's altar.” There will be weeping and wailing, and the whole city will be like an altar covered with blood.

[29:3] God will attack the city, surround it, and besiege it.

[29:4] Jerusalem will be like a ghost struggling to speak from under the ground, a muffled voice coming from the dust.

[29:5] Jerusalem, all the foreigners who attack you will be blown away like dust, and their terrifying armies will fly away like straw. Suddenly and unexpectedly

[29:6] the Lord Almighty will rescue you with violent thunderstorms and earthquakes. He will send windstorms and raging fire;

[29:7] then all the armies of the nations attacking the city of God's altar, all their weapons and equipment—everything—will vanish like a dream, like something imagined in the night.

[29:8] All the nations that assemble to attack Jerusalem will be like a starving person who dreams he is eating and wakes up hungry, or like someone dying of thirst who dreams he is drinking and wakes with a dry throat.

[29:9] Go ahead and be stupid! Go ahead and be blind! Get drunk without any wine! Stagger without drinking a drop!

[29:10] The Lord has made you drowsy, ready to fall into a deep sleep. The prophets should be the eyes of the people, but God has blindfolded them.

[29:11] The meaning of every prophetic vision will be hidden from you; it will be like a sealed scroll. If you take it to someone who knows how to read and ask him to read it to you, he will say he can't because it is sealed.

[29:12] If you give it to someone who can't read and ask him to read it to you, he will answer that he doesn't know how.

[29:13] The Lord said, “These people claim to worship me, but their words are meaningless, and their hearts are somewhere else. Their religion is nothing but human rules and traditions, which they have simply memorized.

[29:14] So I will startle them with one unexpected blow after another. Those who are wise will turn out to be fools, and all their cleverness will be useless.”