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ISA EN_ULT en_English_ltr Tue Mar 21 2023 09:31:48 GMT-1000 (Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time) tc
Isaiah
1 The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
2 Hear, heavens, and give ear, earth,
for Yahweh has spoken:
“Sons I have raised and brought up,
but they have rebelled against me.
3 The ox knows his owner,
and the donkey the feeding trough of his master,
but Israel does not know;
my people does not understand.”
4 Woe, sinful nation,
people heavy of iniquity,
seed of evildoers,
sons who act corruptly!
They have abandoned Yahweh,
they have despised the Holy One of Israel,
they have estranged themselves from him.
5 Why should you still be beaten,
should you continue in rebellion?
The whole head is sick,
and the whole heart weak.
6 From the sole of the foot and to the head
there is no health in it;
bruises and sores and fresh wounds;
they have not been pressed out,
and they have not been bandaged,
and they have not been softened with oil.
7 Your land is a desolation,
your cities burned with fire;
your field—in front of you
strangers are devouring it—
and it is a desolation as the overthrowing of strangers.
8 And the Daughter of Zion is left
like a hut in a vineyard,
like a shed in a cucumber field,
like a besieged city.
9 Had not Yahweh of hosts
left for us a few survivors,
we would have been like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah.
10 Hear the word of Yahweh, rulers of Sodom;
give ear to the law of our God, people of Gomorrah:
11 “What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me?”
says Yahweh.
“I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams,
and the fat of fatted beasts,
and in the blood of bulls or lambs or goats
I do not delight.
12 When you come to appear before my face,
who has required this from your hand,
to trample my courts?
13 Do not continue to bring an offering of worthlessness;!
It is incense of abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath, calling of assemblies—
I am not able to bear iniquity and festive assembly.
14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts
my spirit hates;
they have become a burden to me.
I am weary of carrying.
15 So when you spread out your hands,
I hide my eyes from you;
even though you multiply prayer,
I do not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
16 Wash, cleanse yourselves;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
stop doing evil;
17 learn to do good;
seek justice;
correct the oppressor;
carry out justice for the fatherless;
contend for the widow.”
18 “Come, now, and let us come to terms,”
says Yahweh.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they will be white like snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they will be like wool.
19 If you agree and obey,
you will eat the good of the land,
20 but if you refuse and rebel,
by the sword you will be eaten,”
for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.
21 How the faithful city
has become a prostitute!
She who was full of justice—
righteousness lodged in her,
but now, murderers.
22 Your silver has become dross,
your wine mixed with water.
23 Your princes are rebels
and companions of thieves;
everyone loves bribes
and pursues payoffs.
They do not defend the fatherless,
and the cause of the widow does not come to them.
24 Thus is the declaration of the Lord Yahweh of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel:
“Woe! I shall gratify myself before my adversaries,
and avenge myself before my enemies;
25 and turn my hand against you,
and refine your dross as with lye,
and take away all your impurity.
26 And I shall restore your judges as at the first,
and your counselors as at the beginning;
afterwards you will be called The City of Righteousness,
a faithful town.”
27 Zion will be redeemed by justice,
and her repentant ones by righteousness,
28 but rebels and sinners will be crushed together,
and those who abandon Yahweh will come to an end,
29 For they will be ashamed of the sacred oak trees
which you desired,
and you will be embarrassed by the gardens that you have chosen.
30 For you will be like an oak
whose leaf fades,
and like a garden that has no water.
31 And the strong man will be like tinder,
and his work like a spark,
and both of them will burn together,
and none will quench them.
2 The word that Isaiah son of Amoz perceived, concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
2 And it will be in the last days,
the mountain of the house of Yahweh
will be established as the head of the mountains,
and it will be raised up above the hills,
and all the nations will flow to it.
3 And many peoples will come and say,
“Come, and let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
so he may teach us from his ways,
and we may walk in his paths.”
For from Zion will go the law,
and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem.
4 And he will judge between the nations,
and will render decisions for many peoples,
and they will hammer their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation will not lift up sword against nation,
and they will not learn war again.
5 House of Jacob,
come and let us walk in the light of Yahweh.
6 For you have abandoned your people,
O house of Jacob,
For they are filled with eastern things
and they practice divination like the Philistines,
and they shake hands with sons of foreigners.
7 And its land is full of silver and gold,
and there is no limit to its wealth;
its land also is full of horses,
and there is no limit to its chariots,
8 And its land is full of idols;
they worship the craftsmanship of its hands,
what its fingers have made.
9 And a person will be bowed down,
and a man will fall down,
but do not raise them up!
10 Go into the rock
and hide in the ground
from the face of the terror of Yahweh
and from the glory of his majesty.
11 The lofty eyes of man will be brought low,
and the pride of men brought down,
and Yahweh alone will be exalted on that day.
12 For the day of Yahweh of hosts
is against everyone who is proud and raised up
and against every arrogant one—and he will be brought down—
13 and against all the cedars of Lebanon,
high and lifted up,
and against all the oaks of Bashan
14 and against all the high mountains
and against all the elevated hills
15 and against every high tower
and against every fortified wall
16 and against all the ships of Tarshish
and against all beautiful sailing vessels.
17 And the pride of man will be brought low,
and the haughtiness of men will fall,
and Yahweh alone will be exalted on that day.
18 And the idols will completely pass away.
19 And men will go into the caves of the rocks
and the holes of the ground,
from the face of the terror of Yahweh,
and from the glory of his majesty,
when he rises to awe the earth.
20 On that day, man will throw away
his idols of silver and his idols of gold
which they made for himself to worship,
to diggers of holes and bats,
21 going into the crevices of the rocks
and into the clefts of the ragged rocks,
from the face of the terror of Yahweh
and from the glory of his majesty,
when he rises to awe the earth.
22 Stop yourselves from regarding man,
whose breath is in his nose,
for what is he regarded as?
3 For behold the Lord Yahweh of hosts will take away from Jerusalem and from Judah
supply and support:
all the supply of bread
and all the supply of water,
2 the mighty one and the man of war,
the judge and the prophet
and the diviner and the elder,
3 the captain of fifty
and the exalted of face
and the counselor and the expert craftsman
and the skillful enchanter.
4 “And I shall place youths as their leaders,
and infants will rule over them.
5 And the people will be oppressed,
a man by a man,
and a man by his neighbor;
the lad will insult the elderly,
and the dishonorable against the honorable.
6 For a man will seize his brother
in the house of his father:
‘You have a coat;
be our ruler,
and this ruin
will be under your hand.’
7 On that day he will lift up, saying,
‘I shall not be a healer,
and in my house there is no bread and there is no clothing.
You shall not appoint me
ruler of the people.’”
8 For Jerusalem has stumbled,
and Judah has fallen,
because their tongue and their deeds are against Yahweh,
defying the eyes of his glory.
9 The appearance of their faces witnesses against them,
and they tell of their sin like Sodom;
they do not hide it.
Woe to their life!
For they have completed for themselves affliction.
10 Tell the righteous that it will be well,
for they will eat the fruit of their deeds.
11 Woe to the wicked! It will be calamity,
for the recompense of his hands will be done to him.
12 My people—children are their oppressors,
and women rule over it.
My people, those who guide you lead astray
and consume the direction of your path.
13 Yahweh is positioned to contend
and is standing to judge the peoples.
14 Yahweh will come with judgment
with the elders of his people and their leaders:
“And you, you have consumed the vineyard;
the plunder of the poor is in your houses.
15 Why do you crush my people
and grind the faces of the poor?”
—the declaration of the Lord Yahweh of hosts.
16 And Yahweh said:
“Because the daughters of Zion are proud,
and they walk extending the neck,
and with flirting eyes,
walking and mincing their steps,
and tinkling their feet.
17 Then the Lord shall scrape
the heads of the daughters of Zion,
and Yahweh shall make their private parts naked.”
18 On that day the Lord will remove
the finery of the anklets and the headbands
and the crescent ornaments,
19 the earrings and the bracelets and the veils,
20 the headdresses and the anklets
and the sashes and the boxes of perfume and the amulets,
21 the rings and the rings of the nose,
22 the festive garments and the mantles and the cloaks and the purses,
23 and the fine garments and the undergarments,
and the turbans and the shawls.
24 “And it will happen, instead of fragrance will be stench;
and instead of a sash, a rope;
and instead of styled hair, baldness;
and instead of a fine robe, a robe of sackcloth;
branding instead of beauty.
25 Your men will fall by the sword,
and your strong men in war.
26 And her gates will lament and mourn,
and she will be alone, sitting on the ground.
4 And seven women will take hold of
one man on that day, saying,
‘Our food we shall eat
and our clothing we shall wear.
Only, call us your name;
remove our shame.’
2 On that day the branch of Yahweh will be
beauty and glory,
and the fruit of the land
excellent and delightful
for the remnant of Israel.”
3 And the remainder in Zion
and the leftover in Jerusalem—
"Holy" will be said of him,
everyone who is written for life in Jerusalem.
4 Surely the Lord will wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion,
and cleanse the blood stains of Jerusalem from her midst,
by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of fire.
5 Then over all the sanctuary of Mount Zion
and over her assembly Yahweh will create
cloud by day and smoke
and the shining of a flaming fire by night
for a canopy over all the glory,
6 and it will be a shelter for shade by day from the heat
and a refuge and a cover from the storm and rain.
5 Let me sing, please, to my beloved
a song of my beloved for his vineyard.
My beloved had a vineyard
on a hill of richness.
2 And he dug it and cleared it
and planted it with choice vines,
and he built a tower in the middle of it
and also hewed a winepress in it.
And he waited for it to produce grapes,
but it produced wild grapes.
3 And now, dweller of Jerusalem
and man of Judah,
judge, please, between me and between my vineyard.
4 What more could have been done for my vineyard,
that I have not done for it?
I waited for it to produce grapes,
but why did it produce wild grapes?
5 And now, please, I shall tell you
what I shall do to my vineyard:
I shall remove its hedge,
and it will be consumed.
I shall break down its wall,
and it will be trampled down.
6 And I shall make it a desolation.
It will not be pruned or hoed,
and briers and thorns will spring up.
And I shall command the clouds
against raining rain on it.
7 For the vineyard of Yahweh of hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the man of Judah
his pleasant plant.
And he waited for justice,
but behold, slaughter;
for righteousness,
but behold, screaming.
8 Woe, those who join house to house,
field to field they approach
until there is no room,
and you are made to remain alone
in the midst of the land!
9 In my ears, Yahweh of hosts:
‘Surely many houses will be empty—
great and good ones without an inhabitant.
10 For a ten-yoke vineyard will yield one bath,
and a homer of seed will yield an ephah.’
11 Woe, those who rise up early in the morning
to obtain strong drink,
those who loiter into the night
as wine inflames them,
12 and whose feasts are harp and lyre,
tambourine and flute and wine,
but they do not regard the work of Yahweh,
and they have not discerned the doings of his hands.
13 Therefore, my people are exiled
for lack of understanding,
and its honorable people are hungry,
and its parched multitude is thirsty.
14 Therefore, Sheol has enlarged its appetite
and has opened its mouth without limit,
and its elite and its crowd will descend,
and its revelers and its happy.
15 And man will be humbled, and mankind will be brought down,
and the eyes of the lofty will be brought down.
16 And Yahweh of hosts will be exalted in justice,
and the Holy God will be holy by his righteousness.
17 And the sheep will feed as in their pasture,
and goats will eat the ruins of the fatted.[fn]
18 Woe, those who pull in iniquity with cords of falsehood
and like with cart ropes, sin;
19 who say, ‘Let him hurry,
let him hasten his work
so that we may see,
and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near
and let it come and let us know.’
20 Woe, those who call evil good
and good evil,
who set darkness as light,
and light as darkness,
who set bitter as sweet,
and sweet as bitter!
21 Woe to those wise in their own eyes
and before their own faces, discerning.
22 Woe, mighty men of wine-drinking,
and men of strength of liquor-mixing;
23 who declare righteous the wicked for a bribe
and take away from the righteous his rights!
24 Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours stubble
and the dry grass goes down in flame,
so their root will rot,
and their blossom will rise like dust.
For they have rejected the law of Yahweh of hosts,
and they have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25 Therefore, the nose of Yahweh burns against his people,
and he has reached out his hand against them and has struck them,
and the mountains tremble,
and their corpses become like garbage
in the streets.
In all these things, his nose does not turn away,
and still his hand is stretched out.
26 And he will lift up a signal for faraway nations
and will whistle for him from the end of the earth.
And behold, quick, swift it will come.
27 None tires and none stumbles among it;
he does not slumber and does not sleep.
And the belts of their loins are not loose,
and the thongs of their sandals are not broken.
28 For its arrows are sharp
and all its bows bent;
the hooves of its horses seem like flint,
and its chariot wheels like storms.
29 Its roaring like a lion,
and it will roar like young lions.
And it will growl and seize the prey and drag it away,
and there will be no rescuer.
30 And it will roar against it on that day
as the roar of the sea.
And one looks over the land,
and behold, darkness, suffering!
And the light will be darkened by the clouds.
6 In the year of the death of King Uzziah, then I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and his hem filled the temple. 2 The seraphim stood above him: six wings—six wings for each; with two covering its face and with two covering its feet, and with two it flew. 3 And each one called to another and said,
“Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of hosts!
The whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of the one who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
5 And I said,
“Woe to me! For I am doomed because I am a man of unclean lips,
and I live among a people of unclean lips,
because my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts!”
6 And one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a hot coal he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. 7 And he caused it to touch on my mouth and said,
“Behold, this has touched on your lips,
and your guilt has been taken away and your sin atoned for.”
8 And I heard the voice of the Lord say, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here I am, send me.”
9 And he said, “Go and tell this people,
‘Listen closely, but do not understand,
and see clearly, but do not perceive.’
10 Fatten the heart of this people,
and dull its ears and dim its eyes.
Otherwise it might see with its eyes
and hear with its ears
and understand with its heart,
and turn and be healed.”
11 And I said, “Until when, Lord?”
And he said:
“Until cities are desolate,
without inhabitants,
and the houses are without people,
and the land is a desolate waste,
12 and Yahweh has driven the people far away,
and the desertion in the midst of the land is great.
13 If a tenth are still in it,
then it will turn back and be consumed.
As an elm or as an oak
which, in being cut down,
has a stump for it,
the holy seed is its stump.”
7 And it happened, in the days of Ahaz son of Jotham son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Aram, and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to war against it, but they could not prevail against it. 2 And it was reported to the house of David, saying, “Aram stands by with Ephraim,” and his heart trembled, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest shake before the face of the wind.
3 And Yahweh said to Isaiah, “Go out, please, to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-Jashub, at the end of the channel of the upper pool, to the road of the field of the fuller. 4 And say to him, ‘Be careful and calm, you shall not be afraid, and your heart shall not be soft from these two tails of smoldering firebrands, by the burning nose of Rezin and Aram, and the son of Remaliah. 5 Because Aram, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah have planned evil against you, saying, 6 “Let us go up against Judah and terrify her, and let us break into her and crown a king in her midst, the son of Tabeel.”’
7 Thus the Lord Yahweh says,
It will not succeed, and it will not be,
8 because the head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin.
And within 65 years,
Ephraim will be broken from being a people.
9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.
If you do not believe,
then you will not be secure.”
10 And Yahweh continued to speak to Ahaz, saying, 11 “Ask a sign for yourself from Yahweh your God; make the request deep, or make it high above.” 12 And Ahaz said, “I shall not ask, and I shall not test Yahweh.”
13 And he said, “Listen, please, house of David. Is it too little for you to tire out the people, that you also tire out my God? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: Behold, the young woman will conceive and bear a son and will call his name Immanuel.[fn] 15 He will eat curds and honey when he knows to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the child knows to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land will be desolate, though you fear the faces of its two kings. 17 Yahweh will bring the king of Assyria on you and on your people, and on the house of your father days that have not come since the day Ephraim turned away from Judah.”
18 And it will happen on that day,
Yahweh will whistle for a fly
that is in the distant streams of Egypt,
and for a bee that is in the land of Assyria.
19 And they will come and settle down, all of them,
in the valleys of desolation
and in the clefts of the rocks,
and in all the thornbushes, and in all the pastures.
20 At that time the Lord will shave
with a razor the laborer beyond the river—
the king of Assyria—
the head and the hair of the legs,
and he will also scrape away the beard.
21 And it will happen on that day,
a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep.
22 And it will happen, because of the abundance of milk produced,
he will eat curds,
for everyone left in the land
will eat curds and honey.
23 And it will happen on that day,
there will be, in every place
where there were 1000 vines worth 1000 silvers,
it will be briers and thorns.
24 One will go there with arrows and with bows,
because all the land will be briers and thorns.
25 And all the hills that were cultivated with the hoe,
you will not go there for fear of the briers and thorns,
and it will be for sending out of cattle and for grazing of sheep.
8 And Yahweh said to me, “Take for yourself a large tablet, and write on it with a chisel, ‘Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.’ 2 And I shall cause faithful witnesses to attest for me, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah.” 3 And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. And Yahweh said to me, “Call his name Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. 4 For before the child knows to cry, ‘My father,’ and, ‘My mother,’ one will lift away the riches of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria before the face of the king of Assyria.”
5 And Yahweh continued to speak to me again, saying, 6 “Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah—those going gently—and rejoices in Rezin and the son of Remaliah, 7 so therefore, behold: the Lord is bringing up on them the waters of the river, mighty and many—the king of Assyria and all his glory.
And it will come up over all its channels
and go over all its banks.
8 And it will sweep into Judah, flooding and passing on,
until it touches your neck.
And its outstretched wings
will fill the breadth of your land, Immanuel.”
9 Raise the war cry, peoples, and be terrified.
And give ear, all you distant of the land:
gird yourselves for war and be terrified
gird yourselves for war and be terrified.
10 Be advised with advice, but it will be made useless;
speak a speech, but it will not stand,
for God is with us.
11 For thus Yahweh spoke to me, with a strong hand, and turned me away from walking in the way of this people, saying,
12 Do not call a lie anything that this people calls a lie,
and its fear you will not fear, and do not be terrified.
13 You shall sanctify Yahweh of hosts alone,
and he is your fear, and he is your terror.
14 And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of striking
and a rock of stumbling
for both the houses of Israel,
a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 And many will stumble over them
and fall and be broken and be ensnared and captured.
16 Bind up the testimony; seal the law for my disciples. 17 And I shall wait for Yahweh, who hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I shall hope in him. 18 Behold, I and the children whom Yahweh has given to me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from Yahweh of hosts, who lives on Mount Zion.
19 And when they say to you, “Consult with mediums and with soothsayers, the ones who chirp and mutter,” how can a people not consult with their God, but with the dead on behalf of the living? 20 To the law and to the testimony! If they do not say as this thing, it is because they have no dawn, 21 and will pass through it distressed and hungry. And it will happen when they are hungry, then they will become angry and curse their king and their God and turn upward. 22 And they will look at the earth and behold: trouble and darkness, dimness, distress and gloom is scattered.
9 For it will not cover over she who is distressed. In an earlier time he humiliated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but later, he will glorify it, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
2 The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who have lived in the land of darkness,
the light has shone on them.
3 You have multiplied the nation itself;
you have increased its joy.
They rejoice before your face
like the joy at harvest time,
as they rejoice
when dividing the plunder.
4 For the yoke of his burden
and the staff of his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as the day of Midian.
5 For every boot treading loudly
and the garment rolled in blood
will be burned, fuel of fire.
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the rule will be on his shoulder;
and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end,
on the throne of David, and over his kingdom,
to establish it and sustain it
with justice and with righteousness from now and to eternity.
The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will do this.
8 The Lord sent a word against Jacob,
and it fell on Israel.
9 And the people will know, all of it,
Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria,
in pride and with an arrogant heart, saying,
10 “The bricks have fallen, but we will rebuild with chiseled stone;
the sycamores are felled, but we will replace them with cedars.”
11 And Yahweh will raise up against him Rezin, the adversary,
and will stir up his enemies,
12 the Arameans on the east, and the Philistines on the west,
and they will devour Israel with a whole mouth.
In all these things, his nose does not draw back,
and his hand is still stretched out.
13 And the people will not turn to him who struck it,
and they will not seek Yahweh of hosts.
14 And Yahweh will cut off from Israel head and tail,
palm branch and reed in one day.
15 The elder and the noble of face are the head,
and the prophet teaching lies is the tail.
16 And the guides of this people have misled,
and its guided are swallowed up.
17 Therefore, the Lord will not rejoice over their young men
and on their fatherless and widows he will not have compassion ,
since everyone is godless and an evildoer,
and every mouth speaks foolish things.
In all these things, his nose does not draw back,
and his hand is still stretched out.
18 For wickedness burns like a fire;
it devours the briers and thorns,
and it kindles the thickets of the forest,
and they mount up in a rising of smoke.
19 Through the wrath of Yahweh of hosts the land is scorched,
and it will happen: the people as fuel of fire;
a man does not spare his brother.
20 And they will devour on the right but be hungry,
and they will eat on the left but not be satisfied.
Every man will eat the flesh of his arm.
21 Manasseh to Ephraim,
and Ephraim, Manasseh
together they will be against Judah.
In all these things, his nose does not draw back,
and his hand is still stretched out.
10 Woe, lawmakers of useless laws
and writers writing perverseness.
2 suppressing the rights of the needy,
and robbing the justice of the poor of my people,
making widows become plunder,
and preying on the fatherless!
3 And what will you do for the day of judgment,
and for the destruction coming from far away?
To whom will you flee for help,
and where will you leave your wealth?
4 Only, they will crouch among the prisoners,
or fall among the killed.
In all these things, his nose does not turn back,
and his hand is still stretched out.
5 Woe, Assyria, the club of my nose, and a rod
is in their hand for my fury!
6 I send him against an arrogant nation
and against the people of my wrath.
I order him to plunder the plunder and to prey on the prey,
and to trample them, trodden like mud of the streets.
7 And he does not think so,
and his heart does not consider thus,
for, to destroy is in his heart,
and to eliminate not a few nations.
8 For he says,
“Are not all my princes kings?
9 Is not Kalno like Carchemish?
Surely Hamath is not like Arpad?
Surely Samaria is not like Damascus?
10 As my hand has reached idolatrous kingdoms,
and their carved figures were greater than Jerusalem and greater than Samaria,
11 just as I did to Samaria and her vanities,
shall I not do so to Jerusalem and to her idols?”
12 And it will happen, when the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and against Jerusalem, “I shall reckon with the fruit of the magnitude of the heart of the king of Assyria and the pride of the haughtiness of his eyes.”
13 For he says:
“‘By my strength and by my hand I acted,
and it is in my wisdom, for I was discerning.
But I have removed the boundaries of the peoples,
and I have stolen their treasures,
and like a bull I have brought down the inhabitants.
14 And my hand has seized, as from a nest
the wealth of the nations,
and as one gathers abandoned eggs,
I gathered all the earth,
and none was fluttering a wing
or opening a mouth or chirping.’”
15 Will the ax glorify itself against the one who swings it?
Will the saw praise itself over him who wields it?
As a rod could wield those who raise it!
As a club could lift up what is not wood!
16 Therefore, the Lord Yahweh of hosts
will send thinness among his fattened ones
and instead of his glory, a burning will rage,
like the burning of fire.
17 And the light of Israel will become a fire,
and his Holy One a flame,
and it will burn and devour
his thorns and his briers in one day.
18 And the glory of his forest and his fruitful land,
he will consume from spirit and to flesh,
and it will be like the wasting away of the frail.
19 And the remnant of the trees of his forest will be a number
that a child could count.
20 And it will happen on that day, the remnant of Israel and the refugees of the house of Jacob will not continue anymore to rely on its afflicter, but will indeed rely on Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel. 21 A remnant will return, a remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. 22 For though your people, Israel, are like the sand of the seashore, a remnant of it will return. Decreed destruction flows down, righteousness. 23 For it is finished and decreed: the Lord Yahweh of hosts is about to carry it out throughout all the land.
24 Therefore, thus says the Lord Yahweh of hosts, “My people who live in Zion, do not fear the Assyrian. He will strike you with the rod and raise his staff against you in the way of Egypt 25 for just a very little time; then the fury and my nose will end on account of their destruction.”
26 And Yahweh of hosts will wield a whip against it, as the smiting of Midian at the rock of Oreb. And his rod will be over the sea, and he will lift it up in the way of Egypt. 27 And it will happen on that day,
his burden will be lifted from your shoulder and his yoke from your neck,
and the yoke will be destroyed from the face of fatness. [fn]
28 He has come to Aiath,
passed through Migron;
at Michmash he stores his provisions.
29 They have crossed over the pass;
Geba is his lodging.
Ramah trembles,
Gibeah of Saul flees.
30 Lift up your voice, daughter of Gallim!
Give attention, Laishah, poor of Anathoth!
31 Madmenah flees,
the inhabitants of Gebim take refuge.
32 Yet, today he will stand at Nob
wave his hand
against the mountain of the daughter of Zion,
the hill of Jerusalem.
33 Behold, the Lord Yahweh of hosts
will cut off the foliage with a crash,
and the tallest of the tall will be cut down,
and the lofty will be brought low.
34 And he will chop down the thickets of the forest with an ax,
and Lebanon will fall with force.
11 And a shoot will come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.
2 And the Spirit of Yahweh will rest upon him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of instruction and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of Yahweh,
3 and his breathing will be in fear of the Lord.
And not by what his eyes see will he judge;
and he will not decide by what his ears hear,
4 but he will judge the lowly righteously
and decide for the poor of the earth fairly.
And he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked,
5 and righteousness will be the belt for his waist,
and faithfulness the strap for his hips.
6 And the wolf will live with the lamb,
and the leopard will lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the young lion and the fattened calf, altogether,
and a little child will lead them.
7 And the cow and the bear will graze together;
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 And an infant will play over the hole of the snake,
and the weaned child will stretch his hand over the den of the serpent.
9 They will not hurt and they will not destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of knowledge of Yahweh,
as the waters cover the sea.
the root of Jesse that is standing,
will be as a banner for the peoples.
The nations will seek him out,
and his resting place will be glorious.
11 And it will happen on that day,
the Lord will again extend his hand,
to recover the remnant of his people
who will remain, from Assyria and from Egypt,
and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam
and from Shinar and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.
12 And he will raise a banner for the nations
and will gather the outcasts of Israel
and the dispersed of Judah he will assemble
from the four corners of the earth.
13 And he will turn aside the envy of Ephraim,
and the hostilities of Judah will be cut off.
Ephraim will not envy Judah,
and Judah will not oppress Ephraim,
14 but they will swoop down on the shoulders of the Philistines westward.
Together they will plunder the sons of the east.
Edom and Moab, the sending out of their hand,
and the sons of Ammon their audience.
15 And Yahweh will completely destroy
the gulf of the Sea of Egypt.
And he will wave his hand over the river
with his scorching wind
and will divide it into seven streams,
and it may be walked on in sandals.
16 And there will be a highway for the remnant of his people
who will return from Assyria,
as there was for Israel
in the day of their coming up from the land of Egypt.
12 And you will say on that day,
“I shall revere you, Yahweh,
though you were angry with me.
Your nose has turned away,
and you have comforted me.
2 Behold, God is my salvation;
I shall trust and not fear,
for my strength and song is Yah, Yahweh,
and he has become my salvation.”
3 And you will draw water joyfully
from the wells of salvation.
4 And you will say on that day:
“Give thanks to Yahweh,
call on his name;
declare his deeds among the peoples;
proclaim that his name is exalted.
5 Sing to Yahweh. For he has done glorious things;
let this be known throughout the earth.
6 Cry out and shout for joy, inhabitant of Zion,
for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”
13 An oracle for Babylon, which Isaiah son of Amoz perceived:
2 On the bare mountain raise a banner.
Lift up a voice to them. Wave a hand,
and they will go into the gates of the nobles.
3 I have commanded my holy ones;
I even called my warriors for my nose,
my proudly exulting ones.
4 The sound of a multitude in the mountains,
like a numerous people!
The sound of a tumult of the kingdoms,
nations are gathered!
Yahweh of hosts is mustering the army for the battle.
5 They are coming from a far country,
from the end of the heavens,
Yahweh, and the instruments of his judgment,
to destroy the whole land.
6 Howl, for the day of Yahweh is near;
it comes with destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore, all hands hang limp,
and every heart of man melts.
8 And they will be terrified;
pain and agony will seize them;
like a woman in labor, they are pained.
A man to his friend will stare in astonishment;
their faces are faces aflame.
9 Behold, the day of Yahweh comes ruthlessly,
with wrath and burning nose,
to make the land a desolation
and to destroy its sinners from it.
10 For the stars of the heavens and the constellations
will not shine their light.
The sun will be darkened in its coming out,
and the moon will not emit its light.
11 And I shall charge the world its evil
and the wicked their iniquity.
And I shall put an end to the arrogance of the proud
and bring down the arrogance of the ruthless.
12 I shall cause a mortal to be more rare than fine gold
and a man, the pure gold of Ophir.
13 Therefore I shall make the heavens tremble,
and the earth will be shaken out of its place
by the fury of Yahweh of hosts
and on the day of his burning nose.
14 And it will happen, like a hunted gazelle or like a sheep with no shepherd,
every man will turn toward his people
and every man will flee to his land.
15 All who are found will be killed,
and all who are caught will die by the sword,
16 and their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes,
their houses will be plundered, and their wives, raped.
17 Behold, I am stirring up the Medes against them,
who will not be concerned about silver,
and they will not delight in gold.
18 And the bows will strike down the young men,
and they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb,
their eyes will not have pity on sons.
19 And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the pride of the Chaldeans, will be
like God destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.
20 It will not be inhabited to eternity,
or lived in from generation to generation.
And the Arab will not pitch his tent there,
and the shepherds will not make flocks rest there.
21 But desert beasts will lie there,
and their houses will be full of owls,
and daughters of ostriches will live there,
and wild goats will skip about there,
22 and hyenas will cry in their fortresses,
and jackals in palaces of luxury.
And her time is coming near,
and her days will not be delayed.
14 For Yahweh will have compassion on Jacob, and he will again choose Israel and restore them into their land. And foreigners will join with them and attach themselves to the house of Jacob. 2 And the nations will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will take them in the land of Yahweh as male and female servants, and they will be taking captive their captors, and they will rule over their oppressors.
3 And it will happen on the day when Yahweh gives you rest from your suffering and anguish and from the hard slavery under which you were enslaved, 4 and you shall lift up this theme against the king of Babylon, and you will say,
“How the oppressor has ceased,
the fury ceased!
5 Yahweh has broken the staff of the wicked,
the scepter of the rulers,
6 striking the peoples in wrath, blows without end!
Ruling the nations in nose, an attack without restraint!
7 The whole earth is resting, quiet;
they break out singing.
8 Even the cypress trees rejoice over you
with the cedars of Lebanon:
‘Since you are laid low,
no one comes up to cut us down.’
9 Sheol below trembles for you,
to meet your coming,
It arouses the dead for you,
all the kings of the earth,
raising them from their thrones,
all the kings of the nations.
10 They all will speak and say to you,
‘You, also, have become as weak as us.
You have become like us.
11 It has been brought down to Sheol—
your arrogance, the sound of your lyres.
Maggots are spread under you,
and worms cover you.’
12 How you are fallen from heaven,
daystar, son of the morning!
You are cut down to the ground,
conqueror over nations!
13 And you had said in your heart,
‘I shall ascend into heaven,
I shall exalt my throne
above the stars of God,
and I shall sit on the mount of assembly,
in the far reaches of the north.
14 I shall ascend over the tops of the clouds;
I shall match the Most High.’
15 Yet you are brought down to Sheol,
to the depths of the pit.
16 Those who see you will gaze at you,
they will stare to you.
‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
who shook kingdoms,
17 who made the world like a wilderness,
and overthrew its cities,
did not release his prisoners homewards?’
18 All the kings of the nations,
all of them lie down in honor, a man in his home,
19 but you are cast out from your grave
like a hated branch,
clothed with the slain pierced by the sword,
who go down to the stones of the pit
like a trampled corpse.
20 You will not join them in burial,
because you have destroyed your land,
you have killed your people.
May none ever mention
the offspring of evildoers.
21 Prepare slaughter for his sons,
for the iniquity of their fathers,
lest they rise up and possess the earth
and fill the face of the earth with cities.
22 “And I shall rise up against them”
—the declaration of Yahweh of hosts.
“And I shall cut off from Babylon name and remnant,
and offspring and grandchildren,”—the declaration of Yahweh.
23 “And I shall make her into a possession of owls,
and pools of water,
and I shall sweep her with the broom of destruction,”
—the declaration of Yahweh of hosts.
24 Yahweh of hosts has sworn, saying,
“Surely, as I have intended, so it shall be,
and as I have purposed, it shall come about:
25 To break Assyria in my land,
and on my mountains trample him.
And his yoke will be lifted from them
and his burden lifted from their shoulder.
26 This is the plan intended for the whole earth,
and this is the hand raised over all the nations.
27 For Yahweh of hosts has planned,
and who will stop him?
And his hand is raised,
and who will turn it back?
28 In the year of the death of king Ahaz, there was this oracle:
29 Do not rejoice, all you Philistines,
that the rod that struck you is broken,
for out of the root of the serpent will grow out an adder,
and its fruit a fiery flying serpent.
30 And the poor will graze in my pastures,
and the needy will lie down in safety.
And I shall kill your root with famine,
and it will slay your survivors.
31 Howl, gate; cry, city;
all of you will melt away, Philistia,
for from the north comes smoke,
and none is alone in his ranks.
32 And what will he answer to the messengers of a nation?
that Yahweh has founded Zion,
and in her the afflicted of his people will find refuge.”
15 An oracle for Moab:
So, in a night Ar of Moab
is laid waste, destroyed;
so, in a night Kir of Moab
is laid waste, destroyed.
2 They have gone up to the temple,
and Dibon to the heights to weep.
Over Nebo and over Medeba,
Moab laments.
All their heads are bald,
all beards are cut off.
3 In their streets they wear sackcloth;
on their housetops
and in the square everyone wails,
coming down in tears.
4 And Heshbon and Elealeh cry out;
their voice is heard as far as Jahaz;
So the soldiers of Moab call out;
his spirit trembles in him.
5 My heart cries out for Moab;
those who flee to Zoar, the heifer of the third year,
for by the ascent of Luhith
in weeping they go up;
for on the road of Horonaim
they lift up the cry of affliction.
6 For the waters of Nimrim are a desolation;
For the grass is dried up;
the vegetation is finished;
the greenery is not.
7 Therefore, the abundance they have made and their stores
they carry away over the brook of the poplars.
8 For the cry has surrounded
the region of Moab
as far as Eglaim, her wail,
and Beer Elim, her wail.
9 For the waters of Dimon are full of blood,
but I shall bring more on Dimon.
For survivors of Moab, a lion,
and for the remnant of the land.
16 Send a ram
to the ruler of the land
from Selah in the wilderness,
to the mount of the daughter of Zion.
2 And it will happen, as a bird wanders
from a scattered nest,
so the women of Moab are
at the fords of the Arnon.
3 “Take counsel,
execute justice;
provide your shade like night
in the middle of the day.
Hide the fugitives;
do not expose the refugees.
4 Let them live among you,
the refugees of Moab;
be a hiding place for them
from the face of the destroyer.”
For the oppression will stop,
destruction will cease,
oppressors will disappear from the land.
5 And a throne will be established in covenant faithfulness;
and on it will sit in truth
one from the tent of David.
He will judge and seek justice,
and rush to righteousness.
6 We have heard of the pride of Moab, great pride,
his pride and his boasting and his anger,
his boasts are not true.
7 So Moab wails for Moab,
they all wail!
For the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth they mourn.
Surely they are afflicted,
8 for the fields of Heshbon have dried up,
and the vines of Sibmah.
The rulers of the nations
have trampled its choice vines,
as far as Jazer they reached,
spread into the desert.
Its shoots stretched out;
they passed on to the sea.
9 Indeed I shall weep in the weeping of Jazer,
the vine of Sibmah,
I shall water you with my tears,
Heshbon and Elealeh.
For on your summer fruits and on your harvest
acclamations have ceased.
10 And gladness and joy are taken away from the orchard,
and in the vineyards, no rejoicing, no cheers.
The treader does not tread wine in the presses;
I have suppressed the shouts of joy.
11 So my heart sighs like a harp for Moab,
and my inward being for Kir Hareseth. 12 And it will happen, for it will be seen that Moab is fruitless on the high place, and he will come to his temple to pray, and it will not happen.
13 This is the word that Yahweh spoke to Moab previously. 14 And now, Yahweh speaks, saying, “Within three years, like the years of a hired worker, the glory of Moab will disappear; of all the great multitude, the remnant will be very few, no significance.”
17 An oracle for Damascus:
Behold, Damascus, will cease from being a city,
And it will be a heap of ruins.
2 The cities of Aroer will be abandoned.
They will be for flocks,
and they will lie down there, and no one will frighten them.
3 And forts will disappear from Ephraim,
and the kingdom from Damascus,
and the remnant of Aram,
they will be like the glory of the sons of Israel—
the declaration of Yahweh of hosts.
4 And it will happen on that day,
the glory of Jacob will become thin,
and the fatness of his flesh will become lean.
5 And it will be as a harvester gathers the standing grain,
and his arm reaps the heads of grain.
And it will be as one gleans heads of grain
in the Valley of Rephaim.
6 And gleanings will be left in it, as when the olive tree is shaken:
two or three berries in the top of the bough,
four or five in the fruitful branches
—the declaration of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
7 On that day man will gaze at his Maker, and his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel. 8 And he will not look to the altars, the work of his hands and which his fingers have made. He will not look to the Asherah poles or the sun images. 9 On that day his strong cities will be like the abandoned forests and summits which were forsaken because of the faces of the sons of Israel. And it will be a desolation.
10 For you have forgotten the God of your salvation,
and the rock of your strength you did not remember.
So you plant plants of a foreign god,
and sow vines of a stranger;
11 on the day you plant, it will increase,
and in the morning your seed will grow,
but the harvest will become a heap on the afflicted day,
and there will be grievous pain.
12 Woe! The uproar of many peoples—
like the roaring of the seas they roar.
And the rumble of nations—
like the rumbling of mighty waters they rumble!
13 The nations like the rumbling of many waters will rumble,
but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,
and they will be chased before the face of the wind like chaff on the mountains,
and like weeds whirling before the face of the whirlwind.
14 For the time of evening, behold, terror!
Before the morning they will be gone!
This is the portion of those who loot us,
and the lot of those who rob us.
18 Woe, land of the rustling of wings,
which is across the rivers of Cush;
2 who send ambassadors by the sea
and in vessels of papyrus on the face of the waters.
Go, you swift messengers,
to a nation tall and smooth,
to a people feared from afar,
a nation very strong and trampling down,
whose land the rivers divide.
3 All inhabitants of the world and dwellers of the earth,
when a signal is lifted up on the mountains, look,
and when the trumpet is blown, listen.
4 For thus Yahweh said to me,
“I shall be still and observe in my dwelling,
like the dazzling heat in light,
like a cloud of mist in the heat of harvest."
5 For before the face of the harvest, when the blossoming is over,
and the flower is ripening into a grape,
then he will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks,
and cut down, take away the spreading branches.
6 They will be left together for the birds of the mountains
and for the animals of the earth.
and the birds will summer on them,
and all the animals of the earth will winter on them.”
7 At that time tribute will be brought to Yahweh of hosts from a people tall and smooth, and a people feared from afar, a nation very strong and trampling down, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of Yahweh of hosts, Mount Zion.
19 An oracle for Egypt.
Behold, Yahweh rides on a swift cloud
and is coming to Egypt,
and the idols of Egypt shall quake before his face,
and the heart of Egypt melt in its midst.
2 And I shall stir up Egyptians against Egyptians,
and a man will fight against his brother, and a man against his neighbor;
city against city, kingdom against kingdom.
3 And the spirit of Egypt will be weakened from within,
and I shall confound his counsel,
and they will seek idols and spirits,
and mediums and spiritualists.
4 And I shall give the Egyptians
into the hand of a harsh master,
and a strong king will rule over them
—the declaration of the Lord Yahweh of hosts.
5 And the waters from the sea will dry up,
and the river will become desolate and dry up.
6 And the rivers will become foul;
the streams of Egypt will dwindle and dry up;
the reeds and papyrus will wither away.
7 The reeds on the Nile,
at the mouth of the Nile,
and every sown field of the Nile
will become parched, blown away and be no more.
8 And the fishermen will wail and mourn.
All who cast a hook into the Nile
and those who spread nets on the face of the water will grieve.
9 and the workers of fine flax will be ashamed,
and the weavers of white cloth.
10 And its foundations will be crushed,
all who work for hire downcast in spirit.
11 Indeed, the princes of Zoan are foolish.
Of the wisest of the counselors of Pharaoh, counsel has become foolish.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
“I am the son of wise men,
a son of ancient kings?”
12 Where then are your wise men?
And let them explain to you, please
and announce what Yahweh of hosts plans concerning Egypt.
13 The princes of Zoan have become fools,
the princes of Memphis are deceived;
the cornerstones of her tribes
have led Egypt astray.
14 Yahweh has mixed a spirit of perversion into her midst,
and they have led Egypt astray in all she does,
like a drunk staggering in his vomit.
15 And there is no action that one could do for Egypt,
head or tail, palm branch or reed.
16 On that day, Egypt will be like women. And it will tremble and fear from the face of the upraised hand of Yahweh of hosts that he raises over it. 17 And the land of Judah will become a terror to Egypt. All who remind it of her, it will be afraid from the face of the plan of Yahweh of hosts, which he is planning against it.
18 On that day will be five cities in the land of Egypt speaking the language of Canaan and swearing to Yahweh of hosts. One will be called The City of the Sun.
19 On that day will be an altar to Yahweh in the middle of the land of Egypt, and a stone pillar at the place of its border to Yahweh. 20 And it will be for a sign and for a witness to Yahweh of hosts in the land of Egypt. When they cry to Yahweh from the face of oppressors, then he will send to them a savior and a defender, and he will deliver them. 21 And Yahweh will become known to Egypt, and the Egyptians will know Yahweh on that day. And they will worship with sacrifices and offerings and will vow vows to Yahweh and fulfill them. 22 And Yahweh will afflict Egypt, afflicting and healing. And they will return to Yahweh, and he will be implored by them, and will heal them.
23 On that day will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come to Egypt, and the Egyptian to Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. 24 On that day, Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, 25 when Yahweh of hosts will bless them saying, “Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, my inheritance.”
20 In the year of the coming of Tartan to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, then he fought against Ashdod and captured it. 2 At that time Yahweh spoke by the hand of Isaiah son of Amoz, saying, “Go and remove the sackcloth from your waist and take off your sandals from your feet.” And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.
3 And Yahweh said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years, it is a sign and an omen concerning Egypt and concerning Cush, 4 thus the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old, naked and barefoot, with uncovered buttocks—the shame of Egypt. 5 And they will be dismayed and ashamed, because of Cush, their hope, and of Egypt, their glory. 6 And the inhabitants of these coasts will say on that day, ‘Behold, this was our hope, where we fled for help to be rescued from the face of the king of Assyria, but how can we escape?’”
21 An oracle for the wilderness of the sea.
Like whirlwinds sweeping through the Negev it comes
from the wilderness, from a terrible land.
2 A difficult vision has been given to me:
The deceitful deceive and the destroyer destroys.
Go up, Elam; besiege, Media;
I shall stop all her groaning.
3 Therefore my loins are filled with pain;
pains like giving birth have taken hold of me;
I am bowed down from hearing;
I am disturbed from seeing.
4 My heart pounds;
I shake with fear.
I desired twilight;
it brought me terror.
5 Preparing the table,
spreading the rugs,
to eat, to drink;
arise, princes,
anoint your shields.
6 For thus the Lord said to me,
“Go, post a watchman.
What he sees he shall report.
7 When he sees a chariot,
a team of horses,
riders of donkeys,
riders of camels,
then he must pay close attention,
very close attention.”
8 And the watchman cries out,
“Lord, on the watchtower
I stand always by day,
and at my post I stand all night.
9 And behold, it is coming:
a chariot, a man, a team of horses.
And he bears witness and says,
‘Babylon has fallen, fallen,
and all the carved figures of its gods are broken to the ground.’”
10 My down-trodden ones and the son of my threshing floor!
What I have heard from Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.
11 An oracle for Dumah:
One calls to me from Seir,
“Watchman, what is left of the night?
Watchman, what is left of the night?”
12 The watchman said, “The morning comes
and also the night.
If you will ask, ask;
come back again.”
13 An oracle for Arabia.
In the forest of Arabia
you spend the night, you caravans of Dedanites.
14 To meet the thirsty,
bring water;
inhabitants of the land of Tema,
approach the fugitive with its bread.
15 For they have fled from the face of swords,
from the face of a sword stretched out,
and from the face of the strung bow,
and from the face of the weight of war.
16 For thus the Lord said to me, “Within a year, as the year of a hired man, then all the glory of Kedar will end. 17 And the remnant of the number of archers, the warriors of the sons of Kedar, will be few, for Yahweh, the God of Israel, has spoken.”
22 An oracle for the Valley of Vision:
What is it to you, now, that you go up,
all of you, to the housetops?
2 The clamoring town is full of noises,
the city reveling.
Your slain were not slain by sword,
and not dead in battle.
3 All your rulers fled away together;
without a bow they were captured.
All your remainder captured together,
though they had fled far away.
4 Therefore, I said,
“Look away from me!
I shall weep bitterly;
do not rush to comfort me
concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
5 For it is a day of tumult and trampling and confusion
for the Lord Yahweh of hosts
in the Valley of Vision,
a breaking down of the walls,
and a crying out to the mountains.
6 And Elam bore the quiver,
with chariots of men of horses,
and Kir uncovered the shield.
7 And your choicest valleys were full of chariots,
and the horsemen took position at the gate.
8 And he took away the protection of Judah.
And you looked on that day
to the weapons of the House of the Forest.
9 And the breaches of the city of David,
you saw that they increased,
and you collected the water of the lower pool.
10 And you counted the houses of Jerusalem,
and you tore down the houses to fortify the wall.
11 And you made a reservoir between the two walls
for the water of the old pool,
but you did not look to its maker,
and its designer from long ago you did not see.
12 And the Lord Yahweh of hosts
called on that day
for weeping and for mourning
and for shaved heads and for the wearing of sackcloth.
13 But, behold: celebration and gladness,
killing cattle and slaughtering sheep,
eating meat and drinking wine:
"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die."
14 And it was revealed in my ears by Yahweh of hosts: “Surely this iniquity will not be forgiven you, even when you die,” says the Lord Yahweh of hosts.
15 Thus says the Lord Yahweh of hosts,
“You, go to this administrator
to Shebna, who is over the house,
16 ‘Why are you here and who let you here
that you are digging for yourself here a tomb,
digging his grave on the heights,
carving out a resting place for himself in the rock?’”
17 Behold, Yahweh is about to throw you mighty man, about to throw you down;
and he will grasp you tightly.
18 He will surely wind you round and round,
toss like a ball into a country broad on both sides.
There you will die,
and there the chariots of your glory
will be the shame of the house of your master.
19 And I shall thrust you from your office
and from your station you will be pulled down.
20 And it will happen on that day that I shall call my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah. 21 And I shall clothe him with your tunic and fasten him with your sash and give your authority into his hand. And he will be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. 22 And I shall place the key to the house of David on his shoulder, and he will open, and none will shut, and he will shut, and none will open, 23 and I shall fasten him, a peg in a secure place, and he will become a seat of glory for the house of his father. 24 And they will hang on him all the glory of the house of his father, the offspring and descendants, every small vessel from the vessels of the cups and to all the vessels of the jugs.
25 On that day—the declaration of Yahweh of hosts—the peg driven in a firm place will give way and break off and fall, and the weight that was on it will be cut off—for Yahweh has spoken.
23 An oracle for Tyre:
Howl, you ships of Tarshish,
for it is destroyed, without home, without harbor.
From the land of Cyprus
it has been revealed to them.
2 Be silent, you inhabitants of the coast;
the merchant of Sidon,
who travels over the sea, has filled you.
3 And on the great waters was the grain of Shihor;
the harvest of the Nile was her produce,
and it became the commerce of the nations.
4 Be ashamed, Sidon; for the sea has spoken,
the mighty one of the sea, saying,
“I have not labored and I have not given birth,
and I have not raised young men nor brought up young women.”
5 When the report comes to Egypt,
they will be grieved concerning the report of Tyre.
6 Cross over to Tarshish;
wail, you inhabitants of the coast.
7 Is this your joyful one,
whose origin is from ancient times,
whose feet carried her
far away to settle?
8 Who has planned this
against Tyre, the giver of crowns,
whose merchants are princes,
whose traders are the honored ones of the earth?
9 Yahweh of hosts has planned it
to dishonor the pride of all the glory,
to shame all the honored ones of the earth.
10 Cross over your land like the Nile,
you daughter of Tarshish.
There is no restraint anymore.
11 He has reached out his hand over the sea;
he has shaken the kingdoms.
Yahweh has commanded to Canaan
to destroy its strongholds.
12 And he said,
“You will not continue to rejoice again,
you oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon;
arise, pass over to Cyprus;
there also you will not have rest.”
13 Behold, the land of the Chaldeans.
This people is naught.
The Assyrians have established it for wild animals.
They erected their siege towers;
they demolished its palaces;
they made it ruins.
14 Howl, you ships of Tarshish;
for your refuge has been destroyed.
15 And it will happen on that day that Tyre will be forgotten 70 years, like the days of one king. After the end of 70 years it will happen in Tyre like in the song of the prostitute:
16 Take a harp,
go about the city,
you forgotten prostitute;
play well,
multiply song,
so that you may be remembered.
17 And it will happen, from the end of 70 years, Yahweh will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages and to her prostitution of all the kingdoms of the earth on the face of the ground. 18 And her profits and earnings will be set apart to Yahweh. They will not be stored up or kept in the treasury, for her profits will be given to those who live in Yahweh’s presence and will be used to supply them with abundant food and so they can have the best quality clothing.
24 Behold, Yahweh is about to empty the earth
and devastate it
and desecrate its face
and scatter its inhabitants.
2 And it will happen,
as with the people, so with the priest;
as with the servant, so with his master;
as with the maid, so with her mistress;
as with the buyer, so with the seller;
as with the lender, so with the borrower;
as with the creditor, so with the lender of it.
3 The earth will be completely devastated
and completely stripped,
for Yahweh has spoken this word.
4 The earth dries up, is withered,
the world shrivels up, is withered,
the heights of the people of earth waste away.
5 And the earth is polluted under its inhabitants
because they have transgressed the laws,
violated the statutes,
broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore a curse devours the earth,
and its inhabitants are found guilty.
Therefore the inhabitants of the earth burn up,
and few people are left.
7 The new wine dries up,
the vine withers,
all the merry-hearted groan.
8 The joy of the tambourines stops,
the revelry of celebrators ceases,
the joy of the lyre stops.
9 Not with song do they drink wine;
strong drink is bitter to its drinkers.
10 The city of chaos has been broken down;
every house is closed up from entering.
11 There is a crying in the streets because of the wine;
all joy is darkened;
the gladness of the land has disappeared.
12 In the city is left a desolation,
and the gate is broken into a ruin.
13 For thus it will be in the midst of the earth
among the nations,
as when an olive tree is beaten,
as the gleanings when the grape harvest is done.
14 They will lift up their voices, sing for joy,
in the majesty of Yahweh joyfully shout from the sea.
15 Therefore, in the east glorify Yahweh,
in the isles of the sea, the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
16 From the edge of the earth
we have heard songs: “Glory to the righteous one!”
And I said, “I waste away,
I waste away, woe to me!
The treacherous have dealt treacherously;
with treachery the treacherous have dealt treacherously.”
17 Terror and the pit and the snare
are upon you, inhabitants of the earth.
18 And he who flees from the sound of terror
will fall into the pit,
and he who comes up from the middle of the pit
will be caught in the snare.
For the windows of the heavens will be opened,
and the foundations of the earth will shake.
19 The earth will be utterly shattered,
the earth will be completely broken;
the earth will be violently shaken.
20 The earth will violently stagger like a drunkard,
and it will sway back and forth like a hut.
And its sin will be heavy on it
and it will fall and never rise again.
21 And it will happen on that day,
Yahweh will punish the host of the heaven on high,
and the kings of the earth on the earth.
22 And they will be gathered together,
prisoners in a pit,
and they will be shut up in a prison,
and after many days they will be punished.
23 Then the white one will be ashamed,
and the hot one disgraced,
for Yahweh of hosts will reign
on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
and before his elders is his glory.
25 Yahweh, you are my God,
I shall exalt you; I shall praise your name;
for you have done wonders
planned long ago in perfect faithfulness.
2 For you have made a town into a heap,
a fortified city into a ruin,
a fortress of strangers from a town,
it will not be built forever.
3 Therefore a strong people will glorify you;
a city of ruthless nations will fear you.
4 For you have been a fortress for the poor,
a fortress for the needy in his distress,
a shelter from the storm, a shade from the heat.
For the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,
5like heat in a dry land.
You subdued the noise of foreigners,
as the heat by the shade of a cloud.
the song of the ruthless is answered.
6 And Yahweh of hosts will make for all peoples on this mountain
a feast of fat things,
a feast of choice wines,
fat things full of marrow, strained wine.
7 And he will consume on this mountain
the face of the veil covering over all peoples
and the web woven over all the nations;
8 he will swallow up death forever.
And the Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears
from off all faces.
And the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for Yahweh has spoken.
9 And it will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God;
we have hoped in him, and he saved us.
This is Yahweh; we have hoped in him,
we shall be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
10 For on this mountain the hand of Yahweh will rest;
and Moab will be trampled down in his place,
as straw is trampled down in a dunghill.
11 And it will spread its hands in the midst of it,
as the swimmer spreads his hands to swim.
But he will bring down its pride with the skill of its hands.
12 And your high fortress walls he will bring down,
bring low, cast to the ground, to the dust.
26 On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strong city,
he has made salvation
its walls and ramparts.
2 Open the gates,
that the righteous nation, keeper of faith, may enter in.
3 The mind supported, you guard in peace—peace!—
for he trusts in you.
4 Trust in Yahweh forever;
for in Yah, Yahweh, is an everlasting rock.
5 For he will bring down
the inhabitants on high,
the fortified city.
He will it lay low,
he will lay it low to the ground,
he will level it to the dust.
6 It will be trampled down by foot,
the feet of the poor,
the steps of the needy.
7 The way for the righteous is level, Righteous One;
the path of the righteous you flatten.
8 Yes, in the path of your judgments,
Yahweh, we wait for you;
your name and your reputation
are the delight of the spirit.
9 With my soul, I have longed for you in the night;
Indeed, my spirit within me seeks you earnestly.
For when your judgments are on the earth,
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
10 Let the wicked be favored;
he will not learn righteousness:
In the land of uprightness he acts wickedly
and does not see the majesty of Yahweh.
11 Yahweh, when your hand is lifted up,
they do not perceive.
Let them see and be ashamed by the zeal for the people,
by the fire consuming your adversaries.
12 Yahweh, you will establish peace for us,
for you have indeed accomplished all our works for us.
13 Yahweh our God, lords besides you have ruled us;
only by you we recognize your name.
14 They are dead, they will not live;
they are deceased, they will not arise.
Indeed, you visited and destroyed them,
and eradicated every memory of them.
15 You have increased the nation, Yahweh,
you have increased the nation; you are honored;
you have extended all the borders of the land.
16 Yahweh, in distress they visited you with uttered prayers,
your discipline was on them.
17 As a pregnant woman nearing birth
writhes and cries out in labor pains,
so we have been before your face, Yahweh.
18 We have been pregnant, we have been in labor,
as if we have birthed wind.
We have not brought salvation to the earth,
and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
19 Your dead will live; their corpses will arise.
Awake and sing for joy, dwellers of the dust,
for your dew is the dew of light,
and the earth will release the dead.
20 Go, my people, enter into your rooms,
and shut your doors behind you;
hide a little while,
until the fury has passed by.
21 For behold, Yahweh is about to come out of his place
to charge the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth against it,
and the earth will uncover her bloodshed,
and will no longer cover over her slain.
27 On that day Yahweh,
with his hard and great and fierce sword,
will punish Leviathan the slithering serpent,
Leviathan the squirming serpent,
and he will kill the monster that is in the sea.
2 On that day,
a delightful vineyard, sing of it!
3 “I, Yahweh, guard it.
I water it every moment.
lest anyone hurts it,
night and day I guard it.
4 I do not have anger.
Oh, if they would give me briers and thorns,
in battle I would march against them;
I would burn them all together.
5 If he takes hold of my protection,
he makes peace with me;
he makes peace with me.
6 In the coming day, Jacob will take root,
Israel will blossom and bud,
and they will fill the face of the earth with fruit.”
7 As the attacking of his attacker, has he attacked?
Or, like the slaying of his slain, was he slayed?
8 In a measure, in sending her out,
you have contended with her.
He released his fierce breath on an east-wind day.
9 So in this the iniquity of Jacob will be covered,
for this will be all the fruit of the removal of his sin:
when he will make all the altar stones
as chalk stones, crushed to pieces.
No Asherah poles or incense altars will stand.
10 For the fortified city is desolate,
the habitation is deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness.
There a calf feeds,
and there he lies down and consumes its branches.
11 When its boughs are dry, they will be broken.
Women will come, make fires with them,
for it is not a people of understanding.
Therefore, its Maker will not have compassion on them,
and its creator will not be merciful to them.
12 And it will happen on that day:
Yahweh will thresh
from the Euphrates River to the Wadi of Egypt,
and you will be gathered,
one by one, sons of Israel.
13 And it will happen on that day:
a great trumpet will be blown,
and the perishing in the land of Assyria will come,
and the outcasts in the land of Egypt,
and they will bow down to Yahweh
on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
28 Woe, proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim,
and the fading flower of its glorious splendor,
which is on the head of the lush valley of those overcome with wine!
2 Behold, one mighty and strong for my Lord.
Like a storm of hail, a destructive windstorm,
like a storm of mighty overflowing waters;
he brings down to the ground with his hand.
3 The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim
will be trodden by feet.
4 And the fading flower of his glorious splendor
which is on the head of the lush valley,
will be as the firstfruits before the summer,
that when an onlooker sees it,
while it is yet in his palm, he swallows it.
5 On that day Yahweh of hosts will become
a crown of splendor and a diadem of beauty for the remainder of his people,
6 and a spirit of justice for him who sits in judgment,
and for strength of those who turn back war at the gates.
7 But even these reel with wine
and stagger with strong drink.
The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink,
and they are swallowed up by wine.
They stagger with strong drink,
staggering in vision,
reeling in decision.
8 For, all tables are covered with vomit of excrement,
without a clean place.
9 To whom will he teach knowledge,
and to whom will he explain the message?
Those weaned from milk,
those taken from the breasts?
10 For it is precept upon precept,
precept upon precept,
line upon line,
line upon line,
here a little, there a little.
11 Indeed, with mocking lips and a strange tongue
he will speak to this people,
12 to which he said,
“This is the rest—leave it for the weary.”
And “this is the refreshing”—
but they were not willing to listen.
13 So the word of Yahweh will be to them
precept upon precept,
precept upon precept,
line upon line,
line upon line,
here a little, there a little.
so that they may go and fall backward,
and be broken and ensnared and captured.
14 Therefore, hear the word of Yahweh,
men of mocking,
rulers of this people,
who are in Jerusalem.
15 For you have said, “We have cut a covenant with death,
and with Sheol we have made an agreement.
The cascading whip, when it passes through,
it will not come to us.
For we have made falsehood our refuge,
and in lies we shelter.”
16 Therefore, thus says the Lord Yahweh:
See, I shall lay in Zion a stone, a tried stone,
a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation.
He who believes
will not be ashamed.
17 And I shall make justice the measuring stick,
and righteousness the plumbline.
And hail will sweep away the refuge of falsehood,
and the waters will drown the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death will be dissolved,
and your agreement with Sheol will not stand.
The cascading whip that passes through,
you will be overwhelmed by it.
19 When it passes through, it will take you,
for it will pass through morning by morning, by day and night,
and to understand the message
will be only terror.
20 For the bed is too short to stretch out on,
and the blanket too narrow to wrap oneself.
21 Yahweh will rise up as on Mount Perazim;
he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon
to do his work, his strange work,
and to perform his deed, his strange deed.
22 And now, do not mock,
lest your bonds be tightened.
For I have heard: destruction is decreed
from the Lord Yahweh of hosts
over all the earth.
23 Give ear and hear my voice;
listen closely and hear my words.
24 Does a farmer plows all day to sow?
Does he break up and harrow the ground?
25 Does he not level its face,
and scatter fennel, and sow the cumin,
and put the wheat in rows,
and the barley in plots,
and the spelt at its border?
26 And His God instructs him;
he teaches him wisely.
27 For fennel is not threshed with a threshing board,
nor is the wheel of a cart rolled over cumin;
but fennel is beaten with a stick,
and cumin with a rod.
28 For bread it must be ground,
so the thresher does not thresh it forever,
and he runs it over with the wheels of his cart
but his horses do not crush it.
29 This too comes from Yahweh of hosts,
wonderful in counsel, his wisdom great.
29 Woe, Ariel, Ariel,
the city where David encamped!
Add year to year;
let the festivals come round.
2 And I shall cause distress to Ariel,
and she will be mourning and lamenting;
and she will be to me like Ariel.
3 And I shall encamp against you in a circle
and lay siege against you with siege-works,
and raise against you fortresses.
4 And you will be brought down and will speak from the ground;
your speech will be low from the dust,
and your voice will be like that of a spirit from the ground,
and out of the dust your speech will whisper.
5 And the horde of your strangers will be like fine dust,
and the horde of the oppressors as chaff passing through.
And it will happen suddenly, in an instant.
6 She will be visited by Yahweh of hosts
with thunder and with earthquake and a great noise,
a storm and a tempest and the flames of a devouring fire.
7 And it will be like a dream, a vision of the night:
A horde of all the nations will come out against Ariel
and all her assembly and her stronghold, and they will press upon her.
8 And it will be like a hungry dreamer; and behold: he is eating,
but he awakes, and his stomach is empty.
Or, like a thirsty dreamer; and behold: he is drinking,
but he awakes, and behold: he is fainting and his thirst active.
So will be the throng of all the nations
coming out against Mount Zion.
9 Astonish yourselves and be astonished; blind yourselves and be blind!
Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink.
10 For Yahweh has poured out on you
the spirit of deep sleep
and has closed your eyes, the prophets,
and has covered your heads, the seers.
11 And all revelation has become to you as the words of a sealed book, that which one might give to one who is book-learned, saying, “Please read this.” And he says, “I am not able, for it is sealed,” 12 or if the book is given to one who is not book-learned, saying, “Please read this,” and he says, “I am not book-learned.”
13 And the Lord said,
“Because this people comes close with its mouths
and honors me with its lips,
but its heart is far from me,
and their fear for me
is a commandment of men that has been taught!
14 Therefore, behold, I shall continue to do wonders with this people,
making wonders and wonders.
And the wisdom of its wise will perish,
and the understanding of its discerning will hide itself.”
15 Woe, those burying deeply
to hide a plan from Yahweh,
and in darkness are their deeds, and they say,
“Who sees us, and who knows us?”
16 You reverse things!
Should the potter be considered like clay,
so the made should say of its maker,
“He did not make me,”
or the created say of its creator,
“He does not understand”?
17 Is it not in just a very little time that Lebanon will be turned into a field,
and the field will be considered a forest?
18 And on that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll,
and from the deep and from the darkness,
the eyes of the blind will see.
19 And the poor will again be glad in Yahweh,
and the needy of mankind will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the ruthless will cease,
and the scoffer will vanish,
and all those lying in wait for evil will be cut down,
21 who make a man guilty with a word
and lay a trap for the judge at the gate
and turn away the righteous with emptiness.
22 Therefore, thus says Yahweh—who redeemed Abraham—to the house of Jacob:
“Now Jacob will not be ashamed,
and now his face will not be pale.
23 But when he sees his children,
the work of my hands, in his midst,
they will sanctify my name,
and they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob
and the God of Israel they will fear.
24 And those erring in spirit will know understanding,
and complainers will learn knowledge.”
30 “Woe, rebellious children”
—the declaration of Yahweh
“Making plans, but not mine,
and pouring out libations, but not by my Spirit,
so adding sin upon sin.
2 Those going down into Egypt,
—but my mouth have not asked—
to have strength in the fortress of Pharaoh
and to refuge in the shadow of Egypt.
3 But the fortress of Pharaoh will be for you shame,
and the refuge in the shade of Egypt, for humiliation.
4 Though its princes are at Zoan,
and their messengers have reached Hanes,
5 all will be ashamed
because of a people not benefiting them:
not help and not aid,
but a shame, and even a disgrace.”
6 An oracle for the beasts of the Negev:
Through the land of trouble and danger
—from it are the lioness and the lion,
the viper and fiery flying serpent—
they carry their riches on the shoulders of donkeys
and their treasures on the humps of camels
to a people not benefiting them,
7 for Egypt helps in emptiness and uselessness.
Therefore, I have called her:
Rahab the Do-Nothing.
8 Now go, write it on a tablet before them
and on a scroll inscribe it,
that it may be for the time to come
as a testimony until forever.
9 For it is a rebellious people, false sons,
sons not willing to hear the law of Yahweh,
10 who say to the seers,
“Do not see,”
and to the prophets,
“Do not prophesy the truth to us!
Speak flattery to us;
prophesy illusions.
11 Turn aside from the way,
stray from the path;
cease speaking of before our faces
the Holy One of Israel.”
12 Therefore, thus says the Holy One of Israel:
“Because you reject this word
and trust in oppression and corruption
and lean on it,
13 so this sin will be to you
like a crack falling, a bulge in a high wall
whose breach comes suddenly, in an instant.
14 And whose breaking is like the breaking of the vessel of a potter,
shattered with no pity,
so no shard is found among its fragments
to scrape fire from the hearth,
or to draw water out of the cistern.”
15 For thus says the Lord Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel:
“In returning and resting you will be saved;
in quietness and in confidence will be your strength.
But you were not willing.
16 And you said, ‘No, for on horses we shall flee,’
so you will flee;
and, ‘We shall ride upon swift horses,’
so those who pursue you will be swift.
17 One thousand from the face of the threat of one;
from the face of the threat of five you will flee
until you are left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
or like a flag on a hill.”
18 And yet Yahweh is waiting to be gracious to you,
and therefore, he rises to show you mercy.
For a God of justice is Yahweh;
blessed are all who wait for him.
19 For people in Zion, dweller in Jerusalem, you will surely not weep. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. When he hears it, he will answer you. 20 Though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, even so, your teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes will see your teacher, 21 and your ears will 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. 22 And you will desecrate your silver-overlaid idols and your gold-plated figures. You will throw them away like a menstrual rag. You will say to them, “Get out!”
23 And he will give rain for your seed when you sow the ground, and bread of the produce of the ground, and it will be rich and fat. In that day your cattle will graze in broad pastures. 24 And the oxen and the donkeys, plowers of the ground, will eat seasoned feed that has been winnowed with a shovel and a fork. 25 And on every high mountain and on every tall hill will be streams, rivers of waters, in the day of the great slaughter when the towers fall. 26 And the light of the white one will be like the light of the hot one, and the light of the hot one will be seven times, like the light of seven days in a day. Yahweh will bind up the breakdown of his people and heal the bruises of his wounding.
27Behold, the name of Yahweh comes from afar,
his nose burning and in dense smoke.
His lips are full of fury,
and his tongue like a devouring fire.
28 And his breath is like a torrent
rising to the middle of the neck
to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction,
and a bridle in the jaws of the peoples leading them astray.
29 You will have a song
as in the night of a holy feast,
and gladness of heart,
as when one walks with a flute to go to the mountain of Yahweh,
to the Rock of Israel.
30 And Yahweh will make the splendor of his voice heard
and show the descent of his arm
in raging nose and flames of a consuming fire,
storm and tempest and stones of hail.
31 For at the voice of Yahweh, Assyria will be dismayed;
he will strike them with a staff.
32 And every stroke of the appointed rod
which Yahweh will lay on them
will be with tambourines and harps
as he fights against them in battle, waving his arm.
33 For a place of cremation was arranged long ago.
Indeed, it is prepared for the king.
He has deepened, widened it,
the pile of fire and much wood.
The breath of Yahweh,
like a stream of brimstone,
will enflame it.
31 Woe, who go down to Egypt for help,
who rely on horses,
and trust in chariots that are many
and in horsemen that are very countless,
but they do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
and Yahweh they do not seek!
2 But he, too, is wise, and he will bring harm
and will not retract his words.
And he will arise against the evil house
and against the helpers of sin-doers.
3 And Egypt is a man and not God,
and their horses flesh and not spirit.
And Yahweh will reach out his hand,
and the helper will stumble,
and the helped will fall,
and together all of them will perish.
4 For thus says Yahweh to me,
“As a lion growls,
or a young lion over its prey,
when a group of shepherds
is called out against it,
it is not afraid at their voice,
and does not cower at their clamor—
thus Yahweh of hosts will descend
to muster on Mount Zion and on its hill.
5 Like birds flying,
so Yahweh of hosts will guard over Jerusalem;
protecting and rescuing,
sparing and preserving.”
6 Return to whom you have deeply turned away from, sons of Israel. 7 For on that day a man will reject his idols of silver and his idols of gold which your hands have made for yourselves as sin.
8 “And Assyria will fall by a sword not of man,
and a sword not of mankind will consume him.
And he will flee from the face of the sword
and his young men will be for forced labor.
9 And his rock will pass away at the terror,
and his princes will be afraid at the banner”
—the declaration of Yahweh,
who has fire in Zion,
and has a furnace in Jerusalem.
32 Behold, a king will reign in righteousness,
and princes will rule in justice.
2 And each will be like a shelter from the wind
and a refuge from the storm,
like streams of water in the desert,
like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.
3 Then the eyes of onlookers will not be dim,
and the ears of hearers will listen closely.
4 And the heart of the hasty will understand knowledge,
and the tongue of stutterers will hasten to speak clearly.
5 The fool will no longer be called honorable,
and will not be said of the deceiver “noble.”
6 For the fool speaks folly,
and his heart does sin.
Doing wickedness,
and speaking error against Yahweh.
He makes the hungry appetite empty,
and the thirsty he causes to lack drink.
7 And the deceiver, his methods are evil.
He plans wickedness
to ruin the poor with sayings of falsehood,
even when the poor speak justice.
8 But the honorable plans noble deeds;
and he, because of noble deeds, will stand.
9 Haughty women, rise up,
listen to my voice;
carefree daughters,
give ear to my words.
10 In just days upon a year,
confidence will falter,
for the grape harvest is ended;
the harvest will not come.
11 Tremble, haughty women;
quake, confident ones;
strip and bare yourselves;
and gird sackcloth on your waists.
12 Beat on your breasts for the pleasant fields,
for the fruitful vines.
13 On the land of my people
are overgrown thorns and briers,
even in all the joyful houses
of the city of revelry.
14 For the palace will be forsaken,
the crowded city will be deserted;
the hill and the watchtower will one after another become caves to eternity,
a delight of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks;
15 until the Spirit is poured on us from on high,
and the wilderness becomes an orchard,
and the orchard is considered as a forest.
16 Then justice will reside in the wilderness;
and righteousness will live in the orchard.
17 And the work of righteousness will be peace;
and the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence to eternity.
18 And my people will live in a peaceful habitation
and in secure homes,
and in quiet resting places.
19 And it will hail when the forest comes down,
and the city will be completely annihilated. 20 You will be blessed, who sow beside every stream,
who send out freely the ox and the donkey.
33 Woe, destroyer,
and you have not been destroyed!
And betrayer,
and they have not betrayed him!
When you finish destroying,
you will be destroyed.
When you stop betraying,
they will betray you.
2 Yahweh, be gracious to us;
for you we wait.
Be their arm in the mornings,
our salvation also in the time of trouble.
3 At the sound of the throng, the peoples flee;
when you arise, the nations are scattered.
4 And your spoil is gathered as the locust gathers;
as locusts leap, he leaps on it.
5 Yahweh is exalted, for he dwells on high.
He will fill Zion with justice and righteousness.
6 And he will be the stability of your times,
an abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge;
the fear of Yahweh is his treasure.
7 Behold, their warriors cry outside;
the messengers of peace weep bitterly.
8 The highways are deserted;
travelers of the road are gone.
He has broken covenants,
despised the witnesses;
he has not regarded man.
9 The land mourns, is barren;
Lebanon is ashamed, withered;
Sharon is like the Arabah;
and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.
10 “Now I shall arise,” says Yahweh.
“Now I will be lifted up;
now I will be elevated.
11 You will conceive chaff, give birth to stubble
your breath is a fire; it will consume you.
12 And the peoples will be burned to lime—
thorns cut-down, burned in fire.”
13 Listen, far away ones, to what I have done,
and near ones, acknowledge my might.
14 The sinners in Zion are afraid;
trembling has seized the godless.
“Who among us can dwell with a consuming fire?
Who among us can dwell with burnings of eternity?”
15 He who walks righteously
and speaks honestly;
who despises the gain of oppression,
who shakes his hand away from accepting a bribe,
who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed,
and who shuts his eyes from looking on evil—
16 it is he who will dwell on the heights;
a fort of cliffs is his refuge.
His bread will be given;
his water, secure.
17 Your eyes will see the king in his beauty;
they will see a faraway land.
18 Your heart will recall the terror:
“Where is he who counts? Where is he who weighs?
Where is he who counted the towers?”
19 You will not see the defiant people,
a people of a too strange language to understand;
the tongue is stammering; there is no interpreting.
20 Look at Zion, the city of our festivals;
your eyes will see Jerusalem,
an undisturbed habitation, a tent not removed,
whose stakes will not ever be pulled up,
and all its cords will not be broken.
21 Instead, there the Mighty One, Yahweh will be with us,
a place of broad rivers, wide streams.
No warship with oars will travel it,
and no mighty ships will pass by it.
22 For Yahweh is our judge,
Yahweh is our lawgiver,
Yahweh is our king;
it is he who will save us.
23 Your riggings are slack;
they cannot hold the pole of its mast;
they cannot spread the sail.
Then the great spoil is divided;
even the lame will plunder the spoil.
24 And the inhabitants will not say, “I am sick”;
the people who live in it will be lifted of iniquity.
34 Come near, nations, to listen,
and the peoples, pay attention!
The earth and its multitude must listen,
the world and all its offspring.
2 For Yahweh has fury against all the nations
and wrath against all their armies.
He will completely destroy them;
he will hand them over to the slaughter.
3 And their slain will be thrown out,
and their corpses will emit a stench,
and the mountains will soak up their blood.
4 And all the host of the heavens will melt,
and the sky will be rolled up like a scroll;
and all their hosts will fade away,
as the leaf fades from the vine,
and as the withered fruit from the fig tree.
5 For my sword will have drunk its fill in heaven;
behold, on Edom it descends
and on the people set apart for judgment.
6 The sword of Yahweh is full of blood
dripping from fat,
from the blood of lambs and goats,
from the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah
and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 And wild oxen will fall with them,
and young bulls with strong ones.
And their land will drink its fill of blood,
and their dust fattened by fat.
8 For Yahweh has a day of vengeance,
a year of retribution for the cause of Zion.
9 And her streams will be turned into pitch,
and her dust into sulfur,
and her land will become burning pitch.
10 Night and day it will not be extinguished;
its smoke will rise forever.
From generation to generation it will be a wasteland;
forever and ever no one will pass through it.
11 But the pelican and the hedgehog will occupy it.
and the owl and the raven will dwell in it.
And he will stretch over it
the measuring line of formlessness
and the plumbline of void.
12 For her nobles, there is nothing to call a kingdom,
and all her princes will be nobody.
13 And thorns will rise over her palaces,
nettles and thistles in her fortresses.
And it will be a habitation of jackals,
a place for ostriches.
14 And the wild animals will meet hyenas,
and the wild goats will call upon his companion.
Indeed, there night creatures will settle
and find for themselves a place of rest.
15 There the owl will nest and lay
and hatch and brood in her shade.
Indeed, there hawks will gather,
each with its mate.
16 Search through the scroll of Yahweh and read:
not one of these will be missing;
not one will lack its mate.
For his mouth has commanded it,
and his spirit has gathered it.
17 And he has cast lots for them,
and his hand measured for them by a cord.
To eternity they will possess it;
from generation to generation they will live in it.
35 The wilderness and the desert will be glad;
and the Arabah will rejoice and blossom.
Like the rose, 2 it will blossom abundantly
and rejoice, even with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of Yahweh,
the splendor of our God.
3 Strengthen the weak hands,
and the shaky knees, steady.
4 Say to those fearful of heart,
“Be strong, do not fear!
Behold, your God will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God.
He himself will come and save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,
and the ears of the deaf will be opened.
6 Then the lame one will leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue will sing,
for water breaks out in the wilderness,
and streams in the Arabah.
7 And the parched ground will become a pool,
and the thirsty place springs of water;
in the habitation of jackals, its resting place,
grass with reeds and rushes.
8 And there a highway and way will be,
and it will be called ‘the way of holiness.’
The unclean will not travel it.
But it will be for him, the wayfarer of the road,
and no fool will wander it.
9 No lion will be there,
and no ferocious beast will go up on it;
they will not be found there.
But the redeemed will walk it,
10 and the ransomed of Yahweh will return
and come with singing to Zion,
with everlasting joy on their heads;
gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
36 And it happened in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria went up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. 2 Then the king of Assyria sent the chief commander from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway of the Field of the Fuller. 3 And Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the court, and Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to him.
4 And the chief commander said to them, “Please say to Hezekiah,
‘thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, What is this confidence in which you trust? 5 You said mere words of lips are counsel and strength for war. Now in whom are you trusting that you rebel against me? 6 Behold, you are trusting in the staff of this splintered reed, in Egypt, which, when a man leans on it, then it will go into his palm and pierce it. Thus is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. 7 But if you say to me, “We are trusting in Yahweh our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You must worship before the face of this altar”?
8 So now, wager, please, with my lord the king of Assyria. And I will give to you 2000 horses, if you are able to set for yourselves riders on them. 9 And how could you drive back the face of one captain of the humblest servants of my lord? But you yourself have trusted in Egypt for chariots and horsemen! 10 And now, have I come up without Yahweh to this land to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, “Go up to this land and destroy it.”’”
11 Then Eliakim and Shebnah and Joah said to the chief commander, “Please speak Aramaic to your servants, for we understand it. And do not speak with us Judean in the ears of the people who are on the wall.”
12 But the chief commander said, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words? Is it not to the men who sit on the wall, eating their dung and drinking their urine with you?”
13 Then the chief commander stood and called out in a loud voice in Judean and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. 14 Thus says the king, ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to rescue you. 15 And do not let Hezekiah make you trust in Yahweh, saying, “Yahweh will surely rescue us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”’
16 Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make terms with me and come out to me. Then every man will eat of his vine and every man his fig tree, and every man will drink the water of his cistern 17 until I come and take you away to a land like your land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.’
18 Lest Hezekiah mislead you, saying, ‘Yahweh will rescue us.’ Did the gods of the peoples rescue every man of his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? 19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And have they rescued Samaria from my hand? 20 Who among all the gods of these lands, who has rescued his land from my hand, as if Yahweh could save Jerusalem from my hand?”
21 But they were silent and did not respond to him a word, for the command of the king was, saying, “Do not answer him.”
22 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the court, and Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with clothes torn and reported to him the words of the chief commander.
37 And it happened when King Hezekiah heard, then he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of Yahweh. 2 And he sent Eliakim, who was over the court, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet. 3 And they said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as sons coming to the opening of the womb, but there is no strength to give birth. 4 Perhaps Yahweh your God will hear the words of the chief commander, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard. So, lift up a prayer for the remaining remnant.’”
5 And the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, 6 and Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master: ‘Thus says Yahweh, “Do not be afraid from the face of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have insulted me. 7 Behold, I shall put a spirit in him, and he will hear a report and go back to his land. And I shall cause him to fall by the sword in his land.”’”
8 Then the chief commander returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that he had gone away from Lachish.
9 And he heard about Tirhakah king of Cush, saying “He has gone out to fight against you,” and he heard it, so he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10 “Thus you shall say to Hezekiah, king of Judah, saying, ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” 11 Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by destroying them completely. And will you be rescued? 12 Have the gods of the nations rescued them whom my fathers destroyed: Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the sons of Eden who were in Tel Assar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad and the king of the cities of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’”
14 And Hezekiah received the writings from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the house of Yahweh. And Hezekiah spread it out before the face of Yahweh. 15 And Hezekiah prayed to Yahweh, saying, 16 “Yahweh of hosts, God of Israel, sitting by the cherubim, you are he: you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. It is you who made the heavens and the earth. 17 Turn your ear, Yahweh, and listen. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God.
18 Indeed, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the nations and their land. 19 And they have put their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of the hands of man, wood and stone. And they have destroyed them. 20 And now, Yahweh our God, save us from his hand; then all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are Yahweh, you alone.”
21 Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 this is the word that Yahweh has spoken about him:
“The virgin daughter of Zion
despises you, scorns you;
the daughter of Jerusalem
shakes her head at you.
23 Whom have you defied and insulted?
And against whom have you exalted your voice
and lifted upward your eyes?
Against the Holy One of Israel.
24 By the hand of your servants
you have defied the Lord
and you have said,
‘With the multitude of my chariots
I have gone up to the heights of the mountains,
the reaches of Lebanon.
And I shall cut down its tall cedars, its choice cypresses,
and I shall enter into its farthest high places, its most fruitful forest.
25 It is I who has dug and drunk water;[fn]
And I dried up all the rivers of Egypt with the soles of my feet.’
26 Have you not heard?
Long ago I determined it,
and made it from days of old.
Now I am bringing it to pass,
that you should devastate the fortressed cities to heaps of ruins.
27 And their inhabitants, those short of hand,
are dismayed and ashamed.
They are plants of the field and green grass, grass of the roof or the field,
before the face of the east wind.
28 “But your sitting down
and your going out and your coming in, I know
and your raging against me.
29 Because of your raging against me,
and your arrogance coming up to my ears,
so I shall put my hook in your nose,
and my bit in your mouth,
and I shall turn you back to
the way by which you came.”
30 And this will be the sign for you:
“This year you will eat wild plants,
and in the second year the after-growth.
But in the third year you must sow and harvest
and plant vineyards and eat the fruit.
31 And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root below and produce fruit above.
32 For from Jerusalem a remnant will come out,
and survivors from Mount Zion.
The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will do this.’”
33 Therefore, thus says Yahweh about the king of Assyria:
“He will not come into this city
and he will not shoot an arrow here.
And he will not bring near it a shield
and he will not build up against it siegeworks.
34 The way by which he came, he will return in,
and he will not enter to this city”
—the declaration of Yahweh—
35 “and I shall protect over this city, rescuing it,
for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.”
36 Then the angel of Yahweh went out and struck 185, 000 of the camp of Assyria. And they rose early in the morning, and behold, all of them were dead bodies. 37 Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and traveled and went back. And he stayed in Nineveh.
38 And it happened, he was worshiping in the house of Nisrok his god, and his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer struck him with the sword. And they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
38 In those days Hezekiah was sick to the point of death. So Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet, came to him and said to him, “Thus says Yahweh, ‘Set your house in order, for you will die and not live.’”
2 And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to Yahweh. 3 And he said, “O Yahweh, please remember how I have faithfully walked before your face with my whole heart and done good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept great tears.
4 And the word of Yahweh was to Isaiah, saying, 5 “Go and say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says Yahweh, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I shall add on your days 15 years. 6 And I shall rescue you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria and defend this city.
7 And this will be the sign to you from Yahweh, that Yahweh will do this word that he said. 8 Behold, I shall cause the shadow on the stairs which has gone down with the sun on the stairs of Ahaz to return back ten steps.’” So the sun went back ten steps on the stairs which it had gone down.
9 A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick and recovered from his sickness:
10 I said, “In the middle of my days
I will go through the gates of Sheol;
I am summoned there the rest of my years.”
11 I said, “I will not see Yah,
Yah in the land of the living;
I will no longer look on mankind or the inhabitants of the world.[fn]
12 My dwelling is removed and carried away from me
like the tent of a shepherd;
I have rolled up my life like a weaver;
he is cutting me off from the loom;
from day to night you are finishing me.
13 I cried out[fn] until the morning;
like a lion, thus he breaks all my bones.
From day to night you are finishing me.
14 Like a swallow, thus I chirp;
I coo like a dove;
my eyes grow tired with looking upward.
Lord, I am oppressed; lend me support.”
15 What shall I say?
And he has said to me, and he has done it;
I will walk softly all my years
because of the bitterness of my spirit.
16 Lord, on them men live,
and in all of them is the life of my spirit.
And you have restored me and given me life.
17 Behold, for my wellbeing
bitter bitterness was for me.
But you have held back my life
from the pit of nothingness,
for you have thrown all my sins
behind your back.
18 For Sheol does not thank you,
or death praise you;
those who go down into the pit do not wait
for your trustworthiness.
19 The living, the living! It is he who gives you thanks,
as I do today;
a father makes known to sons
about your trustworthiness.
20 Yahweh is about to save me,
and we will play songs with instruments
all the days of our lives
in the house of Yahweh.”
21 Now Isaiah had said, “They shall take a lump of figs and plaster it on the boil, and he will live.” 22 And Hezekiah had said, “What will be the sign that I should go up to the house of Yahweh?”
39 At that time Marduk-Baladan, son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard that he had been sick and had recovered. 2 And Hezekiah was pleased by them, and he showed them the storehouse of his valuables—the silver and the gold and the spices and the precious oil, and the whole storehouse of his weapons, and all that was found in his treasures. There was not a thing in his house or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.
3 Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say to you, and where did they come from?”
And Hezekiah said, “They came to me from a distant land, from Babylon.”
4 And Isaiah said, “What have they seen in your house?”
And Hezekiah answered, “They have seen everything that is in my house. There is not a thing that I have not shown them in my treasures.”
5 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Listen to the word of Yahweh of hosts: 6 ‘Behold, the days are coming when everything that is in your house and that your fathers stored away until this day will be carried to Babylon. Not a thing will be left, says Yahweh. 7 And from the sons whom you have brought forth from yourself, whom you have fathered, they will take away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”
8 Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of Yahweh that you have spoken is good.” And he said, “For there will be peace and stability in my days.”
40 “Comfort, comfort my people,”
says your God.
2 “Speak to the heart of Jerusalem;
and proclaim to her
that her term of service is fulfilled,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the hand of Yahweh
double for all her sins.”
3 A voice cries out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of Yahweh;
make straight in the Arabah a highway for our God.
4 Every valley will be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill leveled;
and the rugged land will be as a plateau,
and the rough places a plain;
5 and the glory of Yahweh will be revealed,
and all flesh will see it together;
for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.”
6 A voice says, “Call out.”
And I said, “What should I call out?”
“All flesh is grass,
and all their covenant faithfulness is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower wilts
for the breath of Yahweh blows on it;
surely mankind is grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower wilts,
but the word of our God will stand forever.”
9 Go up yourself on a high mountain,
herald of Zion.
Lift high your voice mightily, herald of Jerusalem
raise it, do not fear.
Say to the cities of Judah,
“Behold: your God!”
10 Behold, the Lord Yahweh comes powerfully,
and his arm rules for him.
Behold, his reward is with him,
and his wages are before his face.
11 Like a shepherd he will tend his flock,
in his arm he will gather the lambs,
and in his bosom carry them;
the nursing ewes he will lead.
12 Who has measured the waters in his palm,
and has gauged the sky with a handspan,
and comprehended the measure of the dust of the earth,
and weighed the mountains in scales,
or the hills in a balance?
13 Who has comprehended the spirit of Yahweh,
or has a man instructed him as his counselor?
14 With whom did he counsel? And informed him?
And taught him the way of justice?
and taught him knowledge,
or the path of understanding informed him?
15 Behold, the nations are like a drop in a bucket,
and are regarded like the dust on the scales;
behold, he weighs the isles as a speck.
16 And Lebanon is not enough to kindle,
and its wild animals not enough for a burnt offering.
17 All the nations are as naught before him;
as nothing and void they are regarded by him.
18 And to whom will you liken God?
And what likeness will you compare to him?
19 An idol? A craftsman casts it,
and the goldsmith overlays it with gold
and forges silver chains.
20 He who sets up a contribution
chooses wood that does not rot,
he seeks a skillful artisan for himself
to erect an idol that will not fall over.
21 Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told to you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 He is sitting above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a curtain
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
23 He brings princes to nothingness;
he makes the rulers of the earth as naught.
24 Indeed, they are hardly planted, yes, hardly sown.
Indeed, their stem has hardly taken root in the earth,
but he also blows upon them and they wither,
and the wind carries them away like straw.
25 “And to whom will you compare me,
that I be equal with?” says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see!
Who has created these?
He musters their host by number,
calls all of them by name,
By the greatness of might and the strength of power,
not one is missing.
27 Why do you say, Jacob,
and speak, Israel,
“My way is hidden from Yahweh,
and my God passes over my judgment”?
28 Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, Yahweh,
the Creator of the ends of the earth,
does not grow tired and does not become weary;
there is no limit to his understanding.
29 He gives energy to the weary;
and to the frail of strength, increased might.
30 Even youths become tired and weary,
and young lads stumble clumsily:
31 but those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength;
they will ascend with wings like eagles;
they will run and not be weary;
they will walk and not faint.
41 “Be silent before me, coastlands,
and let the nations renew their strength;
let them approach, then let them speak;
together let us draw near to trial.
2 “Who has stirred up righteousness from the east,
calling it to his feet?
He gives nations before his face
and tramples kings.
He makes them like dust with his sword,
like scattered straw with his bow.
3 He pursues them, passes by in peace,
no path does he touch with his feet.
4 Who has worked and accomplished,
has summoned the generations from the beginning?
I, Yahweh, the first
and the last, I am he.”
5 The isles have seen and are afraid;
the ends of the earth tremble;
they approach and come.
6 Every man helps his neighbor,
and says to his brother, “Be strong.”
7 And the artisan strengthens the goldsmith,
who smooths with a hammer, who strikes the anvil,
saying of the welding, “It is good.”
And they fasten it with nails; it will not topple over.
8 “But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob whom I have chosen,
the seed of Abraham my friend,
9 you whom I am seizing from the ends of the earth,
and from its extremities I called you
and said to you, ‘You are my servant;’
I have chosen you and not rejected you.
10 Do not fear, for I am with you.
Do not be anxious, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, indeed, I will help you,
yes, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
11 “Behold, they will be ashamed and disgraced,
all who have been angry with you;
they will be as nothing and will perish,
men who contend with you.
12 You will seek them and will not find
the men who quarreled with you;
they will be as void and as nothing,
the men who fought you.
13 For I, Yahweh your God,
will hold your right hand,
saying to you, ‘Do not fear;
I am helping you.’
14 Do not fear, worm of Jacob,
men of Israel.
I will help you”—the declaration of Yahweh,
and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
15 “Behold, I am making you into a threshing sledge,
a new threshing board, having two-edges;
you will thresh the mountains and crush them,
and you will make the hills like chaff.
16 You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away;
and the whirlwind will scatter them.
And you, you will rejoice in Yahweh,
in the Holy One of Israel you will boast.
17 “The oppressed and needy look for water, but there is none,
their tongues are parched for thirst;
I, Yahweh, shall respond to them;
I, the God of Israel, shall not forsake them.
18 I shall open streams upon the slopes,
and in the middle of the valleys, fountains.
I shall make the wilderness into a pool of water,
and the dry land into springs of water.
19 In the wilderness I shall set the cedar,
the acacia, and the myrtle, and the olive tree.
I shall place in the desert plain the cypress,
the elm and the box tree together
20 so that they may see and know
and take to heart and have insight together,
that the hand of Yahweh has done this,
and the Holy One of Israel has created it.
21 “Present your case,” says Yahweh,
“bring forth your arguments,” says the King of Jacob.
22 “Let them bring forth and tell us
what will happen.
The first things, what are they? Let them tell, and put before our hearts,
and we will know the last things,
and they will inform us of the coming things.
23 Tell the signs of the future,
that we may know if you are gods.
Yes, do good or evil,
that we may look and see altogether.
24 Behold, you are nothing,
and your deeds are naught;
an abomination, he who chooses you.
25 “I have raised up one from the north, and he comes;
from the rising of the sun he calls on my name,
and he will trample rulers like mud,
and like a potter treading clay.
26 Who has told from the beginning that we might know?
And from before the face, that we may say, ‘He is right’?
Indeed, none told, truly, none announced,
yes, none heard your sayings.
27 First, to Zion: ‘Behold, here they are!’
And to Jerusalem a herald I sent.
28 And I looked, but there was no man,
and from them, none who counseled,
or, when I asked, returned a word.
29 Behold, all of them are nothing,
naught are their deeds;
wind and void are their images.
42 “Behold, my servant, whom I uphold;
my chosen one, my spirit is pleased.
I have put my Spirit upon him;
he will bring justice to the nations.
2 He will not cry out and he will not lift up his voice,
and he will not make his voice heard outside.
3 A crushed reed he will not break,
and a feeble wick he will not quench.
He will faithfully bring forth justice;
4 he will not grow faint and not be broken,
until he has established justice on the earth,
and the coastlands wait for his law.”
5 Thus says God, Yahweh,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who forged the earth and all its produce,
who gives breath to the people on it
and air to those who live on it:
6 “I, Yahweh, have called you in righteousness
and held your hand,
and I will keep you and set you
as a covenant of the people,
as a light of the nations,
7 to open the eyes of the blind,
to release the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the house of confinement, dwellers of darkness.
8 “I am Yahweh, that is my name,
and my glory I shall not give to another
or my praise to carved idols.
9 Behold, the previous things came to pass;
and I shall declare new things.
Before they sprout I shall announce them.”
10 Sing to Yahweh a new song,
his praise from the end of the earth;
those who descend into the sea and its fullness,
the coastlands and their dwellers.
11 Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice,
the villages where Kedar lives.
Let the inhabitants of Sela sing;
from the tops of mountains let them shout.
12 Let them give glory to Yahweh
and his praise in the coastlands let them declare.
13 Yahweh will go out as a warrior; as a man of war he will stir up his zeal.
He will shout, yes, he will raise a battle cry;
over his enemies he prevails.
14 “I have kept quiet from ancient times;
I have been still; I have restrained myself;
like a woman giving birth I shall cry out;
I shall gasp and pant at once.
15 I shall destroy mountains and hills
and all their vegetation dry up;
and I shall turn the rivers into islands
and the marshes dry up.
16 And I shall bring the blind by a way they do not know;
in paths they do not know I shall lead them.
I shall turn the darkness into light before their faces,
and the crooked places straighten.
These things I shall do,
and I shall not abandon them.
17 They will be turned back, be completely ashamed,
who trust in carved figures,
who say to cast figures,
‘You are our gods.’
18 “Deaf ones, listen,
and blind ones, look, in order to see.
19 Who is blind except my servant?
Or deaf like my messenger I send?
Who is blind like Meshullam,
or blind like the servant of Yahweh?
20 You see much but do not observe;
ears are open, but do not hear.
21 Yahweh is pleased on account of his righteousness,
he gives praise to the law and makes it glorious.
22 But it is a people robbed and plundered,
all of them trapped in pits
and in houses of prisoners held captive.
They have become a plunder with no rescue,
despoiled, and no one says, ‘Give back!’
23 Who among you will give ear to this,
give heed and hear in the future?
24 Who gave Jacob to the robber,
and Israel to the looters?
Was it not Yahweh, against whom we have sinned,
and were not willing to walk in his ways,
and did not obey his law?
25 And he poured out on him the heat of his nose
and the violence of war,
and its flames encircled, yet he did not know,
and it consumed him, but he did not take it to heart.
43 But now thus says Yahweh,
your creator, Jacob, and your fashioner, Israel:
“Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name; you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I am with you;
and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you.
When you walk through the fire you will not be burned,
and the flames will not destroy you.
3 For I am Yahweh your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I have given Egypt as your ransom,
Cush and Seba in exchange for you.
4 Since you are precious in my eyes,
you are honored and I, I love you,
and I shall give men in exchange for you
and nations in exchange for your life.
5 Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
I shall bring your seed from the east,
and from the west I shall gather you.
6 I shall say to the north, ‘Give,’
and to the south, ‘Do not hold back.’
Bring my sons from afar,
and my daughters from the ends of the earth,
7 all who are called by my name
and whom I have created for my glory,
whom I have formed, yes, I made him.”
8 Bring out a blind people that have eyes,
and the deaf that have ears.
9 All the nations gather together,
and the peoples assemble.
Who among them could have declared this
and announced to us the first things?
Let them bring their witnesses that they may be verified,
and let them listen that they may say, “It is true.”
10 “You are my witnesses,”—the declaration of Yahweh—
“and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe in me,
and understand that I am he.
Before my face no god was formed,
and after me will be none.
11 I, I am Yahweh,
and there is no savior but me.
12 I have declared and saved and proclaimed,
and there is no other among you.
And you are my witnesses,”—the declaration of Yahweh—
“And I am God.
13 Yes, from today I am he,
and no one can rescue from my hand.
I act, and who can turn it back?”
14 Thus says Yahweh,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
“For your sake I send to Babylon
and lead all of them down as fugitives
and the Chaldeans in the ships of their rejoicing.
15 I am Yahweh, your Holy One,
the Creator of Israel, your King.”
16 Thus says Yahweh,
who gave a way through the sea
and in the mighty waters a path,
17 who led out the chariot and horse,
the army and the troops.
They fell down together; they will not rise;
they are extinguished like a quenched wick.
18 “Do not remember the first things,
and the previous things do not consider.
19 Behold, I shall do a new thing;
now it sprouts; do you not perceive it?
Indeed, I shall make a road in the desert,
in the wilderness, streams.
20 The wild animals of the field will honor me,
the jackals and the ostriches,
because I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
for my chosen people to drink,
21 this people I formed for myself;
my praises they will recount.
22 “But you have not called on me, Jacob;
for you have become tired of me, Israel.
23 You have not brought me sheep as your burnt offerings,
and with your sacrifices you have not honored me.
I have not burdened you with grain offerings,
and I have not wearied you with incense.
24 You have bought me no aromatic cane with money,
and the fat of your sacrifices you have not poured out to me,
but you have burdened me with your sins;
you have wearied me with your iniquities.
25 “I, I, am he who blots out your offenses for my sake,
and your sins I shall not remember.
26 Remind me, let us debate together;
you, recount it, that you may be vindicated.
27 Your first father sinned,
and your spokesmen have transgressed against me.
28 So I shall defile the holy officials,
and I shall hand Jacob over to destruction
and Israel to reviling.”
44 “And now, listen, Jacob my servant,
and Israel, whom I have chosen.
2 Thus says Yahweh,
your maker and your fashioner in the womb,
your helper:
Do not fear, Jacob my servant;
and Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.
3 For I shall pour water on the thirsty ground,
and streams on the dry ground;
I shall pour my Spirit on your seed,
and my blessing on your offspring.
4 And they will sprout among the grass,
like willows by the streams of water.
5 One will say, ‘I am of Yahweh,’
and one will call out the name of Jacob,
and one will write on his hand ‘Of Yahweh,’
and by the name of Israel address himself.
6 “Thus says Yahweh,
the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Yahweh of hosts:
I am the first, and I am the last;
and besides me there is no God.
7 And who is like me? Let him announce it,
and let him declare it and arrange it before me.
Who has made known from of old the signs,[fn]
and what is coming, declared it?
8 Do not fear and do not be afraid.
Have I not declared to you long ago and announced it?
And you are my witnesses:
Is there a God besides me?
For there is no other Rock; I know of none.”
9 All who fashion idols are nothing,
and their delights cannot benefit,
and their witnesses, they cannot see and cannot know,
so they are ashamed.
10 Who would form a god or cast an idol
to no avail?
11 Behold, all his associates will be put to shame,
and craftsmen, they are but men.
Let them gather, all of them; let them take their stand;
together they will fear, be ashamed.
12 The craftsman of iron with a tool
works over coals,
and with hammers he shapes it
and works it with his strong arm.
Yet, should he hunger, then there is no strength;
should he drink no water, then he becomes faint.
13 The craftsman of wood stretches out a measure,
outlines with a stylus,
makes it with a chisel and with a compass outlines it,
and makes it like the figure of a man,
like the splendor of man to dwell in a house.
14 Cutting down cedars for it,
and taking a cypress or an oak,
and lets the trees of the forest grow strong for it;
plants a fir tree and the rain makes it grow.
15 And it becomes kindling for man,
and he takes from them and warms himself.
Yes, he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
He also makes a god and bows down to it;
he makes an idol and kneels before it.
16 Half of it he burns for the fire,
on half of it he eats meat;
he roasts a roast and is satisfied.
He also warms himself and says, “Ah,
I am warm, I have seen the fire.”
17 And the rest of it he makes a god, his carved image;
he kneels before it and worships it,
and prays to it and says,
“Rescue me, for you are my god.”
18 They do not know, and they do not understand,
for their eyes are plastered over from seeing,
their hearts from perceiving.
19 And none takes it to his heart,
with no knowledge and no understanding, saying,
“Half of it I burned in fire,
and I have also baked bread upon its coals.
I have roasted meat and eaten.
And its remainder I shall make into an abomination,
a block of wood I shall worship.”
20 He grazes on ashes; a deceived heart misleads him,
and he will not rescue his life,
and he does not say,
“Is this not a falsehood in my right hand?”
21 “Recall these, Jacob,
and Israel, for you are my servant:
I have formed you; you are my servant:
Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.
22 I have blotted out like fog your rebellions,
and like a cloud, your sins;
return to me,
for I have redeemed you.”
23 Sing, heavens, for Yahweh has done this;
shout, depths of the earth.
Break out into singing, mountains,
forest and every tree in it;
for Yahweh has redeemed Jacob,
and will show his glory in Israel.
24 Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer
and your maker from the womb:
“I am Yahweh, who made everything,
who alone stretched out the heavens,
fashioned the earth—who was with me?—
25 overturning the omens of liars,
and disgracing soothsayers,
making the wise turn back
and making their knowledge a mockery,
26 confirming the words of his servant
and the counsel of his messengers fulfilling,
who says of Jerusalem, ‘She will be inhabited,’
and of the towns of Judah, ‘They will be built up,
and her ruins I shall raise up’;
27 who says to the deep sea, ‘Be parched,
and your currents I shall dry up,’
28 saying of Cyrus, ‘My shepherd,
and he will fulfill my every wish,’
and saying of Jerusalem, ‘She will be rebuilt,’
and the temple, ‘Your foundations will be laid.”
45 Thus says Yahweh to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I hold
to subdue nations before his face
and the loins of kings I shall loosen,
to open the doors before his face,
and the gates will not be closed:
2 “I shall go before your face
and level the mountains;
the doors of bronze I shall break
and bars of iron cut
3 and I shall give to you the treasures of darkness
and the riches of secret places
so that you may know that it is I, Yahweh,
who call you by your name, the God of Israel.
4 For the sake of my servant Jacob
and Israel my chosen,
I have called you by your name,
I gave you a name of honor, though you have not known me.
5 I am Yahweh, and there is no other;
except me there is no God.
I shall gird you,
though you have not known me,
6 so that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west
that there is nothing besides me.
I am Yahweh, and there is no other.
7 Forming light and creating darkness,
making peace and creating disaster;
I am Yahweh, doing all these.
8 Rain down, heavens, from above!
And let the skies trickle down righteousness.
Let the earth open, and salvation sprout up,
and righteousness spring up together.
I, Yahweh, have created it.
9 Woe, who argue against his creator,
a pottery shard from the shards of the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’
or ‘Your work has no hands’?
10 Woe, who says to a father,
‘What are you begetting?’
or to a woman,
‘What are you in labor for?’
11 Thus says Yahweh,
the Holy One of Israel and its Maker:
“Do the signs ask me about my sons,
and concerning the work of my hands command me?
12 I made the earth
and created man on it.
I, my hands stretched out the heavens,
and all their hosts I commanded.
13 I stirred him up in righteousness,
and I shall level all his paths.
It is he who will build my city,
and he will send out my exiles,
not for price and not for bribe,”
says Yahweh of hosts.
14 Thus says Yahweh,
“The earnings of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush
and the Sabeans, men of tall stature,
will pass over to you and be yours.
They will walk after you; they will pass by in chains.
And they will bow down to you
and plead with you:
‘Surely God is with you,
and there is no other, only God.’”
15 Truly you are a God who hides yourself,
God of Israel, Savior.
16 They will be ashamed and also disgraced,
all of them together,
they will walk in humiliation,
crafters of idols.
17 Israel will be saved by Yahweh,
a salvation of eternity;
you will not be ashamed and you will not be humiliated
to eternity evermore.
18 For thus says Yahweh,
who created the heavens, he is God,
creator of the earth and its maker; he established it;
he created it, not as a void,
to dwell there he formed it:
“I am Yahweh, and there is no other.
19 I have not spoken in private,
in a dark place of the earth;
I did not say to the seed of Jacob,
‘Seek me in vain!’
I am Yahweh, speaking righteousness,
declaring uprightness.
20 “Assemble yourselves and come!
Gather together, refugees of the nations!
They do not know, those who carry their wooden idols
and pray to a god not saving.
21 Declare and approach,
even consult together!
Who has announced this from previous times?
From then, declared it?
Was it not I, Yahweh?
For there is no other God except me,
a just God and a Savior;
there is none besides me.
22 “Turn to me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth,
for I am God, and there is no other.
23 By myself I swear;
righteousness goes out from my mouth,
a word and it does not turn back:
‘For to me every knee will bend,
every tongue will swear.
24 But in Yahweh’—they will say of me—
‘salvation and strength!’”
To him they will come and be ashamed,
all who raged against him.
25 In Yahweh they will be justified,
and they will take pride in him, all the seed of Israel.
46 Bel bows down,
Nebo stoops;
their images you carried
become for animals and for beasts
a heavy burden to exhaustion.
2 Together they bend low, kneel down;
they are not able to rescue the load,
and their souls have gone into captivity.
3 “Listen to me, house of Jacob,
and all the remnant of the house of Israel,
heavy-laden from birth,
burdened from the womb.
4 And until old age I am he,
and until gray hair I carry you.
I made you and I shall bear you,
and I shall carry you and I shall rescue you.
5 “To whom will you liken me, that I am equal with,
and compare me, that I resemble?
6 They pour out gold from the bag
and silver on the scale weigh,
hire a goldsmith that he make it a god;
they worship it, even bow down.
7 They lift it on a shoulder and carry it,
and they set it in its place, and it stands in its spot, does not depart.
One may even cry out to it, but it does not answer
from his trouble it does not save him.
8 “Recall these and be firm;
rebels, take it to heart!
9 Recall the former things from ancient times,
for I am God, and there is no other;
God, and none is like me,
10 announcing from the beginning, the end,
and beforehand what has not happened,
saying, ‘My plan will happen,
and all my desire I shall do.’
11 Calling a hawk from the east,
from a distant land, the man of my counsel.
Yes, I have spoken; indeed, I shall accomplish it.
I have purposed; I shall also do it.
12 Listen to me, bull-hearted,
far from righteousness.
13 I am bringing my righteousness near; it is not far away,
and my salvation does not loiter;
and I shall give salvation to Zion
to Israel my splendor.
47 “Come down and sit in the dust,
virgin daughter of Babylon;
sit on the ground without a throne,
daughter of the Chaldeans,
for no longer will they call you
dainty and delicate.
2 Take the millstone and grind flour;
remove your veil, strip off your train.
Uncover your legs, cross the streams.
3 Your nakedness will be uncovered;
yes, your shame will be seen:
I shall take vengeance
and not spare a man.”
4 Our Redeemer, Yahweh of hosts is his name,
the Holy One of Israel.
5 “Sit silently and go into darkness,
daughter of the Chaldeans;
for you will no longer be called
mistress of kingdoms.
6 I was angry with my people;
I defiled my inheritance
and gave them into your hand.
You showed them no mercy;
on the old you weighed down your great yoke.
7 And you said, “I shall forever be mistress.”
Yet you did not take these to your heart,
did not remember its end.
8 “And now, hear this, overindulged,
who dwell in confidence,
who say in your heart,
‘It is I, and none else;
I will not sit as a widow,
and I will not know bereavement.’
9 But these two things will come to you
in a moment, in one day:
bereavement and widowhood.
As their fullness they will come on you
despite the abundance of your sorceries,
despite the great power of your spells.
10 But you trusted in your wickedness;
you said, ‘No one sees me;’
your wisdom and your knowledge,
this led you astray,
but you say in your heart, ‘It is I and none else.’
11 And disaster will come on you;
you will not know its dawn.
And ruin will fall on you;
you will not be able to avert it.
And desolation will come on you suddenly,
you not knowing.
12 “Stay, please, with your spells
and with the abundance of your sorceries
for which you have striven from your youth,
perhaps you will be successful,
perhaps you will terrify.
13 You are tired out with the abundance of your counsel;
please, let them stand up and save you,
those charters of the heavens, those seers of the stars,
declaring by month what is to come on you.
14 Behold, they will become like stubble;
the fire will burn them up.
They will not rescue their souls from the hand of the flame.
There are no coals to warm them
or light to sit by!
15 Thus they have become for you, with whom you labored,
your merchants from your youth,
each man wandering in his direction;
there is no rescuer.”
48 “Hear this, house of Jacob,
who are called by the name Israel,
and have come from the sperm of Judah;
who swear by the name of Yahweh and profess the God of Israel,
but not sincerely and not righteously.
2 For from the holy city they have been called,
and in the God of Israel they have leaned.
Yahweh of hosts is his name.
3 The first things of old I have declared;
and from my mouth they came out, and I made them known;
instantly I did them, and they came to pass.
4 Because I knew that you were hard
and your neck muscles iron
and your forehead bronze,
5 so I declared to you beforehand;
before they happened I informed you
lest you say, ‘My idol has done them,’
or ‘My carved figure and my cast figure have ordained them.’
6 You have heard! Look at its whole;
and you, will you not declare?
“I announced to you new things from now,
and hidden things that you did not know.
7 Now they were created, and not of old
and before the face of today, and you have not heard,
lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew!’
8 You have not even heard, you did not even know;
from ancient days your ear was not even open,
For I knew you have been very deceitful,
and you were called a rebel from the womb.
9 For the sake of my name I shall lengthen my nose
and for my praise I shall hold back for you,
to not cut you off.
10 Behold, I refined you, but not as silver;
I have purified you in the furnace of affliction.
11 For my sake, for my sake I shall act;
for how could I be profaned?
And my glory I shall not give to another.
12 “Listen to me, Jacob,
and Israel, whom I called:
I am he, the first,
I also am the last.
13 Yes, my hand founded the earth,
and my right hand spread out the heavens;
I call to them;
they stand up together.”
14 Assemble, all of you, and listen!
Who among them has announced these things?
Yahweh loves him, he will accomplish his desire
against Babylon and his arm against the Chaldeans.
15 “I, I have spoken, yes, I have summoned him,
I have brought him, and his way will succeed.”
16 Draw near to me, hear this:
“From the beginning I have not spoken in secret;
from the time of its happening, there I am.”
And now the Lord Yahweh
has sent me and his Spirit.
17 Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer,
the Holy One of Israel,
“I am Yahweh your God,
who teaches you to succeed,
leads you by the way you should go.
18 If only you had listened closely to my commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river,
and your salvation like the waves of the sea.
19 And your seed would have been as the sand,
and the offspring of your womb as its grains;
their name would not have been cut off
and would not have been blotted out from before my face.”
20 Go out from Babylon!
Flee from the Chaldeans!
With the sound of glad song announce it!
Make this known,
bring it to the end of the earth!
Say, “Yahweh has redeemed his servant Jacob.”
21 And they did not thirst when he led them through the desolate places;
he made the water flow out of the rock for them;
and he split open the rock, and the waters gushed out.
22 “There is no peace for the wicked,”—says Yahweh.
49 Listen to me, coastlands,
and listen closely, distant peoples.
Yahweh has called me from the womb,
from the belly of my mother he invoked my name.
2 And he has made my mouth like a sharp sword;
in the shadow of his hand he hid me,
and he has made me into a polished arrow;
in his quiver he has concealed me.
3 And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel,
in whom I glory.”
4 And I said, “I have labored in vain,
for emptiness and for mere breath I have spent my energy,
yet my justice is with Yahweh,
and my wages with my God.”
5 And now Yahweh has spoken,
who formed me from the womb as his servant,
to restore Jacob to himself
and gather Israel to him,
and I am honored in the eyes of Yahweh,
and my God has become my strength.
6 And he says, “Too insignificant a thing for you to be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and to bring back the protected of Israel.
And I will make you a light of the nations,
to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
7 Thus says Yahweh, the Redeemer of Israel,
its Holy One,
to the one whose life is despised, hated by the nations,
a slave of rulers,
“Kings will see and arise,
princes, and bow down,
for the sake of Yahweh who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, for he has chosen you.”
8 Thus says Yahweh,
“At the time of favor I shall answer you,
and in a day of salvation I shall help you
and protect you and give you
as a covenant of the people,
to rebuild the land,
to apportion the desolate inheritance,
9 saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out!’
to those in darkness, ‘Show yourselves!’
“Along the roads they will graze,
and on all the bare slopes will be their pasture.
10 They will not be hungry and they will not be thirsty;
and the heat or sun will not beat on them,
for he who has mercy on them will lead them
and to springs of water he will guide them.
11 Then I will make all my mountains into a road,
and make my highways level.
12 Behold, these will come from far away,
and behold, some from the north and the west;
and some from the land of Sinim.”
13 Shout for joy, heavens, and be joyful, earth,
and break into singing, mountains!
For Yahweh comforts his people,
and he will have compassion on his afflicted.
14 But Zion said, “Yahweh has forsaken me,
and the Lord has forgotten me.”
15 “Can a woman forget her baby
or have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even she may forget these,
but I will not forget you.
16 Behold, I have inscribed you on my palms;
your walls are before me always.
17 Your children are hurrying,
those who destroyed you and ravaged you are going away from you.
18 Lift up your eyes around and see,
they are all gathering, coming to you.
As I live”—the declaration of Yahweh—
“for all of them like jewelry you will wear,
and you will put them on like a bride.
19 “For your ruins and desolate places,
and your lands of devastation,
surely now you will be too cramped for the inhabitants,
and your devourers will be far away.
20 Yet they will say in your ears,
the sons of your bereavement,
‘The place is too cramped for us,
make room for us, so we may live here.’
21 And you will say in your heart,
‘Who has borne these for me?
When I was bereaved and barren,
exiled and cast aside.
And who has raised these?
Behold, I was left alone;
where did these come from?’”
22 Thus says Lord Yahweh:
“Behold, I shall raise my hand to the nations
and to the peoples lift up my banner.
And they will bring your sons in their laps,
and they will carry your daughters on their shoulders.
23 And kings will be your foster fathers
and their queens your nursemaids;
face to the earth they will bow down to you
and the dust of your feet they will lick;
and you will know that I am Yahweh;
those who wait for me will not be put to shame.”
24 Can the spoils be taken from the warrior,
or can captives be rescued from the fierce?[fn]
25 For thus says Yahweh,
“Even the captives of a warrior will be taken,
and spoils of a tyrant will be rescued,
and I shall contend with your contender,
and your sons I shall save.
26 And I shall feed your oppressors their flesh;
and as wine, on their blood they will get drunk.
Then all flesh will know
that I, Yahweh, am your Savior
and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.” 50 Thus says Yahweh,
“Where is the divorce certificate of your mother,
whom I have sent away?
And, to which of my creditors did I sell you?
Behold, you were sold because of your sins,
and because of your rebellion, your mother was sent away.
2 Why did I come when there was no one,
call, when no one answered?
Was my hand too short to ransom?
And was no power in me to rescue?
Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea;
I make the rivers a wilderness;
their fish stink where there is no water
and die on thirsty ground.
3 I clothe the sky with darkness,
and I lay sackcloth as its cover.”
4 The Lord Yahweh has given me a learned tongue,
knowing to give a word to the weary;
he wakes me morning by morning;
he awakens my ear to hear like the disciples.
5 The Lord Yahweh has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious;
I did not turn away backward.
6 I gave my back to assaulters,
and my cheeks to those who pluck my face;
I did not hide myself
from disgrace and spitting.
7 But the Lord Yahweh will help me;
therefore I am not disgraced;
therefore I set my face like flint,
for I know that I will not be ashamed.
8 My justifier is close.
Who will contend with me? Let us stand against one another!
Who is the adversary of my case?
Let him come near to me!
9 Behold, the Lord Yahweh will help me.
Who is he who condemns me?
Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment;
the moth will devour them.
10 Who among you fears Yahweh,
obeying the voice of his servant,
who has walked in darkness
and there is no light for him?
Let him trust in the name of Yahweh
and lean on his God.
11 Behold, all of you kindlers of fire,
who gird on torches:
walk in the light of your fire
and in the flames of your kindling.
This is from my hand for you:
in anguish you will lie down.
51 “Listen to me, pursuers of righteousness,
seekers of Yahweh:
Look to the rock from which you were chiseled
and to the mouth of the cistern from which you were quarried.
2 Look to Abraham, your father,
and to Sarah, who bore you;
for I called him as one,
and I blessed him and made him many.
3 For, Yahweh will comfort Zion;
he will comfort all her desolate places
and her wilderness make like Eden,
and her desert plains like the garden of Yahweh;
joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving, and the sound of song.
4 “Listen closely to me, my people;
and my nation, to me give ear!
For from me law will go out,
and my justice as a light of the nations I shall make in an instant.
5 My righteousness is near;
my salvation will go out,
and my arm will judge the nations;
for me the coastlands will wait,
and my arm they will anticipate.
6 Lift up your eyes to the sky,
and look to the earth beneath,
for the heavens will vanish like smoke,
and the earth will wear out like a garment, and its inhabitants will die like flies.
But my salvation will be forever,
and my righteousness will not be dismayed.
7 “Listen to me, those who know righteousness,
people with my law in their heart:
Do not fear the insults of men,
and by their abuse do not be dismayed,
8 for the moth will devour them like a garment,
and the worm will devour them like wool;
but my righteousness will be forever,
and my salvation to generation after generation.”
9 Awake, awake, put on strength,
arm of Yahweh.
Awake as in the days of old,
the generations of ancient times.
Is it not you who crushed Rahab,
who pierced the sea monster?
10 Was it not you who dried up the sea,
the waters of the great deep,
who made the depths of the sea into a way
for the redeemed to pass through?
11 And the ransomed of Yahweh will return
and come to Zion with cries of joy
and with gladness forever on their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them;
sorrow and mourning will flee.
12 “I, I, am he who comforts you.
Who are you that you are afraid of men—he will die—
and of the sons of mankind, who are given up as grass?
13 And you forget Yahweh your Maker,
who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth.
And you constantly fear, the whole day
from the face of the wrath of the oppressor as he intends to destroy.
But where is the wrath of the oppressor?
14 He who crouches will hurry to be freed,
and he will not die to the pit,
and he will not lack his bread.
15 And I am Yahweh your God,
who stirs the sea and its waves roar,
Yahweh of hosts is his name.
16 And I have placed my words in your mouth,
and in the shadow of my hand I have covered you,
stretching out the heavens and founding the earth
and saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’”
17 Awake, awake!
Rise up, Jerusalem,
who drank from the hand of Yahweh the cup of his wrath;
you drank the goblet of staggering, you drained it
18 There is no guide for her
among all the sons she bore;
and there is none to hold her hand
among all the sons she raised.
19 These two happened to you—who will grieve for you?—
desolation and destruction, and the famine and the sword. Who will comfort you?[fn]
20 Your sons have fainted;
they lie at the head of all the streets,
like an antelope in a net,
filled with the anger of Yahweh,
the rebuke of your God.
21 But now hear this, oppressed one
and drunken one, but not with wine:
22 Thus says your Lord Yahweh,
and your God, contending for his people,
“Behold, I have taken from your hand
the cup of staggering,
the goblet of my wrath.
You will not continue to drink it again.
23 And I will put it into the hand of your tormentors,
who said to you, ‘Lie down, that we may walk over you,’
and you made your back like the ground
and like the street for walking over.”
52 Awake, awake,
put on your strength, Zion!
Put on your beautiful garments,
Jerusalem, holy city;
for no more will the uncircumcised
or the unclean enter you again.
2 Shake yourself from the dust;
arise, sit, Jerusalem;
Loose the chains on your neck,
captive daughter of Zion.
3 For thus says Yahweh,
“You were sold for nothing,
and you will be redeemed without money.”
4 For thus says the Lord Yahweh,
“In the beginning my people went down to Egypt to live there,
and Assyria has oppressed him for no cause.
5 “And now, what do I have here”—the declaration of Yahweh—
“for my people are taken for nothing?
His rulers mock him”
—the declaration of Yahweh—
and my name is blasphemed
continually all day.[fn]
6 Therefore, my people will know my name,
therefore, on that day
for I am he, the one who speaks,
‘Here am I!’”
7 How beautiful on the mountains
the feet of the bearer of good news,
announcing peace, heralding good things,
announcing salvation,
saying to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
8 Listen, your watchmen raise their voices,
together they shout for joy,
for eye after eye will see
the return of Yahweh to Zion.
9 Break out into joyful singing together,
ruins of Jerusalem,
for Yahweh has comforted his people,
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
10 Yahweh has bared his holy arm
before the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth will see
the salvation of our God.
11 Turn aside, turn aside, go out from there!
Do not touch the unclean!
Go out from her midst;
keep clean, bearers of the vessels of Yahweh.
12 For you will not go out in a rush,
and in flight you will not go,
for Yahweh will go before your faces,
and your rearguard will be the God of Israel.
13 Behold, my servant will act wisely;
he will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted.
14 As many were horrified at you—
so disfigured beyond any man was his appearance,
and his form beyond any sons of man,
15 so, he will sprinkle many nations.
Kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they had not been told, they will see,
and what they had not heard, they will understand.
53 Who has believed our report,
and to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?
2 For he arose like a shoot before his face,
and like a root from parched earth;
he had no features and no splendor;
and we saw in him nothing of appearance to attract us.
3 He was despised and rejected of men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with illness,
and like one from whom men hide their faces,
despised, and we considered him nothing.
4 But he has borne our sicknesses
and carried our sorrows;
yet we considered him afflicted,
stricken of God and humiliated.
5 But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins,
The punishment for our peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each turned to his own way,
and Yahweh has placed on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was tormented,
and he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep silent before the faces of its shearers,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By coercion and by judgment he was taken away,
and who of his generation was concerned?
But he was cut off from the land of the living
for the offenses of my people, an affliction for them.
9 And they placed his grave with the criminals,
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and deceit was not in his mouth.
10 But Yahweh was pleased to bruise him, put him to grief.
If he makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his seed, prolong his days,
and the purpose of Yahweh will succeed in his hand,
11 From the trouble of his life, he will see light, [fn]
be satisfied by his knowledge.
My righteous servant will justify many,[fn]
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore, I shall give him a portion among the multitude,
and with the many he will divide the spoils,
because he exposed his life to death
and with the transgressors was numbered.
For he bore the sin of many
and for the transgressors made intercession.
54 “Sing for joy, barren woman who has not given birth;
break into joyful song and rejoice, who has not been in labor.
For the children of the desolate one are more
than the children of the married woman,” says Yahweh.
2 “Broaden the place for your tent
and spread out the tent-curtains of your dwelling, without restraint;
lengthen your ropes,
and strengthen your stakes.
3 For you will spread out to the right hand and to the left,
and your seed will conquer nations
and settle desolate cities.
4 Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed,
and you will not be discouraged, for you will not be disgraced;
for you will forget the shame of your youth
and the disgrace of your abandonment you will remember no more. 5 For your Maker is your husband;
Yahweh of hosts is his name.
And the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
he is called the God of all the earth.
6 For as a wife abandoned and grieved in spirit
Yahweh has called you back,
and a wife of youth that is rejected,”
says your God.
7 “For a short time I abandoned you,
but with great compassion I shall gather you.
8 In a flood of anger I hid my face from you momentarily;
but with everlasting covenant faithfulness I will have mercy on you—
says your Redeemer, Yahweh.
9 “For this is like the waters of Noah to me:
as I swore to keep the waters of Noah from passing over the earth again,
so have I sworn
from being angry with you or rebuking you.
10 Though the mountains may fall
and the hills be shaken,
yet my covenant faithfulness will not turn away from you,
and my covenant of peace will not be shaken,”—
says Yahweh, who has mercy on you.
11 “Afflicted one, storm-driven, without comfort:
behold, I will set your pavement in turquoise,
and lay your foundations with sapphires.
12 And I will make your ramparts rubies
and your gates from stones of beryl,
and all your walls from precious stones.
13 And all your sons will be disciples of Yahweh,
and great the peace of your sons.
14 In righteousness you will be established,
keep far from oppression that you will not fear;
and from terror that it will not come near to you.
15 Behold, no attacker will attack besides from me;
he who attacks you will fall before you.
16 “Behold, I have created the craftsman,
who blows the burning coals
and produces weapons as his work,
and it is I who created the destroyer to destroy.
17 All the weapons formed against you will not succeed,
and all the tongues rising against you for judgment, you will prove guilty.
This is the inheritance of the servants of Yahweh,
and their vindication from me”—the declaration of Yahweh.
55 “Oh, all who are thirsty, come to the water,
and who have no money, come, buy, and eat!
And come, buy without money
and without cost, wine and milk.
2 Why do you weigh out silver for what is not bread,
and your labor for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me and eat what is good,
and delight your spirits in fatness.
3 Turn your ears and come to me!
Listen, that your spirit may live!
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
the faithful covenant loyalty shown to David.
4 Behold, I have placed him as a witness to the nations,
a leader and commander to the peoples.
5 Behold, you will call a nation you did not know;
and a nation that did not know you will run to you
because of Yahweh your God,
and the Holy One of Israel, for he made you glorious.”
6 Seek Yahweh while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked leave his path,
and the man of sin his thoughts.
And let him return to Yahweh, and he will show compassion to him,
and to our God, who will abundantly forgive.
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
and your ways are not my ways”—
the declaration of Yahweh.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 For as the rain and snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but saturate the earth
and make it produce and sprout
and give seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so my word will be that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but it will do what I desire,
and it will achieve that for which I have sent.
12 For joyfully you will go out
and peacefully be led;
the mountains and the hills will break out in joyful shouts before your faces,
and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thornbushes, the cypress will grow;
and instead of the brier, the myrtle tree will grow,
and it will be for Yahweh, for his name,
as an everlasting sign that will not be cut off.”
56 Thus says Yahweh,
“Keep justice and do righteousness;
for my salvation is soon to come,
and my righteousness to be revealed.
2 Blessed is the man who does this,
and the son of man who grasps it,
keeping the Sabbath, not defiling it,
and keeping his hand from doing any evil.”
3 And let no son of a foreigner say,
who joins with Yahweh, saying,
“Yahweh will certainly exclude me from his people.”
and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.”
4 For thus says Yahweh:
“To the eunuchs who observe my Sabbaths
and choose what pleases me,
and hold fast my covenant,
5 and to them I will set up in my house and within my walls
a monument and a name
better than sons and daughters;
an everlasting name I shall give him
that will never be cut off.
6 And sons of foreigners who join with Yahweh
to serve him,
and who love the name of Yahweh,
to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath, not defiling it,
and who hold fast my covenant—
7 even them I shall bring to my holy mountain
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be welcome on my altar.
For my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations”
8 —the declaration of the Lord Yahweh, who gathers the outcasts of Israel—
“I shall still gather others for him besides the gathered.”
9 All wild beasts of the field, come to devour,
all beasts in the forest!
10 His watchmen are blind, all of them
they do not understand.
All of them are silent dogs, not able to bark.
They dream lying down, lovers of sleep.
11 And the dogs are fierce in appetite;
they do not know satiation;
and they are shepherds
not knowing discernment;
all of them turned to their way,
each for his gain, without exception.
12 “Come, let us take wine
and imbibe strong drink.
And tomorrow will be like this day,
exceedingly much greater.”
57 The righteous perish,
but no one takes it to heart,
and the men of covenant faithfulness are gathered away,
but no one understands
that the righteous is gathered away
from the face of evil.
2 He comes in peace;
they rest in their beds
who walks in his uprightness.
3 “But, you, come here,
sons of the sorcerer,
seed of the adulterer and prostitute.
4 Whom are you mocking?
Against whom are you opening wide the mouth
and sticking out the tongue?
Are you not children of rebellion,
seed of deceit
5 who go into heat among the oaks,
under every green tree,
slaughterers of children in valleys,
under overhangs of rocks?
6 Among the smooth things of the valley are your portion,
It is they which are your destiny.
Even to them you pour out your drink offering
raise up a grain offering.
In these shall I relent?
7 On a high and lofty mountain
you set your bed.
Even there you went up
to offer sacrifice.
8 And behind the door and the doorposts
you set your symbols.
For away from me you bared yourselves
and went up, widened your bed.
And you cut for yourself a covenant with them;
you loved their beds; you saw a hand.
9 And you turned to Molech with oil,
and you multiplied your perfumes.[fn]
And you sent your ambassadors far away;
and went down to Sheol.
10 You were tired from your long journey,
but you did not say, ‘It is hopeless.’
You found the life of your hand,
therefore you did not weaken.
11 “And of whom do you worry and fear,
that you lie
and do not remember me,
do not take it to heart?
Was I not silent and for so long,
that you do not fear me?
12 I shall proclaim your righteousness,
and your deeds,
but they will not help you.
13 When you cry out, let your collection rescue you,
but the wind will carry all of them away;
a breath will take them away.
Yet he who takes refuge in me will inherit the land
and will take possession of my holy mountain.”
14 And he will say,
“Pile up, pile up! Clear a way!
Remove the stumbling block from the path of my people!”
15 For thus says the One High and Lifted Up,
who lives eternally, and holy is his name,
“On high and holy I dwell
and with the oppressed and humble of spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble,
and to revive the heart of the oppressed.
16 For not forever will I contend,
and not eternally will I be angry,
for the spirit before my face would faint,
and the breath I myself have made.
17 Because of the sin of his gain, I was angry,
and I struck him; I hid and was angry,
but he went backward in the way of his heart.
18 I have seen his ways and I shall heal him
and lead him and give comfort to him and to his mourners.
19 Creator of the fruit of the lips,
“Peace, peace, to the far off and to the near,”
says Yahweh, “and I shall heal them.”
20 But the wicked are like the tossing sea,
which is not able to rest,
and its waters churn up mire and mud.
21 “There is no peace,” says my God,
“for the wicked.”
58 “Cry out from the throat; do not hold back;
lift up your voice like a trumpet,
and confront my people with their rebellion,
and the house of Jacob with their sins.
2 Yet they seek me day by day
and delight in the knowledge of my ways,
like a nation that practiced righteousness
and the ordinances of its God did not abandon.
They ask me for judgments of righteousness;
they take pleasure in the approach of God.
3 ‘Why have we fasted, and you do not see?
We humbled ourselves, and you do not notice?’
“Behold, on the day of your fast you find pleasure
and oppress all your laborers.
4 Behold, you fast to quarrel and fight,
and to hit with a fist of wickedness;
you do not fast today
to make your voice heard above.
5 Will one like this be the fast I choose?
A day a man inflicts his soul,
to bow down his head like a reed,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes?
Do you call this a fast,
and a day of Yahweh’s pleasure?
6 Is not this the fast I choose:
to loosen wicked bonds,
to undo the ropes of the yoke,
and to set the crushed ones free,
and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to distribute your bread to the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house?”
When you see one naked, then clothe him,
and your flesh do not ignore.
8 Then your light will break like the dawn
and your healing quickly sprout up
and your righteousness will go before your face.
The glory of Yahweh will be your rearguard.
9 Then you will call, and Yahweh will answer;
cry out, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’
“If you take away from among you the yoke,
the pointing finger, and the speech of wickedness,
10 and provide for the hungry your life
and satisfy the appetite of the afflicted,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your darkness will be like the noonday.
11 Then Yahweh will lead you continually
and satisfy your appetite in the desert,
and your bones he will strengthen,
and will be like a watered garden,
and like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.
12 And some of you will rebuild the ancient ruins;
you will raise up the foundations of generation upon generation,
and you will be called The Repairer of the Wall,
The Restorer of Streets to Live On.
13 “If you turn back your feet on the Sabbath,
from doing your pleasure on my holy day,
and call the Sabbath a delight,
holy of Yahweh, honored,
and honor it, keeping from doing your ways,
finding your pleasure, and speaking speech,
14 “then you will delight in Yahweh,
and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
and I will feed you the inheritance of Jacob your father,”
for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.
59 Behold, the hand of Yahweh is not too short to save,
and not his ear too dull to hear.
2 Your transgressions, however, have caused separation
between you and between your God,
and your sins have made him hide his face from you
so he does not hear.
3 For your hands are stained with blood
and your fingers with sin.
Your lips speak falsehood;
your tongue murmurs evil.
4 None calls in righteousness,
and none pleads his case in truth,
trusting in emptiness and speaking vanity,
conceiving trouble and birthing sin.
5 The eggs of a poisonous snake they hatch,
and the web of a spider they weave.
Whoever eats of their eggs dies,
and when one is crushed, an adder is hatched.
6 Their webs are not for garments,
and they do not cover themselves with their works.
Their works are works of sin,
and deeds of violence are in their hands.
7 Their feet run to evil,
and they hasten to spill innocent blood.
Their thoughts are thoughts of sin;
violence and destruction are their roads.
8 The way of peace they do not know,
and there is no justice in their tracks.
They distorted their paths;
all who travel it do not know peace.
9 Therefore justice is far from us,
and righteousness does not reach us.
We wait for light, but behold, darkness;
for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
10 We grope the wall as the blind,
and as though without eyes we grope.
We stumble at noonday as in the twilight;
among the strong as the dead.
11 We growl like bears, all of us,
and like doves, mourn sadly;
we wait for justice, but there is none;
for rescue, but it is far from us.
12 For our many transgressions are before you,
and our sins testify against us;
for our transgressions are with us,
and our iniquities we know:
13 rebelling, and denying Yahweh
and turning away from after our God,
speaking extortion and turning aside,
conceiving and complaining from the heart words of falsehood.
14 And justice is driven back,
and righteousness stands far off;
for truth stumbles in the plaza,
and straightforwardness is not able to come.
15 And it happens that truth is missing,
and he who turns away from evil makes himself plunder.
And Yahweh saw, and it was evil in his eyes
that there was no justice.
16 And he saw that there was no man,
and was amazed that there was no intercessor.
So his arm brought salvation for him,
and his righteousness was his support.
17 And he put on righteousness as a breastplate
and a helmet of salvation upon his head,
and he clothed himself with garments of vengeance for clothing
and wore zeal as a mantle.
18 As all the deeds will be
as all he repays,
anger to his adversaries,
recompense to his enemies,
to the islands he will pay the reward.
19 And they will fear the name of Yahweh from the west,
and his glory from the rising of the sun;
for he will come as a rushing stream,
driven by the breath of Yahweh.
20 “And a redeemer will come to Zion
and to those who turn from their rebellious deeds in Jacob”
—the declaration of Yahweh.
21 “And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says Yahweh. “My Spirit who is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, will not leave your mouth, or the mouths of your seed, or the mouths of the seed of your seed,“ says Yahweh, “from now and to eternity.”
60 “Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of Yahweh has risen on you.
2 For, behold, darkness will cover the earth,
and gloom, the nations;
yet Yahweh will arise over you,
and his glory will be seen on you.
3 And nations will come to your light,
and kings to your rising brightness.
4 “Lift up your eyes around and see.
They all gather to come to you:
your sons will come from far,
and your daughters supported on the side.
5 Then you will look and be radiant,
and your heart will be in awe and broaden,
because the abundance of the sea will fall upon you,
the wealth of the nations will come to you.
6 Caravans of camels will cover you,
young camels of Midian and Ephah.
All of them will come from Sheba;
they will bring gold and frankincense,
and will sing the praises of Yahweh.
7 All the flocks of Kedar will be gathered to you,
the rams of Nebaioth will serve you;
they will ascend my altar with acceptance
and I shall glorify my glorious house.
8 “Who are these who fly like a cloud,
and like doves to their coops?
9 For the coastlands wait for me,
and the ships of Tarshish first,
to bring your sons from afar,
their silver and their gold with them,
for the name of Yahweh your God,
and for the Holy One of Israel,
because he has given you glory.
10 “And sons of foreigners will rebuild your walls,
and their kings will serve you.
Though in my wrath I struck you,
yet in my favor I shall have compassion on you.
11 And your gates will be open always;
they will not be shut day or night,
so the wealth of the nations may be brought to you,
and their kings being led.
12 For the nations and kingdoms that will not serve you will perish,
and the nations will be completely destroyed.
13 “The glory of Lebanon will come to you,
the cypress, the fir, and the cedar altogether,
to beautify the place of my sanctuary;
and the place of my feet I shall glorify .
14 And they will come to you to bow down,
the sons of those who humbled you,
and they will bow down at the soles of your feet,
all who despised you,
and they will call you The City of Yahweh,
Zion of the Holy One of Israel.
15 “Instead of you being abandoned and hated,
with no one passing through,
I will make you a thing of pride forever,
a joy from generation to generation.
16 And you will suckle the milk of the nations,
and at the breast of kings you will nurse,
and you will know that I, Yahweh, am your Savior
and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. 17 Instead of bronze I shall bring gold,
and instead of iron I shall bring silver,
and instead of wood, bronze,
and instead of stones, iron.
And I shall appoint peace as your governors,
and justice your rulers.
18 Violence will no longer be heard in your land,
devastation or shattering within your borders;
but you will call your walls Salvation,
and your gates Praise.
19 The sun will no longer be your light by day,
and the brightness of the moon will not shine on you;
but Yahweh will be your everlasting light,
and your God your glory.
20 Your sun will no longer set,
and your moon will not wane;
for Yahweh will be your everlasting light,
and the days of your mourning will be ended.
21 And your people, all of them will be righteous;
for eternity they will possess the land,
the branch of my planting,
the work of my hands, to show my glory.
22 The little one will become a thousand,
and the small one a strong nation;
I, Yahweh, shall hasten it in its time.”
61 The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is on me,
because Yahweh has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the afflicted.
He has sent me to bind up the broken of heart,
to call out freedom to the captives,
and to the bound, liberation,
2 to proclaim the year of Yahweh’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God,
and to comfort all who mourn,
3 to grant mourners of Zion,
giving them a headdress instead of ashes,
oil of joy instead of mourning,
a mantle of praise in place of a spirit of dullness,
and to call them oaks of righteousness,
the planting of Yahweh,
to show his glory.
4 And they will build up the ancient ruins;
they will restore the former desolations.
and they will rebuild the cities of desolation,
the ruins of generation upon generation.
5 And foreigners will stand and feed your flocks,
and sons of foreigners will be your farmers and your vinedressers.
6 And you will be called the priests of Yahweh;
it will be said of you, ‘servants of our God.’
The wealth of the nations you will eat,
and in their riches you will boast.
7 Instead of your shame, double;
and dishonor, they will rejoice over their share.
So of their land they will possess double,
everlasting joy will be theirs.
8 “For I am Yahweh,
loving justice, hating unjust robbery,
and I shall give their recompense in truth,
and I shall cut an everlasting covenant with them.
9 And their seed will be known among the nations,
and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge them,
that they are the seed whom Yahweh has blessed.”
10 I shall greatly rejoice in Yahweh;
my spirit will be glad in my God.
For he has dressed me with the garments of salvation;
with the robe of righteousness he has clothed me,
as a bridegroom embellishes himself with a turban,
and as a bride adorns herself with her ornaments.
11 For as the earth produces its sprouts,
and as the garden makes its sowing sprout,
so the Lord Yahweh will cause righteousness and praise
to sprout up in front of all the nations.
62 For the sake of Zion I shall not be silent,
and for the sake of Jerusalem I shall not be quiet,
until her righteousness proceeds as brightness,
and her salvation as a burning torch.
2 And the nations will see your righteousness,
and all kings your glory,
and you will be called a new name
that the mouth of Yahweh will choose.
3 And you will be a crown of beauty in the hand of Yahweh,
and a turban of kingship in the palm of your God.
4 It will no more be said of you, “Abandoned”;
and of your land it will no more be said, “Desolate,”
for you will be called, “My delight is in her,” and your land “Married,”
for Yahweh delights in you, and your land will be married.
5 As a young man marries a young woman,
your sons will marry you,
and as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
your God will rejoice over you.
6 I have put watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem;
all day and all night they are continually not silent.
You who are reminding Yahweh, do not pause.
7 And do not allow him rest until he reestablishes it,
and until he makes Jerusalem a praise on earth.
8 Yahweh has sworn by his right hand
and by the arm of his strength,
“Surely I shall no longer give your grain
as food for your enemies,
and surely sons of foreigners will not drink your new wine,
for which you have worked,
9 for its gatherers will eat it
and praise Yahweh,
and its collectors will drink
in the courts of my holy place.”
10 Pass through, pass through the gates!
Clear the way for the people!
Build, build the highway!
Clear the stones!
Raise up a banner for the nations!
11 Behold, Yahweh announces to the ends of the earth,
“Say to the daughter of Zion:
Behold, your salvation is coming!
Behold, his wages are with him,
and his reward before his face.”
12 And they will call you, “The Holy People;
the Redeemed of Yahweh,”
and you will be called “Sought After;
a City Not Abandoned.”
63 Who is this coming from Edom,
clothed in crimson from Bozrah?
This one, honored in his garments,
marching in the greatness of his strength?
“It is I, speaking righteously,
mighty to save.”
2 Why are your clothes red,
and your clothes like one treading in a winepress?
3 “I have trodden in the winepress alone,
and from the nations no man was with me,
and I trod them in my nose
and trampled them in my fury,
and their blood is spattered on my clothes
and all my garments I stained.
4 For the day of vengeance was in my heart,
and the year of my redemption had come.
5 And I looked, and there was no one to help,
and I wondered that there was no one to support,
but my arm assisted me,
and my anger was my support.
6 And I trampled the peoples in my nose
and made them drunk in my wrath,
and I poured out their blood on the earth.”
7 The covenant faithfulness of Yahweh I shall recount,
the praiseworthy deeds of Yahweh,
according to all that Yahweh has shown us,
and his great goodness to the house of Israel,
which he has shown us according to his mercy,
and according to the greatness of his covenant faithfulness.
8 And he said, “Indeed they are my people,
sons not unfaithful,”
and he became their Savior.
9 Through all their affliction he was afflicted,
and the angel of his face saved them.
In his love and mercy he redeemed them,
and he lifted them up and carried them
all the days of old.
10 But they rebelled
and grieved his Holy Spirit.
And he became their enemy;
he fought against them.
11 And his people recalled the days of old of Moses,
“Where is the one who brought them up from the sea
with the shepherds of his flock?
Where is the one who put his Holy Spirit among them,
12 who sent his glorious arm
to the right hand of Moses,
who divided the water before their faces,
to make for himself an everlasting name,
13 who led them through the depths?
Like a horse on flat land, they did not stumble;
14 as cattle going down into the valley,
the Spirit of Yahweh gave them rest.
So you led your people,
to make yourself a name of majesty.
15 Look from heaven and see
from your holy and glorious habitation.
Where are your zeal and your mighty acts?
The agitation of your inner parts and your compassion are restrained from me.
16 For you are our Father,
though Abraham does not know us
and Israel does not recognize us,
you, Yahweh, are our father.
Our Redeemer from everlasting is your name.
17 Yahweh, why do you make us wander from your ways,
harden our hearts, so we do not fear you?
Return for your servants’ sake,
the tribes of your inheritance.
18 For a short time your holy people possessed your holy place;
our enemies trampled it.
19 We have become like those over whom you did not ever rule,
like those who were not called by your name.”
64 Oh, if you had split open the heavens and come down!
The mountains would have shaken at your presence,
2 as fire kindles the brushwood,
or fire boils water
to make your name known by your adversaries,
before your face nations tremble.
3 When you did fearful things we had not hoped for,
you came down; before your face the mountains trembled.
4 And from ancient times they have not heard;
they have not given ear;
no eye has seen a god besides you,
who works for him who waits for him.
5 You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness,
who recalls your ways.
Behold, you were angry for we had sinned;
through them of old we would be saved.
6 And all of us have become like an unclean one,
and all our righteous deeds are like a menstrual rag.
And we have withered like leaves, all of us,
and our iniquities, like the wind, carry us away.
7 And there are none who calls on your name,
who stirs himself up to take hold of you.
For you have hidden your face from us
and made us waste away in the hand of our iniquities.
8 And yet, Yahweh, our Father you are.
We are the clay, and you are our potter;
and we all are the work of your hand.
9 Do not be angry beyond measure, Yahweh,
and do not forever remember iniquity.
Behold, look, please, all of us are your people.
10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness;
Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and beautiful temple, where our fathers praised you,
has been burned in fire,
and all our beloved things are in ruins.
12 At these, will you restrain yourself, Yahweh?
Will you remain silent and humiliate us beyond measure?
65 “I let myself be sought out by those who did not ask;
I let myself be found by those who did not seek.
I said, ‘Here I am! Here I am!’
to a nation not calling on my name.
2 I have spread out my hands all day to a stubborn people,
who walk a not-good way, after their thoughts,
3 a people who continually provoke me to my face,
offering sacrifices in gardens,
and burning incense on bricks,
4 who sit among the graves
and spend the night in lookouts;
who eat the meat of the pig
and the broth of unclean meat in their dishes,
5 who say, ‘Keep to yourself, do not come near to me,
for I am holier than you.’
These things are smoke in my nose,
a fire burning all day long.
6 Behold, it is written before my face:
I shall not keep quiet, but I shall repay,
and I shall repay into their laps,
7 their sins and the sins of their fathers together,”
says Yahweh.
“Because they have burned incense on the mountains
and on the hills mocked me.
And I shall measure out
their past deeds into their laps.”
8 Thus says Yahweh,
“As when juice is found in a cluster of grapes,
and one says, ‘Do not ruin it, for there is good in it,’
therefore I shall work for the sake of my servant;
I shall not ruin all.
9 And I shall bring seed from Jacob,
and from Judah a possessor of my mountains,
and my chosen ones will possess it,
and my servants will live there.
10 And Sharon will become a pasture for the flocks,
and the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds,
for my people who seek me.
11 But you who abandon Yahweh,
who forget my holy mountain,
who prepare for Fortune a table,
and fill for Destiny mixed wine,
12 then I shall appoint you for the sword,
and you will all bow down to the slaughter,
because I called and you did not answer;
I spoke, and you did not listen.
But you did evil in my eyes
and what was not pleasing to me you chose.”
13 Therefore, thus says the Lord Yahweh:
“Behold, my servants will eat,
but you will be hungry;
behold, my servants will drink,
but you will be thirsty;
behold, my servants will rejoice,
but you will be put to shame.
14 Behold, my servants will shout with joy from gladness of heart,
but you will cry from pain of the heart,
and from the crushing of the spirit you will wail.
15 And you will leave your name as a curse to my chosen ones;
and the Lord Yahweh will put you to death,
and he will call his servants by another name.
16 Whoever blesses himself on the earth
will bless himself by the God of truth,
and who vows on the earth
will vow by the God of truth,
for the former troubles will be forgotten,
for they will be hidden from my eyes.
17 For behold, I am about to create a new heavens
and a new earth;
and the former things will not be remembered,
and they will not come up to heart.
18 But you will be glad and rejoice forever in
what I am about to create.
For behold, I am about to create Jerusalem as rejoicing,
and her people as joy.
19 And I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and be glad over my people;
and it will no longer be heard in her
the sound of weeping and the sound of screaming.
20 No more will an infant be there a few days,
or an elder who does not complete his days.
For, one who dies at 100 years old will be a young lad,
and one who falls short of 100 years old will be considered cursed.
21 And they will build houses and dwell,
and they will plant vineyards and eat fruit.
22 They will not build for another to dwell;
they will not plant for another to eat;
for as the days of trees will be the days of my people,
and the work of their hands my chosen ones will outlive.
23 They will not labor in vain,
and they will not give birth to dismay;
for the seed of the blessed of Yahweh they are,
and their offspring with them.
24 And it will happen, before they call, then I shall answer;
while they are still speaking, then I shall hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb will graze together,
and the lion like the ox will eat straw;
but the serpent—dust is its food.
They will not do evil, and they will not destroy
on all my holy mountain,” says Yahweh.
66 Thus says Yahweh,
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is the stool for my feet.
Where is the house that you will build for me?
And where is the place where I may rest?
2 And all these my hand has made;
thus all these came to be”
—the declaration of Yahweh.
“And to this one I look,
to the broken and contrite of spirit,
and who trembles at my word.
3 He who slaughters an ox strikes down a man;
he who sacrifices a lamb breaks the neck of a dog;
he who brings up a grain offering offers the blood of a pig;
he who offers a memorial of incense blesses wickedness.
They, too, have chosen their ways,
and in their abominations their spirit delights.
4 Even so, I shall choose their punishment,
and their fears I shall bring on them,
because I called, and no one answered;
I spoke, and no one listened.
And they did evil before my eyes,
and what I did not desire, they chose.”
5 Hear the word of Yahweh,
who tremble at his word,
Your brothers who hate you have said,
—who exclude you for the sake of my name—
“May Yahweh be glorified,
and we will see your joy,”
but they will be put to shame.
6 The sound of uproar from the city,
a sound from the temple,
the sound of Yahweh
repaying completely his enemies.
7 “Before she goes into labor, she gives birth;
before pain comes upon her, then she delivers a male.
8 Who has heard of such a thing?
Who has seen such things?
Can a land be delivered through labor in one day?
Can a nation be born in one moment?
For Zion went into labor,
she yet gave birth to her children.
9 Do I break open the womb
and not cause birth?”—said Yahweh.
“Or do I cause birth
and block it?”—said your God.
10 “Rejoice with Jerusalem
and be glad for her, all who love her;
rejoice with her in gladness,
all who mourned over her!
11 For you will suckle and be satisfied
from her comforting breasts;
for you will drink deep and be refreshed
from her glorious teat.”
12 For thus says Yahweh:
“Behold, I am about to spread well-being over her like a river,
and like an overflowing stream the splendor of the nations,
and you will suckle; at her side you will be carried
and on her knees rocked to and fro.
13 As a man whose mother comforts him,
so I will comfort you,
and in Jerusalem you will be comforted.”
14 And you will see, and your heart will rejoice,
and your bones will sprout like the grass,
and the hand of Yahweh will be made known to his servants,
but he will rage against his enemies.
15 For behold, Yahweh is coming with fire,
and like the windstorm, his chariots
to bring the heat of his nose
and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For Yahweh judges with fire,
and with his sword against all flesh.
and those slain by Yahweh will be many.
17 “Those who consecrate and purify themselves to enter the gardens, behind one in the center, eating the flesh of pig and abominations and mice. They altogether will come to an end”—the declaration of Yahweh.
18 “For I know their deeds and their thoughts. The time is coming when I will gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see my glory. 19 And I will set a sign among them and send survivors from them to the nations: Tarshish, Pul and Lud, who draw the bow, Tubal and Javan, the distant coastlands where they have not heard news of me and have not seen my glory; and they will proclaim my glory among the nations. 20 And they will bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to Yahweh on horses and in chariots and in wagons and on mules and on camels to my holy mountain Jerusalem”—says Yahweh—“as the sons of Israel bring a grain offering in a clean vessel into the house of Yahweh.
21 And from them I shall even take priests and Levites”—says Yahweh.
22 “For just as the new heavens and the new earth
that I am making stand before my face”—the declaration of Yahweh—
“so will stand your seed and your name. 23 And it will be, from month to month, and from Sabbath to Sabbath,
all flesh will come to bow down before my face”—says Yahweh.
24 “And they will go out and see
the corpses of the men who have rebelled against me,
for their maggots will not die, and their fire will not be quenched;
and they will be an abhorrence to all flesh.”
Some modern versions have and in the ruins, lambs will graze as foreigners.
Instead of the young woman some ancient manuscripts have a young woman.
The last line of this verse is difficult because it does not seem to fit the context. Some modern versions leave out from the face of fatness.
Some ancient manuscripts have I have dug wells and drunk water in foreign lands.
the inhabitants of the world: Most modern versions have this meaning. Some ancient manuscripts have the inhabitants of the place of non-existence (that is, brief existence).
The Hebrew could be read: I cried out or I lie down.
Instead of Who has made known from of old the signs, some ancient manuscripts have From my appointing of the people of old and the signs.
Instead of from the fierce, some ancient manuscripts have from the righteous, but most modern versions correct it to from the fierce.
Some ancient manuscripts have How will I comfort you? Most modern versions correct this passage to Who will comfort you?
Instead of mock, some versions identify a different Hebrew word meaning wail.
Some ancient manuscripts supply light.
Some versions have By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many.
Instead of to Molech, some ancient manuscripts have to the king.