UST GEN EXO LEV NUM DEU JOS JDG RUTH 1 SAM 2 SAM 1 KI 2 KI 1 CHR 2 CHR EZRA NEH EST JOB PSA PROV ECC SNG ISA JER LAM EZE DAN HOS JOEL AMOS OBA YNA MIC NAH HAB ZEP HAG ZEC MAL MAT MARK LUKE YHN ACTs ROM 1 COR 2 COR GAL EPH PHP COL 1 TH 2 TH 1 TIM 2 TIM TIT PHM HEB YAC 1 PET 2 PET 1 YHN 2 YHN 3 YHN YUD REV

ISA C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 C16 C17 C18 C19 C20 C21 C22 C23 C24 C25 C26 C27 C28 C29 C30 C31 C32 C33 C34 C35 C36 C37 C38 C39 C40 C41 C42 C43 C44 C45 C46 C47 C48 C49 C50 C51 C52 C53 C54 C55 C56 C57 C58 C59 C60 C61 C62 C63 C64 C65 C66

UST ISA Chapter 28

◄ ISA 28 ► ║ ═ ©

28 How terrible it will be for the people who live in the city of Samaria!

They are proud that their city is very beautiful.

It is on a hilltop above a rich valley.

It looks to them like a crown on a king’s head.

But it will stop being beautiful, just as a flower fades.

The people who live there drink so much wine that they become drunk.

2 Listen! The Lord is going to use someone who is very powerful to punish them.

That person will come like a very destructive hailstorm

and like a flood of mighty water that sweeps over the land.

He will use his power to destroy Samaria completely.

3 Those drunkards in Samaria are proud of their city on top of a hill,

but enemy soldiers will trample it under their feet.

4 That very beautiful city

on a hilltop above a rich valley

will stop being beautiful, just as a flower fades.

Enemies will take the valuable things from Samaria

just as someone quickly picks and eats a fig he sees that has ripened before summer.

5 When that happens, some people will survive

who belong to Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies.

He will rule them in a glorious way.

6 He will enable judges to judge cases fairly,

and he will make soldiers who defend cities strong enough

to keep enemy armies from conquering them.

7 However, the leaders of Judah also drink too much wine and beer.

This makes them stumble about drunkenly.

The priests and prophets become drunk

from drinking wine and beer.

As a result, the prophets do not understand messages from Yahweh,

and the priests do not correctly decide the cases the people bring to them.

8 They drink so much that they vomit on the tables where they are eating

and there are no clean places on those tables.

9 The Judeans mock God and say, “He speaks to us as if we were people

who are difficult to teach and need to have someone explain to us what he is doing.

He speaks to us as if we were babies

who have just stopped nursing.

10 We say this because he only tells us one thing at a time, and he repeats it.

He explains each part of it repeatedly.

He talks only for a little while and then waits before saying anything more.”

11 Because these people refuse to listen, Yahweh will speak to them

through foreigners who speak a language they do not understand.

12 Yahweh told his people earlier,

“I am offering rest and refreshment to anyone who is weary.” But they refused to listen. 13 So now Yahweh really will only tell them one thing at a time and repeat it.

He will explain each part of it repeatedly.

He will talk only for a little while and then wait before saying anything more.

As a result, they will not succeed at what they attempt,

like babies who try to walk but fall into a sitting position.

God will let their enemies defeat them, trap them, and capture them.

14 So listen to what Yahweh says, you rulers of the people in Jerusalem,

who have been speaking so mockingly!

15 You say boastfully,

“We are confident that no one will kill us.

It is as if the place where dead people are has promised us that we will not go there.

The Assyrian army is very destructive.

It has overwhelmed other nations as if it were a flood.

But we will be safe from it

because we have protected ourselves by making a secret agreement with Egypt.”

16 So Yahweh, the Lord, says this:

“I am going to make Jerusalem a new kind of community,

as if I were building a new building.

I am going to make sure that the people live in the right way,

as if I were setting in place a special first stone for the building

that I had proved to be perfectly straight

so that it could guide the placement of all the other stones.

Whoever trusts me to do this will not scramble to try to save himself.

17 I will make sure that people in Jerusalem treat one another fairly,

as if I were using justice to measure lengths

and using righteousness to make sure that walls were straight

in the building I was building.

But enemies will destroy those who think they are safe

because they have made a secret agreement.

It will be as if they were crops that a great hailstorm destroyed

or as if a great flood swept them away.

18 Suppose that the place where dead people are

really had promised these Judean leaders that they would not go there.

Then I am cancelling that promise.

Instead, the Assyrian army, which is very destructive,

will destroy them as if a flood had washed them away.

The Assyrian soldiers will march throughout their land.

19 Each day, the Assyrian army will advance steadily farther into Judah.

Its soldiers will continually capture more cities.

When the Judean leaders finally understand what Yahweh is doing,

it will terrify them.”

20 The secret agreement with Egypt will not be adequate to support or protect them,

just like a bed that is too short for a person to stretch out on

or a blanket that is too narrow for someone to wrap around himself.

21 Yahweh will take action just as he did at Mount Perazim,

where he enabled David to defeat the Philistines,

and in the Valley of Gibeon, where he enabled Joshua to defeat five Canaanite kings.

He will do something to his own people

that they would not expect him to do.

22 So the Judeans should stop speaking so mockingly.

Otherwise, Yahweh will punish them even more severely.

Yahweh, the Lord, the commander of the heavenly armies,

has told me that he has decided to destroy the entire land.

23 Listen carefully to what I say!

Yes, pay close attention to this message!

24 When a farmer plows his field, he does not keep plowing without ever planting anything.

He does not keep breaking up the soil continually.

25 No, after he makes the ground smooth,

he scatters seeds of black cumin and common cumin on the soil.

He plants wheat in rows,

and he plants barley in places where it will grow well.

He plants spelt along the edges of the field.

26 God has enabled farmers to understand the right way to do things.

27 A farmer does not use a heavy threshing sledge to thresh black cumin,

and he does not roll the wheels of a cart over cumin.

Instead, he beats black cumin with a stick,

and he beats cumin with a rod.

28 A farmer does thresh grain that he wants to use to make bread,

but he certainly does not thresh it continually.

He may drive the wheels of a cart over it,

but he does not let his horses crush it with their hooves.

29 Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies,

has helped people understand how to do these things right.

He gives wonderful advice,

and he makes people truly wise.