Jerusalem: her present sin and punishment; her future redemption and glory

1 The vision of Judah and Jerusalem, as seen by Isaiah the son of Amoz, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

The prophet’s lament over the unfaithfulness of the people to their God

2 Hear, you heavens! Listen, earth,

for the Lord is the speaker.

‘I raised my childen and brought them up,

but they have rebelled against me.

3 Even an ox knows its owner,

and a donkey its master’s manger;

but Israel does not know,

my people are thoughtless.’

4 Sinful nation!

A people laden with guilt,

a brood of evildoers,

children all corrupt,

they have forsaken the Lord,

spurned the Holy One of Israel,

turned their backs on him.

5 Why would you invite more beatings

by straying yet further from him?

Your whole head is sick,

your heart is all diseased,

6 from the sole of the foot to the head

there is no health at all,

nothing but bruises and welts

and wounds that are raw and bleeding,

all unpressed and unbandaged,

all unsoftened with oil.

7 Your land is a desolation,

your cities are burned with fire,

the fields before your eyes

are being devoured by foreigners.

8 And the daughter of Zion is left

all alone like a booth in a vineyard,

a lodge in a cucumber field,

like a city under siege.

9 Were it not that the Lord of Hosts

had spared a few of us,

we would be like Sodom,

or another Gomorrah.

The futility of a merely ceremonial worship

10 Attend to the Lord’s message,

you rulers of Sodom!

Hear what our God has to teach you,

you folk of Gomorrah.

11 ‘Why do you think I care,’

says the Lord,

‘for your countless sacrifices?

I am sick of burnt offerings of rams

and the fat of fed steers,

blood of bulls, lambs, or goats,

is no pleasure to me.

12 When you come before me in worship,

who has asked you for these things?

Trample my courts no more,

13 bring offerings no more.

Your offerings are meaningless,

their incense disgusts me.

The new moon and Sabbath,

the call to assembly,

your sinful ceremonies

I cannot endure.

14 I loathe your new moon festivals,

your annual assemblies.

They weigh me down,

I am tired of the burden.

15 So when you lift up your hands,

I will turn away my eyes;

when you make your many prayers,

I will not listen to you.

Your hands are full of blood:

16 wash, and make youself clean.

Banish out of my sight

the wicked things that you do.

Cease to do evil,

17 learn to do good.

Seek justice,

help the oppressed,

uphold the rights of the orphan,

defend the cause of the widow.’

The great alternatives

18 ‘Come,’ says the Lord, ‘and now

let us reason together.

Your sins, though like scarlet, may yet

become white as the snow.

Though they be crimson-red,

they may yet be as wool.

19 If you are obedient and willing,

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 the Lord has spoken it.’

Zion’s present shame and future glory

21 Alas! How the once faithful city

has become a prostitute.

She who was once full of justice,

where righteousness resided,

22 Your silver is now become dross,

and your wine mixed with water.

23 Your rulers are grown to be rebels,

the companions of thieves -

every one of them fond of their bribe,

hunting ever for gifts,

caring nothing for the rights of the orphan

or the cause of the widow.

24 This then says the Lord, God of Hosts,

the Mighty One of Israel:

‘I will get satisfaction from my foes,

wreck vengeance on my enemies.

25 I will turn my hand against you,

I will melt you down and skim off your slag,

I will remove your impurities.

26 I will give you good judges again

counsellors as you used to have,

and then you will called

the city of justice, the faithful city.

27 Zion will be ransomed by justice,

and by righteousness her people.

28 But rebels and sinners will be crushed,

and those who abandon the Lord will perish.

The heathen cult and its doom

29 The sacred oaks you delight in will bring you shame,

the gardens you worship in will make you blush.

30 Like a tree with withered leaves

you will be - like a waterless garden.

31 The strong will become like tinder,

their evil deeds the spark,

and both will burn together

and no one will quench the flame.

Jerusalem the centre of blessing to the world; arbitration, disarmament, and international peace

Marker

2 The message of Isaiah the son of Amoz: his vision of Judah and Jerusalem.

2 In the after-time it will be

that the mountain of the Lord

will be set at the head of the mountains,

and exalted above the hills.

All the peoples will thither stream,

3 many nations will go and say,

‘Come, let us go to the mount of the Lord,

to the house of the God of Jacob,

so that he in his ways may instruct us,

and that we in his paths may walk.

For instruction proceeds from Zion,

the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.’

4 He will judge the disputes of the peoples,

and for manifold nations so justly will arbitrate

that their swords they will beat into ploughshares,

and to pruning-hooks their spears.

Nation will not lift up sword against nation,

and war they will learn no more.

5 O household of Jacob, come,

let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Judgment upon the wealth and pride of Judah

The Lord’s judgement-day

6 (Get you into the caves of the rocks,

and hide in the holes of the ground,

from the Lord’s dread face, when in glory majestic

he rises with terror to smile the earth.)

For he has forsaken his people,

the household of Jacob.

Filled is his land from the east with diviners,

with soothsayers like to the Philistines,

sorcerers, children of foreigners.

7 Filled in his land full of silver and gold,

and his treasure is endless.

Filled in his land full of horses,

his chariots are endless.

8 Filled is his land full of idols,

he worships the work of his hands,

the things that his fingers have made.

10 (Get you into the rocks,

and hide in the ground,

from the Lord’s dread presence

and glory majestic.)

11 So the pride of men will be humbled,

laid low will man’s loftiness be,

and that day will the Lord alone be exalted.

12 For a day of the Lord is coming

upon all that is haughty and proud,

upon all that is lofty and high-

13 upon cedars of Lebanon all,

and oaks of Bashan all,

14 upon all the great mountains

and all the high hills,

15 upon all the proud towers,

all fortified walls,

16 upon all ships of Tarshish

and all gallant craft.

17 Then the pride of men will be humbled,

laid low will man’s loftiness be,

and that day will the Lord alone be exalted.

18 The Idols will all of them vanish.

19 Get you into the caves of the rocks,

and the holes of the ground

from the Lord’s dread face, when in glory majestic

he rises with terror to smile the earth.

20 That day will men cast away

to the moles and to the bats

their idols of silver and gold,

which they made for themselves to worship;

21 And into the caves of the rocks they will get them,

and into the rents of the cliffs,

from the Lord’s dread face, when in glory majestic

he rises-with terror to smite the earth.

22 Oh cease your trust in man, in whose nostrils is but a breath. Of what account is he?

A reign of anarchy

3 Behold, the Lord the Lord of Hosts

take staff and stay from Jerusalem and Judah-

2 soldiers and Warriors, judges and prophets,

3 deviners and elders, and captains of fifty,

men of distinction, and men of sage counsel,

cunning magicians and skilful enchanters.

4 And boys I will give them for princes,

and men of caprice will rule over them.

5 The people will play the tyrant,

each man over his neighbour.

The young will be rude to the aged,

the man of low rank to the high.

6 One will take hold of his fellow, and say to him:

‘Your family has a robe;

come, and do you be our ruler,

and take this ruin in hand.’

7 Then will the other protest,

‘No, truly: I cannot dress your wounds.

In my own house there is no bread,

nor yet is there a robe.

You will not thrust upon me

The leadership of the people.’

8 Jerusalem is stumbling to ruin,

and Judah must surely fall;

for by word and by deed they defy the Lord,

provoking those glorious eyes of his.

9 Their respecting of persons is witness against them;

like Sodom they publish their sin undisguisedly.

Woe unto them! They have wrought their own ruin.

10 Happy righteous! For well they will fare,

they will reap the fruit of their doings.

11 But woe to the wicked! For ill they will fare,

their deeds will be recompensed unto them.

12 My people are cruelly governed,

extortions rule over them.

O My people, your leaders mislead,

and confuse the way you should go.

13 The Lord is taking his place for the trial,

he stands to judge his people.

14 The Lord summons to judgment

the elders and princes of his people.

‘Yes, you have devoured the vineyard,

the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

15 What mean you by crushing my people

and grinding the faces of the poor?’

says the Lord God of Hosts.

The doom of the haughty women

16 Moreover the Lord said:

‘Because Zion’s daughters are haughty,

walking with heads held high,

and eyes for ever ogling,

with dainty little steps,

and anklets ever jingling,

17 the Lord will smite with a scab

the head of the daughters of Zion,

and their shame will the Lord lay bare.

18 That day the Lord will remove

the finery of the anklets,

the net-bands and the moons,

19 the ear-drops and bracelets and veils,

20 the head-dresses, armlets, and sashes,

the perfume-boxes and amulets,

21 the signet-rings and the nose-rings,

22 the state-gowns, the mantles, the shawls, and the satchels,

23 the gauzes and linens, the turbans and veils.

24 Sweet scents will give place unto stench,

and the girdle be changed for a rope.

And well-set hair will be bald,

and for elegant robe will be sackcloth,

for beauty the brand (of a slave).

25 Your liegemen will fall by the sword,

and your mighty men in the battle.

26 Her gates will lament and mourn,

as she lies despoiled on the ground.

4 That day will seven women

take hold of one man and say,

‘Our own bread will we eat,

and our rainment will we wear;

but oh, let us bear your name,

and take our reproach away.’

Zion’s final glory

2 In that day

will the wild vegetation be glorious and fair,

and the fruit of the tilled land majestic and comely

for Israel’s sons who escape.

3 And those who remain in Zion,

and those who are left in Jerusalem,

will be called by the name of holy -

all who stand in the book of life.

4 When the Lord will have washed away

the filth of the daughters of Zion,

and rinsed away from her midst

the blood-stains of Jerusalem,

by means of the blast of judgment,

the blast of extermination,

5 then will the Lord come,

and o’er the whole site of mount Zion

and over all the glory

6 will cover and canopy be –

a shade by day from the heat,

a refuge and shelter from storm and rain.

The vineyard with the wild grapes

The song of the vineyard

5 A song will I sing of my friend,

a love-song touching his vineyard.

A vineyard belonged to my friend,

on a fertile hill-top he had set it.

2 He dug it and cleared it of stones,

he planted in it choice vines.

He built in the middle a watchtower,

hewed a pit for pressing the grapes.

Then he looked for a yield of good grapes,

but the grapes that it yielded were wild.

3 Now judge, you who dwell in Jerusalem,

and you who are freemen of Judah,

judge between me and my vineyard.

4 What more could I do for my vineyard

that I had neglected to do?

And why, when I looked for good grapes,

did it yield only grapes that were wild?

5 So now let me give you to know

what I purpose to do my vineyard.

I will tear off its hedge, that the beasts may devour it;

I will break through its wall, that they trample it down.

6 I will make it waste, all unpruned and unweeded,

with thorns and with briars overgrown it will be,

and the clouds I will order to withhold from it rain.

7 For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the household of Israel,

the freeman of Judah his cherished plantation.

But instead of the justice he looked for was bloodshed,

instead of the right was the cry (of the wronged).

The national sins: woe!

8 Woe unto you who join house unto house

and who add one field to another,

till no one has room but you,

and you settle the land by yourselves.

9 The Lord of Hosts in my ear has whispered,

surely many a great fine house

will be desolate and empty,

10 for ten acres of vineyard will yield but eight gallons,

and the harvest will be but one tenth of the seed.

11 Woe unto them who rise early

to give themselves to drink,

and to those who sit late in the evening,

inflaming themselves with wine;

12 whose banquets of wine are enlivened

with lute, harp, timbrel, and flute;

but all blind to the work of the Lord,

they see not the things he is doing.

13 Therefore all unaware will my people

be swept into exile afar –

their nobleman dying of hunger,

their populace parched with thirst.

14 Therefore Sheol with ravenous throat

opens wide her jaws without measure.

And down will her splendour go,

and her noisy tumultuous rabble,

with all who in her were exultant.

16 Thus through judgment the Lord of Hosts is exalted,

the holy God shows himself holy by righteousness.

17 And there will lambs graze as at pasture,

and fatlings will feed in her ruins.

18 Woe unto those who draw penalty on

by their sin, as by stout wagon-ropes drawn by oxen;

19 who say, ‘Let him haste, let him act with speed,

in order that we may see it;

let the purpose of Israel’s Holy One come

so near that we recognize it.’

20 Woe unto those who call evil good,

and good evil;

to those who turn light into darkness,

and darkness to light;

to those who turn sweet into bitter,

and bitter to sweet.

21 Woe unto those who esteem themselves wise,

and who fancy themselves to be prudent.

22 Woe unto those who are valiant in wine-drinking,

warriors brave at the mingling of drink;

23 whom a bribe will induce to acquit the guilty,

and innocent men to deprive of their rights.

24 As fire licks up the stubble,

and hay is shrivelled in flame,

so their root will turn to rottenness,

and their blossom go up in dust;

because they rejected the Lord’s instruction,

and the message of Israel’s Holy One scorned.

A foreign army is coming

25 So against his people his anger was kindled,

against them he stretched forth his hand and he smote them;

the mountains shook, and the dead

lay like refuse about the streets.

For all this his anger is not turned back,

but his hand is stretched out still.

26 To a far-distant nation he raises his signal,

and whistles for them from the end of the earth.

See! Hastily, swiftly they come –

27 none weary, none stumbling among them,

unsleeping and slumbering never:

the band of their loins never loosed,

the thong of their shoes never torn.

28 Their arrows are sharp,

and their bows are all bent:

the hoofs of their horses are counted as flint,

and their wheels as the whirlwind.

29 Their roar is like that of a lioness,

and like the young lions they roar,

growling and seizing the prey,

and bearing it far beyond rescue.

30 That day they will roar over him,

with a roar like the roar of the sea:

when he looks on the earth, behold! Darkness,

the light has grown dark in the clouds.

The prophet’s call

6 In the year that King Uzi died, I had a vision of the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and 2 the skirts if his robe filled the Temple. Before him were standing seraphs, each with six wings – two for covering the face, two the loins, and two 3 to fly with; and thus they kept calling to one another:

‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts;

the whole earth is filled with his glory.’

4 At the sound of their calling the foundations of threshold shook, and the House began to fill 5 with smoke. Then I said

‘Woe is me, for I am undone;

for a man of unclean lips am I,

and I dwell in a nation of unclean lips;

and yet my eyes have seen

the king, the Lord of Hosts.’

6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which with tongs he had taken 7 from off the altar. With this he touched my mouth, and said,

‘See, this has touched your lips:

your guilt is past and your sin forgiven.’

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord,

saying, ‘Whom should I send? Who will go for us?’

And I said, ‘Here am I, send me.’

9 Then he said, ‘Go and say to this people

’Hear ever, but understand never;

see ever, but comprehend never.’

10 Make the people’s minds dull,

block their ears and cover their eyes,

lest they see with their eyes, lest they hear with their ears,

and their minds understand, and their health come again.’

11 Then I said, ‘Till cities lie wasted,

with not an inhabitant left;

till houses hold men no more,

and the land is left a desolation;

12 till the Lord removes men afar

and wide tracts of the land lie forsaken.

13 And should there be in it a tenth still left,

that too, in its turn, must be given to the fire,

like the stump of an oak or a terebinth felled.’

The crisis Created by the menace to Judah in 735 B.C.

The prophet’s word to the terrified king

7 In the days Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, Rezin King of Aram, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, King of Israel, marched against Jerusalem to attack it, but they were unable to develop an actual assault upon it.

2 When news reached the Court that the Aramean army was on Ephraimite soil, the heart of Ahaz and his people shook like forest-trees before the 3 wind. Then the Lord said to Isaiah, ‘Go out – you and your son Shear-yashub – to meet Ahaz at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the 4 Fuller’s Field Road, and say to him: be careful to keep calm. Be not faint-hearted or afraid of this pair of fire-brands that are nothing but smoking stumps. Be not afraid of the fierce anger of Rezin 5 and Aram and the son of Remaliah. Aram and Ephraim with the son of Remaliah have indeed 6 plotted your ruin: their purpose is to invade Judah, and, after reducing her straits, to break into (Jerusalem); then, having overpowered her, they intend to set the son of Tabeel on the throne.

7 But thus says the Lord the God:

’This thing will not succeed,

8 for the head of Aram is Damascus,

and the head of Damascus is Rezin;

9 the head of Ephraim is Samaria,

and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.

Your faith must firmly hold,

if you would yourselves be held.’’

The great refusal and the sign

10 Once more I addressed Ahaz thus, ‘Ask the Lord 11 your God for a sign – ask it (if you like) either from the depths of the underworld or from the heights above.’ 12 ‘No,’ replied Ahaz, ‘I will not ask for one. That would be equivalent to submitting the Lord to a test.’ 13 Then I said, ‘Hear then, you household of David. Is not enough for you to weary mortal men that you must weary my God as well? 14 you will have a sign therefore from the Lord himself. Behold!

A maid is with child, she will bring forth a son,

and will call his name Immanuel.

15 Honey and curd he will eat,

when he knows how to choose what is good,

and to shun what is evil.

16 For ere the child will know

how to choose what is good

and to shun what is evil,

that land will be deserted

whose two kings you so dreaded.

Judah will also be ravaged

17 The Lord will bring upon you your people

and on your father’s house

such days as have never yet been,

since Ephraim departed from Judah.

18 That day it will come to pass

that the Lord will whistle for the flies and the bees.

19 They will come every one, and then down they

will settle

in the steep-walled ravines and in clefts of the rocks,

and on all thorn-hedges and places of pasture.

20 That day will the Lord shave bare

with a razor that is hired

in the land beyond the River

both the head and hidden hair;

and the beard too will be snipped.

21 And in that day will a man

keep but two sheep and a cow;

22 yet the plenteous yield of milk

will supply him fare of curd.

For the fare of every man

who is left upon the land

will be nothing but curd and honey.

23 And in that day every spot

where were once a thousand vines,

worth a thousand silver pieces,

will with thorns and briers be covered.

24 With bow and with arrow will men come thither,

for all the land will be thorns and briers.

25 Fear of thorns and briers will hold men afar

from the hills that used to be hoed with the hoe.

There cattle will wander and sheep will tread.

The fall of Damascus and Samaria

8 The Lord said to me, ‘Take a large tablet, and write upon it in the common script ’Speed-spoil 2 Hurry-prey;’ and take (two) reliable witnesses, 3 Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.’ Then after the prophetess, through my approach to her, had conceived and borne a son, the Lord said to me, ‘Call his name Speed-spoil Hurry-prey.

4 For ere the child will know

how to cry ’My father! My mother!’

The wealth of Damascus, the spoil of Samaria,

will be carried away to the king of Assyria.’

The invasion of Judah

5 Once more I had a message from the Lord – it was this:

6 ‘Because this people has spurned

the gentle stream of Shiloah,

and melt with fear of Rezin

and the son of Remaliah,

7 therefore, behold, the Lord

will speedily bring upon them

the waters of the Euphrates,

the great and mighty river.

It will rise above all its channels,

and overflow all its banks.

8 On it will sweep over Judah,

an overflowing flood

that will reach as high as the neck.’

But (the Lord’s) outstretched wings

will cover the breadth of the land;

for with us is God.

The futility of opposition to Judah

9 you may storm as you will, you nations,

you will be shattered.

All you far-distant lands

of the earth, attend.

You may gird yourselves for the fray,

but you all will be shattered.

10 You may forge your plans as you will,

they will all be confounded.

Be your resolves what they will,

they will not be accomplished;

for with us is God.

None is to be feared but the Lord

11 These were the Lord’s words to me, as he grasped me with his hand and warned me not to walk in the ways of the people:

12 ‘Call you not all a conspiracy

that this people calls conspiracy.

Share not their fears and their dreads.

13 But the Lord of Hosts – it is he

you should count as the great conspirator.

Let him be your fear and your dread.

14 A stone and a rock he will prove, whereon

both houses of Israel will strike and stumble –

a trap and a snare to the folk of Jerusalem.

15 Many among them will stumble and fall,

will be broken and snared and taken.

Isaiah’s patient hope

16 I will seal my teaching and fasten my message 17 in (the heart of) my disciples. I will patiently wait for the Lord who hides his face from the 18 household of Israel; I will set my hope in him. I myself and the children the Lord has given me are in Israel as signs and symbols from the Lord of Hosts whose home is on Mount Zion.

The awful plight of unbelieving Judah

19 When they tell you have recourse to ghosts and familiar spirits that chirp and mutter, ask them if a nation should not rather have recourse to its God. Why should they consult the dead on behalf 20 of the living? Assuredly they will (one day) clamour for the teaching and the message, when there is no daybreak for them any more.

21 They will range through the land sore pressed and hungry,

and hunger will curse their king and their God.

22 They will lift up their eyes to the heavens above,

they will look to the earth beneath;

but they will see nothing but distress and anguish,

and thick impenetrable gloom.

The great deliverance and the glorious king

9 In the former time he brought the territory of Zebulon and Naphtali into contempt, but in the latter time has he covered with glory the ground held by the nations beyond the Jordan on the way to the sea.

2 The people who walked in darkness

have seen a glorious light:

those who dwelt in the land of gloom –

on them the light has shone.

3 you have multiplied their gladness

and given them great joy:

the joy they made in your presence

was like the joy of harvest;

their gladness was like the gladness

of men who divide the spoil.

4 For the yoke that pressed so heavy,

and the bar upon their shoulders,

and the rod of their taskmasters,

you have broken as on Midian’s day.

5 Every boot of thundering warrior,

every war-cloak drenched with blood,

is destined for the burning,

will be fuel for the fire.

6 For to us a child is born,

unto us a son is given,

on whose shoulder is dominion;

and this is the name he bears –

‘Counsellor most wonderful,

god with the warrior might,

father everlasting,

prince of the reign of peace.’

7 Great is the dominion

and endless is the peace,

upon the throne of David,

and over all his realm:

to establish and uphold it

in the righteousness and justice

from henceforth and for ever.

The zeal of the Lord of Hosts

will bring this thing to pass.

The doom of Israel

8 The Lord sent a word into Jacob,

on Israel it will alight

9 With a power all the people will feel

in Ephraim and in Samaria.

They have stiffened their neck in pride,

in their stoutness of heart they have said:

10 ‘The bricks are fallen down,

but now we will build with hewn stone.

The sycamores are cut down,

but with cedars we will replace them.’

11 So against them the Lord has stirred up their foes,

he has spurred their enemies on;

12 Syrians east, and Philistines west,

have with open mouth devoured Israel.

Yet for all this his anger is not turned back,

but his hand is stretched out still.

13 But the people turned not unto him who smote them,

nor did they resort to the Lord of Hosts.

14 So he cut off from Israel head and tail,

palm-branch and rush in a single day.

15 The elders and men of repute are the head,

and the prophets whose teaching is false are the tail.

16 Those who should lead this people mislead them,

and those whom they ought to have led are destroyed.

17 The Lord will therefore not spare their youths,

on their orphans and widows he takes no pity

for each and all are profane and wicked,

and every mouth speaks impious folly.

Yet for all this his anger is not turned back,

but his hand is stretched out still.

18 For wickedness blazed like a fire

that devours first thorns and briers,

then sets forest thickets aflame,

till they roll in columns of smoke.

19 By the breath of the Lord the land was scorched,

the people became like cannibals.

20 They carved on the right, yet were hungry,

devoured on the left, unappeased;

no man did pity his fellow,

but each ate the flesh of his neighbour –

21 Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh;

and both against Judah together.

Yet for all this his anger is not turned back,

but his hand is stretched out still.

10 Woe unto those who give mischievous verdicts,

elaborate scrolls that bring sorrow,

2 by robbing the weak of their rights

and by plundering the poor of their due,

so that widows become their spoil,

and orphans fall a prey.

3 But what will you do when called to account,

which will come like a crash from afar?

To whom will you flee for help,

and where will you leave your abundance,

4 that you crouch not under the prisoners

or fall among the slain?

Yet for all this his anger is not turned back,

but his hand is stretched out still.

The doom of Assyria

The two plans – Assyria’s and the Lord’s

5 Oh! Assyria! Rod of my anger,

and staff of my indignation!

6 Against an impious people I send him,

a nation that sore has provoked me to wrath;

and I solemnly charge him to spoil and to plunder

and trample them down like the mire of the streets.

7 Not such, however, his fancy,

nor such the thought of his heart;

but his thought is the utter destruction

of nations not a few.

8 ‘Are my captains,’ he says, ‘not all kings?

9 Is not Calno’s fate like Carchemish,

and Hamath’s fate like Arpad’s,

and Samaria’s like Damascus?

10 My hand has seized those kingdoms

with images more than Jerusalem’s;

11 and will I not do to Jerusalem

and to her images also,

as I have done to Samaria

and to her idols also?

12 When the Lord has accomplished all his work on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, he will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria and the glory of his lofty looks. For the Lord has said:

13 By the strength of my hand have I done it,

and by my cunning discernment,

removing the bounds of the nations,

and plundering their treasures.

Like a strong bull I trample

those sitting on thrones.

14 I thrust my hand in the wealth

of the nations, as into a nest;

and all the earth have I gathered

as one gathers eggs that are left:

there was not a wing that fluttered,

none opened the mouth or chirped.’

15 Could an axe boast over the man who wields it,

or saw treat with insolence him who handles it?

As if ever a rod could swing him who lifts it,

or staff of wood could brandish a man!

The fate of Assyria and Judah

16 So into his fat will the Lord

God of Hosts send leanness,

and under his splendour a burning

will burn like the burning of fire.

17 That flaming fire is the Holy One,

he who is Israel’s light;

it will blaze and devour his thorns

and his briers in a single day.

18 His glorious forest and gardens

will vanish, body and soul,

like a sick man pinning away;

19 and his forest trees that are left

will be few, that a child may record them.

20 That day it will come to pass,

that no more will the remnant of Jacob

or those who escape of the household of Israel

lean upon him who smote them:

they will loyally lean on the Lord,

the Holy One of Israel.

21 A remnant will return,

a remnant of Jacob,

unto the mighty God.

22 For though your people, O Israel,

be as many as the sand of the sea,

only the remnant of them will return.

Destruction is decreed,

breaking in like a flood of judgment.

For destruction, fixed and final,

the Lord of Hosts will accomplish

in the midst of all the earth.

The consolation of Zion: Assyria will assuredly fall

24 Therefore thus says the Lord the Lord,

‘You my people who dwell in Zion,

be not afraid of Assyria,

who smites you with the sword,

and lifted this staff against you

as Egypt did not old.

25 For yet a little while,

my fury will be spent,

and my anger will have an end.

26 Over him will the Lord brandish

a scourge like that which smote

upon median at Raven’s Rock.

And that rod of his over the sea –

he will lift it up once more

as he did against Egypt of old.

27 His burden will pass from your shoulder,

his yoke press your neck no more.

From Rimmon he has gone up

28 he has come as far as Ai,

through Migron he has passed,

he has stored his baggage at Michmash,

29 he has gone across the pass,

he has bivouacked in Geber.

Raman is all a-tremble,

gibeah of Saul is in flight.

30 You people of Gallim, shriek;

listen, O Laishah;

answer her, Anathoth;

31 Madmenah takes to flight.

The people of Gebin seek refuge.

32 This day he will halt at Nob.

He shakes his fist against

the mount of the daughter of Zion,

the hill of Jerusalem.

33 But see! The Lord God of Hosts

is lopping the branches with fearful crash;

and those who were lofty are now laid low.

34 He strikes with his axe the wild thickets away,

and Lebanon’s glorious cedar are fallen.

The bliss of Israel in the latter days

The messianic king and kingdom

11 There will come forth a shoot from the stock of Jesse,

and out of his roots will a branch sprout forth.

2 The Lord’s own spirit will rest upon him –

the spirit of wisdom and insight,

the spirit of counsel and might,

of the knowledge and fear of the Lord.

3 He will not judge after the sight of his eyes,

nor decide by the words that are poured in his ears;

4 but with justice he will deal with the cause of the helpless,

the case of the poor he will settle with equity.

With the rod of his mouth he will smite the tyrant,

and slay the unjust with the breath of his lips.

5 His loins will be girt with the girdle of justice,

his waist will be bound with the circlet of faithfulness.

6 The wolf will lodge with the lamb,

and the leopard lie down with the kid;

and the calf and the lion together will graze,

and a little child will lead them.

7 The cow and the bear will be friends,

and their young ones will lie down together,

the lion will eat straw like the ox.

8 The suckling will play o’er the hole of the asp,

and the weaned child trot in the lair of the viper.

9 None will do hurt or havoc

on all my holy mountain:

for then will the earth be filled

with the knowledge of the Lord,

as the waters cover sea.

The triumphant return

10 That day it will come to pass,

that the root of Jesse who stands

as ensign to the peoples –

to him will the nations resort,

and his resting-place will be glorious.

11 That day will again lift his hand

to recover the rest of his folk

who are left in Assyria and Egypt,

in Pathros, in Cush, and in Elam,

in Shinar and Hamath and lands by the sea.

12 He will raise for the nations a signal,

and gather the outcast of Israel,

and Judah’s dispersed will assemble

from all the four corners of earth.

13 All envy of Ephraim will vanish,

cut off will be all who vex Judah.

No longer will Ephraim be jealous of Judah,

nor Judah be hostile of Ephraim.

14 They will swoop down the slope of the Philistines westward,

and plunder together the sons of the East;

they will lay a stern hand upon Edom and Moab,

and bring to subjection the children of Ammon.

15 The Lord will also dry up

the tongue of the sea of Egypt;

with the fiery glow of his breath

he will swing his hand over the river,

and smite it to seven streams

such that men may go over in sandals.

16 And such of his folk as are left

will return from Assyria on a highway

like that on which Israel trod

on the day he came up out of Egypt.

The song of thanksgiving

12 In that day you will say,

‘I give you thanks, O Lord;

for though you were angry with me,

your anger is turned away

and you have comforted me.

2 See! God is my salvation,

I trust him unafraid.

For my strength and my song is the Lord,

and he is become my salvation.’

3 With joy you will draw water

from the fountains of salvation.

4 And in that day you will say,

‘Give thanks to the Lord and call on his name.

Make known to the nations what things he has done,

record that his name is exalted on high.

5 To the Lord make music, for he has wrought proudly;

let this be made known through the length of the world.

Lift up your voices, you dwellers in Zion;

for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.’

Prophecy concerning Babylon

The doom of Babylon

13 Oracle on Babylon: a vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz.

2 On a bare height raise the signal,

and cry aloud to them.

Wave you the hand that they enter

the gates of those lordly men.

3 I have myself commissioned

my consecrated servants

to execute my anger.

Yea, I have summoned my warriors,

my proudly exultant ones.

4 Hark! On the hills a tumult

as of a mighty multitude.

Hark! It’s the roar of kingdoms,

of nations gathering together.

The Lord of Hosts is mustering

his army for the battle.

5 They come from a distant land,

from the uttermost end of heaven –

the Lord, with his weapons of wrath,

to ruin all the earth.

6 Wail! For the day of the Lord is nigh,

like destruction from God Almighty it comes.

7 All hands will therefore hang helpless,

each mortal heart will melt,

8 and men will be confounded.

Taken with throes and pangs,

they will writhe like a woman in travail.

They will look on each other astonished,

with faces all aflame.

9 Behold! The Lord comes,

with wrath and hot anger cruel,

to make earth a desolation

and destroy the sinners upon it.

10 The heavens and their constellations

will not flash any light;

the sun will be dark when it rises,

no light of moon will shine.

11 I will punish the world for its evil,

the godless for their guilt;

I will still the conceit of the arrogant,

the tyrant’s pride lay low.

12 And men will be rarer than gold,

yea, mortals than gold of Ophir.

13 The heavens will therefore tremble,

and the earth quake out of her place,

at the wrath of the Lord of Hosts

in the day of the heat of his anger.

14 And then, like a hunted gazelle,

or like sheep that have no one to fold them,

will each set his face to his people,

and each to his own land flee.

15 Whoso is found will be stabbed,

by the sword he will fall who is caught.

16 Their babes will be dashed in pieces

before their very eyes;

their houses will be plundered,

and ravished their wives will be.

17 Behold! I already am stirring

the people of media against them:

no thought have they of silver,

no pleasure take they in gold.

18 (They grasp their) bows (and spears,

fearful are they and cruel;

they will smite) the young men (all,

and the maids) will be dashed in pieces.

To the fruit of the womb they are ruthless,

and children they eye without pity.

19 Thus Babylon, fairest of kingdoms,

the glory and pride of Chaldea,

will perish with doom like the doom

to which God hurled Gomorrah and Sodom.

20 For ever she will be desolate,

tenantless age after age.

No nomad will pitch his tent there,

no shepherd will fold his flock there;

21 but there will wild cats lie,

and their homes will be crowded with jackals.

And there will ostriches dwell,

and there will satyrs dance,

22 hyenas will howl in her castles,

and wolves in her halls of delight.

Her time is wellnigh come,

her day lasts not much longer.

Song of triumph over the fall of Babylon’s king

14 For the Lord will take pity on Jacob, he will elect Israel once more and settle them on their own land: resident foreigners will join them and attach themselves to the household 2 of Jacob. (Foreign) people will take them and bring them to their place; and the household of Israel will employ them in the Lord’s land as men-servants and maid-servants, thus reducing their erstwhile captors to captivity, and lording it over those who had been their taskmasters.

3 Then, in the day that the Lord gives you rest from your toil and turmoil and from the hard service that was 4 laid upon you, you will take up this taunt-song over the King of Babylon, and say:

how still the oppressor is grown!

How still is the insolent raging!

5 The Lord has broken the staff

of the godless, the sceptre of tyrants,

6 who smote the peoples in fury

with unremitting stroke,

who trod down the nations in anger

with unrelenting tread.

7 All earth is at rest, is quiet,

they break into happy cries.

8 Yea, the fir-trees rejoice at they fate,

and the cedars of Lebanon, saying,

‘Since you have been laid low,

no woodsman is come to destroy us.’

9 Sheol beneath is a-quiver,

awaiting your arrival;

she rousted the shades to greet the –

all who were chieftains on earth.

All the kings of the nations

she bids arise from their thrones.

10 All of them lift up their voices,

and thus they say unto you:

‘So you, too, are feeble as we;

you are become like us.’

11 your pomp has been brought down to Sheol –

the strumming of your lutes:

beneath you the maggots are spread,

your coverlet is worms.

12 How are you fallen from heaven,

you radiant son of the morning!

How are you struck to the ground,

lying stiff, a corpse upon corpses.

13 And you, you did say in your heart,

‘Into heaven I will ascend;

I will set my throne on high

above the stars of God,

and sit on the sacred mountain

in the uttermost parts of the north.

14 I will climb above the cloud-peaks,

and rival the Most High.’

15 But down you are brought to Sheol,

to the very depths of the pit.

16 They who see you will gaze and gaze,

they will ask with eyes intent,

‘Is this the man who startled the earth

and sent tremors through her kingdoms?

17 Who made the world like a desert,

and overthrew her cities;

who left not his prisoners free,

to return each man to his home?’

18 Now in their honoured tombs

all the kings of the nations are lying;

19 but you are cast forth, tombless,

like a hateful untimely birth,

clothed upon with the slain,

whose bodies the sword has pierced,

who go down to the floor of the pit,

like a carcase trodden under foot.

20 You will not be joined unto them

in the place where they lie buried;

because you have ruined your land,

your people you have slaughtered.

May it never be named again –

the race of this evil-doer.

21 Get ready the knife for his sons,

to atone for the guilt of their father;

lest they rise and posses the earth,

and fill the face of the world.

22 I will rise up against them, says the Lord of Hosts, cut off from Babylon record and remnant, kith and kin, says the Lord. And I will make it a possession of the bittern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, says the Lord of Hosts.

The Lord’s invincible world-plan

24 The Lord of Hosts has sworn this oath:

my plan will most surely be done,

and the thing that I purposed will stand.

25 On the land that is mine I will shatter Assyria,

and trample him down on my mountains.

His yoke will oppress them no more,

and his burden will pass from their shoulders

26 This is the purpose formed

to humble all the earth;

and this is the hand outstretched

against the nations all.

27 For who can bring to nothing

what the Lord of Hosts has planned?

And when his is the hand that is outstretched,

who can turn it back?

Warning to Philistia

28 In the year that King Ahaz died, came this oracle:

29 Rejoice not, you Philistines all,

that the rod that has scourged you is broken;

for an asp from the root of the serpent will issue,

its fruit will be a fiery flying serpent.

30 For the poor will feed on my meadows,

the needy will lie down secure;

but your seed I will kill with famine,

your remnant I will slay.

31 Wail, you gates; and shriek, you cities:

melt with fear, you Philistines all.

For out of the north comes smoke (of war),

in the ranks of the foe will no straggler be found.

32 What answer will (Judah) make

to the envoys of that nation?

That ‘the Lord himself is the founder of Zion,

and there do his suffering people find refuge.’

Lament over Moab

15 Oracle on Moab

Alas! In a night has Ar-Moab

been wasted and ruined.

Alas! In a night has Kir-Moab

been wasted and ruined.

2 Gone up is the daughter of Dibon

to weep on the heights;

on the summits of Nebo and medeba

Moab wails.

On every head there is baldness,

and beards are all shorn.

3 On her streets they have girt them with sackcloth,

on roofs is lament;

on her squares, one and all they are wailing

with torrents of tears.

4 Heshbon and Elealeh cry out,

and their cry reaches Jahaz;

whereat Moab’s loins fall a-quiver,

the soul of her quivers.

5 My heart cruet out for Moab,

they flee towards Zoar;

they climb the ascent unto Luhith

and weep as they go;

they raise on the way to Horonaim

a cry of destruction.

6 For ruin has clean overtaken

the waters of Nimrim;

the herbage is gone, the grass withered,

and verdure is none.

7 So they bring o’er the Brook of the Willows

their riches and stores;

8 for the cry (of despair) has gone round

all the borders of Moab;

the wail thereof reaches Eglaim,

it reaches Beer-elim.

9 For the waters of Dimon are bloody.

Yet more will I bring upon Dimon –

a lion on those who escape

and are left out of Moab.

16 Tribute of lambs they despatched

to the lord of the land,

from the Sela, by way of the wilderness,

unto Mount Zion.

2 And then at the fords of the Arnon

the daughters of Moab

will flutter like birds, and will fly

as when nestlings are scattered.

3 ‘Grant us the laid of you counsel,

and mediate (for us);

shelter us as in the noon-tide

with shade deep as night.

Bring into shelter the outcasts,

betray no the fugitives;

4 suffer the outcasts of Moab

to dwell in your land.

Be you a shelter to them

from the face of the spoiler.’

When the ruthless are brought to an end,

and the spoiler has ceased;

when the heel of the tyrant has vanished

clean out of the land;

5 then the throne will be established by kindness,

and on it will sit

in the tent of King David in faithfullness

one who will judge

with a spirit intent on the right

and on promptness of justice.

6 We have heard of the pride of Moab,

the utterly proud –

of her haughty and insolent pride,

and her prating all baseless.

7 So Moab for Moab is wailing,

she wails altogether;

yea, utterly stricken they moan

for the cakes of Kir-heres.

8 The vine-tracts of Heshbon are withered,

the vineyards of Sabah,

whose choice red wine has laid low

many a lord of the nations.

Her cluster did stretch unto Jazer,

they strayed to the desert.

Her tendrils were spread far abroad,

they passed over the sea.

9 So I share in the weeping of Jazer

for the vineyards of Sibmah;

I drench you with my tears,

O Heshbon and Elealeh:

for over your grapes and your vintage

the war-cry is fallen.

10 From the land of gardens is vanished

all gladness and joy;

there resounds no cry in the vineyards,

no shout any more;

no wine in the presses is trodden,

the shouting is stilled.

11 So my soul like a harp makes moaning for Moab,

and my heart for Kir-heres.

12 When Moab appears on the heights

and makes herself weary,

Prophecy concerning Damascus and Northern Israel

The destruction of Damascus

17 Oracle on Damascus

See! Soon will Damascus no more be a city,

but only ruin, forsaken for ever.

2 To the grazing of flocks will her cities be given,

and there will they lie, with not one to affright them.

3 The fortress will vanish from Ephraim,

and the dynasty from Damascus.

The remnant of Aram will perish,

their fate will be Israel’s fate,

says the Lord of Hosts.

The doom of Israel

4 That day it will come to pass

that the glory of Jacob will pale,

and the fat of his flesh will be wasted;

5 or like gleanings it will be,

when a reaper gathers the corn,

and his arm reaps the ears –

the ears of corn that are gleaned

in the valley of Rephaim;

6 or the gleanings that are left

when an olive-tree has been beaten –

a berry or two on the uppermost branch,

four of five on the boughs of a fruit tree:

thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.

7 In that day men will look to their maker,

and turn their eyes unto Israel’s Holy One;

8 not to the work of their hands will they look,

nor to things that their fingers have made will they turn.

9 That day will your cities deserted be

like the derelict cities of Hivite and Amorite.

10 Because you forgot the God who had helped you,

and did not remember the rock of your refuge;

though you planted Adonis’ gardens,

and stocked them with foreign slips;

11 though you fence them the day they are set,

and next morn bring your seedlings to blossom:

your harvest will vanish away

in the day of your sickness and desperate pain.

The speedy doom of the Assyrians

Their sudden destruction

12 Ha!

The uproar of peoples many!

They roar like the roar of the sea:

the thunder of mighty nations,

they thunder as ocean thunders.

13 But the Lord will rebuke them,

and far they will flee, pursued

like chaff on the hills before wind,

or like dust in the face of the hurricane.

14 At even-tide, lo! Terror:

ere morning they are gone.

Such is the fate of those who despoil us,

the lot of those who plunder us.

Isaiah’s answer to the Ethiopian ambassadors

18 Ah, land of the buzzing of wings

beyond the rivers of Cush,

2 that despatches ambassadors over the sea

in vessels of reed on the face of the waters.

‘Depart, you messengers fleet,

to your tall and bronze-skinned people,

whose land is divided by rivers –

your nation strong and victorious,

dreaded both near and far.

3 All you who inhabit the world,

and dwell upon the earth:

when a signal is raised, beware,

and hark, when the trumpet is blown.

4 For thus says the Lord to me,

’From my place I watch untroubled,

still as shimmering heat in sunshine,

or dew-clouds in time of harvest.’

5 For before the harvest, when blossom is over,

and the berry becomes a ripening grape,

he will lop off the branches with pruning-hooks,

he will server the tendrils and cast them away.

6 They will all be left to the beasts of the land,

to the ravenous birds that haunt the mountains;

all summer the ravenous birds will devour them,

all winter the beasts of the land will consume them.’

7 At that time will a gift of homage be brought to the Lord of Hosts from that tall and bronze-skinned people, whose land is divided by rivers – that nation strong and victorious, dreaded near and far – to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts.

The destiny of Egypt

The disaster of Egypt

Oracle on Egypt

19 Behold! On swift cloud riding

the Lord is coming to Egypt:

the idols of Egypt will quake at his presence,

the heart of Egypt will melt within her.

2 I will spur on Egypt to fight against Egypt,

brother with brother, and neighbour with neighbour,

city with city, and kingdom with kingdom.

3 Then will Egypt be drained of the spirit within her,

and I will confound her counsels:

to idols and muttering wraiths they will seek,

to ghosts and familiar spirits.

4 And I will deliver Egypt

into a stern lord’s hands;

a king who is fierce will rule over her,

says the Lord the Lord of Hosts.

5 And the sea will be drained of its water,

the river be parched and dry;

6 its branches will dwindle and stink,

and the arms of the Nile will be parched.

Reeds and rushes will wither,

7 the sedge on its brink will shrivel;

and all that is sown by the Nile

will be withered and whirled into nothing.

8 The fishers mourn and lament,

who cast their hook in the Nile;

and all the spread their nets

on the face of the waters will languish.

9 The workers in flax will be shamed,

the combers and weavers of white stuff;

10 the weavers of cloth will be crushed,

and the workers for hire will be sorrowful.

11 Sheer fools are the princes of Zoan;

the wisest of Pharaoh’s counsellors

prove but a witless council.

How then can you say unto Pharaoh,

‘A son of the wise am I,

a son of ancient kings’?

12 Where are your wise men, then?

Let them, pray, declare unto you,

and make known what the Lord of Hosts

has purposed to do unto Egypt.

13 Befooled are the princes of Zoan,

deceived are the princes of memphis;

the chieftains of her tribes

have led Egypt all astray.

14 The Lord has mingled within them

the spirit of clouded judgment;

and so they led Egypt astray

in all her enterprise,

as a drunkard strays in his vomit.

15 Thus head, tail, palm-branch and rush,

will nothing accomplish for Egypt.

The conversion of Egypt

16 In that day will Egypt fear and tremble like a woman, at the hand which the Lord of Hosts 17 will swing over her. The land of Judah will be a terror to her; the very mention of the name will fill her with dread at the thought of the purpose which the Lord of Hosts has formed against her.

18 In that day there will be in the land of Egypt five cities speaking the language of Canaan, and swearing allegiance to the Lord of Hosts; and one of them will be called the City of the Sun.

19 In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to 20 the Lord at the border. It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of Hosts in the land of Egypt: for when, under oppression, they cry to the Lord to send a deliver, he will intervene and rescue 21 them. And the Lord will reveal himself to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will acknowledge the Lord on that day: they will worship him with sacrifice and offering, they will make vows to the Lord and discharge them. The Lord will smite 22 Egypt – smite and heal her: when they turn to the Lord, he will heal them in answer to their entreaty.

23 In that day there will be a highway between Egypt and Assyria. Assyrians will come to Egypt, and Egyptians to Assyria: Egyptians and Assyrians will worship (the Lord) in common. 24 In that day Israel will join Egypt and Assyria in a triple alliance, and so bring blessing to the world 25 around, which the Lord of Hosts has in these words blessed: ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.’

Warning against the folly of an alliance with Egypt

20 At that time Isaiah the son of Amoz received a message from the Lord, bidding him go and take the sackcloth from his loins and the sandals from his feet; and this he did, going about without 2 mantle or shoe. Then in the year that the Tartan, who had been despatched by Sargon King of Assyria, 3 came to Ashdod and took it by storm, the Lord said, ‘Just as my servant Isaiah has gone for three years without mantle of shoe for a sign and a symbol to 4 Egypt and Ethiopia, so will the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, be led away by the King of Assyria – without mantle or 5 shoe, and with buttocks exposed. Then those who had looked with hope to Ethiopia and made their boast of Egypt, will be put to shame and dismay. 6 And in that day the people who live in the coast-land will say, ’If this be the fate of those to whom we had fled in expectation of help and deliverance from the King of Assyria, how can we escape?’

The fall of Babylon

The fall of Babylon: its consequences for Judah

21 Oracle on the Wilderness

Like the roar of the whirlwind

that sweeps through the southland,

it comes from the desert,

that land of dread.

2 A vision full stern

has been told unto me:

the robber still robs,

the spoiler still spoils.

‘Go up, O Elam;

O media, lay siege:

all the sighs of the crushed

have I brought to an end.’

3 For this cause my loins

are filled with anguish;

with pangs am I seized

like a woman in travail.

I writhe with the message,

the vision confounds me.

4 My mind goes a-wandering,

horror appals me;

the twilight I love

has been turned into trembling.

5 The tables are ready,

the carpets are spread,

they are eating and drinking.

Arise, you princes,

spread oil on the shields.

6 For on this wise the Lord

has spoken to me:

‘Go, station a watchman

to tell what he sees.

7 If he sees a troop,

horsemen in pairs,

a train of asses,

a train of camels,

then let him give heed:

with most diligent heed.’

8 And the watchman cried,

‘On the watch-tower, O Lord,

do I stand all the day;

at my post am I stationed

the live-long night.

9 Lo! A troop I see coming,

of horsemen in pairs.’

And he uttered these words,

‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon:

down to the ground

fall her images shattered.’

10 you my folk who were threshed

like the corn of the floor,

I have told you my message

from Israel’s God,

from the Lord of Hosts.

The fall of Babylon: its consequences for the trading tribes of the desert!

11 Oracle of Edom

One calls to me out of Seir,

‘Watchman, how late in the night?

‘Watchman, how late in the night?’

12 The watchman made answer,

‘The morning approached,

but still it is night.

If you would enquire,

come hither again.’

13 Oracle ‘in the steppe’

In the bush, in the steppe, you must lodge for the night,

you caravans of Dedan.

14 You dwellers in Temas’s land,

bring water to meet the thirsty,

and offer the fugitives bread.

15 For before the sword they are fled,

before the whetted sword,

before the bow that is bent,

before the press of battle.

16 For thus has the Lord said unto me, ‘Within a year, no more and no less, will all the glory of 17 Kadar be at an end; and few will remain of the mighty archers of the Kedareness. The Lord the God of Israel has decreed it.’

Judah’s unpardonable sin

22 Oracle on the Valley of Vision

What mean you that you are gone up,

one and all, to the house-tops,

2 O town filled with uproar and tumult,

O city exultant?

your slain are not slain with sword,

neither fallen in battle.

3 Your chieftains are all fled together

who wielded the bow,

and your strong men are all taken prisoners,

though far they had fled.

4 ‘Turn away from me,’ therefore I say,

‘Bitter tears would I shed.

Urge not upon me your comfort,

my people are ruined.’

5 For a day of confusion and trampling and tumult,

does come from the Lord, the Lord of Hosts.

They tear down the wall in the Valley of Hanno,

the war-cry ascends to the mountains.

6 Elam seized the quiver,

and Aram came riding on horses.

Kir uncovered the shield,

7 your choicest of valleys was crowded

with chariots and horsemen,

arrayed for assault on the gate.

8 Then you looked to the arms in the House of the

Forest,

9 you had eyes for the gaps in the Fortress of

David;

11 but you looked not to him who was doing all this,

you had no eyes for him who had planned it of old.

12 So the Lord, God of Hosts, has called you

to weeping and mourning, to baldness and sackcloth.

13 But see! There is nothing but mirth and rejoicing,

slaying of oxen and killing of sheep,

eating of meat and drinking of wine –

eating and drinking, ‘because’ (as you say)

‘we may haply be dead men tomorrow.’

14 The Lord of Hosts has declared in my ear,

‘This sin will assuredly never be purged

till you die’ – says the Lord, God of Hosts.

Personal threats and promises

The doom of Sheba

15 Against Shebna, the Governor of the Palace.

Thus says the Lord God,

go, get you yonder perfect (and say),

16 ‘What right have you here, and what kin have you here,

that you hew you here a sepulchre –

that here on the height you do hew you a sepulchre,

carving a home for yourself on the rock?

17 Behold, the Lord will firmly enwrap you,

and wind you and wind you around and around:

18 he will hurl you and hurl you afar like a ball,

mighty man that you are, to a spacious land.

Thither your glorious chariots will follow,

and there you will die,

you disgrace of the house of your lord.

The exaltation of Eliakim

19 I will thrust you from your office,

and tear you down from your post.

20 That day will I summon my servant,

Eliakim, son of Hilkiah.

21 I will put your mantle upon him,

and give your authority into this hand.

And a father he will be

to the folk of Jerusalem and the household of

Judah.

22 I will lay upon his shoulder

they key of the house of David,

so that none may shut when he opens,

nor open when he shuts.

23 I will fasten him securely,

like a nail in a place that is firm.

Through him will his father’s house

be lifted to seats of honour.’

The downfall of Eliakim’s family

24 his family will hang upon him with all their weight – off-spring and off-scourings, all the meaner sort of vessels, be they bowls or be they pitchers. 25 In that day, says the Lord of Hosts, will the nail so firmly fastened be removed with a wrench, and down will come in ruin all that had hung upon it: for the Lord of Hosts has spoken it.

The fate of Phoenicia

The elegy

23 Oracle on Tyre.

Wail, you ships of Tarshish:

your haven is ruined.

On your way from the island of Cyprus

the tale has been told you.

2 The folk of the coast-land are perished,

the merchants of Sidon,

who traversed the sea, and whose envoys

did sail many waters,

3 whose harvest was wheat from the Nile,

and whose revenue trade with the nations.

4 O Sidon, you mother of cities,

you stronghold of ocean,

in shame take up this lament:

‘The youths who with anguish I bore and brought up

and the maidens I reared, are no more.’

5 When tidings are come unto Egypt –

the tidings of Tyre –

in sore pain they will be.

6 Pass over to Tarshish, and wail,

you who dwell on the coast-land.

7 Is this your jubilant city,

which dates from of old,

whose feet in the olden time bore her

to settle afar?

8 Who then has purposed this doom

against Tyre, the crowned queen,

whose merchants and traders were princes,

most honoured of earth?

9 It’s the Lord of Hosts who has planned it,

to desecrate pride,

to bring to contempt all splendour,

all pomp of the earth.

10 Lament, you ships of Tarshish,

your haven is gone.

11 He has stretched out his hand o’er the sea,

he has shaken the kingdoms.

The Lord has charged touching Canaan

to ruin her fortresses.

12 Exult no more, you are ruined,

O daughter of Sidon.

Arise, and pass over to Cyprus –

there, too, you will rest not.

14 Howl, you ships of Tarshish,

your haven is ruined.

The revival of Tyre

15 In that day Tyre will pass into oblivion for seventy years, covering the period of one dynasty. At the end of seventy years, Tyre will fare like the harlot in the song:

16 With lyre in hand, walk up and down the city,

harlot, forgot by all:

play skilfully, and sing them many ditty,

that they may you recall.

17 But at the end of seventy years the Lord will visit Tyre (with favour). She will resume her meretricious practices, selling herself to all the kingdoms of the 18 world on the face of the earth. But her gains from this traffic will be dedicated to the Lord: they will not be stored or hoarded, but they are to belong to those who dwell in the Lord’s presence; and these are to be furnished there from with abundance of food and stately apparel.

The judgment: the rebels punished

24 Hark! Soon will the Lord empty

and desolate the earth.

Her semblance he will distort,

her inhabitants he will scatter.

2 Then the priest will fare as the plain man,

the master will fare as the servant,

the mistress as the maid.

The seller will fare as the buyer,

the borrower will fare as the lender,

the creditor as the debtor.

3 The earth will be utterly emptied,

the world will be utterly spoiled,

for the Lord has so decreed.

4 The earth mourns and withers,

the world languishes and withers,

high heaven, like earth, languishes.

5 The earth is all polluted

beneath the people who tread it;

for law they have transgressed,

and statue overstepped,

they have broken the eternal covenant.

6 So a curse has devoured the earth,

it lights on her guilty people;

the people of earth are scorched,

and few are the men who are left.

7 The new wine mourns, the wine languishes,

all merry hearts are sighing,

8 hushed is the mirth of the timbrel,

the tumult of gladness is silent,

the mirth of the lute is hushed.

9 No more is there drinking of wine with singing,

strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.

10 The city of chaos is shattered,

the houses are bolted and barred,

11 Over the land is an outcry for wine

all merriment is over,

and gladness is vanished from earth.

12 Desolation is left in the city,

the gates are battered to ruins.

13 Few in the midst of the earth

will be those who are left of the nations –

few as the olives when beaten,

or grapes when the vintage is past.

14 Yonder they lift their voices

in ringing shouts of joy;

to the glorious the Lord

they cry from over the sea.

15 ‘Now then you folk of the east,

give glory to the Lord,

and you in the isles of the sea,

to the name of Israel’s God.’

16 From the uttermost parts of the earth

there float to us songs of praise:

‘Now glory has dawned for the righteous.’

‘Ah misery, misery me,’ said I,

‘For the robbers are robbing and robbing still.’

17 Trap, terror, and pit are before you,

all you who dwell on the earth.

18 He who flies from the terror will fall down the pit,

he who creeps from the pit will be caught in the trap.

For the windows of heaven are opened,

and earth’s foundations tremble.

19 The earth is breaking asunder,

the earth is splitting asunder,

the earth is shaking asunder,

20 the earth like a drunkard is reeling,

she sways to and fro like a hammock;

so heavy a guilt lies upon her –

she falls, to rise no more.

21 That day the Lord will punish

the host of high heaven in the height,

and the kings of the earth on the earth.

22 And they will be swept to a dungeon, like prisoners,

and pent in the prison long time they will lie,

till the day of their punishment dawns.

23 Then the moon will veil her face,

and the sun will hide in shame;

for the Lord of Hosts, enthroned

in Jerusalem on Mount Zion,

will manifest his glory

in the presence of his elders.

The banquet of the nations on Mount Zion.

6 On this mountain the Lord of Hosts

will prepare for all the nations

a feast of pieces fat,

a feast of wine on the lees –

fat pieces full of marrow,

and wine on the lees well strained.

7 He will rend on this mountain the veil

that enwrapped the face of all nations.

8 He will swallow up death for ever.

And then will swallow up death for ever.

And then will the Lord God

wipe tears from every face,

and remove from off the earth

the reproach that has clung to his people.

The Lord himself has decreed it.

Israel’s security in the great world-judgment

20 O people of mine, come, enter your chambers,

and shut your doors behind you;

and hide you but for a moment,

till the wrath be overpast.

21 For the Lord, behold, comes forth from his place,

to punish the dwellers on earth for their guilt;

and the earth will disclose her blood,

she will cover her slain no more.

27 When that comes, the Lord will punish,

with his fierce and great and mighty sword,

leviathan the fleeing serpent,

and leviathan the coiled serpent,

and the great sea-monster he will slay.

12 That day will the Lord beat out the grain

from the river Euphrates to the torrent of Egypt,

and you will be gleaned, one by one, sons of Israel.

13 That day, at the blast of a mighty trumpet,

the men who were lost in the land of Assyria,

and those who were outcast in Egypt’s land,

will come and bow down to the Lord in worship

on the holy Mount in Jerusalem.

Song of thanksgiving over the destruction of some proud city

25 The Lord, you are my God;

I exalt you, I praise your name:

for a marvellous thing you have done,

long purposed, now come to fulfilment.

2 You have made of a city a heap,

of a fortified city a ruin;

the palace of pride is a city no more,

it will not be rebuilt for ever.

3 For this will fierce nations own your glory,

the city of tyrants will fear you.

4 For unto the weak you have proved you a stronghold,

a stronghold were you to the poor in his straits –

a refuge from storm and a shadow from heat.

5 You subdued the voice of the proud,

and you humbled the song of the tyrant.

Song over the anticipated destruction of Moab

9 That day it will be said:

behold! This is our God,

for whom we have waited – to save us.

This is the Lord for whom we have waited,

O let us rejoice and be glad – he has saved us.

10 For here upon this mountain

the hand of the Lord will rest;

and Moab will be trampled

in the place whereon he stands,

as straw in a dung-pit is trampled,

11 should he spread forth his hands.

Song of gratitude and hope

Jerusalem secure: the proud city destroyed

26 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

a strong city is ours,

with bulwarks and walls

that he sets for our safety.

2 Open the gates,

that the righteous may enter

who keeps the faith.

3 The mind that is steady

you keeps in weal,

for it trusts in you.

4 Trust in the Lord

forevermore;

for the Lord God

is rock of ages.

5 For down he has cast

the dwellers on high,

the towering city,

abasing it to the ground,

and laying it low in the dust.

6 The foot will trample it –

the feet of the poor,

and the steps of the needy.

It is well with the righteous, ill with the persistently wicked

7 The path of the upright is even,

you smooth the way of the righteous.

8 We have looked for you, O Lord,

to come by your pathway of judgment;

we have yearned for a sign of your presence,

which men may remember for ever.

9 I have yearned for you in the night,

yea, with passionate spirit have sought you.

When your judgments come over the world,

those who dwell on the earth learn righteousness.

10 No grace will be shown to the wicked,

who righteousness will not learn,

but even in the land of truth

persist in their evil ways,

and are altogether blind

to the majesty of the Lord.

The utter destruction of the enemy

11 The Lord, your hand is uplifted,

but they are blind thereto;

may they see it, and be ashamed.

Let the fire, reserved for your foes,

and your zeal for your people consume them.

12 O Lord, establish our welfare;

for all that we have achieved

has been wrought for us by you.

13 O Lord who are our God,

lords other than yourself

have held us in their sway,

but your name alone will we praise.

14 The dead will not live again,

the shades will not arise;

you have visited them with destruction,

and blotted their memory clean.

A yet more glorious day

15 you have, O Lord, increased the nation,

enlarged all the bounds of the land,

and shown yourself most glorious.

16 In our straits, O Lord, we sought you;

we cried, because we were crushed,

your chastisement was upon us.

17 As a woman who is with child,

when she draws nigh her time,

does cry aloud in her pangs;

so were we, Lord, because of your presence.

18 For we, too, writhed in pangs,

but we brought forth nothing but wind.

We achieved for the land no deliverance;

the denizens of the world

fell not (in battle) before us.

19 Your dead will arise unto life,

they who dwell in the dust will awake,

and utter cries of joy;

for a dew (from the regions) of light is your dew,

and the earth (refreshed thereby)

will quicken the shades into life.

Song of the vineyard

2 In that day it will be said:

vineyard delightsome,

sing you of it.

3 I am its guardian – the Lord –

I water it moment by moment;

that no leaf of it will fail,

by day and by night I guard it.

4 I cherish no anger against it.

But had I the briers and thorns,

I would trample them down in the fray,

I would burn them up altogether.

5 Else, then, let them seek my protection,

and let them make peace with me;

yea, peace let them make with me.

6 That day will Jacob take root,

Israel will blossom and bud,

and with fruit fill the face of the world.

The Lord’s mercy to Israel

7 Has (Israel) been smitten so sorely

as those who smote her have been smitten?

Or has she been slain without remnant,

as those who slew her have been slain?

8 By dismissal and exile alone

does (the Lord) contend with her:

he has swept her away by his blast

that blows fierce in the day of sirocco.

9 On this condition therefore

will Israel’s guilt be forgiven –

when she puts away her sin

the issue thereof will be this –

that all the stones of her altars

she will grind, like chalk, to powder;

that sacred poles and sun-pillars

she never will raise again.

10 For the fortified city is desolate,

a homestead forsaken, forlorn,

like a pasture: there browses the calf –

there he lies, consuming the branches;

11 and there, when the dry boughs are broken,

come women who use them for fuel.

For the people would not reflect;

and so from their maker they win no pity,

no favour from their creator.

Woe to Samaria

28 Woe to the coronet proud of the drunkards of Ephraim!

Woe to the fading flower of her glorious beauty,

which crowns the heads of the men who are prostate with wine!

2 See! The Lord has in readiness one who is mighty and strong –

like a storm of hail, or like tempest destructive,

like storm of a mighty tempestuous flood –

who will bring her with violence down to the ground.

3 The coronet proud of the drunkards of Ephraim

will be trampled under foot;

4 and the fading flower of her glorious beauty,

which crowned the head of the fertile valley,

will be as the first ripe fig before summer –

no sooner seen than swallowed,

the moment it is in the hand.

5 But that day will the Lord of Hosts

unto those that are left of his people

be coronet lovely and diadem fair –

6 a spirit of justice to him

who presides over justice,

of valour to those at the gate

that stem the tide of war.

The scoffers of Jerusalem threatened

Isaiah’s solemn warning to the drunken priests and prophets

7 But here also men reel with wine

and stagger under drink;

yea, with drink reel prophet and priest,

with wine they are utterly dazed.

They reel in the hour of vision,

they totter in giving of judgment;

8 all tables are full of vomit,

and filth is everywhere.

9 ‘To whom does he mean to teach knowledge,

and impart his revelation?

To children weaned from the milk,

to babes just drawn from the breast –

10 with his law upon law, law upon law,

saw upon saw, saw upon saw,

here a little and there a little?’

11 (Well! Thus I answer your mocking.)

Through barbarous lips and a foreign tongue

will (the Lord now) speak to this people.

12 For once had his message to you been this:

‘The true rest in this – let the weary enjoy it:

and this is repose.’ But you turned a deaf ear.

13 So on this wise the Lord will speak to you now:

‘Law upon law, law upon law,

saw upon saw, saw upon saw,

here a little, and there a little’ –

to the end that you trip on your way and fall backward,

shattered and snared and taken.

The folly of the Egyptian alliance

14 Hear therefore the word of the Lord, you scoffers,

who rule this folk in Jerusalem.

15 Because you have said, ‘We are leagued with death,

and with Sheol we are compact;

so the flood, though it passes in whelming torrents,

will never reach unto us;

for a lie we have made our refuge,

we have sheltered ourselves behind falsehood.’

16 Therefore thus says the Lord the Lord,

behold! I am laying in Zion a stone,

a tried and precious foundation stone,

and he who believes will not give way.

17 And I will make justice the measuring-line,

and righteousness the plummet.

Then the refuge of lies will swept by hail,

and the shelter deluged by water.

18 Your league with death will be clean disannulled,

and your compact with Sheol will no wise stand.

When the flood swept on, it will trample you down;

each time that it passes, ’twill bear you away.

19 It will pass every morning – by day and by night –

and the word, grasped at last, will bring nothing but terror.

20 For the bed is too short for a man to stretch out in,

the cover too narrow to wrap himself round.

21 For the Lord will rise as he rose on Mount Perazim,

blazing with wrath as in Gibeon’s vale,

to perform his task – that task so strange,

to accomplish his work – that work so.

22 Now scoff you no more, lest your bands become tighter;

for this have I heard from the Lord of Hosts –

a decree of destruction o’er all the earth.

The patience and considerateness of the divine purpose

23 Listen, and hear you my voice;

attend and hear my speech.

24 Does the ploughman keep ploughing for ever,

keep opening and harrowing his ground?

25 Does he not, after levelling its surface,

scatter broadcast fennel and cummin,

and plant there wheat and barley,

and, for its border, spelt?

26 The Lord it is who has trained him aright,

and his God it is who has taught him.

27 men thresh not fennel with sledges,

nor are cart-wheels rolled over cummin;

but fennel is threshed with a staff,

and cummin with a flail.

28 Do we ever crush bread-corn to pieces?

No, we do not keep threshing for ever.

The character and fate of Jerusalem

The fate of Jerusalem

Initial check

29 Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel,

city where David encamped.

Let one or two years pass by,

a cycle of festivals more,

2 and distress I will bring upon Ariel,

moaning and lamentation,

and you will be Ariel indeed.

3 I will camp, like David, against you,

and circle there round with entrenchments,

and set up forts against you.

4 And low from the ground you will speak,

and your words from the dust will rise humbly

with voice like a ghost’s from the ground,

with twittering speech from the dust.

5 But the horde of your foes will become like fine dust,

and the horde of the tyrants like flying chaff.

Then swiftly and suddenly

6 the Lord of Hosts will visit you

with thunder and with earthquake,

and with din stupendous,

with whirlwind and with tempest,

and flame of devouring fire.

7 But the horde of all the nations

that fight against Ariel,

with all their entrenchments and forts

and all the hosts that distress her,

will be as a dream, as a vision of night.

8 Like a man who is hungry, who dreams that he eats

and wakes to find his desire unappeased;

like a man who is thirsty, who dreams that he drinks,

and wakes all faint, with his thirst unquenched:

even so will it be with the horde of all nations

that fight against Mount Zion.

The spiritual torpor and religious formality of the people

9 Utterly dazed you will be,

utterly blind you will be,

and drunken, though not with wine,

reeling, though not with strong drink.

10 For the Lord has poured upon you

a spirit of slumber deep;

the prophets, your eyes, he has sealed,

the seers, your heads, he has covered,

11 so that the sight of all this is to you

as the words on a scroll that is sealed.

If put into the hands of a scholar with the request that he read it, he will reply, ‘I cannot, it is sealed.’ 12 If, however, it be put into the hands of a man who is no scholar, with the request that he read it, he will reply, ‘I cannot, I am no scholar.’

13 And the Lord said:

because these people praise me with words,

honouring me with their lips,

while their hearts are far away –

their religion only a mockery,

formulate learned by rote –

14 I will deal with them therefore once more

in a fashion so wondrous strange

that their wise men’s wisdom will perish,

their prudent men’s prudence will vanish.

15 Woe to them who conceal

from the Lord their deep designs,

doing their deeds in the dark,

unseen, unperceived – so they think!

Doubters rebuked by a vision of Israel’s welfare in the latter days

16 O perverse that you are!

Is the potter no more than the clay?

Can the thing that is made maintain

that it has not been made by its maker?

Can the thing that is fashioned deny

that the potter has understanding?

17 Soon Lebanon’s forests will become an orchard,

and orchards will be considered useless forest.

18 In that day even the deaf

will hear words read from a scroll,

and out of the gloom and darkness

the eyes of the blind will see.

19 And then will the humble win

a new joy in the Lord,

and the poorest will exult

in the Holy One of Israel.

20 For the tyrant will have vanished,

and the scoffer will have ceased;

and those who were zealous in sin

will all have been rooted out,

21 with those who have falsely condemned,

and sought to entrap the judge,

and quibbled to injure the innocent.

22 Thus therefore says the Lord,

the God of the household of Jacob,

Abraham’s redeemer:

no longer will Jacob be ashamed,

no longer will faces grow pale with embarrasment.

23 For the moment he beholds his children,

what my hands have wrought in his midst,

they will count my name as holy,

The Holy One of Jacob

they then will count as holy,

and in awe hold the God of Israel.

24 Those who had erred in spirit

will then win understanding;

and those who had grumbled

will willingly learn the truth.

The Egyptian alliance a ruinous policy

The embassy to Egypt

30 Ha! you refractory sons, says the Lord,

who follow a purpose I did not inspire,

and who make an alliance that I did not sanction,

thus heaping sin upon sin.

2 They start on their journey to Egypt,

without consulting me,

to flee to the shelter of Pharaoh will turn to your shame,

and the shadow of Egypt will prove your confusion.

4 The princes encamp in Zoan,

the envoys arrive at Hanes,

5 all of them laden with gifts

for a people who cannot avail them,

that brings no help or profit,

but only disgrace and shame.

6 Oracle concerning the beasts of the South.

Through a land of distress and hardship,

of lioness and roaring lion,

of viper and flying dragon,

they carry their wealth on the backs of young asses,

their treasures on humps of camels,

to a people who cannot avail them,

whose help is vain and empty.

7 And therefore I name her Rahab,

the monster brought to silence.

Judah’s rebellion and ruin

8 Now go and write it down,

and on a roll inscribe it,

that it may be for the after-time,

a testimony for ever.

9 For a rebel people are they,

sons who are utterly false,

sons who refuse to listen

to the teaching of the Lord –

10 That forbid the seers to see

and the prophets to prophesy truth.

‘Speak to us smooth things,’ they say,

‘and prophesy illusions.

11 Give over your wonted ways,

and leave your well-worn tracks;

and trouble us no more

with the Holy One of Israel.’

12 This therefore is the message

of the Holy One of Israel:

‘Because you reject this word,

and trust in guile and craft,

and lean your weight thereon,

13 this guilt of yours will be

like a rift in a lofty wall,

that bulges, ready to fall,

till suddenly and swiftly

down it comes with a crash –

14 a crash like that of a pitcher

so ruthlessly dashed in pieces,

that not a shred can be found

among the scattered fragments

wherewith to take fire from the heart,

or to draw from the cistern water.’

15 For thus says the Lord the Lord,

the Holy One of Israel,

‘In calmly resting your safety lies,

in quiet trust will be your strength.’

16 But this you refused. you said ‘No;

but away we will speed upon horseback.’

Yes, speed indeed you will.

‘On steeds that are swift we will ride.’

Yes, and swift will be they who pursue you.

17 At the menace of five you will flee,

until only a remnant be left,

like a pole on the top of a mountain,

or a signal upon a hill.

The final triumph and prosperity of Jerusalem

Forgiveness and prosperity

18 Therefore the Lord waits

to show unto you his favour,

and therefore he arises

to reveal his pity upon you;

for the Lord is God of justice:

happy all who long for him.

19 For, O people of Zion who dwell in Jerusalem,

tears will be yours no more.

He will show you his gracious favour;

at the (faintest) sound of your cry,

he will answer you, soon as he hears it.

20 And though the Lord may give unto you

scant measure of bread and scarceness of water,

yet your teacher no more will withdraw,

but your eyes will behold your teacher.

21 When you swerves to right of left,

you will hear a voice behind you.

‘This is the way: walk here.’

22 And your images you will defile –

whether carved and plated with silver,

or molten and covered with gold.

Like an unclean thing you will scatter them,

saying to them, ‘Begone.’

23 Rain he will give for your seed,

wherewith you sow the ground;

and the wheat that springs from the ground

will rich and abundant be.

In that day will your cattle

graze over pastures broad.

24 The oxen and asses that till the ground

will feast upon salted provender,

that with shovel and fork has been winnowed.

25 On every lofty mountain,

on every hill that is high,

will be streams of running water,

on the day of vast slaughter and falling towers.

26 And the moonlight will be as the sunlight,

and the sun will be sevenfold brighter than now,

in the day that the Lord upbinds

the hurt of his people,

and heals the wound that has smitten them.

The glorious triumph

27 Behold, the Lord comes from afar

in thick rising clouds and with anger that blazes,

with lips that are filled with rage,

and tongue like devouring fire,

28 with breadth like a rushing torrent,

that reaches up to the neck,

to sift till the nations are sifted to nothing,

to bridle their jaws and to lead them to ruin.

29 Then a song you will sing like the song

in the night of a holy festival;

and gladness of heart will be yours,

as is his, who, to sound of flute,

sets forth for the Mount of the Lord,

to (worship) the rock of Israel.

30 The Lord will utter his glorious voice,

he will bring down his arm in the sight of all,

in furious indignation,

and flame of devouring fire,

in cloud-burst and rain-storm and hailstones.

31 At the thunder-voice of the Lord,

when he smiles with the rod,

will Assyria be stricken with terror.

32 And each stroke of the rod of destiny,

that the Lord lays upon him,

will fall to the music of timbrel and lute;

and with brandished arm he will fight against them.

33 For already a pyre is prepared,

constructed wide and deep,

piled high with blazing wood,

and fired by the breath of the Lord,

as by a stream of brimstone.

The folly of the Egyptian alliance

31 Woe to those who journey

to the land of Egypt for help,

who rely on the throngs of her horses and chariots,

and trust in the eminent strength of her horsemen,

but never turn their eyes

to the Holy One of Israel,

and ask not the Lord for counsel.

2 Yet he too is wise, and he brings disaster;

his threats he has not recalled.

He will rise to contend with the household of miscreants,

and with those whom the wicked would summon to help them.

3 The people of Egypt are men, not God;

and their horses are flesh, not spirit.

Let therefore the Lord but stretch forth his hand,

and the helper will stumble, the holpen will fall,

and both will perish together.

4 For thus has the Lord declared to me:

like as a lion growls,

or a young lion over his prey,

when against him the shepherds are summoned

to come in all their strength –

at the shout he is undismayed,

at their noise he is nothing daunted –

so the Lord of Hosts will come down

to fight against Mount Zion,

and against the hill thereof;

5 then like fluttering birds (they will flee).

Thus will the Lord of Hosts

throw his shield around Jerusalem;

he will shield her and deliver her,

he will spare her and bring her to safety.

The enemy’s downfall

6 O turn, you men of Israel, to him

whom deeply you have offended.

7 In that day each will disdain

the gold and silver idols

his guilty hands have made.

8 Assyria will fall by no mortal sword;

a sword, but not man’s, will devour him.

From the face of that sword he will flee,

and his youths will be put to task-work.

9 In his fear he will flee past his rocky retreat,

and his princes will run from the standard in panic.

Thus says the Lord whose fire is in Zion,

whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

Rulers and people in the coming days

32 Behold there comes a king

who will rule in a spirit of justice,

and princes who govern with equity –

2 each like a shelter from the wind,

a refuge from storm of rain,

or like streamlets of water in dry parched places,

or shade of great rock in a weary land.

3 Then the eyes that see will not be sealed,

and the ears that hear will not be heedless;

4 the mind of the rash will judge with discernment,

the stammering tongue will be fluent and plain.

5 No more will a fool be called ‘noble.’

No more will a knave be named ‘princely.’

6 For the fool speaks folly for ever,

his mind evermore plots mischief;

his doings are profane,

and error he speaks of the Lord.

He leaves the hungry unsated,

and drink he withholds from the thirsty.

7 The tricks of the evil are vile,

and villainies he plans –

to ruin the humble with lies,

and the poor, though his plea may be just.

8 But the plans of the ‘noble’ are noble,

by nobleness he will endure.

Warning to the women

9 You women who are at ease,

arise and hear my voice;

you carelessly confident daughters,

attend to what I say.

10 In little more than a year

you will shudder, for all your confidence;

for the vintage will surely fail,

and the fruit will not be garnered.

11 Tremble, you women at ease,

and you who are confident, shudder;

strip you, and make you bare,

gird (sackcloth) upon your loins,

12 and beat upon your breasts

in lament for the pleasant fields,

and for the fruitful vines,

13 and for the land of my people,

overgrown with thorns and briers.

Not a house of mirth will be left

in all the jubilant city.

14 The palace will be forsaken,

the thronging city deserted;

watchtower and hill will become

an everlasting waste.

The security and prosperity of the coming days

15 But yet from the heavenly height

will a spirit be poured upon us,

and the desert become like a garden,

and the garden be counted a forest.

16 Then justice will dwell in the desert,

and righteousness live in the garden-land.

17 Of justice the fruit will be peace,

and the outcome of righteousness safety

and quietness for ever.

18 My people will dwell in the mansion of peace,

at the easeful rest in abodes secure.

19 The forest will be felled,

and the city laid utterly low.

20 Happy are you who may sow

in a land that is all well watered,

where oxen and asses may roam.

The present distress and the future glory of Jerusalem

The distress

33 Woe to you, spoiler, whom none has despoiled;

you treacherous robber, whom no one has robbed.

When your spoiling is over, you too will be spoiled;

when your robbing is ended, you too will be robbed.

2 O Lord, be gracious to us,

we have waited for you;

be you our arm every morning,

our saviour in time of distress.

3 At the sound of the tumult the peoples are fled;

you lift yourself, and the nations are scattered.

4 (Your folk), like the locusts, will gather the booty,

over it swarming, as grasshoppers swarm.

5 The Lord is exalted, he dwells on high;

with justice and righteousness Zion he fills,

6 with wealth of salvation and wisdom and knowledge,

with treasure that flows the fear of the Lord.

7 The heroes of Ariel are crying without,

the envoys of peace shed bitter tears;

8 forlorn are the highways, the wayfarer ceases.

He has broken the compact and mocked at its witnesses,

utterly reckless of human kind.

9 The earth mourns and languishes,

Lebanon withers in shame:

Sharon is now like a desert,

and Bashan and Carmel are leafless.

The deliverance

10 But thus says the Lord, ‘Now I will arise;

yea now, even now, I will lift me on high.

11 You are pregnant with chaff, and your child will be stubble,

my breath will devour you like fire.

12 The nations will sink through the burning ashes,

like a thorns cut away, that are kindled with fire.

13 The men of far countries will hear of my doings,

and those who are near will acknowledge my might.’

14 The sinners in Zion are filled with terror,

and shuddering seizes the souls profane.

‘O who can dwell with devouring fire?

Who can dwell with eternal flame?’

15 Who walks in righteousness, speaks with honesty,

scorns the gain that is won by oppression;

whose hand refuses to clutch at a bribe,

who stops his ears at a tale of blood,

who closes his eyes at the sight of evil:

16 he it is who will dwell on impregnable heights.

On a fastness of rock his stronghold will be,

where his bread is provided, his water is sure.

17 Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty,

they will look on the land that stretches afar.

18 And thus you will muse on the (vanished) terror:

‘Where is he who once weighed, who once counted the tribute,

and he who once counted the towers (for assault)?’

19 No more you will look on the insolent people,

the people of dark and difficult speech,

who chatter a barbarous, meaningless tongue.

20 Look on the city of Zion,

the home of our festal assemblies;

your eyes will behold Jerusalem,

as a home of ease, a tent unremoved,

whose pegs will never be plucked from the ground,

and not one of whose cords will be snapped asunder.

21 In place of broad encompassing streams

will be there for our comfort the Lord’s own river,

a river where sails no fleet with oars,

and stately galleys pass not over.

22 For the Lord himself is our judge,

the Lord himself is our marshall,

the Lord himself is our king:

it is he, he alone, who will save us.

23 Then will the blind divide spoil in abundance,

and then will rich plunder be seized by the lame.

24 Nevermore will inhabitants say, ‘I am sick,’

for the sins of her people are all forgiven.

The day of vengeance

The destruction of the nations

34 Draw nigh, you nations, and hearken;

you peoples, give attention.

Let the earth and its fullness hearken,

the world and all its offspring.

2 For the Lord is wroth with all nations,

and angry with all their host;

he has doomed them to destruction,

has given them up to slaughter.

3 Their slain will be flung out,

and a stench will arise from their corpses;

the mountains will run with their blood,

4 The heavens will roll up like a scroll,

and all their host will fade –

as the leaves fade away from the vine,

as the foliage fades from the fig tree.

The destruction of Edom

5 For already drunk with his wrath

is the sword of the Lord in heaven.

See! Down it descends upon Edom

in doom on that people accursed.

6 Blood-gorged is the sword of the Lord

It is smeared all over with fat

with the blood of lambs and of goats,

with the fat of the kidneys of rams.

For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,

vast slaughter in Edom’s land:

7 with those will be struck down wild oxen,

and bullocks together with steers.

Their land will be drunken with blood,

and their dust will be smeared with fat;

8 for the Lord has set him a day of revenge,

and the champion of Zion a year of requital.

9 Her streams will be turned into pitch,

and the dust of the land into brimstone;

her land will be turned into pitch,

that burns night and day.

10 It will not be quenched for ever,

her smoke will go up through the ages;

a waste she will lie evermore,

to be crossed by no traveller for ever –

11 The haunt of the pelican and bittern,

the home of the owl and the raven:

the Lord will stretch out upon her

the measuring-line of chaos,

and the plumbs of destruction.

12 No kingdom will there be proclaimed,

and her princes will be no more.

13 Where her palaces were, will spring thorns;

in her fortresses, nettles and thistles.

A haunt she will be for jackals,

a place for the camping of ostriches.

14 wild cats will join the hyenas,

and satyrs will meet with their fellows;

there only the night-hag reposes,

and finds her place of rest.

15 There the arrow-snake nestles and lays,

there she broods and hatches her eggs;

there only the vultures gather –

not one without its mate.

16 Search in the book of the Lord –

not one of all these is missing;

for the Lord’s own lips have commanded,

and his is the breath that has gathered them.

17 He has assigned it by lot to them,

his is the hand that apportioned it,

as their everlasting possession,

their home through all the ages.

The joy of the redeemed

35 Let the desert and parched land rejoice,

let the steppe-land exult and burst forth;

let it burst into bloom like narcissus,

and ring with glad cries of rejoicing,

2 All dowered with the glory of Lebanon,

the splendour of Carmel and Sharon:

they will witness the Lord’s own glory,

the majesty of our God.

3 Strengthen the hands that hang down,

and the tottering knees make firm;

4 tell you the wild-beating hearts

to be strong and unafraid.

Behold! your God is coming,

he will surely avenge his people;

God is coming in retribution,

he himself is coming to save you.

5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,

the ears of the deaf unstopped;

6 then the lame will leap like a hart

and the tongue of the dumb will sing.

For waters break out in the desert,

and torrents in the wilderness;

7 the parched land becomes a pool,

and the thirsty land springs of water.

In the haunts of (wild cats and of) jackals

(your flocks and your herds) will rest,

and the court (where the ostriches camp)

will be filled with reeds and rushes.

8 And there a pure highway will rise,

to be called ‘The Holy Way’.

The unclean will not pass over it,

only those who walk in God’s way,

even fools will not go astray.

9 No lion will be there,

no ravenous beast will ascend it;

but there will the ransomed walk,

yea, the Lord’s redeemed will come home.

10 They will come unto Zion with singing;

and crowned with unending joy;

for at last joy and gladness have found them,

and sorrow and sighing are fled.

Isaiah encourages Hezekiah to resist Sennacheirb’s summons to surrender Jerusalem

First narrative

36 In the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah, Sennacherib, King of Assyria, after having assaulted and captured all the fortified cities of Judah, 2 despatched his Chief Officer from Lachish with a large force against King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. Near the conduit of the upper pool, where he had taken up his position on the Fuller’s Field Road, 3 he was visited by a deputation consisting of Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, Governor of the Palace, Shebna the Secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the Recorder.

4 The Chief Officer began: ‘This is the message from the Great King, the King of Assyria: I desire 5 you to deliver it to Hezekiah. ’What sort of confidence is this that you cherish? Do you imagine that in war a mere word of the lips is the equivalent of wisdom and strength? Now who is it you are 6 trusting in, that you presume to rebel against me? Of course you are trusting to Egypt, that staff of broken reed, which will enter and piece the hand of the man who leans upon it: that is all that Pharaoh King of Egypt will prove to those who 7 trust to him. If, however, you tell me you are trusting to your God the Lord, why, that is the very god whose sanctuaries and altars Hezekiah has abolished, commanding the people of Judah and Jerusalem to confine their worship to the altar at this 8 place? Now, make a wager, if you like, with my lord the King of Assyria: I am prepared to furnish you with two thousand horses, if you on your part 9 can supply them with riders. (But if you cannot), how do you propose to repel the onset of one of the least of my lord’s officers? Yet you trust to Egypt 10 for chariots and horsemen. And now do you imagine that I have not the Lord’s sanction for invading this land with a view to its destruction? Why, it is the Lord himself who commissioned me to invade this land and destroy it.’’

11 Thereupon Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah asked the Chief Officer to be good enough not to speak to them in Hebrew, in the hearing of the people on the wall, but in Aramaic, which they assured him 12 they understood. ‘No,’ replied the Officer, ‘it is not to your lord and yourself that my lord has sent me with this message, but precisely to the men on the wall, whom your policy is likely to reduce to eating their own filth and drinking their own water. ’

13 Then the Chief Officer came forward and cried aloud in Hebrew, ‘Listen to the words of the 14 Great King, the King of Assyria. Thus says the King: do not let yourselves be imposed upon by 15 Hezekiah, for he is powerless to deliver you; and do not let yourselves be induced to trust to the Lord by Hezekiah’s assurances that the Lord will unquestionably save you, and that this city will not be delivered into the hands of the King of Assyria. 16 Give no heed to Hezekiah; for thus says the King of Assyria to you, Make your peace with me and surrender, and then everyone will eat of his own vine and fig tree, and drink water from his own 17 cistern, till I come and take you to a land like your own – a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and 18 vineyards. Do not let Hezekiah delude you with assurances that the Lord will save you. Has the god of any nation ever rescued his land from the grasp 19 of the King of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods Sepharvain? And where are the gods of the land of Samaria? Have they rescued Samaria from 20 his grasp? Which of all these national gods has succeeded in rescuing his land from my grasp, that the Lord should now rescue Jerusalem from my 21 grasp?’ To this they answered not a word, they remained silent; for the King had expressly told 22 them not to answer him. Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, Governor of the Palace, and Shebna the Secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the Recorder, tore their garments, and returned to Hezekiah, telling him what the Chief Officer had said.

37 When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his garments, covered himself with sackcloth, and went 2 into the Temple; and he despatched Eliakim, Governor of the Palace, and Shebna the Secretary, and the elders of the priests, all covered with sackcloth, 3 to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz, to whom they spoke as follows: ‘A message from Hezekiah! This is a day of trouble, chastisement, and disgrace: for children are come to the birth, 4 and there is not strength to bear them. But it may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the Chief Officer, whom the King of Assyria, his master, has sent to insult the living God, and will punish the word which the Lord your God has heard: so lift up 5,6 your prayer for those that remain.’ And this was the answer that Isaiah returned to the deputation of King Hezekiah’s ministers: ‘Tell your master,’ he said, ‘that the Lord’s message to him is this: he is not to be afraid of the blasphemous words he has heard from the minions of the King of Assyria. 7 ’Behold,’ says he, ’I will inspire him with such a spirit (of panic) that on the strength of a rumour he will return to this own land, and there, in his own land, I will cause him to fall a victim to the sword.’’

8 Then the Chief Officer returned and found the King of Assyria engaged in the siege of Libnah, for he had heard that he had moved his camp from Lachish. 9 When the news reached him that Tirhakah King of Ethiopia was advancing to give him battle, he sent messengers to Hezekiah with the following instructions.

Second narrative

10 ‘This,’ said he, ‘is what you are to say to Hezekiah King of Judah, 11 Do not let the god you trust in delude you with his assurance that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hands of the King of Assyria. you are well aware of the ruin the King of Assyria has brought upon all lands, and are you to escape? 12 Were the nations which my father destroyed saved by their gods – Gozan and Haran and Rezeph and the 13 Edenites in Telassar? Where is the King of Hamath and the King of Arpad and the King of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena and Ivvah?’

14 Hezekiah received the letter at the hands of the messengers and read it; then he went up to the 15 Temple and spread it before the Lord, and to 16 the Lord thus he prayed: ‘O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, enthroned upon the cherubim, you are God alone over all the kingdoms of the earth: you are the creator of heaven and earth. 17 Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the message of Sennacherib which he has sent to insult 18 the living God. True it is, O Lord, that the Kings of Assyria have devoted all nations and 19 their lands to destruction, and thrust their gods in the fire, for no gods were they at all, but wood and stone, fashioned by human hands and so they were 20 destroyed. But now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God.’ 21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent this answer back to Hezekiah: ‘Thus says the Lord the God of Israel: I have heard your prayer concerning Sennacherib, King of Assyria. 22 This is the word of the Lord concerning him:

the virgin, the daughter of Zion,

contemns you and mocks you;

behind you Jerusalem’s daughter

is shaking her head.

23 Against whom have you lifted your voice

in reviling and blasphemy?

Yea, your eyes you have lifted to heaven

against Israel’s Holy One.

24 You have reviled, by your minions,

the Lord, and have said,

‘With my chariots I climb the high hills,

the recesses of Lebanon;

her towering cedars I fell,

and her cypresses choice;

and I pierce to her furthest retreat,

where the forest is thickest.

25 Wells, too, (in the desert) I dig,

and I drink of strange waters;

with the sole of my foot I dry up

all the Nile-streams of Egypt.’

26 Have you not heard that all this

I prepared long ago?

From the old I had planned it, and now

I have brought it to pass:

so ’tis yours to lay fortified cities

in desolate heaps.

27 Their inhabitants, impotent all,

are dismayed and confounded,

become like the grass of the field,

like the green tender grass;

they are like unto grass on the roofs

that the east wind has blasted.

28 Your sitting and rising I know,

and your going and coming;

29 your raging and uproar against me

are come to my ears.

So my ring I will put through your nose

and my bit in your lips,

and (thus led) I will make you return

by the way that you came.

30 And the sign unto you will be this:

this year you will eat that which grows of itself,

and the next that which springs therefrom;

but the third you will sow and reap,

plant vineyards and eat of their fruit.

31 And those who escape of the household of Judah

will again take root downward, and upward bear fruit;

32 for out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant,

and forth from Mount Zion all such as escape.

The zeal of the Lord of Hosts

will bring this thing to pass.

33 Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the King of Assyria,

he will not come into this city,

nor shoot an arrow there;

he will not come before it with shield,

nor cast up a mound against it.

34 But back he will go by the way that he came,

and into this city he will not enter;

35 for I will protect and deliver this city,

for my own sake and David my servant’s sake.

36 Then the angel of the Lord went forth and slew in the camp of Assyria one hundred and eighty-five thousand men: when they rose in the morning, behold! Every man was a lifeless corpse. 37 So Sennacherib, King of Assyria, broke up camp and returned to Nineveh, where he settled. 38 Subsequently, as he was worshipping in the temple of Nisroch his god, he was assassinated by his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer. They, however, made good their escape to Armenia, and he was succeeded by Esar-haddon his son.

Hezekiah’s sickness, recovery, and song of thanksgiving

Hezekiah’s sickness

38 In those days Hezekiah was seized with a mortal sickness: and the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him and said, ‘The Lord commands you to set your household affairs in order; for you will 2 not recover, you are to die.’ Then, turning his face to the wall, Hezekiah offered this prayer to 3 the Lord: ‘Remember, O Lord, I beseech you, how I have lived in your presence with a faithful and undivided heart, and done the thing that pleased you.’ And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Then 4 there came to Isaiah this message from the Lord, 5 ‘Go and say to Hezekiah: this says the Lord, the God of David your father, ’I will add to your life fifteen 6 years more. you and this city together I will rescue from the grasp of the King of Assyria, and 7 ‘Take this,’ he replied, ‘as a sign from the Lord 8 that he will do what he has promised. Watch the shadow that the descending sun has cast on the step-clock of Ahaz: I will bring that shadow ten steps backward.’ and the sun did indeed go back on the step-clock the ten steps it had gone down.

Hezekiah’s song of thanksgiving

9 A psalm of Hezekiah King of Judah, to celebrate his recovery from the sickness which had overtaken him:

10 me thought I was doomed to depart

when my life was at noon-tide –

consigned to the portals of Sheol

the rest of my years.

11 I had thought to see the Lord nevermore

in the land of the living,

and never again to behold

any man in this world.

12 Like the tent of a shepherd, my home

is plucked up and stripped from me;

he has rolled up my life like a web,

from the thrum he has cut me.

To pain I am doomed night and day,

13 and I cry till the morning,

while all my bones, like a lion

he crushes in pieces.

14 I scream as screams a swift,

like a dove do I moan;

my eyes look tearfully heavenward:

O think on me, Lord, be my surety.

15 What can I utter or say,

since ’tis he has done it.

I toss all the time of my slumber –

my soul is so bitter.

16 O rest you my spirit, refresh me,

and let me recover.

17 "Tis you who have kept my soul

from the pit of destruction.

Behind your back you have cast

my iniquities all.

18 For Sheol can give you no thanks,

nor can Death sing your praises;

and they who go down to the pit

cannot hope for your love.

19 It is the living, the living, who praise you,

as I do this day.

So the father will tell to his sons

of your faithfulness sure.

20 Be pleased, O Lord, to save us:

then all the days of our life

we will play upon instruments stringed

in front of the house of the Lord. 21 this city I will protect.’’

Then Isaiah said, ‘Let them take a cake of figs and press it on the boil, to 22 ensure his recovery.’ And Hezekiah said, ‘What is the sign that I will yet go up to the Temple?’

Hezekiah’s vanity and Isaiah’s rebuke

39 At that time, merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, King of Babylon, having heard that Hezekiah had been ill and had recovered, despatched 2 eunuchs to him with a present. Hezekiah, delighted, proceeded to display to them his treasure-house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the fine oil, the armoury, and the whole range of his treasures: there was nothing in his place or indeed in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them.

3 Then came the prophet Isaiah to King Hezekiah and said, ‘Where do these men come from, and what have they said?’ ‘They have come,’ said Hezekiah, ‘from a distant land, from Babylon.’ 4 ‘What have they seen in your palace?’ said Isaiah; and Hezekiah answered, ‘Everything: there is none of my treasures that I have not shown them.’ 5 ‘Listen, then,’ said Isaiah, ‘to the word of the Lord 6 of Hosts. Mark, the day is coming, when all that is in your palace, and all the treasures that you ancestors have hither to amassed, will be carried to 7 Babylon: nothing will be left, says the Lord. And of the sons who may yet be born to you, some will be taken to become eunuchs is the palace of the 8 King of Babylon.’ Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, ‘I accept the word of the Lord which you have spoken.’ At least, thought he, there will be peace and stability in my day.

The glorious news – redemption is nigh

40 ‘Comfort you, comfort my people,’

declares your God.

2 ‘Speak home to the heart of Jerusalem,

cry unto her

that her time of sore service is over,

her guilt is discharged;

for her sins she has doubly atoned

at the hand of the Lord.’

3 Hark! Says a voice, ‘In the wilderness

clear you a way for the Lord;

make you straight in the desert

a highway for our God.

4 Let every valley be raised,

every mountain and hill brought low;

let the steep rugged ground become level,

the rough rocky ridges a plain.

5 Then the Lord will show forth his glory,

and all fresh will see it together:

the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.’

6 Hark! Says a voice, ‘Proclaim.’

‘What should I proclaim?’ said I.

‘Proclaim that all flesh is grass,

all its grace as the flower of the field.

7 The grass withers, the flower fades,

when upon it the breath of the Lord has blown.

8 Yea, the grass withers, the flower fades;

but the word of our God will stand for ever.’

9 Get you up to a mountain high,

you who tell good tidings to Zion;

lift up your voice with strength,

you who bring good news to Jerusalem;

lift it up, be not afraid.

Say to the cities of Judah,

‘Yonder comes your God.’

10 See! The Lord is coming in might,

with an arm that ensures his dominion.

Behold, his reward is with him,

his recompense is before him.

11 He feeds his flock like a shepherd,

he gathered it with his arm;

he carries the lambs in his bosom,

and those who give suck he leads.

The sovereignty and omnipotence of God as seen in nature

12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?

Who has ruled off the heavens with a span,

comprehend the dust of the earth in a measure,

and weighed the mountains in scales,

and the hills in a balance?

13 Who has directed the mind of the Lord?

And where is the counsellor who taught him?

14 Whom did he ask for enlightenment?

Who taught him the pathway of right,

or showed him the way of true insight?

15 See! Nations are nothing but a drop on a bucket,

they count but as dust on a balance;

he lifted the isles like a mote.

16 Too small for the fires (of his altars) is Lebanon,

too few are its breasts for an offering.

17 All nations are nothing before him,

he counts them but empty nothing.

18 So to whom will you liken God,

or what likeness set over against him?

19 An imagine! A craftsman has cast it,

A goldsmith o’erlaid it with gold.

6 Each workman helps his fellow,

and says to his neighbour, ‘Set to.’

7 So the craftsman heartens the goldsmith,

the polisher says to the finisher,

‘Fine piece of soldering that!’

Then the nails down the statue securely.

20 And he would carve a wood image

makes choice of a wood that decays not;

then he seeks a craftsman of skill,

to erect for him an image,

that is warranted not to topple.

21 But know you not then of yourselves, or from hearsay?

Has this from the first not been told you?

Of this have you not been aware,

since the day that the world was founded?

22 It is he who sits throned on the vault of the earth,

so high that the dwellers thereon are like locusts;

who stretches the heavens across like a veil,

and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

23 It is he who reduces proud princes to nothing,

who turns the rulers of earth into nothing.

24 Scarce are they planted, and scarce are they sown,

and scarce has their stock then root in the earth,

when he blows upon them, and so they wither:

the whirlwind bears them away like chaff.

25 To whom will you liken me, then?

And who is my match? says the Holy One.

26 Lift up your eyes on high;

see! Who has created all those?

He who brings their host out by number,

and summons each by his name:

so great his resource and so mighty his power

that not one of them fails to answer.

27 Why say you, then, O Jacob,

and Israel, why maintain

that your lot is unknown to the Lord,

your right ignored by your God?

28 Know you not of yourself or by hearsay –

the Lord is God eternal,

creator of all the earth?

He faints not, neither is weary,

unsearchable is his wisdom;

29 he gives power to the weary,

and increase of strength to the feeble.

30 Youths may faint and grow weary,

and young men may stumble and fall;

31 but those who wait for the Lord

will find their strength renewed;

they will put forth pinions like eagles.

They will run, and not grow weary;

they will walk, and not be faint.

The sovereignty of God as seen in history, and especially in the rise of Cyrus

The rise of Cyrus a proof of the Lord’s power

41 Hearken in silence, you coast-lands, to me,

and await, you nations, my argument:

come hither, then state your case;

so let us approach the tribunal together.

2 Who raised up him from the east land,

whose steps are attended by victory,

sweeping the nations before him,

and laying king low at his feet?

his sword makes them like dust

and his bow like the driven stubble;

3 he pursues and passes unharmed,

nor touches the ground with his feet.

4 Who has wrought and accomplished this?

He who from the beginning

did summon the generations –

I, the Lord, was with the first,

and with last am I.

5 The coast-lands have seen it and feared,

the ends of the earth fell a-trembling,

they came and drew nigh (to the judgment).

Israel is the Lord’s servant, loved and upheld by him

8 But you, Israel my servant,

Jacob, whom I have chosen,

the offspring of Abraham my friend;

9 whom I fetched from the ends of the earth,

and called from the corners thereof,

with the words, ‘My servant are you;

I have chosen, and not since rejected you.’

My victorious hand will uphold you.

11 See! All who are furious against you

will end in shame and confusion;

the men that contended against you

will pass into nothing and perish.

12 The men who have striven against you

you never will find, though you seek them;

the men who are warring against you

will wholly and utterly vanish.

The Lord says, I am your helper;

your redeemer is Israel’s Holy One.

15 A threshing-sledge, see! I will make of you,

new and well-furnished with teeth;

you will thresh the mountains to powder,

the hills you will make like chaff.

16 The wind, when you winnow, will scatter them,

the whirlwind will bear them away;

but you will rejoice in the Lord,

and glory in Israel’s Holy One.

17 The poor who seek water where water is none,

the needy whose tongue is parched with thirst –

I, the Lord, will hear their prayer,

I, who am Israel’s God, will not leave them.

18 But streams on the hills I will open,

and springs in the midst of the valleys;

the will I turn into pools of water,

the land that is parched into fountains of water.

19 I will plant in the desert the cedar,

acacia, myrtle, and olive;

I will set in the wilderness fir-trees,

the plane and the cypress together.

No heathen god can predict the future

21 Now then, says the Lord, bring forward your suit,

produce your idols, says Jacob’s king.

22 Let them come and declare unto us

the things that are yet to happen;

declare how the past was foretold,

that we may give thought thereto.

Or announce what is yet to come,

that we may mark the issue;

23 declare what will be hereafter,

and then we will know you are gods.

Yea, do aught that you please, good or ill,

that may strike us with awe to behold.

24 Now see, you are nothing, and you can do nothing:

hateful is he who chooses you.

No heathen god, but the Lord alone, predicted the advent of Cyrus

25 I have roused up one from the north, he is come –

one from the sunrise who calls on my name;

he will trample on princes like mortar,

as potter tramples the clay.

26 But who from the first has announced this,

that so we might recognize it?

Or who has aforetime declared it,

that now we must own to its truth?

There was none who announced or declared it,

not one heard a word from you.

27 It was I who first told it to Zion,

and gave the glad news to Jerusalem.

28 I looked all around – there was no one;

not one of the gods could give counsel

or answer, to taught that I asked them.

29 See! One and all they are nothing,

and nothing can they do:

their idols are wind and waste.

The servant’s task

42 Behold!

My servant, whom I uphold;

my chosen, the joy of my soul.

I have put my spirit upon him;

he will publish (my) Law to the nations.

2 He will not cry, nor shout,

nor utter his voice in the streets;

3 not a reed that is bent will he break,

nor a wick that burns dim will he quench.

He will faithfully set forth (my) Law,

4 all erect and aglow he will be:

he will yet set (my) Law in the earth,

and the islands will wait for his teaching.

5 Thus says the Lord, the God

who spread out and stretched forth the heavens;

who created the earth and its fruits,

giving breath to the people upon it,

and spirit to them who tread it:

6 with full and deliberate purpose

have I the Lord called you,

and taken your hand in mine;

I formed you as pledge and symbol

of my covenant with mankind –

a light to enlighten the nations,

7 to open the eyes of the blind,

and to bring from the dungeon the captives

who sit in the darkness of prison.

8 I am the (true) God, the Lord;

this is the name that is mine:

and my glory I yield to no other,

my praise will no image enjoy.

9 Behold, the predictions of old are fulfilled,

and new things I now declare;

before they spring into being,

I make them know unto you.

The new song

10 Sing a new song to the Lord,

his praise form the end of the earth;

let the sea and its fullness roar,

the islands and those who dwell there.

11 Let the desert rejoice with her cities,

the villages Kedar inhabits;

let Sela’s inhabitants sing,

let them shout from the top of the mountains.

12 Let them give to the Lord glory,

and tell forth his praise in the islands.

13 The Lord goes forth like a hero,

he stirs his rage like a warrior;

he shouts his fierce battle-cry,

he engages his foes like a hero.

The Lord at last bestirs himself

14 Long time have I held my peace,

and restrained myself in silence;

but now, like a woman in travail,

I groan, I pant and gasp.

15 Mountains and hills I will waste,

I will dry up all their herbage;

the streams I will turn into sand,

and the pools I will clean dry up.

16 The blind I will lead and guide,

by ways and by paths unfamiliar;

their gloom I will turn into light,

and the ground that is rough I will level

these are the things I will do,

they will not be left undone.

17 But those who put trust in an idol,

and call an image their god,

will backward be driven in shame.