{
"language": "en",
"title": "Isaiah",
"versionSource": "https://jps.org/books/tanakh-the-holy-scriptures-blue/",
"versionTitle": "Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures, published by JPS",
"status": "locked",
"priority": 2.0,
"license": "CC-BY-NC",
"shortVersionTitle": "JPS, 1985",
"purchaseInformationImage": "https://storage.googleapis.com/sefaria-physical-editions/JPS_1985.png",
"purchaseInformationURL": "https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/jps/9780827602526/",
"actualLanguage": "en",
"languageFamilyName": "english",
"isBaseText": false,
"isSource": false,
"direction": "ltr",
"heTitle": "ישעיהו",
"categories": [
"Tanakh",
"Prophets"
],
"text": [
[
"The prophecies of Isaiah son of Amoz, who prophesied concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
",
"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth,
For the LORD has spoken:
“I reared children and brought them up—
And they have rebelled against Me!",
"An ox knows its owner,
An ass its master’s crib:
Israel does not know,
My people takes no thought.”
",
"Ah, sinful nation!
People laden with iniquity!
Brood of evildoers!
Depraved children!
They have forsaken the LORD,
Spurned the Holy One of Israel,
Turned their backs [on Him].
",
"Why do you seek further beatings,
That you continue to offend?
Every head is ailing,
And every heart is sick.",
"From head to foot
No spot is sound:
All bruises, and welts,
And festering sores—
Not pressed out, not bound up,
Not softened with oil.",
"Your land is a waste,
Your cities burnt down;
Before your eyes, the yield of your soil
Is consumed by strangers—
A wasteland as overthrown by strangers!",
"Fair Zion is left
Like a booth in a vineyard,
Like a hut in a cucumber field,
Like a city beleaguered.",
"Had not the LORD of Hosts
Left us some survivors,
We should be like Sodom,
Another Gomorrah.
",
"Hear the word of the LORD,
You chieftains of Sodom;
Give ear to our God’s instruction,
You folk of Gomorrah!",
"“What need have I of all your sacrifices?”
Says the LORD.
“I am sated with burnt offerings of rams,
And suet of fatlings,
And blood of bulls;
And I have no delight
In lambs and he-goats.",
"That you come to appear before Me—
Who asked that of you?
Trample My courts",
"no more;
Bringing oblations is futile,
Incense is offensive to Me.
New moon and sabbath,
Proclaiming of solemnities,
Assemblies with iniquity,
I cannot abide.",
"Your new moons and fixed seasons
Fill Me with loathing;
They are become a burden to Me,
I cannot endure them.",
"And when you lift up your hands,
I will turn My eyes away from you;
Though you pray at length,
I will not listen.
Your hands are stained with crime—",
"Wash yourselves clean;
Put your evil doings
Away from My sight.
Cease to do evil;",
"Learn to do good.
Devote yourselves to justice;
Aid the wronged.
Uphold the rights of the orphan;
Defend the cause of the widow.
",
"“Come, let us reach an understanding,
—says the LORD.
Be your sins like crimson,
They can turn snow-white;
Be they red as dyed wool,
They can become like fleece.”",
"If, then, you agree and give heed,
You will eat the good things of the earth;",
"But if you refuse and disobey,
You will be devoured [by] the sword.—
For it was the LORD who spoke.
",
"Alas, she has become a harlot,
The faithful city
That was filled with justice,
Where righteousness dwelt—
But now murderers.",
"Your silver has turned to dross;
Your wine is cut with water.",
"Your rulers are rogues
And cronies of thieves,
Every one avid for presents
And greedy for gifts;
They do not judge the case of the orphan,
And the widow’s cause never reaches them.
",
"Assuredly, this is the declaration
Of the Sovereign, the LORD of Hosts,
The Mighty One of Israel:
“Ah, I will get satisfaction from My foes;
I will wreak vengeance on My enemies!",
"I will turn My hand against you,
And smelt out your dross as with lye,
And remove all your slag:",
"I will restore your magistrates as of old,
And your counselors as of yore.
After that you shall be called
City of Righteousness, Faithful City.”
",
"Zion shall be saved in the judgment;
Her repentant ones, in the retribution.",
"But rebels and sinners shall all be crushed,
And those who forsake the LORD shall perish.
",
"Truly, you shall be shamed
Because of the terebinths you desired,
And you shall be confounded
Because of the gardens you coveted.",
"For you shall be like a terebinth
Wilted of leaf,
And like a garden
That has no water,",
"Stored wealth shall become as tow,
And he who amassed it a spark;
And the two shall burn together,
With none to quench."
],
[
"The word that Isaiah son of Amoz prophesied concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
",
"In the days to come,
The Mount of the LORD’s House
Shall stand firm above the mountains
And tower above the hills;
And all the nations
Shall gaze on it with joy.",
"And the many peoples shall go and say:
“Come,
Let us go up to the Mount of the LORD,
To the House of the God of Jacob;
That He may instruct us in His ways,
And that we may walk in His paths.”
For instruction shall come forth from Zion,
The word of the LORD from Jerusalem.",
"Thus He will judge among the nations
And arbitrate for the many peoples,
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks:
Nation shall not take up
Sword against nation;
They shall never again know war.
",
"O House of Jacob!
Come, let us walk
By the light of the LORD.",
"For you have forsaken [the ways of] your people,
O House of Jacob!
For they are full [of practices] from the East,
And of soothsaying like the Philistines;
They abound in customs of the aliens.",
"Their land is full of silver and gold,
There is no limit to their treasures;
Their land is full of horses,
There is no limit to their chariots.",
"And their land is full of idols;
They bow down to the work of their hands,
To what their own fingers have wrought.",
"But man shall be humbled,
And mortal brought low—
Oh, do not forgive them!
",
"Go deep into the rock,
Bury yourselves in the ground,
Before the terror of the LORD
And His dread majesty!",
"Man’s haughty look shall be brought low,
And the pride of mortals shall be humbled.
None but the LORD shall be
Exalted in that day.
",
"For the LORD of Hosts has ready a day
Against all that is proud and arrogant,
Against all that is lofty—so that it is brought low:",
"Against all the cedars of Lebanon,
Tall and stately,
And all the oaks of Bashan;",
"Against all the high mountains
And all the lofty hills;",
"Against every soaring tower
And every mighty wall;",
"Against all the ships of Tarshish
And all the gallant barks.",
"Then man’s haughtiness shall be humbled
And the pride of man brought low.
None but the LORD shall be
Exalted in that day.
",
"As for idols, they shall vanish completely.",
"And men shall enter caverns in the rock
And hollows in the ground—
Before the terror of the LORD
And His dread majesty,
When He comes forth to overawe the earth.",
"On that day, men shall fling away,
To the flying foxes and the bats,
The idols of silver
And the idols of gold
Which they made for worshiping.",
"And they shall enter the clefts in the rocks
And the crevices in the cliffs,
Before the terror of the LORD
And His dread majesty,
When He comes forth to overawe the earth.
",
"Oh, cease to glorify man,
Who has only a breath in his nostrils!
For by what does he merit esteem?"
],
[
"For lo!
The Sovereign LORD of Hosts
Will remove from Jerusalem and from Judah
Prop and stay,
Every prop of food
And every prop of water:",
"Soldier and warrior,
Magistrate and prophet,
Augur and elder;",
"Captain of fifty,
Magnate and counselor,
Skilled artisan and expert enchanter;",
"And He will make boys their rulers,
And babes shall govern them.",
"So the people shall oppress one another—
Each oppressing his fellow:
The young shall bully the old;
And the despised [shall bully] the honored.
",
"For should a man seize his brother,
In whose father’s house there is clothing:
“Come, be a chief over us,
And let this ruin be under your care,”",
"The other will thereupon protest,
“I will not be a dresser of wounds,
With no food or clothing in my own house.
You shall not make me chief of a people!”
",
"Ah, Jerusalem has stumbled,
And Judah has fallen,
Because by word and deed
They insult the LORD,
Defying His majestic glance.",
"Their partiality in judgment accuses them;
They avow their sins like Sodom,
They do not conceal them.
Woe to them! For ill
Have they served themselves.",
"(Hail the just man, for he shall fare well;
He shall eat the fruit of his works.",
"Woe to the wicked man, for he shall fare ill;
As his hands have dealt, so shall it be done to him.)",
"My people’s rulers are babes,
It is governed by women.
O my people!
Your leaders are misleaders;
They have confused the course of your paths.
",
"The LORD stands up to plead a cause,
He rises to champion peoples.",
"The LORD will bring this charge
Against the elders and officers of His people:
“It is you who have ravaged the vineyard;
That which was robbed from the poor is in your houses.",
"How dare you crush My people
And grind the faces of the poor?”
—says my Lord GOD of Hosts.
",
"The LORD said:
“Because the daughters of Zion
Are so vain
And walk with heads thrown back,
With roving eyes,
And with mincing gait,
Making a tinkling with their feet”—",
"My Lord will bare the pates
Of the daughters of Zion,
The LORD will uncover their heads.
",
"In that day, my LORD will strip off the finery of the anklets, the fillets, and the crescents;",
"of the eardrops, the bracelets, and the veils;",
"the turbans, the armlets, and the sashes; of the talismans and the amulets;",
"the signet rings and the nose rings;",
"of the festive robes, the mantles, and the shawls; the purses,",
"the lace gowns, and the linen vests; and the kerchiefs and the capes.
",
"And then—
Instead of perfume, there shall be rot;
And instead of an apron, a rope;
Instead of a diadem of beaten-work,
A shorn head;
Instead of a rich robe,
A girding of sackcloth;
A burn instead of beauty.
",
"Her men shall fall by the sword,
Her fighting manhood in battle;",
"And her gates shall lament and mourn,
And she shall be emptied,
Shall sit on the ground."
],
[
"In that day, seven women shall take hold of one man, saying,
“We will eat our own food
And wear our own clothes;
Only let us be called by your name—
Take away our disgrace!”",
"In that day,
The radiance of the LORD
Will lend beauty and glory,
And the splendor of the land
[Will give] dignity and majesty,
To the survivors of Israel.",
"And those who remain in Zion
And are left in Jerusalem—
All who are inscribed for life in Jerusalem—
Shall be called holy.
",
"When my Lord has washed away
The filth of the daughters of Zion,
And from Jerusalem’s midst
Has rinsed out her infamy—
In a spirit of judgment
And in a spirit of purging—
",
"the LORD will create over the whole shrine and meeting place of Mount Zion cloud by day and smoke with a glow of flaming fire by night. Indeed, over all the glory shall hang a canopy,",
"which shall serve as a pavilion for shade from heat by day and as a shelter for protection against drenching rain."
],
[
"Let me sing for my beloved
A song of my lover about his vineyard.
My beloved had a vineyard
On a fruitful hill.",
"He broke the ground, cleared it of stones,
And planted it with choice vines.
He built a watchtower inside it,
He even hewed a wine press in it;
For he hoped it would yield grapes.
Instead, it yielded wild grapes.",
"“Now, then,
Dwellers of Jerusalem
And men of Judah,
You be the judges
Between Me and My vineyard:",
"What more could have been done for My vineyard
That I failed to do in it?
Why, when I hoped it would yield grapes,
Did it yield wild grapes?
",
"“Now I am going to tell you
What I will do to My vineyard:
I will remove its hedge,
That it may be ravaged;
I will break down its wall,
That it may be trampled.",
"And I will make it a desolation;
It shall not be pruned or hoed,
And it shall be overgrown with briers and thistles.
And I will command the clouds
To drop no rain on it.”
",
"For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts
Is the House of Israel,
And the seedlings he lovingly tended
Are the men of Judah.
And He hoped for justice,
But behold, injustice;
For equity,
But behold, iniquity!
",
"Ah,
Those who add house to house
And join field to field,
Till there is room for none but you
To dwell in the land!",
"In my hearing [said] the LORD of Hosts:
Surely, great houses
Shall lie forlorn,
Spacious and splendid ones
Without occupants.",
"For ten acres of vineyard
Shall yield just one bath,
And a field sown with a ḥomer of seed
Shall yield a mere ephah.
",
"Ah,
Those who chase liquor
From early in the morning,
And till late in the evening
Are inflamed by wine!",
"Who, at their banquets,
Have lyre and lute,
Timbrel, flute, and wine;
But who never give a thought
To the plan of the LORD,
And take no note
Of what He is designing.",
"Assuredly,
My people will suffer exile
For not giving heed,
Its multitude victims of hunger
And its masses parched with thirst.",
"Assuredly,
Sheol has opened wide its gullet
And parted its jaws in a measureless gape;
And down into it shall go,
That splendor and tumult,
That din and revelry.",
"Yea, man is bowed,
And mortal brought low;
Brought low is the pride of the haughty.",
"And the LORD of Hosts is exalted by judgment,
The Holy God proved holy by retribution.",
"Then lambs shall graze
As in their meadows,
And strangers shall feed
On the ruins of the stout.
",
"Ah,
Those who haul sin with cords of falsehood
And iniquity as with cart ropes!",
"Who say,
“Let Him speed, let Him hasten His purpose,
If we are to give thought;
Let the plans of the Holy One of Israel
Be quickly fulfilled,
If we are to give heed.”
",
"Ah,
Those who call evil good
And good evil;
Who present darkness as light
And light as darkness;
Who present bitter as sweet
And sweet as bitter!",
"Ah,
Those who are so wise—
In their own opinion;
So clever—
In their own judgment!
",
"Ah,
Those who are so doughty—
As drinkers of wine,
And so valiant—
As mixers of drink!",
"Who vindicate him who is in the wrong
In return for a bribe,
And withhold vindication
From him who is in the right.",
"Assuredly,
As straw is consumed by a tongue of fire
And hay shrivels as it burns,
Their stock shall become like rot,
And their buds shall blow away like dust.
For they have rejected the instruction of the LORD of Hosts,
Spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.
",
"That is why
The LORD’s anger was roused
Against His people,
Why He stretched out His arm against it
And struck it,
So that the mountains quaked,
And its corpses lay
Like refuse in the streets.
Yet His anger has not turned back,
And His arm is outstretched still.",
"He will raise an ensign to a nation afar,
Whistle to one at the end of the earth.
There it comes with lightning speed!",
"In its ranks, none is weary or stumbles,
They never sleep or slumber;
The belts on their waists do not come loose,
Nor do the thongs of their sandals break.",
"Their arrows are sharpened,
And all their bows are drawn.
Their horses’ hoofs are like flint,
Their chariot wheels like the whirlwind.",
"Their roaring is like a lion’s,
They roar like the great beasts;
When they growl and seize a prey,
They carry it off and none can recover it.
",
"But in that day, a roaring shall resound over him like that of the sea; and then he shall look below and, behold,
Distressing darkness, with light;
Darkness, in its lowering clouds."
],
[
"In the year that King Uzziah died, I beheld my Lord seated on a high and lofty throne; and the skirts of His robe filled the Temple.",
"Seraphs stood in attendance on Him. Each of them had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his legs, and with two he would fly.
",
"And one would call to the other,
“Holy, holy, holy!
The LORD of Hosts!
His presence fills all the earth!”
",
"The doorposts would shake at the sound of the one who called, and the House kept filling with smoke.",
"I cried,
“Woe is me; I am lost!
For I am a man of unclean lips
And I live among a people
Of unclean lips;
Yet my own eyes have beheld
The King LORD of Hosts.”
",
"Then one of the seraphs flew over to me with a live coal, which he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.",
"He touched it to my lips and declared,
“Now that this has touched your lips,
Your guilt shall depart
And your sin be purged away.”
",
"Then I heard the voice of my Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me.”",
"And He said, “Go, say to that people:
‘Hear, indeed, but do not understand;
See, indeed, but do not grasp.’",
"Dull that people’s mind,
Stop its ears,
And seal its eyes—
Lest, seeing with its eyes
And hearing with its ears,
It also grasp with its mind,
And repent and save itself.”
",
"I asked, “How long, my Lord?” And He replied:
“Till towns lie waste without inhabitants
And houses without people,
And the ground lies waste and desolate—",
"For the LORD will banish the population—
And deserted sites are many
In the midst of the land.",
"“But while a tenth part yet remains in it, it shall repent. It shall be ravaged like the terebinth and the oak, of which stumps are left even when they are felled: its stump shall be a holy seed.”"
],
[
"In the reign of Ahaz son of Jotham son of Uzziah, king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah son of Remaliah of Israel marched upon Jerusalem to attack it; but they were not able to attack it.",
"Now, when it was reported to the House of David that Aram had allied itself with Ephraim, their hearts and the hearts of their people trembled as trees of the forest sway before a wind.",
"But the LORD said to Isaiah, “Go out with your son Shear-jashub to meet Ahaz at the end of the conduit of the Upper Pool, by the road of the Fuller’s Field.",
"And say to him: Be firm and be calm. Do not be afraid and do not lose heart on account of those two smoking stubs of firebrands, on account of the raging of Rezin and his Arameans and the son of Remaliah.",
"Because the Arameans—with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah—have plotted against you, saying,",
"‘We will march against Judah and invade and conquer it, and we will set up as king in it the son of Tabeel,’",
"thus said my Lord GOD:
It shall not succeed,
It shall not come to pass.",
"For the chief city of Aram is Damascus,
And the chief of Damascus is Rezin;",
"The chief city of Ephraim is Samaria,
And the chief of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.
And in another sixty-five years,
Ephraim shall be shattered as a people.
If you will not believe, for you cannot be trusted…”
",
"The LORD spoke further to Ahaz:",
"“Ask for a sign from the LORD your God, anywhere down to Sheol or up to the sky.”",
"But Ahaz replied, “I will not ask, and I will not test the LORD.”",
"“Listen, House of David,” [Isaiah] retorted, “is it not enough for you to treat men as helpless that you also treat my God as helpless?",
"Assuredly, my Lord will give you a sign of His own accord! Look, the young woman is with child and about to give birth to a son. Let her name him Immanuel.",
"(By the time he learns to reject the bad and choose the good, people will be feeding on curds and honey.)",
"For before the lad knows to reject the bad and choose the good, the ground whose two kings you dread shall be abandoned.",
"The LORD will cause to come upon you and your people and your ancestral house such days as never have come since Ephraim turned away from Judah—that selfsame king of Assyria!",
"“In that day, the LORD will whistle to the flies at the ends of the water channels of Egypt and to the bees in the land of Assyria;",
"and they shall all come and alight in the rugged wadis, and in the clefts of the rocks, and in all the thornbrakes, and in all the watering places.",
"“In that day, my Lord will cut away with the razor that is hired beyond the Euphrates—with the king of Assyria—the hair of the head and the hair of the legs, and it shall clip off the beard as well.",
"And in that day, each man shall save alive a heifer of the herd and two animals of the flock.",
"(And he shall obtain so much milk that he shall eat curds.) Thus everyone who is left in the land shall feed on curds and honey.",
"“For in that day, every spot where there could stand a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver shall become a wilderness of thornbush and thistle.",
"One will have to go there with bow and arrows, for the country shall be all thornbushes and thistles.",
"But the perils of thornbush and thistle shall not spread to any of the hills that could only be tilled with a hoe; and here cattle shall be let loose, and sheep and goats shall tramp about.”"
],
[
"The LORD said to me, “Get yourself a large sheet and write on it in common script ‘For Maher-shalal-hash-baz’;",
"and call reliable witnesses, the priest Uriah and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah, to witness for Me.”",
"I was intimate with the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son; and the LORD said to me, “Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz.",
"For before the boy learns to call ‘Father’ and ‘Mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria, and the delights of Rezin and of the son of Remaliah, shall be carried off before the king of Assyria.”
",
"Again the LORD spoke to me, thus:",
"“Because that people has spurned
The gently flowing waters of Siloam”—",
"Assuredly,
My Lord will bring up against them
The mighty, massive waters of the Euphrates,
The king of Assyria and all his multitude.
It shall rise above all its channels,
And flow over all its beds,",
"And swirl through Judah like a flash flood
Reaching up to the neck.
But with us is God,
Whose wings are spread
As wide as your land is broad!",
"Band together, O peoples—you shall be broken!
Listen to this, you remotest parts of the earth:
Gird yourselves—you shall be broken;
Gird yourselves—you shall be broken!",
"Hatch a plot—it shall be foiled;
Agree on action—it shall not succeed.
For with us is God!
",
"For this is what the LORD said to me, when He took me by the hand and charged me not to walk in the path of that people:",
"“You must not call conspiracy
All that that people calls conspiracy,
Nor revere what it reveres,
Nor hold it in awe.",
"None but the LORD of Hosts
Shall you account holy;
Give reverence to Him alone,
Hold Him alone in awe.",
"He shall be for a sanctuary,
A stone men strike against:
A rock men stumble over
For the two Houses of Israel,
And a trap and a snare for those
Who dwell in Jerusalem.",
"The masses shall trip over these
And shall fall and be injured,
Shall be snared and be caught.",
"Bind up the message,
Seal the instruction with My disciples.”
",
"So I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding His face from the House of Jacob, and I will trust in Him.",
"Here stand I and the children the LORD has given me as signs and portents in Israel from the LORD of Hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.",
"Now, should people say to you, “Inquire of the ghosts and familiar spirits that chirp and moan; for a people may inquire of its divine beings—of the dead on behalf of the living—",
"for instruction and message,” surely, for one who speaks thus there shall be no dawn.",
"And he shall go about in it wretched and hungry; and when he is hungry, he shall rage and revolt against his king and his divine beings. He may turn his face upward",
"or he may look below, but behold,
Distress and darkness, with no daybreak;
Straitness and gloom, with no dawn.",
"For if there were to be any break of day for that [land] which is in straits, only the former [king] would have brought abasement to the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali—while the later one would have brought honor to the Way of the Sea, the other side of the Jordan, and Galilee of the Nations."
],
[
" The people that walked in darkness
Have seen a brilliant light;
On those who dwelt in a land of gloom
Light has dawned.",
"You have magnified that nation,
Have given it great joy;
They have rejoiced before You
As they rejoice at reaping time,
As they exult
When dividing spoil.
",
"For the yoke that they bore
And the stick on their back—
The rod of their taskmaster—
You have broken as on the day of Midian.",
"Truly, all the boots put on to stamp with
And all the garments donned in infamy
Have been fed to the flames,
Devoured by fire.",
"For a child has been born to us,
A son has been given us.
And authority has settled on his shoulders.
He has been named
“The Mighty God is planning grace;
The Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler”—",
"In token of abundant authority
And of peace without limit
Upon David’s throne and kingdom,
That it may be firmly established
In justice and in equity
Now and evermore.
The zeal of the LORD of Hosts
Shall bring this to pass.
",
"My Lord
Let loose a word against Jacob
And it fell upon Israel.",
"But all the people noted—
Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria—
In arrogance and haughtiness:",
"“Bricks have fallen—
We’ll rebuild with dressed stone;
Sycamores have been felled—
We’ll grow cedars instead!”",
"So the LORD let the enemies of Rezin
Triumph over it
And stirred up its foes—",
"Aram from the east
And Philistia from the west—
Who devoured Israel
With greedy mouths.
Yet His anger has not turned back,
And His arm is outstretched still.
",
"For the people has not turned back
To Him who struck it
And has not sought
The LORD of Hosts.",
"So the LORD will cut off from Israel
Head and tail,
Palm branch and reed,
In a single day.",
"Elders and magnates—
Such are the heads;
Prophets who give false instruction,
Such are the tails",
"That people’s leaders have been misleaders,
So they that are led have been confused.",
"That is why my Lord
Will not spare their youths,
Nor show compassion
To their orphans and widows;
For all are ungodly and wicked,
And every mouth speaks impiety.
",
"Already wickedness has blazed forth like a fire
Devouring thorn and thistle.
It has kindled the thickets of the wood,
Which have turned into billowing smoke.
Yet His anger has not turned back,
And His arm is outstretched still.
",
"By the fury of the LORD of Hosts,
The earth was shaken.
Next, the people became like devouring fire:
No man spared his countryman.",
"They snatched on the right, but remained hungry,
And consumed on the left without being sated.
Each devoured the flesh of his own kindred—",
"Manasseh Ephraim’s, and Ephraim Manasseh’s,
And both of them against Judah!
Yet His anger has not turned back,
And His arm is outstretched still."
],
[
"Ha!
Those who write out evil writs
And compose iniquitous documents,",
"To subvert the cause of the poor,
To rob of their rights the needy of My people;
That widows may be their spoil,
And fatherless children their booty!",
"What will you do on the day of punishment,
When the calamity comes from afar?
To whom will you flee for help,
And how will you save your carcasses",
"From collapsing under [fellow] prisoners,
From falling beneath the slain?
Yet His anger has not turned back,
And his arm is outstretched still.
",
"Ha!
Assyria, rod of My anger,
In whose hand, as a staff, is My fury!",
"I send him against an ungodly nation,
I charge him against a people that provokes Me,
To take its spoil and to seize its booty
And to make it a thing trampled
Like the mire of the streets.",
"But he has evil plans,
His mind harbors evil designs;
For he means to destroy,
To wipe out nations, not a few.",
"For he thinks,
“After all, I have kings as my captains!",
"Was Calno any different from Carchemish?
Or Hamath from Arpad?
Or Samaria from Damascus?",
"Since I was able to seize
The insignificant kingdoms,
Whose images exceeded
Jerusalem’s and Samaria’s,",
"Shall I not do to Jerusalem and her images
What I did to Samaria and her idols?”
",
"But when my Lord has carried out all his purpose on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, He will punish the majestic pride and overbearing arrogance of the king of Assyria.",
"For he thought,
“By the might of my hand have I wrought it,
By my skill, for I am clever:
I have erased the borders of peoples;
I have plundered their treasures,
And exiled their vast populations.",
"I was able to seize, like a nest,
The wealth of peoples;
As one gathers abandoned eggs,
So I gathered all the earth:
Nothing so much as flapped a wing
Or opened a mouth to peep.”
",
"Does an ax boast over him who hews with it,
Or a saw magnify itself above him who wields it?
As though the rod raised him who lifts it,
As though the staff lifted the man!
",
"Assuredly,
The Sovereign LORD of Hosts will send
A wasting away in its fatness;
And under its body shall burn
A burning like that of fire,
Destroying frame and flesh.
It shall be like a sick man who pines away.",
"The Light of Israel will be fire
And its Holy One flame.
It will burn and consume its thorns
And its thistles in a single day,",
"And the mass of its scrub and its farm land.",
"What trees remain of its scrub
Shall be so few that a boy may record them.
",
"And in that day,
The remnant of Israel
And the escaped of the House of Jacob
Shall lean no more upon him that beats it,
But shall lean sincerely
On the LORD, the Holy One of Israel.",
"Only a remnant shall return,
Only a remnant of Jacob,
To Mighty God.",
"Even if your people, O Israel,
Should be as the sands of the sea,
Only a remnant of it shall return.
Destruction is decreed;
Retribution comes like a flood!",
"For my Lord GOD of Hosts is carrying out
A decree of destruction upon all the land.
",
"Assuredly, thus said my Lord GOD of Hosts: “O My people that dwells in Zion, have no fear of Assyria, who beats you with a rod and wields his staff over you as did the Egyptians.",
"For very soon My wrath will have spent itself, and My anger that was bent on wasting them.”",
"The LORD of Hosts will brandish a scourge over him as when He beat Midian at the Rock of Oreb, and will wield His staff as He did over the Egyptians by the sea.
",
"And in that day,
His burden shall drop from your back,
And his yoke from your neck;
The yoke shall be destroyed because of fatness.
",
"He advanced upon Aiath,
He proceeded to Migron,
At Michmas he deposited his baggage.",
"They made the crossing;
“Geba is to be our night quarters!”
Ramah was alarmed;
Gibeah of Saul took to flight.",
"“Give a shrill cry, O Bath-gallim!
Hearken, Laishah!
Take up the cry, Anathoth!”",
"Madmenah ran away;
The dwellers of Gebim sought refuge.",
"This same day at Nob
He shall stand and wave his hand.
O mount of Fair Zion!
O hill of Jerusalem!",
"Lo! The Sovereign LORD of Hosts
Will hew off the tree-crowns with an ax:
The tall ones shall be felled,
The lofty ones cut down:",
"The thickets of the forest shall be hacked away with iron,
And the Lebanon trees shall fall in their majesty."
],
[
"But a shoot shall grow out of the stump of Jesse,
A twig shall sprout from his stock.",
"The spirit of the LORD shall alight upon him:
A spirit of wisdom and insight,
A spirit of counsel and valor,
A spirit of devotion and reverence for the LORD.",
"He shall sense the truth by his reverence for the LORD:
He shall not judge by what his eyes behold,
Nor decide by what his ears perceive.",
"Thus he shall judge the poor with equity
And decide with justice for the lowly of the land.
He shall strike down a land with the rod of his mouth
And slay the wicked with the breath of his lips.",
"Justice shall be the girdle of his loins,
And faithfulness the girdle of his waist.",
"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
The leopard lie down with the kid;
The calf, the beast of prey, and the fatling together,
With a little boy to herd them.",
"The cow and the bear shall graze,
Their young shall lie down together;
And the lion, like the ox, shall eat straw.",
"A babe shall play
Over a viper’s hole,
And an infant pass his hand
Over an adder’s den.",
"In all of My sacred mount
Nothing evil or vile shall be done;
For the land shall be filled with devotion to the LORD
As water covers the sea.
",
"In that day,
The stock of Jesse that has remained standing
Shall become a standard to peoples—
Nations shall seek his counsel
And his abode shall be honored.
",
"In that day, my Lord will apply His hand again to redeeming the other part of His people from Assyria—as also from Egypt, Pathros, Nubia, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the coastlands.
",
"He will hold up a signal to the nations
And assemble the banished of Israel,
And gather the dispersed of Judah
From the four corners of the earth.
",
"Then Ephraim’s envy shall cease
And Judah’s harassment shall end;
Ephraim shall not envy Judah,
And Judah shall not harass Ephraim.",
"They shall pounce on the back of Philistia to the west,
And together plunder the peoples of the east;
Edom and Moab shall be subject to them
And the children of Ammon shall obey them.
",
"The LORD will dry up the tongue of the Egyptian sea.—He will raise His hand over the Euphrates with the might of His wind and break it into seven wadis, so that it can be trodden dry-shod.",
"Thus there shall be a highway for the other part of His people out of Assyria, such as there was for Israel when it left the land of Egypt."
],
[
"In that day, you shall say:
“I give thanks to You, O LORD!
Although You were wroth with me,
Your wrath has turned back and You comfort me,",
"Behold the God who gives me triumph!
I am confident, unafraid;
For Yah the LORD is my strength and might,
And He has been my deliverance.”
",
"Joyfully shall you draw water
From the fountains of triumph,",
"And you shall say on that day:
“Praise the LORD, proclaim His name.
Make His deeds known among the peoples;
Declare that His name is exalted.",
"Hymn the LORD,
For He has done gloriously;
Let this be made known
In all the world!",
"Oh, shout for joy,
You who dwell in Zion!
For great in your midst
Is the Holy One of Israel.”"
],
[
"The “Babylon” Pronouncement, a prophecy of Isaiah son of Amoz.
",
"“Raise a standard upon a bare hill,
Cry aloud to them;
Wave a hand, and let them enter
The gates of the nobles!",
"I have summoned My purified guests
To execute My wrath;
Behold, I have called My stalwarts,
My proudly exultant ones.”
",
"Hark! a tumult on the mountains—
As of a mighty force;
Hark! an uproar of kingdoms,
Nations assembling!
The LORD of Hosts is mustering
A host for war.",
"They come from a distant land,
From the end of the sky—
The LORD with the weapons of His wrath—
To ravage all the earth!
",
"Howl!
For the day of the LORD is near;
It shall come like havoc from Shaddai.",
"Therefore all hands shall grow limp,
And all men’s hearts shall sink;",
"And, overcome by terror,
They shall be seized by pangs and throes,
Writhe like a woman in travail.
They shall gaze at each other in horror,
Their faces livid with fright.
",
"Lo! The day of the LORD is coming
With pitiless fury and wrath,
To make the earth a desolation,
To wipe out the sinners upon it.",
"The stars and constellations of heaven
Shall not give off their light;
The sun shall be dark when it rises,
And the moon shall diffuse no glow.
",
"“And I will requite to the world its evil,
And to the wicked their iniquity;
I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant
And humble the haughtiness of tyrants.",
"I will make people scarcer than fine gold,
And men than gold of Ophir.”
",
"Therefore shall heaven be shaken,
And earth leap out of its place,
At the fury of the LORD of Hosts
On the day of His burning wrath.",
"Then like gazelles that are chased,
And like sheep that no man gathers,
Each man shall turn back to his people,
They shall flee every one to his land.",
"All who remain shall be pierced through,
All who are caught
Shall fall by the sword.",
"And their babes shall be dashed to pieces in their sight,
Their homes shall be plundered,
And their wives shall be raped.
",
"“Behold,
I stir up the Medes against them,
Who do not value silver
Or delight in gold.",
"Their bows shall shatter the young;
They shall show no pity to infants,
They shall not spare the children.”
",
"And Babylon, glory of kingdoms,
Proud splendor of the Chaldeans,
Shall become like Sodom and Gomorrah
Overturned by God.",
"Nevermore shall it be settled
Nor dwelt in through all the ages.
No Arab shall pitch his tent there,
No shepherds make flocks lie down there.",
"But beasts shall lie down there,
And the houses be filled with owls;
There shall ostriches make their home,
And there shall satyrs dance.",
"And jackals shall abide in its castles
And dragons in the palaces of pleasure.
Her hour is close at hand;
Her days will not be long."
],
[
"But the LORD will pardon Jacob, and will again choose Israel, and will settle them on their own soil. And strangers shall join them and shall cleave to the House of Jacob.",
"For peoples shall take them and bring them to their homeland; and the House of Israel shall possess them as slaves and handmaids on the soil of the LORD. They shall be captors of their captors and masters to their taskmasters.",
"And when the LORD has given you rest from your sorrow and trouble, and from the hard service that you were made to serve,",
"you shall recite this song of scorn over the king of Babylon:
How is the taskmaster vanished,
How is oppression ended!",
"The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked,
The rod of tyrants,",
"That smote peoples in wrath
With stroke unceasing,
That belabored nations in fury
In relentless pursuit.
",
"All the earth is calm, untroubled;
Loudly it cheers.",
"Even pines rejoice at your fate,
And cedars of Lebanon:
“Now that you have lain down,
None shall come up to fell us.”
",
"Sheol below was astir
To greet your coming—
Rousing for you the shades
Of all earth’s chieftains,
Raising from their thrones
All the kings of nations.",
"All speak up and say to you,
“So you have been stricken as we were,
You have become like us!",
"Your pomp is brought down to Sheol,
And the strains of your lutes!
Worms are to be your bed,
Maggots your blanket!”
",
"How are you fallen from heaven,
O Shining One, son of Dawn!
How are you felled to earth,
O vanquisher of nations!
",
"Once you thought in your heart,
“I will climb to the sky;
Higher than the stars of God
I will set my throne.
I will sit in the mount of assembly,
On the summit of Zaphon:",
"I will mount the back of a cloud—
I will match the Most High.”",
"Instead, you are brought down to Sheol,
To the bottom of the Pit.",
"They who behold you stare;
They peer at you closely:
“Is this the man
Who shook the earth,
Who made realms tremble,",
"Who made the world like a waste
And wrecked its towns,
Who never released his prisoners to their homes?”",
"All the kings of nations
Were laid, every one, in honor
Each in his tomb;",
"While you were left lying unburied,
Like loathsome carrion,
Like a trampled corpse
[In] the clothing of slain gashed by the sword
Who sink to the very stones of the Pit.",
"You shall not have a burial like them;
Because you destroyed your country,
Murdered your people.
Let the breed of evildoers
Nevermore be named!",
"Prepare a slaughtering block for his sons
Because of the guilt of their father.
Let them not arise to possess the earth!
Then the world’s face shall be covered with towns.
",
"I will rise up against them—declares the LORD of Hosts—and will wipe out from Babylon name and remnant, kith and kin—declares the LORD—",
"and I will make it a home of bitterns, pools of water. I will sweep it with a broom of extermination—declares the LORD of Hosts.
",
"The LORD of Hosts has sworn this oath:
“As I have designed, so shall it happen;
What I have planned, that shall come to pass:",
"To break Assyria in My land,
To crush him on My mountain.”
And his yoke shall drop off them,
And his burden shall drop from their backs.",
"That is the plan that is planned
For all the earth;
That is why an arm is poised
Over all the nations.",
"For the LORD of Hosts has planned,
Who then can foil it?
It is His arm that is poised,
And who can stay it?
",
"This pronouncement was made in the year that King Ahaz died:",
"Rejoice not, all Philistia,
Because the staff of him that beat you is broken.
For from the stock of a snake there sprouts an asp,
A flying seraph branches out from it.",
"The first-born of the poor shall graze
And the destitute lie down secure.
I will kill your stock by famine,
And it shall slay the very last of you.",
"Howl, O gate; cry out, O city;
Quake, all Philistia!
For a stout one is coming from the north
And there is no straggler in his ranks.
",
"And what will he answer the messengers of any nation?
That Zion has been established by the LORD:
In it, the needy of His people shall find shelter."
],
[
"The “Moab” Pronouncement.
Ah, in the night Ar was sacked,
Moab was ruined;
Ah, in the night Kir was sacked,
Moab was ruined.
",
"He went up to the temple to weep,
Dibon [went] to the outdoor shrines.
Over Nebo and Medeba
Moab is wailing;
On every head is baldness,
Every beard is shorn.",
"In its streets, they are girt with sackcloth;
On its roofs, in its squares,
Everyone is wailing,
Streaming with tears.",
"Heshbon and Elealeh cry out,
Their voice carries to Jahaz.
Therefore,
The shock troops of Moab shout,
His body is convulsed.",
"My heart cries out for Moab—
His fugitives flee down to Zoar,
To Eglath-shelishiyah.
For the ascent of Luhith
They ascend with weeping;
On the road to Horonaim
They raise a cry of anguish.
",
"Ah, the waters of Nimrim
Are become a desolation;
The grass is sear,
The herbage is gone,
Vegetation is vanished.
",
"Therefore,
The gains they have made, and their stores,
They carry to the Wadi of Willows.
",
"Ah, the cry has compassed
The country of Moab:
All the way to Eglaim her wailing,
Even at Beer-elim her wailing!
",
"Ah, the waters of Dimon are full of blood
For I pour added [water] on Dimon;
I drench it—for Moab’s refugees—
With soil for its remnant."
],
[
"Dispatch as messenger
The ruler of the land,
From Sela in the wilderness
To the mount of Fair Zion:",
"“Like fugitive birds,
Like nestlings driven away,
Moab’s villagers linger
By the fords of the Arnon.",
"Give advice,
Offer counsel.
At high noon make
Your shadow like night:
Conceal the outcasts,
Betray not the fugitives.",
"Let Moab’s outcasts
Find asylum in you;
Be a shelter for them
Against the despoiler.”
For violence has vanished,
Rapine is ended,
And marauders have perished from this land.",
"And a throne shall be established in goodness
In the tent of David,
And on it shall sit in faithfulness
A ruler devoted to justice
And zealous for equity.
",
"“We have heard of Moab’s pride—
Most haughty is he—
Of his pride and haughtiness and arrogance,
And of the iniquity in him.”
",
"Ah, let Moab howl;
Let all in Moab howl!
For the raisin-cakes of Kir-hareseth
You shall moan most pitifully.",
"The vineyards of Heshbon are withered,
And the vines of Sibmah;
Their tendrils spread
To Baale-goiim,
And reached to Jazer,
And strayed to the desert;
Their shoots spread out
And crossed the sea.
",
"Therefore,
As I weep for Jazer,
So I weep for Sibmah’s vines;
O Heshbon and Elealeh,
I drench you with my tears.
Ended are the shouts
Over your fig and grain harvests.",
"Rejoicing and gladness
Are gone from the farm land;
In the vineyards no shouting
Or cheering is heard.
No more does the treader
Tread wine in the presses—
The shouts have been silenced.
",
"Therefore,
Like a lyre my heart moans for Moab,
And my very soul for Kir-heres.",
"And when it has become apparent that Moab has gained nothing in the outdoor shrine, he shall come to pray in his temple—but to no avail.",
"That is the word that the LORD spoke concerning Moab long ago.",
"And now the LORD has spoken: In three years, fixed like the years of a hired laborer, Moab’s population, with all its huge multitude, shall shrink. Only a remnant shall be left, of no consequence."
],
[
"The “Damascus” Pronouncement.
Behold,
Damascus shall cease to be a city;
It shall become a heap of ruins.",
"The towns of Aroer shall be deserted;
They shall be a place for flocks
To lie down, with none disturbing.
",
"Fortresses shall cease from Ephraim,
And sovereignty from Damascus;
The remnant of Aram shall become
Like the mass of Israelites
—declares the LORD of Hosts.",
"In that day,
The mass of Jacob shall dwindle,
And the fatness of his body become lean:",
"After being like the standing grain
Harvested by the reaper—
Who reaps ears by the armful—
He shall be like the ears that are gleaned
In the Valley of Rephaim.",
"Only gleanings shall be left of him,
As when one beats an olive tree:
Two berries or three on the topmost branch,
Four or five on the boughs of the crown
—declares the LORD, the God of Israel.
",
"In that day, men shall turn to their Maker, their eyes look to the Holy One of Israel;",
"they shall not turn to the altars that their own hands made, or look to the sacred posts and incense stands that their own fingers wrought.",
"In that day, their fortress cities shall be like the deserted sites which the Horesh and the Amir abandoned because of the Israelites; and there shall be desolation.
",
"Truly, you have forgotten the God who saves you
And have not remembered the Rock who shelters you;
That is why, though you plant a delightful sapling,
What you sow proves a disappointing slip.",
"On the day that you plant, you see it grow;
On the morning you sow, you see it bud—
But the branches wither away
On a day of sickness and mortal agony.
",
"Ah, the roar of many peoples
That roar as roars the sea,
The rage of nations that rage
As rage the mighty waters—",
"Nations raging like massive waters!
But He shouts at them, and they flee far away,
Driven like chaff before winds in the hills,
And like tumbleweed before a gale.",
"At eventide, lo, terror!
By morning, it is no more.
Such is the lot of our despoilers,
The portion of them that plunder us."
],
[
"Ah,
land in the deep shadow of wings,
Beyond the rivers of Nubia!
",
"Go, swift messengers,
To a nation far and remote,
To a people thrust forth and away—
A nation of gibber and chatter—
Whose land is cut off by streams;
Which sends out envoys by sea,
In papyrus vessels upon the water!
",
"[Say this:]
“All you who live in the world
And inhabit the earth,
When a flag is raised in the hills, take note!
When a ram’s horn is blown, give heed!”",
"For thus the LORD said to me:
“I rest calm and confident in My habitation—
Like a scorching heat upon sprouts,
Like a rain-cloud in the heat of reaping time.”",
"For before the harvest, yet after the budding,
When the blossom has hardened into berries,
He will trim away the twigs with pruning hooks,
And lop off the trailing branches.",
"They shall all be left
To the kites of the hills
And to the beasts of the earth;
The kites shall summer on them
And all the beasts of the earth shall winter on them.
",
"In that time,
Tribute shall be brought to the LORD of Hosts
[From] a people far and remote,
From a people thrust forth and away—
A nation of gibber and chatter,
Whose land is cut off by streams—
At the place where the name of the LORD of Hosts abides,
At Mount Zion."
],
[
"The “Egypt” Pronouncement.
Mounted on a swift cloud,
The LORD will come to Egypt;
Egypt’s idols shall tremble before Him,
And the heart of the Egyptians shall sink within them.
",
"“I will incite Egyptian against Egyptian:
They shall war with each other,
Every man with his fellow,
City with city
And kingdom with kingdom.",
"Egypt shall be drained of spirit,
And I will confound its plans;
So they will consult the idols and the shades
And the ghosts and the familiar spirits.",
"And I will place the Egyptians
At the mercy of a harsh master,
And a ruthless king shall rule them”
—declares the Sovereign, the LORD of Hosts.
",
"Water shall fail from the seas,
Rivers dry up and be parched,",
"Channels turn foul as they ebb,
And Egypt’s canals run dry.
Reed and rush shall decay,",
"And the Nile papyrus by the Nile-side
And everything sown by the Nile
Shall wither, blow away, and vanish.",
"The fishermen shall lament;
All who cast lines in the Nile shall mourn,
And those who spread nets on the water shall languish.",
"The flax workers, too, shall be dismayed,
Both carders and weavers chagrined.",
"Her foundations shall be crushed,
And all who make dams shall be despondent.
",
"Utter fools are the nobles of Tanis;
The sagest of Pharaoh’s advisers
[Have made] absurd predictions.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
“I am a scion of sages,
A scion of Kedemite kings”?",
"Where, indeed, are your sages?
Let them tell you, let them discover
What the LORD of Hosts has planned against Egypt.",
"The nobles of Tanis have been fools,
The nobles of Memphis deluded;
Egypt has been led astray
By the chiefs of her tribes.",
"The LORD has mixed within her
A spirit of distortion,
Which shall lead Egypt astray in all her undertakings
As a vomiting drunkard goes astray;",
"Nothing shall be achieved in Egypt
By either head or tail,
Palm branch or reed.
",
"In that day, the Egyptians shall be like women, trembling and terrified because the LORD of Hosts will raise His hand against them.",
"And the land of Judah shall also be the dread of the Egyptians; they shall quake whenever anybody mentions it to them, because of what the LORD of Hosts is planning against them.",
"In that day, there shall be several towns in the land of Egypt speaking the language of Canaan and swearing loyalty to the LORD of Hosts; one shall be called Town of Heres.",
"In that day, there shall be an altar to the LORD inside the land of Egypt and a pillar to the LORD at its border.",
"They shall serve as a symbol and reminder of the LORD of Hosts in the land of Egypt, so that when [the Egyptians] cry out to the LORD against oppressors, He will send them a savior and champion to deliver them.",
"For the LORD will make Himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians shall acknowledge the LORD in that day, and they shall serve [Him] with sacrifice and oblation and shall make vows to the LORD and fulfill them.",
"The LORD will first afflict and then heal the Egyptians; when they turn back to the LORD, He will respond to their entreaties and heal them.",
"In that day, there shall be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians shall join with the Egyptians and Egyptians with the Assyrians, and then the Egyptians together with the Assyrians shall serve [the LORD].
",
"In that day, Israel shall be a third partner with Egypt and Assyria as a blessing on earth;",
"for the LORD of Hosts will bless them, saying, “Blessed be My people Egypt, My handiwork Assyria, and My very own Israel.”"
],
[
"It was the year that the Tartan came to Ashdod—being sent by King Sargon of Assyria—and attacked Ashdod and took it.",
"Previously, the LORD had spoken to Isaiah son of Amoz, saying, “Go, untie the sackcloth from your loins and take your sandals off your feet,” which he had done, going naked and barefoot.",
"And now the LORD said, “It is a sign and a portent for Egypt and Nubia. Just as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot for three years,",
"so shall the king of Assyria drive off the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Nubia, young and old, naked and barefoot and with bared buttocks—to the shame of Egypt!",
"And they shall be dismayed and chagrined because of Nubia their hope and Egypt their boast.",
"In that day, the dwellers of this coastland shall say, ‘If this could happen to those we looked to, to whom we fled for help and rescue from the king of Assyria, how can we ourselves escape?’”"
],
[
"The “Desert of the Sea” Pronouncement.
Like the gales
That race through the Negeb,
It comes from the desert,
The terrible land.",
"A harsh prophecy
Has been announced to me:
“The betrayer is betraying,
The ravager ravaging.
Advance, Elam!
Lay siege, Media!
I have put an end
To all her sighing.”
",
"Therefore my loins
Are seized with trembling;
I am gripped by pangs
Like a woman in travail,
Too anguished to hear,
Too frightened to see.",
"My mind is confused,
I shudder in panic.
My night of pleasure
He has turned to terror:",
"“Set the table!”
To “Let the watchman watch!”
“Eat and drink!”
To “Up, officers! Grease the shields!”
",
"For thus my Lord said to me:
“Go, set up a sentry;
Let him announce what he sees.",
"He will see mounted men,
Horsemen in pairs—
Riders on asses,
Riders on camels—
And he will listen closely,
Most attentively.”",
"And [like] a lion he called out:
“On my Lord’s lookout I stand
Ever by day,
And at my post I watch
Every night.",
"And there they come, mounted men—
Horsemen in pairs!”
Then he spoke up and said,
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon,
And all the images of her gods
Have crashed to the ground!”",
"My threshing, the product of my threshing floor:
What I have heard from the LORD of Hosts,
The God of Israel—
That I have told to you.
",
"The “Dumah” Pronouncement.
A call comes to me from Seir:
“Watchman, what of the night?
Watchman, what of the night?”",
"The watchman replied,
“Morning came, and so did night.
If you would inquire, inquire.
Come back again.”
",
"The “In the Steppe” Pronouncement.
In the scrub, in the steppe, you will lodge,
O caravans of the Dedanites!",
"Meet the thirsty with water,
You who dwell in the land of Tema;
Greet the fugitive with bread.",
"For they have fled before swords:
Before the whetted sword,
Before the bow that was drawn,
Before the stress of war.
",
"For thus my Lord has said to me: “In another year, fixed like the years of a hired laborer, all the multitude of Kedar shall vanish;",
"the remaining bows of Kedar’s warriors shall be few in number; for the LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken."
],
[
"The “Valley of Vision” Pronouncement.
What can have happened to you
That you have gone, all of you, up on the roofs,",
"O you who were full of tumult,
You clamorous town,
You city so gay?
Your slain are not the slain of the sword
Nor the dead of battle.",
"Your officers have all departed,
They fled far away;
Your survivors were all taken captive,
Taken captive without their bows.",
"That is why I say, “Let me be,
I will weep bitterly.
Press not to comfort me
For the ruin of my poor people.”
",
"For my Lord GOD of Hosts had a day
Of tumult and din and confusion—
Kir raged in the Valley of Vision,
And Shoa on the hill;",
"While Elam bore the quiver
In troops of mounted men,
And Kir bared the shield—",
"And your choicest lowlands
Were filled with chariots and horsemen:
They stormed at Judah’s gateway",
"And pressed beyond its screen.
You gave thought on that day
To the arms in the Forest House,",
"And you took note of the many breaches
In the City of David.
And you collected the water of the Lower Pool;",
"and you counted the houses of Jerusalem and pulled houses down to fortify the wall;",
"and you constructed a basin between the two walls for the water of the old pool.
But you gave no thought to Him who planned it,
You took no note of Him who designed it long before.",
"My Lord GOD of Hosts summoned on that day
To weeping and lamenting,
To tonsuring and girding with sackcloth.",
"Instead, there was rejoicing and merriment,
Killing of cattle and slaughtering of sheep,
Eating of meat and drinking of wine:
“Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”",
"Then the LORD of Hosts revealed Himself to my ears:
“This iniquity shall never be forgiven you
Until you die,” said my Lord GOD of Hosts.
",
"Thus said my Lord GOD of Hosts: Go in to see that steward, that Shebna, in charge of the palace:",
"What have you here, and whom have you here,
That you have hewn out a tomb for yourself here?—
O you who have hewn your tomb on high;
O you who have hollowed out for yourself an abode in the cliff!",
"The LORD is about to shake you
Severely, fellow, and then wrap you around Himself.",
"Indeed, He will wind you about Him as a headdress, a turban.
Off to a broad land!
There shall you die, and there shall be the chariots bearing your body,
O shame of your master’s house!",
"For I will hurl you from your station
And you shall be torn down from your stand.
",
"And in that day, I will summon My servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah,",
"and I will invest him with your tunic, gird him with your sash, and deliver your authority into his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah.",
"I will place the keys of David’s palace on his shoulders; and what he unlocks none may shut, and what he locks none may open.",
"He shall be a seat of honor to his father’s household. I will fix him as a peg in a firm place,",
"on which all the substance of his father’s household shall be hung: the sprouts and the leaves—all the small vessels, from bowls to all sorts of jars.",
"In that day—declares the LORD of Hosts—the peg fixed in a firm place shall give way: it shall be cut down and shall fall, and the weight it supports shall be destroyed. For it is the LORD who has spoken."
],
[
"The “Tyre” Pronouncement.
Howl, you ships of Tarshish!
For havoc has been wrought, not a house is left;
As they came from the land of Kittim,
This was revealed to them.
",
"Moan, you coastland dwellers,
You traders of Sidon,
Once thronged by seafarers,",
"Over many waters
Your revenue came:
From the trade of nations,
From the grain of Shihor,
The harvest of the Nile.",
"Be ashamed, O Sidon!
For the sea—this stronghold of the sea—declares,
“I am as one who has never labored,
Never given birth,
Never raised youths
Or reared maidens!”",
"When the Egyptians heard it, they quailed
As when they heard about Tyre.
",
"Pass on to Tarshish—
Howl, you coastland dwellers!",
"Was such your merry city
In former times, of yore?
Did her feet carry her off
To sojourn far away?",
"Who was it that planned this
For crown-wearing Tyre,
Whose merchants were nobles,
Whose traders the world honored?",
"The LORD of Hosts planned it—
To defile all glorious beauty,
To shame all the honored of the world.
",
"Traverse your land like the Nile,
Fair Tarshish;
This is a harbor no more.
",
"The LORD poised His arm o’er the sea
And made kingdoms quake;
It was He decreed destruction
For Phoenicia’s strongholds,",
"And said,
“You shall be gay no more,
O plundered one, Fair Maiden Sidon.
Up, cross over to Kittim—
Even there you shall have no rest.”
",
"Behold the land of Chaldea—
This is the people that has ceased to be.
Assyria, which founded it for ships,
Which raised its watchtowers,
Erected its ramparts,
Has turned it into a ruin.
",
"Howl, O ships of Tarshish,
For your stronghold is destroyed!
",
"In that day, Tyre shall remain forgotten for seventy years, equaling the lifetime of one king. After a lapse of seventy years, it shall go with Tyre as with the harlot in the ditty:
",
"Take a lyre, go about the town,
Harlot long forgotten;
Sweetly play, make much music,
To bring you back to mind.
",
"For after a lapse of seventy years, the LORD will take note of Tyre, and she shall resume her “fee-taking” and “play the harlot” with all the kingdoms of the world, on the face of the earth.",
"But her profits and “hire” shall be consecrated to the LORD. They shall not be treasured or stored; rather shall her profits go to those who abide before the LORD, that they may eat their fill and clothe themselves elegantly."
],
[
"Behold,
The LORD will strip the earth bare,
And lay it waste,
And twist its surface,
And scatter its inhabitants.",
"Layman and priest shall fare alike,
Slave and master,
Handmaid and mistress,
Buyer and seller,
Lender and borrower,
Creditor and debtor.",
"The earth shall be bare, bare;
It shall be plundered, plundered;
For it is the LORD who spoke this word.
",
"The earth is withered, sear;
The world languishes, it is sear;
The most exalted people of the earth languish.",
"For the earth was defiled
Under its inhabitants;
Because they transgressed teachings,
Violated laws,
Broke the ancient covenant.",
"That is why a curse consumes the earth,
And its inhabitants pay the penalty;
That is why earth’s dwellers have dwindled,
And but few men are left.",
"The new wine fails,
The vine languishes;
And all the merry-hearted sigh.",
"Stilled is the merriment of timbrels,
Ended the clamor of revelers,
Stilled the merriment of lyres.",
"They drink their wine without song;
Liquor tastes bitter to the drinker.",
"Towns are broken, empty;
Every house is shut, none enters;",
"Even over wine, a cry goes up in the streets:
The sun has set on all joy,
The gladness of the earth is banished.",
"Desolation is left in the town
And the gate is battered to ruins.",
"For thus shall it be among the peoples
In the midst of the earth:
As when the olive tree is beaten out,
Like gleanings when the vintage is over.
",
"These shall lift up their voices,
Exult in the majesty of the LORD.
They shall shout from the sea:",
"Therefore, honor the LORD with lights
In the coastlands of the sea—
The name of the LORD, the God of Israel.",
"From the end of the earth
We hear singing:
Glory to the righteous!
And I said:
I waste away! I waste away! Woe is me!
The faithless have acted faithlessly;
The faithless have broken faith!
",
"Terror, and pit, and trap
Upon you who dwell on earth!",
"He who flees at the report of the terror
Shall fall into the pit;
And he who climbs out of the pit
Shall be caught in the trap.
For sluices are opened on high,
And earth’s foundations tremble.
",
"The earth is breaking, breaking;
The earth is crumbling, crumbling.
The earth is tottering, tottering;",
"The earth is swaying like a drunkard;
It is rocking to and fro like a hut.
Its iniquity shall weigh it down,
And it shall fall, to rise no more.
",
"In that day, the LORD will punish
The host of heaven in heaven
And the kings of the earth on earth.",
"They shall be gathered in a dungeon
As captives are gathered;
And shall be locked up in a prison.
But after many days they shall be remembered.
",
"Then the moon shall be ashamed,
And the sun shall be abashed.
For the LORD of Hosts will reign
On Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
And the Presence will be revealed to His elders."
],
[
"O LORD, You are my God;
I will extol You, I will praise Your name.
For You planned graciousness of old,
Counsels of steadfast faithfulness.
",
"For You have turned a city into a stone heap,
A walled town into a ruin,
The citadel of strangers into rubble,
Never to be rebuilt.",
"Therefore a fierce people must honor You,
A city of cruel nations must fear You.",
"For You have been a refuge for the poor man,
A shelter for the needy man in his distress—
Shelter from rainstorm, shade from heat.
When the fury of tyrants was like a winter rainstorm,",
"The rage of strangers like heat in the desert,
You subdued the heat with the shade of clouds,
The singing of the tyrants was vanquished.
",
"The LORD of Hosts will make on this mount
For all the peoples
A banquet of rich viands,
A banquet of choice wines—
Of rich viands seasoned with marrow,
Of choice wines well refined.",
"And He will destroy on this mount the shroud
That is drawn over the faces of all the peoples
And the covering that is spread
Over all the nations:",
"He will destroy death forever.
My Lord GOD will wipe the tears away
From all faces
And will put an end to the reproach of His people
Over all the earth—
For it is the LORD who has spoken.
",
"In that day they shall say:
This is our God;
We trusted in Him, and He delivered us.
This is the LORD, in whom we trusted;
Let us rejoice and exult in His deliverance!
",
"For the hand of the LORD shall descend
Upon this mount,
And Moab shall be trampled under Him
As straw is threshed to bits at Madmenah.",
"Then He will spread out His hands in their homeland,
As a swimmer spreads his hands out to swim,
And He will humble their pride
Along with the emblems of their power.",
"Yea, the secure fortification of their walls
He will lay low and humble,
Will raze to the ground, to the very dust."
],
[
"In that day, this song shall be sung
In the land of Judah:
Ours is a mighty city;
He makes victory our inner and outer wall.",
"Open the gates, and let
A righteous nation enter,
[A nation] that keeps faith.",
"The confident mind You guard in safety,
In safety because it trusts in You.
",
"Trust in the LORD for ever and ever,
For in Yah the LORD you have an everlasting Rock.",
"For He has brought low those who dwelt high up,
Has humbled the secure city,
Humbled it to the ground,
Leveled it with the dust—",
"To be trampled underfoot,
By the feet of the needy,
By the soles of the poor.",
"The path is level for the righteous man;
O Just One, You make smooth the course of the righteous.
",
"For Your just ways, O LORD, we look to You;
We long for the name by which You are called.",
"At night I yearn for You with all my being,
I seek You with all the spirit within me.
For when Your judgments are wrought on earth,
The inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.",
"But when the scoundrel is spared, he learns not righteousness;
In a place of integrity, he does wrong—
He ignores the majesty of the LORD.
",
"O LORD!
They see not Your hand exalted.
Let them be shamed as they behold
Your zeal for Your people
And fire consuming Your adversaries.",
"O LORD!
May You appoint well-being for us,
Since You have also requited all our misdeeds.
",
"O LORD our God!
Lords other than You possessed us,
But only Your name shall we utter.",
"They are dead, they can never live;
Shades, they can never rise;
Of a truth, You have dealt with them and wiped them out,
Have put an end to all mention of them.",
"When You added to the nation, O LORD,
When You added to the nation,
Extending all the boundaries of the land,
You were honored.",
"O LORD! In their distress, they sought You;
Your chastisement reduced them
To anguished whispered prayer.",
"Like a woman with child
Approaching childbirth,
Writhing and screaming in her pangs,
So are we become because of You, O LORD.",
"We were with child, we writhed—
It is as though we had given birth to wind;
We have won no victory on earth;
The inhabitants of the world have not come to life!",
"Oh, let Your dead revive!
Let corpses arise!
Awake and shout for joy,
You who dwell in the dust!—
For Your dew is like the dew on fresh growth;
You make the land of the shades come to life.
",
"Go, my people, enter your chambers,
And lock your doors behind you.
Hide but a little moment,
Until the indignation passes.",
"For lo!
The LORD shall come forth from His place
To punish the dwellers of the earth
For their iniquity;
And the earth shall disclose its bloodshed
And shall no longer conceal its slain."
],
[
"In that day the LORD will punish,
With His great, cruel, mighty sword
Leviathan the Elusive Serpent—
Leviathan the Twisting Serpent;
He will slay the Dragon of the sea.
",
"In that day,
They shall sing of it:
“Vineyard of Delight.”",
"I the LORD keep watch over it,
I water it every moment;
That no harm may befall it,
I watch it night and day.",
"There is no anger in Me:
If one offers Me thorns and thistles,
I will march to battle against him,
And set all of them on fire.",
"But if he holds fast to My refuge,
He makes Me his friend;
He makes Me his friend.
",
"[In days] to come Jacob shall strike root,
Israel shall sprout and blossom,
And the face of the world
Shall be covered with fruit.
",
"Was he beaten as his beater has been?
Did he suffer such slaughter as his slayers?",
"Assailing them with fury unchained,
His pitiless blast bore them off
On a day of gale.
",
"Assuredly, by this alone
Shall Jacob’s sin be purged away;
This is the only price
For removing his guilt:
That he make all the altar-stones
Like shattered blocks of chalk—
With no sacred post left standing,
Nor any incense altar.",
"Thus fortified cities lie desolate,
Homesteads deserted, forsaken like a wilderness;
There calves graze, there they lie down
And consume its boughs.",
"When its crown is withered, they break;
Women come and make fires with them.
For they are a people without understanding;
That is why
Their Maker will show them no mercy,
Their Creator will deny them grace.
",
"And in that day, the LORD will beat out [the peoples like grain] from the channel of the Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt; and you shall be picked up one by one, O children of Israel!",
"And in that day, a great ram’s horn shall be sounded; and the strayed who are in the land of Assyria and the expelled who are in the land of Egypt shall come and worship the LORD on the holy mount, in Jerusalem."
],
[
"Ah, the proud crowns of the drunkards of Ephraim,
Whose glorious beauty is but wilted flowers
On the heads of men bloated with rich food,
Who are overcome by wine!
",
"Lo, my Lord has something strong and mighty,
Like a storm of hail,
A shower of pestilence.
Something like a storm of massive, torrential rain
Shall be hurled with force to the ground.",
"Trampled underfoot shall be
The proud crowns of the drunkards of Ephraim,",
"The wilted flowers—
On the heads of men bloated with rich food—
That are his glorious beauty.
They shall be like an early fig
Before the fruit harvest;
Whoever sees it devours it
While it is still in his hand.
",
"In that day, the LORD of Hosts shall become a crown of beauty and a diadem of glory for the remnant of His people,",
"and a spirit of judgment for him who sits in judgment and of valor for those who repel attacks at the gate.
",
"But these are also muddled by wine
And dazed by liquor:
Priest and prophet
Are muddled by liquor;
They are confused by wine,
They are dazed by liquor;
They are muddled in their visions,
They stumble in judgment.",
"Yea, all tables are covered
With vomit and filth,
So that no space is left.
",
"“To whom would he give instruction?
To whom expound a message?
To those newly weaned from milk,
Just taken away from the breast?",
"That same mutter upon mutter,
Murmur upon murmur,
Now here, now there!”
",
"Truly, as one who speaks to that people in a stammering jargon and an alien tongue",
"is he who declares to them, “This is the resting place, let the weary rest; this is the place of re
pose.” They refuse to listen.",
"To them the word of the LORD is:
“Mutter upon mutter,
Murmur upon murmur,
Now here, now there.”
And so they will march,
But they shall fall backward,
And be injured and snared and captured.
",
"Hear now the word of the LORD,
You men of mockery,
Who govern that people
In Jerusalem!",
"For you have said,
“We have made a covenant with Death,
Concluded a pact with Sheol.
When the sweeping flood passes through,
It shall not reach us;
For we have made falsehood our refuge,
Taken shelter in treachery.”",
"Assuredly,
Thus said the Lord GOD:
“Behold, I will found in Zion,
Stone by stone,
A tower of precious cornerstones,
Exceedingly firm;
He who trusts need not fear.",
"But I will apply judgment as a measuring line
And retribution as weights;
Hail shall sweep away the refuge of falsehood,
And flood-waters engulf your shelter.",
"Your covenant with Death shall be annulled,
Your pact with Sheol shall not endure;
When the sweeping flood passes through,
You shall be its victims.",
"It shall catch you
Every time it passes through;
It shall pass through every morning,
Every day and every night.
And it shall be sheer horror
To grasp the message.”
",
"The couch is too short for stretching out,
And the cover too narrow for curling up!
",
"For the LORD will arise
As on the hill of Perazim,
He will rouse Himself
As in the vale of Gibeon,
To do His work—
Strange is His work!
And to perform His task—
Astounding is His task!",
"Therefore, refrain from mockery,
Lest your bonds be tightened.
For I have heard a decree of destruction
From my Lord GOD of Hosts
Against all the land.
",
"Give diligent ear to my words,
Attend carefully to what I say.",
"Does he who plows to sow
Plow all the time,
Breaking up and furrowing his land?",
"When he has smoothed its surface,
Does he not rather broadcast black cumin
And scatter cumin,
Or set wheat in a row,
Barley in a strip,
And emmer in a patch?",
"For He teaches him the right manner,
His God instructs him.",
"So, too, black cumin is not threshed with a threshing board,
Nor is the wheel of a threshing sledge rolled over cumin;
But black cumin is beaten out with a stick
And cumin with a rod.",
"It is cereal that is crushed.
For even if he threshes it thoroughly,
And the wheel of his sledge and his horses overwhelm it,
He does not crush it.",
"That, too, is ordered by the LORD of Hosts;
His counsel is unfathomable,
His wisdom marvelous."
],
[
"“Ah, Ariel, Ariel,
City where David camped!
Add year to year,
Let festivals come in their cycles!",
"And I will harass Ariel,
And there shall be sorrow and sighing.
She shall be to Me like Ariel.",
"And I will camp against you round about;
I will lay siege to you with a mound,
And I will set up siegeworks against you.",
"And you shall speak from lower than the ground,
Your speech shall be humbler than the sod;
Your speech shall sound like a ghost’s from the ground,
Your voice shall chirp from the sod.",
"And like fine dust shall be
The multitude of your strangers;
And like flying chaff,
The multitude of tyrants.”
And suddenly, in an instant,",
"She shall be remembered of the LORD of Hosts
With roaring, and shaking, and deafening noise,
Storm, and tempest, and blaze of consuming fire.",
"Then, like a dream, a vision of the night,
Shall be the multitude of nations
That war upon Ariel,
And all her besiegers, and the siegeworks against her,
And those who harass her.",
"Like one who is hungry
And dreams he is eating,
But wakes to find himself empty;
And like one who is thirsty
And dreams he is drinking,
But wakes to find himself faint
And utterly parched—
So shall be all the multitude of nations
That war upon Mount Zion.
",
"Act stupid and be stupefied!
Act blind and be blinded!
(They are drunk, but not from wine,
They stagger, but not from liquor.)",
"For the LORD has spread over you
A spirit of deep sleep,
And has shut your eyes, the prophets,
And covered your heads, the seers;",
"So that all prophecy has been to you
Like the words of a sealed document.
If it is handed to one who can read and he is asked to read it, he will say, “I can’t, because it is sealed”;",
"and if the document is handed to one who cannot read and he is asked to read it, he will say, “I can’t read.”
",
"My Lord said:
Because that people has approached [Me] with its mouth
And honored Me with its lips,
But has kept its heart far from Me,
And its worship of Me has been
A commandment of men, learned by rote—",
"Truly, I shall further baffle that people
With bafflement upon bafflement;
And the wisdom of its wise shall fail,
And the prudence of its prudent shall vanish.
",
"Ha! Those who would hide their plans
Deep from the LORD!
Who do their work in dark places
And say, “Who sees us, who takes note of us?”",
"How perverse of you!
Should the potter be accounted as the clay?
Should what is made say of its Maker,
“He did not make me,”
And what is formed say of Him who formed it,
“He did not understand”?",
"Surely, in a little while,
Lebanon will be transformed into farm land,
And farm land accounted as mere brush.",
"In that day, the deaf shall hear even written words,
And the eyes of the blind shall see
Even in darkness and obscurity.",
"Then the humble shall have increasing joy through the LORD,
And the neediest of men shall exult
In the Holy One of Israel.",
"For the tyrant shall be no more,
The scoffer shall cease to be;
And those diligent for evil shall be wiped out,",
"Who cause men to lose their lawsuits,
Laying a snare for the arbiter at the gate,
And wronging by falsehood
Him who was in the right.
",
"Assuredly, thus said the LORD to the House of Jacob, Who redeemed Abraham:
No more shall Jacob be shamed,
No longer his face grow pale.
",
"For when he—that is, his children—behold what My hands have wrought in his midst, they will hallow My name.
Men will hallow the Holy One of Jacob
And stand in awe of the God of Israel.",
"And the confused shall acquire insight
And grumblers accept instruction."
],
[
"Oh, disloyal sons!
—declares the LORD—
Making plans
Against My wishes,
Weaving schemes
Against My will,
Thereby piling
Guilt on guilt—",
"Who set out to go down to Egypt
Without asking Me,
To seek refuge with Pharaoh,
To seek shelter under the protection of Egypt.
",
"The refuge with Pharaoh shall result in your shame;
The shelter under Egypt’s protection, in your chagrin.",
"Though his officers are present in Zoan,
And his messengers reach as far as Hanes,",
"They all shall come to shame
Because of a people that does not avail them,
That is of no help or avail,
But [brings] only chagrin and disgrace.
",
"The “Beasts of the Negeb” Pronouncement.
Through a land of distress and hardship,
Of lion and roaring king-beast,
Of viper and flying seraph,
They convey their wealth on the backs of asses,
Their treasures on camels’ humps,
To a people of no avail.",
"For the help of Egypt
Shall be vain and empty.
Truly, I call this,
“They are a threat that has ceased.”
",
"Now,
Go, write it down on a tablet
And inscribe it in a record,
That it may be with them for future days,
A witness forever.",
"For it is a rebellious people,
Faithless children,
Children who refused to heed
The instruction of the LORD;",
"Who said to the seers,
“Do not see,”
To the prophets, “Do not prophesy truth to us;
Speak to us falsehoods,
Prophesy delusions.",
"Leave the way!
Get off the path!
Let us hear no more
About the Holy One of Israel!”
",
"Assuredly,
Thus said the Holy One of Israel:
Because you have rejected this word,
And have put your trust and reliance
In that which is fraudulent and tortuous—",
"Of a surety,
This iniquity shall work on you
Like a spreading breach that occurs in a lofty wall,
Whose crash comes sudden and swift.",
"It is smashed as one smashes an earthen jug,
Ruthlessly shattered
So that no shard is left in its breakage
To scoop coals from a brazier,
Or ladle water from a puddle.
",
"For thus said my Lord GOD,
The Holy One of Israel,
“You shall triumph by stillness and quiet;
Your victory shall come about
Through calm and confidence.”
But you refused.",
"“No,” you declared.
“We shall flee on steeds”—
Therefore you shall flee!
“We shall ride on swift mounts”—
Therefore your pursuers shall prove swift!",
"One thousand before the shout of one—
You shall flee at the shout of five;
Till what is left of you
Is like a mast on a hilltop,
Like a pole upon a mountain.
",
"Truly, the LORD is waiting to show you grace,
Truly, He will arise to pardon you.
For the LORD is a God of justice;
Happy are all who wait for Him.
",
"Indeed, O people in Zion, dwellers of Jerusalem, you shall not have cause to weep. He will grant you His favor at the sound of your cry; He will respond as soon as He hears it.",
"My Lord will provide for you meager bread and scant water. Then your Guide will no more be ignored, but your eyes will watch your Guide;",
"and, whenever you deviate to the right or to the left, your ears will heed the command from behind you: “This is the road; follow it!”",
"And you will treat as unclean the silver overlay of your images and the golden plating of your idols. You will cast them away like a menstruous woman. “Out!” you will call to them.",
"So rain shall be provided for the seed with which you sow the ground, and the bread that the ground brings forth shall be rich and fat. Your livestock, in that day, shall graze in broad pastures;",
"as for the cattle and the asses that till the soil, they shall partake of salted fodder that has been winnowed with shovel and fan.",
"And on every high mountain and on every lofty hill, there shall appear brooks and watercourses—on a day of heavy slaughter, when towers topple.",
"And the light of the moon shall become like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall become sevenfold, like the light of the seven days, when the LORD binds up His people’s wounds and heals the injuries it has suffered.",
"Behold the LORD Himself
Comes from afar
In blazing wrath,
With a heavy burden—
His lips full of fury,
His tongue like devouring fire,",
"And his breath like a raging torrent
Reaching halfway up the neck—
To set a misguiding yoke upon nations
And a misleading bridle upon the jaws of peoples,
",
"For you, there shall be singing
As on a night when a festival is hallowed;
There shall be rejoicing as when they march
With flute, with timbrels, and with lyres
To the Rock of Israel on the Mount of the LORD.
",
"For the LORD will make His majestic voice heard
And display the sweep of His arm
In raging wrath,
In a devouring blaze of fire,
In tempest, and rainstorm, and hailstones.",
"Truly, Assyria, who beats with the rod,
Shall be cowed by the voice of the LORD;",
"And each time the appointed staff passes by,
The LORD will bring down [His arm] upon him
And will do battle with him as he waves it.",
"The Topheth has long been ready for him;
He too is destined for Melech—
His firepit has been made both wide and deep,
With plenty of fire and firewood,
And with the breath of the LORD
Burning in it like a stream of sulfur."
],
[
"Ha!
Those who go down to Egypt for help
And rely upon horses!
They have put their trust in abundance of chariots,
In vast numbers of riders,
And they have not turned to the Holy One of Israel,
They have not sought the LORD.
",
"But He too is wise!
He has brought on misfortune,
And has not canceled His word.
So He shall rise against the house of evildoers,
And the allies of the workers of iniquity.",
"For the Egyptians are man, not God,
And their horses are flesh, not spirit;
And when the LORD stretches out His arm,
The helper shall trip
And the helped one shall fall,
And both shall perish together.
",
"For thus the LORD has said to me:
As a lion—a great beast—
Growls over its prey
And, when the shepherds gather
In force against him,
Is not dismayed by their cries
Nor cowed by their noise—
So the LORD of Hosts will descend to make war
Against the mount and the hill of Zion.
",
"Like the birds that fly, even so will the LORD of Hosts shield Jerusalem, shielding and saving, protecting and rescuing.",
"Return, O children of Israel, to Him to whom they have been so shamefully false;",
"for in that day everyone will reject his idols of silver and idols of gold, which your hands have made for your guilt.
",
"Then Assyria shall fall,
Not by the sword of man;
A sword not of humans shall devour him.
He shall shrivel before the sword,
And his young men pine away.",
"His rock shall melt with terror,
And his officers shall collapse from weakness—
Declares the LORD, who has a fire in Zion,
Who has an oven in Jerusalem."
],
[
"Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness,
And ministers shall govern with justice;",
"Every one of them shall be
Like a refuge from gales,
A shelter from rainstorms;
Like brooks of water in a desert,
Like the shade of a massive rock
In a languishing land.
",
"Then the eyes of those who have sight shall not be sealed,
And the ears of those who have hearing shall listen;",
"And the minds of the thoughtless shall attend and note,
And the tongues of mumblers shall speak with fluent eloquence.",
"No more shall a villain be called noble,
Nor shall “gentleman” be said of a knave.",
"For the villain speaks villainy
And plots treachery;
To act impiously
And to preach disloyalty against the LORD;
To leave the hungry unsatisfied
And deprive the thirsty of drink.",
"As for the knave, his tools are knavish.
He forges plots
To destroy the poor with falsehoods
And the needy when they plead their cause.",
"But the noble has noble intentions
And is constant in noble acts.
",
"You carefree women,
Attend, hear my words!
You confident ladies,
Give ear to my speech!",
"In little more than a year,
You shall be troubled, O confident ones,
When the vintage is over
And no ingathering takes place.",
"Tremble, you carefree ones!
Quake, O confident ones!
Strip yourselves naked,
Put the cloth about your loins!",
"Lament upon the breasts,
For the pleasant fields,
For the spreading grapevines,",
"For my people’s soil—
It shall be overgrown with briers and thistles—
Aye, and for all the houses of delight,
For the city of mirth.",
"For the castle shall be abandoned,
The noisy city forsaken;
Citadel and tower shall become
Bare places forever,
A stamping ground for wild asses,
A pasture for flocks—",
"Till a spirit from on high is poured out on us,
And wilderness is transformed into farm land,
While farm land rates as mere brush.",
"Then justice shall abide in the wilderness
And righteousness shall dwell on the farm land.",
"For the work of righteousness shall be peace,
And the effect of righteousness, calm and confidence forever.",
"Then my people shall dwell in peaceful homes,
In secure dwellings,
In untroubled places of rest.",
"And the brush shall sink and vanish,
Even as the city is laid low.
",
"Happy shall you be who sow by all waters,
Who send out cattle and asses to pasture."
],
[
"Ha, you ravager who are not ravaged,
You betrayer who have not been betrayed!
When you have done ravaging, you shall be ravaged;
When you have finished betraying, you shall be betrayed.
",
"O LORD, be gracious to us!
It is to You we have looked;
Be their arm every morning,
Also our deliverance in time of stress.",
"At [Your] roaring, peoples have fled,
Before Your majesty nations have scattered;",
"And spoil was gathered as locusts are gathered,
It was amassed as grasshoppers are amassed.
",
"The LORD is exalted,
He dwells on high!
[Of old] He filled Zion
With justice and righteousness.",
"Faithfulness to Your charge was [her] wealth,
Wisdom and devotion [her] triumph,
Reverence for the LORD—that was her treasure.
",
"Hark! The Arielites cry aloud;
Shalom’s messengers weep bitterly.",
"Highways are desolate,
Wayfarers have ceased.
A covenant has been renounced,
Cities rejected
Mortal man despised.",
"The land is wilted and withered;
Lebanon disgraced and moldering,
Sharon is become like a desert,
And Bashan and Carmel are stripped bare.",
"“Now I will arise,” says the LORD,
“Now I will exalt Myself, now raise Myself high.",
"You shall conceive hay,
Give birth to straw;
My breath will devour you like fire.",
"Peoples shall be burnings of lime,
Thorns cut down that are set on fire.",
"Hear, you who are far, what I have done;
You who are near, note My might.”
",
"Sinners in Zion are frightened,
The godless are seized with trembling:
“Who of us can dwell with the devouring fire:
Who of us can dwell with the never-dying blaze?”",
"He who walks in righteousness,
Speaks uprightly,
Spurns profit from fraudulent dealings,
Waves away a bribe instead of grasping it,
Stops his ears against listening to infamy,
Shuts his eyes against looking at evil—",
"Such a one shall dwell in lofty security,
With inaccessible cliffs for his stronghold,
With his food supplied
And his drink assured.
",
"When your eyes behold a king in his beauty,
When they contemplate the land round about,",
"Your throat shall murmur in awe,
“Where is one who could count? Where is one who could weigh?
Where is one who could count [all these] towers?”",
"No more shall you see the barbarian folk,
The people of speech too obscure to comprehend,
So stammering of tongue that they are not understood.",
"When you gaze upon Zion, our city of assembly,
Your eyes shall behold Jerusalem
As a secure homestead,
A tent not to be transported,
Whose pegs shall never be pulled up,
And none of whose ropes shall break.",
"For there the LORD in His greatness shall be for us
Like a region of rivers, of broad streams,
Where no floating vessels can sail
And no mighty craft can travel—
Their ropes are slack,
They cannot steady the sockets of their masts,
They cannot spread a sail.",
"For the LORD shall be our ruler,
The LORD shall be our prince,
The LORD shall be our king:
He shall deliver us.",
"Then shall indeed much spoil be divided,
Even the lame shall seize booty.",
"And none who lives there shall say, “I am sick”;
It shall be inhabited by folk whose sin has been forgiven."
],
[
"Approach, O nations, and listen,
Give heed, O peoples!
Let the earth and those in it hear;
The world, and what it brings forth.",
"For the LORD is angry at all the nations,
Furious at all their host;
He has doomed them, consigned them to slaughter.",
"Their slain shall be left lying,
And the stench of their corpses shall mount;
And the hills shall be drenched with their blood,",
"All the host of heaven shall molder.
The heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll,
And all their host shall wither
Like a leaf withering on the vine,
Or shriveled fruit on a fig tree.
",
"For My sword shall be drunk in the sky;
Lo, it shall come down upon Edom,
Upon the people I have doomed,
To wreak judgment.",
"The LORD has a sword; it is sated with blood,
It is gorged with fat—
The blood of lambs and he-goats,
The kidney fat of rams.
For the LORD holds a sacrifice in Bozrah,
A great slaughter in the land of Edom.",
"Wild oxen shall fall with them,
Young bulls with mighty steers;
And their land shall be drunk with blood,
Their soil shall be saturated with fat.",
"For it is the LORD’s day of retribution,
The year of vindication for Zion’s cause.",
"Its streams shall be turned to pitch
And its soil to sulfur.
Its land shall become burning pitch,",
"Night and day it shall never go out;
Its smoke shall rise for all time.
Through the ages it shall lie in ruins;
Through the aeons none shall traverse it.",
"Jackdaws and owls shall possess it;
Great owls and ravens shall dwell there.
He shall measure it with a line of chaos
And with weights of emptiness.",
"It shall be called, “No kingdom is there,”
Its nobles and all its lords shall be nothing.",
"Thorns shall grow up in its palaces,
Nettles and briers in its strongholds.
It shall be a home of jackals,
An abode of ostriches.",
"Wildcats shall meet hyenas,
Goat-demons shall greet each other;
There too the lilith shall repose
And find herself a resting place.",
"There the arrow-snake shall nest and lay eggs,
And shall brood and hatch in its shade.
There too the buzzards shall gather
With one another.",
"Search and read it in the scroll of the LORD:
Not one of these shall be absent,
Not one shall miss its fellow.
For His mouth has spoken,
It is His spirit that has assembled them,",
"And it is He who apportioned it to them by lot,
Whose hand divided it for them with the line.
They shall possess it for all time,
They shall dwell there through the ages."
],
[
"The arid desert shall be glad,
The wilderness shall rejoice
And shall blossom like a rose.",
"It shall blossom abundantly,
It shall also exult and shout.
It shall receive the glory of Lebanon,
The splendor of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall behold the glory of the LORD,
The splendor of our God.
",
"Strengthen the hands that are slack;
Make firm the tottering knees!",
"Say to the anxious of heart,
“Be strong, fear not;
Behold your God!
Requital is coming,
The recompense of God—
He Himself is coming to give you triumph.”
",
"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.",
"Then the lame shall leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the dumb shall shout aloud;
For waters shall burst forth in the desert,
Streams in the wilderness.",
"Torrid earth shall become a pool;
Parched land, fountains of water;
The home of jackals, a pasture;
The abode [of ostriches], reeds and rushes.
",
"And a highway shall appear there,
Which shall be called the Sacred Way.
No one unclean shall pass along it,
But it shall be for them.
No traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.",
"No lion shall be there,
No ferocious beast shall set foot on it—
These shall not be found there.
But the redeemed shall walk it;",
"And the ransomed of the LORD shall return,
And come with shouting to Zion,
Crowned with joy everlasting.
They shall attain joy and gladness,
While sorrow and sighing flee."
],
[
"In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria marched against all the fortified towns of Judah and seized them.",
"From Lachish, the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh, with a large force, to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. [The Rabshakeh] took up a position near the conduit of the Upper Pool, by the road of the Fuller’s Field;",
"and Eliakim son of Hilkiah who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to him.",
"The Rabshakeh said to them, “You tell Hezekiah: Thus said the Great King, the king of Assyria: What makes you so confident?",
"I suppose mere talk makes counsel and valor for war! Look, on whom are you relying, that you have rebelled against me?",
"You are relying on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which enters and punctures the palm of anyone who leans on it. That’s what Pharaoh king of Egypt is like to all who rely on him.",
"And if you tell me that you are relying on the LORD your God, He is the very one whose shrines and altars Hezekiah did away with, telling Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship only at this altar!’",
"Come now, make this wager with my master, the king of Assyria: I’ll give you two thousand horses, if you can produce riders to mount them.",
"So how could you refuse anything, even to the deputy of one of my master’s lesser servants, relying on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?",
"And do you think I have marched against this land to destroy it without the LORD? The LORD Himself told me: Go up against that land and destroy it.”",
"Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah replied to the Rabshakeh, “Please, speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it; do not speak to us in Judean in the hearing of the people on the wall.”",
"But the Rabshakeh replied, “Was it to your master and to you that my master sent me to speak those words? It was precisely to the men who are sitting on the wall—who will have to eat their dung and drink their urine with you.”",
"And the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in Judean:",
"“Hear the words of the Great King, the king of Assyria! Thus said the king: Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to save you.",
"Don’t let Hezekiah make you rely on the LORD, saying, ‘The LORD will surely save us; this city will not fall into the hands of Assyria!’",
"Don’t listen to Hezekiah. For thus said the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me, so that you may all eat from your vines and your fig trees and drink water from your cisterns,",
"until I come and take you away to a land like your own, a land of bread and wine, of grain [fields] and vineyards.",
"Beware of letting Hezekiah mislead you by saying, ‘The LORD will save us.’ Did any of the gods of the other nations save his land from the king of Assyria?",
"Where were the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where were the gods of Sepharvaim? And did they save Samaria from me?",
"Which among all the gods of those countries saved their countries from me, that the LORD should save Jerusalem from me?”",
"But they were silent and did not answer him with a single word; for the king’s order was: “Do not answer him.”",
"And so Eliakim son of Hilkiah who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and they reported to him what the Rabshakeh had said."
],
[
"When King Hezekiah heard this, he rent his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the House of the LORD.",
"He also sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna, the scribe, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.",
"They said to him, “Thus said Hezekiah: This day is a day of distress, of chastisement, and of disgrace. The babes have reached the birthstool, but the strength to give birth is lacking.",
"Perhaps the LORD your God will take note of the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to blaspheme the living God, and will mete out judgment for the words that the LORD your God has heard—if you will offer up prayer for the surviving remnant.”",
"When King Hezekiah’s ministers came to Isaiah,",
"Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master as follows: Thus said the LORD: Do not be frightened by the words of blasphemy against Me that you have heard from the minions of the king of Assyria.",
"I will delude him: He will hear a rumor and return to his land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his land.”",
"The Rabshakeh, meanwhile, heard that [the King] had left Lachish; he turned back and found the king of Assyria attacking Libnah.",
"But [the king of Assyria] learned that King Tirhakah of Nubia had come out to fight him; and when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,",
"“Tell this to King Hezekiah of Judah: Do not let your God, on whom you are relying, mislead you into thinking that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hands of the king of Assyria.",
"You yourself have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, how they have annihilated them; and can you escape?",
"Were the nations that my predecessors destroyed—Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the Bethedenites in Telassar—saved by their gods?",
"Where is the king of Hamath? and the king of Arpad? and the kings of Lair, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?”",
"Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Hezekiah then went up to the House of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD.",
"And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD:",
"“O LORD of Hosts, enthroned on the Cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.",
"O LORD, incline Your ear and hear, open Your eye and see. Hear all the words that Sennacherib has sent to blaspheme the living God!",
"True, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have annihilated all the nations and their lands",
"and have committed their gods to the flames and have destroyed them; for they are not gods, but man’s handwork of wood and stone.",
"But now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hands, and let all the kingdoms of the earth know that You, O LORD, alone [are God].”",
"Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: “Thus said the LORD, the God of Israel, to whom you have prayed, concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria—",
"this is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him:
Fair Maiden Zion despises you,
She mocks at you;
Fair Jerusalem shakes
Her head at you.",
"Whom have you blasphemed and reviled?
Against whom made loud your voice
And haughtily raised your eyes?
Against the Holy One of Israel!",
"Through your servants you have blasphemed my Lord.
Because you thought,
‘Thanks to my vast chariotry,
It is I who have climbed the highest mountains,
To the remotest parts of the Lebanon,
And have cut down its loftiest cedars,
Its choicest cypresses,
And have reached its highest peak,
Its densest forest.",
"It is I who have drawn
And drunk water.
I have dried up with the soles of my feet
All the streams of Egypt.’",
"Have you not heard? Of old
I planned that very thing,
I designed it long ago,
And now have fulfilled it.
And it has come to pass,
Laying fortified towns waste in desolate heaps.",
"Their inhabitants are helpless,
Dismayed and shamed.
They were but grass of the field
And green herbage,
Grass of the roofs that is blasted
Before the east wind.",
"I know your stayings
And your goings and comings,
And how you have raged against Me,",
"Because you have raged against Me,
And your tumult has reached My ears,
I will place My hook in your nose
And My bit between your jaws;
And I will make you go back by the road
By which you came.
",
"“And this is the sign for you: This year you eat what grows of itself, and the next year what springs from that, and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.",
"And the survivors of the House of Judah that have escaped shall renew its trunk below and produce boughs above.
",
"For a remnant shall come forth from Jerusalem,
Survivors from Mount Zion.
The zeal of the LORD of Hosts
Shall bring this to pass.
",
"“Assuredly, thus said the LORD concerning the king of Assyria:
He shall not enter this city;
He shall not shoot an arrow at it,
Or advance upon it with a shield,
Or pile up a siegemound against it.",
"He shall go back
By the way he came,
He shall not enter this city
—declares the LORD;",
"I will protect and save this city for My sake
And for the sake of My servant David.”
",
"[That night] an angel of the LORD went out and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp, and the following morning they were all dead corpses.",
"So King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and retreated, and stayed in Nineveh.",
"While he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, he was struck down with the sword by his sons Adrammelech and Sarezer. They fled to the land of Ararat, and his son Esarhaddon succeeded him as king."
],
[
"In those days Hezekiah fell dangerously ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came and said to him, “Thus said the LORD: Set your affairs in order, for you are going to die; you will not get well.”",
"Thereupon Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD.",
"“Please, O LORD,” he said, “remember how I have walked before You sincerely and wholeheartedly, and have done what is pleasing to You.” And Hezekiah wept profusely.",
"Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah:",
"“Go and tell Hezekiah: Thus said the LORD, the God of your father David: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. I hereby add fifteen years to your life.",
"I will also rescue you and this city from the hands of the king of Assyria. I will protect this city.",
"And this is the sign for you from the LORD that the LORD will do the thing that He has promised:",
"I am going to make the shadow on the steps, which has descended on the dial of Ahaz because of the sun, recede ten steps.” And the sun[’s shadow] receded ten steps, the same steps as it had descended.",
"A poem by King Hezekiah of Judah when he recovered from the illness he had suffered:
",
"I had thought:
I must depart in the middle of my days;
I have been consigned to the gates of Sheol
For the rest of my years.",
"I thought, I shall never see Yah,
Yah in the land of the living,
Or ever behold men again
Among those who inhabit the earth.",
"My dwelling is pulled up and removed from me
Like a tent of shepherds;
My life is rolled up like a web
And cut from the thrum.
Only from daybreak to nightfall
Was I kept whole,",
"Then it was as though a lion
Were breaking all my bones;
I cried out until morning.
(Only from daybreak to nightfall
Was I kept whole.)",
"I piped like a swift or a swallow,
I moaned like a dove,
As my eyes, all worn, looked to heaven:
“My Lord, I am in straits;
Be my surety!”
",
"What can I say? He promised me,
And He it is who has wrought it.
All my sleep had fled
Because of the bitterness of my soul.",
"My Lord, for all that and despite it
My life-breath is revived;
You have restored me to health and revived me.",
"Truly, it was for my own good
That I had such great bitterness:
You saved my life
From the pit of destruction,
For You have cast behind Your back
All my offenses.",
"For it is not Sheol that praises You,
Not [the Land of] Death that extols You;
Nor do they who descend into the Pit
Hope for Your grace.",
"The living, only the living
Can give thanks to You
As I do this day;
Fathers relate to children
Your acts of grace:",
"“[It has pleased] the LORD to deliver us,
That is why we offer up music
All the days of our lives
At the House of the LORD.”
",
"When Isaiah said, “Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the rash, and he will recover,”",
"Hezekiah asked, “What will be the sign that I shall go up to the House of the LORD?”"
],
[
"At that time, Merodach-baladan son of Baladan, the king of Babylon, sent [envoys with] a letter and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard about his illness and recovery.",
"Hezekiah was pleased by their coming, and he showed them his treasure house—the silver, the gold, the spices, and the fragrant oil—and all his armory, and everything that was to be found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his palace or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.",
"Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah. “What,” he demanded of him, “did those men say to you? Where have they come to you from?” “They have come to me,” replied Hezekiah, “from a far country, from Babylon.”",
"Next he asked, “What have they seen in your palace?” And Hezekiah replied, “They have seen everything there is in my palace. There was nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”",
"Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD of Hosts:",
"A time is coming when everything in your palace, which your ancestors have stored up to this day, will be carried off to Babylon; nothing will be left behind, said the LORD.",
"And some of your sons, your own issue, whom you will have fathered, will be taken to serve as eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”",
"Hezekiah declared to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “It means that safety is assured for my time.”"
],
[
"Comfort, oh comfort My people,
Says your God.",
"Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
And declare to her
That her term of service is over,
That her iniquity is expiated;
For she has received at the hand of the LORD
Double for all her sins.
",
"A voice rings out:
“Clear in the desert
A road for the LORD!
Level in the wilderness
A highway for our God!",
"Let every valley be raised,
Every hill and mount made low.
Let the rugged ground become level
And the ridges become a plain.",
"The Presence of the LORD shall appear,
And all flesh, as one, shall behold—
For the LORD Himself has spoken.”
",
"A voice rings out: “Proclaim!”
Another asks, “What shall I proclaim?”
“All flesh is grass,
All its goodness like flowers of the field:",
"Grass withers, flowers fade
When the breath of the LORD blows on them.
Indeed, man is but grass:",
"Grass withers, flowers fade—
But the word of our God is always fulfilled!”
",
"Ascend a lofty mountain,
O herald of joy to Zion;
Raise your voice with power,
O herald of joy to Jerusalem—
Raise it, have no fear;
Announce to the cities of Judah:
Behold your God!",
"Behold, the Lord GOD comes in might,
And His arm wins triumph for Him;
See, His reward is with Him,
His recompense before Him.",
"Like a shepherd He pastures His flock:
He gathers the lambs in His arms
And carries them in His bosom;
Gently He drives the mother sheep.
",
"Who measured the waters with the hollow of His hand,
And gauged the skies with a span,
And meted earth’s dust with a measure,
And weighed the mountains with a scale
And the hills with a balance?",
"Who has plumbed the mind of the LORD,
What man could tell Him His plan?",
"Whom did He consult, and who taught Him,
Guided Him in the way of right?
Who guided Him in knowledge
And showed Him the path of wisdom?
",
"The nations are but a drop in a bucket,
Reckoned as dust on a balance;
The very coastlands He lifts like motes.",
"Lebanon is not fuel enough,
Nor its beasts enough for sacrifice.",
"All nations are as naught in His sight;
He accounts them as less than nothing.
",
"To whom, then, can you liken God,
What form compare to Him?",
"The idol? A woodworker shaped it,
And a smith overlaid it with gold,
Forging links of silver.",
"As a gift, he chooses the mulberry—
A wood that does not rot—
Then seeks a skillful woodworker
To make a firm idol,
That will not topple.
",
"Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Have you not been told
From the very first?
Have you not discerned
How the earth was founded?",
"It is He who is enthroned above the vault of the earth,
So that its inhabitants seem as grasshoppers;
Who spread out the skies like gauze,
Stretched them out like a tent to dwell in.",
"He brings potentates to naught,
Makes rulers of the earth as nothing.",
"Hardly are they planted,
Hardly are they sown,
Hardly has their stem
Taken root in earth,
When He blows upon them and they dry up,
And the storm bears them off like straw.
",
"To whom, then, can you liken Me,
To whom can I be compared?
—says the Holy One.",
"Lift high your eyes and see:
Who created these?
He who sends out their host by count,
Who calls them each by name:
Because of His great might and vast power,
Not one fails to appear.
",
"Why do you say, O Jacob,
Why declare, O Israel,
“My way is hid from the LORD,
My cause is ignored by my God”?",
"Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is God from of old,
Creator of the earth from end to end,
He never grows faint or weary,
His wisdom cannot be fathomed.",
"He gives strength to the weary,
Fresh vigor to the spent.",
"Youths may grow faint and weary,
And young men stumble and fall;",
"But they who trust in the LORD shall renew their strength
As eagles grow new plumes:
They shall run and not grow weary,
They shall march and not grow faint."
],
[
"Stand silent before Me, coastlands,
And let nations renew their strength.
Let them approach to state their case;
Let us come forward together for argument.",
"Who has roused a victor from the East,
Summoned him to His service?
Has delivered up nations to him,
And trodden sovereigns down?
Has rendered their swords like dust,
Their bows like wind-blown straw?",
"He pursues them, he goes on unscathed;
No shackle is placed on his feet.",
"Who has wrought and achieved this?
He who announced the generations from the start—
I, the LORD, who was first
And will be with the last as well.
",
"The coastlands look on in fear,
The ends of earth tremble.
They draw near and come;",
"Each one helps the other,
Saying to his fellow, “Take courage!”",
"The woodworker encourages the smith;
He who flattens with the hammer
[Encourages] him who pounds the anvil.
He says of the riveting, “It is good!”
And he fixes it with nails,
That it may not topple.
",
"But you, Israel, My servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
Seed of Abraham My friend—",
"You whom I drew from the ends of the earth
And called from its far corners,
To whom I said: You are My servant;
I chose you, I have not rejected you—",
"Fear not, for I am with you,
Be not frightened, for I am your God;
I strengthen you and I help you,
I uphold you with My victorious right hand.",
"Shamed and chagrined shall be
All who contend with you;
They who strive with you
Shall become as naught and shall perish.",
"You may seek, but shall not find
Those who struggle with you;
Less than nothing shall be
The men who battle against you.",
"For I the LORD am your God,
Who grasped your right hand,
Who say to you: Have no fear;
I will be your help.",
"Fear not, O worm Jacob,
O men of Israel:
I will help you
—declares the LORD—
I your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.",
"I will make of you a threshing board,
A new thresher, with many spikes;
You shall thresh mountains to dust,
And make hills like chaff.",
"You shall winnow them
And the wind shall carry them off;
The whirlwind shall scatter them.
But you shall rejoice in the LORD,
And glory in the Holy One of Israel.
",
"The poor and the needy
Seek water, and there is none;
Their tongue is parched with thirst.
I the LORD will respond to them.
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.",
"I will open up streams on the bare hills
And fountains amid the valleys;
I will turn the desert into ponds,
The arid land into springs of water.",
"I will plant cedars in the wilderness,
Acacias and myrtles and oleasters;
I will set cypresses in the desert,
Box trees and elms as well—",
"That men may see and know,
Consider and comprehend
That the LORD’s hand has done this,
That the Holy One of Israel has wrought it.
",
"Submit your case, says the LORD;
Offer your pleas, says the King of Jacob.",
"Let them approach and tell us what will happen.
Tell us what has occurred,
And we will take note of it;
Or announce to us what will occur,
That we may know the outcome.",
"Foretell what is yet to happen,
That we may know that you are gods!
Do anything, good or bad,
That we may be awed and see.",
"Why, you are less than nothing,
Your effect is less than nullity;
One who chooses you is an abomination.
",
"I have roused him from the north, and he has come,
From the sunrise, one who invokes My name;
And he has trampled rulers like mud,
Like a potter treading clay.",
"Who foretold this from the start, that we may note it;
From aforetime, that we might say, “He is right”?
Not one foretold, not one announced;
No one has heard your utterance!",
"The things once predicted to Zion—
Behold, here they are!
And again I send a herald to Jerusalem.",
"But I look and there is not a man;
Not one of them can predict
Or can respond when I question him.",
"See, they are all nothingness,
Their works are nullity,
Their statues are naught and nil."
],
[
"This is My servant, whom I uphold,
My chosen one, in whom I delight.
I have put My spirit upon him,
He shall teach the true way to the nations.",
"He shall not cry out or shout aloud,
Or make his voice heard in the streets.",
"He shall not break even a bruised reed,
Or snuff out even a dim wick.
He shall bring forth the true way.",
"He shall not grow dim or be bruised
Till he has established the true way on earth;
And the coastlands shall await his teaching.
",
"Thus said God the LORD,
Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
Who spread out the earth and what it brings forth,
Who gave breath to the people upon it
And life to those who walk thereon:",
"I the LORD, in My grace, have summoned you,
And I have grasped you by the hand.
I created you, and appointed you
A covenant people, a light of nations—",
"Opening eyes deprived of light,
Rescuing prisoners from confinement,
From the dungeon those who sit in darkness.",
"I am the LORD, that is My name;
I will not yield My glory to another,
Nor My renown to idols.",
"See, the things once predicted have come,
And now I foretell new things,
Announce to you ere they sprout up.",
"Sing to the LORD a new song,
His praise from the ends of the earth—
You who sail the sea and you creatures in it,
You coastlands and their inhabitants!",
"Let the desert and its towns cry aloud,
The villages where Kedar dwells;
Let Sela’s inhabitants shout,
Call out from the peaks of the mountains.",
"Let them do honor to the LORD,
And tell His glory in the coastlands.
",
"The LORD goes forth like a warrior,
Like a fighter He whips up His rage.
He yells, He roars aloud,
He charges upon His enemies.",
"“I have kept silent far too long,
Kept still and restrained Myself;
Now I will scream like a woman in labor,
I will pant and I will gasp.",
"Hills and heights will I scorch,
Cause all their green to wither;
I will turn rivers into isles,
And dry the marshes up.",
"I will lead the blind
By a road they did not know,
And I will make them walk
By paths they never knew.
I will turn darkness before them to light,
Rough places into level ground.
These are the promises—
I will keep them without fail.",
"Driven back and utterly shamed
Shall be those who trust in an image,
Those who say to idols,
‘You are our gods!’”
",
"Listen, you who are deaf;
You blind ones, look up and see!",
"Who is so blind as My servant,
So deaf as the messenger I send?
Who is so blind as the chosen one,
So blind as the servant of the LORD?",
"Seeing many things, he gives no heed;
With ears open, he hears nothing.",
"The LORD desires His [servant’s] vindication,
That he may magnify and glorify [His] Teaching.
",
"Yet it is a people plundered and despoiled:
All of them are trapped in holes,
Imprisoned in dungeons.
They are given over to plunder, with none to rescue them;
To despoilment, with none to say “Give back!”",
"If only you would listen to this,
Attend and give heed from now on!",
"Who was it gave Jacob over to despoilment
And Israel to plunderers?
Surely, the LORD against whom they sinned
In whose ways they would not walk
And whose Teaching they would not obey.",
"So He poured out wrath upon them,
His anger and the fury of war.
It blazed upon them all about, but they heeded not;
It burned among them, but they gave it no thought."
],
[
"But now thus said the LORD—
Who created you, O Jacob,
Who formed you, O Israel:
Fear not, for I will redeem you;
I have singled you out by name,
You are Mine.",
"When you pass through water,
I will be with you;
Through streams,
They shall not overwhelm you.
When you walk through fire,
You shall not be scorched;
Through flame,
It shall not burn you.",
"For I the LORD am your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as a ransom for you,
Nubia and Saba in exchange for you.",
"Because you are precious to Me,
And honored, and I love you,
I give men in exchange for you
And peoples in your stead.",
"Fear not, for I am with you:
I will bring your folk from the East,
Will gather you out of the West;",
"I will say to the North, “Give back!”
And to the South, “Do not withhold!
Bring My sons from afar,
And My daughters from the end of the earth—",
"All who are linked to My name,
Whom I have created,
Formed, and made for My glory—",
"Setting free that people,
Blind though it has eyes
And deaf though it has ears.”",
"All the nations assemble as one,
The peoples gather.
Who among them declared this,
Foretold to us the things that have happened?
Let them produce their witnesses and be vindicated,
That men, hearing them, may say, “It is true!”",
"My witnesses are you
—declares the LORD—
My servant, whom I have chosen.
To the end that you may take thought,
And believe in Me,
And understand that I am He:
Before Me no god was formed,
And after Me none shall exist—",
"None but me, the LORD;
Beside Me, none can grant triumph.",
"I alone foretold the triumph
And I brought it to pass;
I announced it,
And no strange god was among you.
So you are My witnesses
—declares the LORD—
And I am God.",
"Ever since day was, I am He;
None can deliver from My hand.
When I act, who can reverse it?
",
"Thus said the LORD,
Your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
For your sake I send to Babylon;
I will bring down all [her] bars,
And the Chaldeans shall raise their voice in lamentation.",
"I am your Holy One, the LORD,
Your King, the Creator of Israel.
",
"Thus said the LORD,
Who made a road through the sea
And a path through mighty waters,",
"Who destroyed chariots and horses,
And all the mighty host—
They lay down to rise no more,
They were extinguished, quenched like a wick:",
"Do not recall what happened of old,
Or ponder what happened of yore!",
"I am about to do something new;
Even now it shall come to pass,
Suddenly you shall perceive it:
I will make a road through the wilderness
And rivers in the desert.",
"The wild beasts shall honor Me,
Jackals and ostriches,
For I provide water in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert,
To give drink to My chosen people,",
"The people I formed for Myself
That they might declare My praise.
",
"But you have not worshiped Me, O Jacob,
That you should be weary of Me, O Israel.",
"You have not brought Me your sheep for burnt offerings,
Nor honored Me with your sacrifices.
I have not burdened you with meal offerings,
Nor wearied you about frankincense.",
"You have not bought Me fragrant reed with money,
Nor sated Me with the fat of your sacrifices.
Instead, you have burdened Me with your sins,
You have wearied Me with your iniquities.",
"It is I, I who—for My own sake—
Wipe your transgressions away
And remember your sins no more.",
"Help me remember!
Let us join in argument,
Tell your version,
That you may be vindicated.",
"Your earliest ancestor sinned,
And your spokesmen transgressed against Me.",
"So I profaned the holy princes;
I abandoned Jacob to proscription
And Israel to mockery."
],
[
"But hear, now, O Jacob My servant,
Israel whom I have chosen!",
"Thus said the LORD, your Maker,
Your Creator who has helped you since birth:
Fear not, My servant Jacob,
Jeshurun whom I have chosen,",
"Even as I pour water on thirsty soil,
And rain upon dry ground,
So will I pour My spirit on your offspring,
My blessing upon your posterity.",
"And they shall sprout like grass,
Like willows by watercourses.",
"One shall say, “I am the LORD’s,”
Another shall use the name of “Jacob,”
Another shall mark his arm “of the LORD”
And adopt the name of “Israel.”
",
"Thus said the LORD, the King of Israel,
Their Redeemer, the LORD of Hosts:
I am the first and I am the last,
And there is no god but Me.",
"Who like Me can announce,
Can foretell it—and match Me thereby?
Even as I told the future to an ancient people,
So let him foretell coming events to them.",
"Do not be frightened, do not be shaken!
Have I not from of old predicted to you?
I foretold, and you are My witnesses.
Is there any god, then, but Me?
“There is no other rock; I know none!”
",
"The makers of idols
All work to no purpose;
And the things they treasure
Can do no good,
As they themselves can testify.
They neither look nor think,
And so they shall be shamed.",
"Who would fashion a god
Or cast a statue
That can do no good?",
"Lo, all its adherents shall be shamed;
They are craftsmen, are merely human.
Let them all assemble and stand up!
They shall be cowed, and they shall be shamed.
",
"The craftsman in iron, with his tools,
Works it over charcoal
And fashions it by hammering,
Working with the strength of his arm.
Should he go hungry, his strength would ebb;
Should he drink no water, he would grow faint.
",
"The craftsman in wood measures with a line
And marks out a shape with a stylus;
He forms it with scraping tools,
Marking it out with a compass.
He gives it a human form,
The beauty of a man, to dwell in a shrine.",
"For his use he cuts down cedars;
He chooses plane trees and oaks.
He sets aside trees of the forest;
Or plants firs, and the rain makes them grow.",
"All this serves man for fuel:
He takes some to warm himself,
And he builds a fire and bakes bread.
He also makes a god of it and worships it,
Fashions an idol and bows down to it!",
"Part of it he burns in a fire:
On that part he roasts meat,
He eats the roast and is sated;
He also warms himself and cries, “Ah,
I am warm! I can feel the heat!”",
"Of the rest he makes a god—his own carving!
He bows down to it, worships it;
He prays to it and cries,
“Save me, for you are my god!”
",
"They have no wit or judgment:
Their eyes are besmeared, and they see not;
Their minds, and they cannot think.",
"They do not give thought,
They lack the wit and judgment to say:
“Part of it I burned in a fire;
I also baked bread on the coals,
I roasted meat and ate it—
Should I make the rest an abhorrence?
Should I bow to a block of wood?”",
"He pursues ashes!
A deluded mind has led him astray,
And he cannot save himself;
He never says to himself,
“The thing in my hand is a fraud!”",
"Remember these things, O Jacob
For you, O Israel, are My servant:
I fashioned you, you are My servant—
O Israel, never forget Me.",
"I wipe away your sins like a cloud,
Your transgressions like mist—
Come back to Me, for I redeem you.
",
"Shout, O heavens, for the LORD has acted;
Shout aloud, O depths of the earth!
Shout for joy, O mountains,
O forests with all your trees!
For the LORD has redeemed Jacob,
Has glorified Himself through Israel.
",
"Thus said the LORD, your Redeemer,
Who formed you in the womb:
It is I, the LORD, who made everything,
Who alone stretched out the heavens
And unaided spread out the earth;",
"Who annul the omens of diviners,
And make fools of the augurs;
Who turn sages back
And make nonsense of their knowledge;",
"But confirm the word of My servant
And fulfill the prediction of My messengers.
It is I who say of Jerusalem, “It shall be inhabited,”
And of the towns of Judah, “They shall be rebuilt;
And I will restore their ruined places.”",
"[I,] who said to the deep, “Be dry;
I will dry up your floods,”",
"Am the same who says of Cyrus, “He is My shepherd;
He shall fulfill all My purposes!
He shall say of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be rebuilt,’
And to the Temple: ‘You shall be founded again.’”"
],
[
"Thus said the LORD to Cyrus, His anointed one—
Whose right hand He has grasped,
Treading down nations before him,
Ungirding the loins of kings,
Opening doors before him
And letting no gate stay shut:",
"I will march before you
And level the hills that loom up;
I will shatter doors of bronze
And cut down iron bars.",
"I will give you treasures concealed in the dark
And secret hoards—
So that you may know that it is I the LORD,
The God of Israel, who call you by name.",
"For the sake of My servant Jacob,
Israel My chosen one,
I call you by name,
I hail you by title, though you have not known Me.",
"I am the LORD and there is none else;
Beside Me, there is no god.
I engird you, though you have not known Me,",
"So that they may know, from east to west,
That there is none but Me.
I am the LORD and there is none else,",
"I form light and create darkness,
I make weal and create woe—
I the LORD do all these things.",
"Pour down, O skies, from above!
Let the heavens rain down victory!
Let the earth open up and triumph sprout,
Yes, let vindication spring up:
I the LORD have created it.
",
"Shame on him who argues with his Maker,
Though naught but a potsherd of earth!
Shall the clay say to the potter, “What are you doing?
Your work has no handles”?",
"Shame on him who asks his father, “What are you begetting?”
Or a woman, “What are you bearing?”
",
"Thus said the LORD,
Israel’s Holy One and Maker:
Will you question Me on the destiny of My children,
Will you instruct Me about the work of My hands?",
"It was I who made the earth
And created man upon it;
My own hands stretched out the heavens,
And I marshaled all their host.",
"It was I who roused him for victory
And who level all roads for him.
He shall rebuild My city
And let My exiled people go
Without price and without payment
—said the LORD of Hosts.
",
"Thus said the LORD:
Egypt’s wealth and Nubia’s gains
And Sabaites, long of limb,
Shall pass over to you and be yours,
Pass over and follow you in fetters,
Bow low to you
And reverently address you:
“Only among you is God,
There is no other god at all!",
"You are indeed a God who concealed Himself,
O God of Israel, who bring victory!",
"Those who fabricate idols,
All are shamed and disgraced;
To a man, they slink away in disgrace.",
"But Israel has won through the LORD
Triumph everlasting.
You shall not be shamed or disgraced
In all the ages to come!”
",
"For thus said the LORD,
The Creator of heaven who alone is God,
Who formed the earth and made it,
Who alone established it—
He did not create it a waste,
But formed it for habitation:
I am the LORD, and there is none else.",
"I did not speak in secret,
At a site in a land of darkness;
I did not say to the stock of Jacob,
“Seek Me out in a wasteland”—
I the LORD, who foretell reliably,
Who announce what is true.
",
"Come, gather together,
Draw nigh, you remnants of the nations!
No foreknowledge had they who carry their wooden images
And pray to a god who cannot give success.",
"Speak up, compare testimony—
Let them even take counsel together!
Who announced this aforetime,
Foretold it of old?
Was it not I the LORD?
Then there is no god beside Me,
No God exists beside Me
Who foretells truly and grants success.",
"Turn to Me and gain success,
All the ends of earth!
For I am God, and there is none else.",
"By Myself have I sworn,
From My mouth has issued truth,
A word that shall not turn back:
To Me every knee shall bend,
Every tongue swear loyalty.",
"They shall say: “Only through the LORD
Can I find victory and might.
When people trust in Him,
All their adversaries are put to shame.",
"It is through the LORD that all the offspring of Israel
Have vindication and glory.”"
],
[
"Bel is bowed, Nebo is cowering,
Their images are a burden for beasts and cattle;
The things you would carry [in procession]
Are now piled as a burden
On tired [beasts].",
"They cowered, they bowed as well,
They could not rescue the burden,
And they themselves went into captivity.
",
"Listen to Me, O House of Jacob,
All that are left of the House of Israel,
Who have been carried since birth,
Supported since leaving the womb:",
"Till you grow old, I will still be the same;
When you turn gray, it is I who will carry;
I was the Maker, and I will be the Bearer;
And I will carry and rescue [you].
",
"To whom can you compare Me
Or declare Me similar?
To whom can you liken Me,
So that we seem comparable?",
"Those who squander gold from the purse
And weigh out silver on the balance,
They hire a metal worker to make it into a god,
To which they bow down and prostrate themselves.",
"They must carry it on their backs and transport it;
When they put it down, it stands,
It does not budge from its place.
If they cry out to it, it does not answer;
It cannot save them from their distress.",
"Keep this in mind, and stand firm!
Take this to heart, you sinners!",
"Bear in mind what happened of old;
For I am God, and there is none else,
I am divine, and there is none like Me.",
"I foretell the end from the beginning,
And from the start, things that had not occurred.
I say: My plan shall be fulfilled;
I will do all I have purposed.",
"I summoned that swooping bird from the East;
From a distant land, the man for My purpose.
I have spoken, so I will bring it to pass;
I have designed it, so I will complete it.",
"Listen to Me, you stubborn of heart,
Who are far from victory:",
"I am bringing My victory close;
It shall not be far,
And My triumph shall not be delayed.
I will grant triumph in Zion
To Israel, in whom I glory."
],
[
"Get down, sit in the dust,
Fair Maiden Babylon;
Sit, dethroned, on the ground,
O Fair Chaldea;
Nevermore shall they call you
The tender and dainty one.",
"Grasp the handmill and grind meal.
Remove your veil,
Strip off your train, bare your leg,
Wade through the rivers.",
"Your nakedness shall be uncovered,
And your shame shall be exposed.
I will take vengeance,
And let no man intercede.",
"Our Redeemer—LORD of Hosts is His name—
Is the Holy One of Israel.",
"Sit silent; retire into darkness,
O Fair Chaldea;
Nevermore shall they call you
Mistress of Kingdoms.
",
"I was angry at My people,
I defiled My heritage;
I put them into your hands,
But you showed them no mercy.
Even upon the aged you made
Your yoke exceedingly heavy.",
"You thought, “I shall always be
The mistress still.”
You did not take these things to heart,
You gave no thought to the end of it.
",
"And now hear this, O pampered one—
Who dwell in security,
Who think to yourself,
“I am, and there is none but me;
I shall not become a widow
Or know loss of children”—",
"These two things shall come upon you,
Suddenly, in one day:
Loss of children and widowhood
Shall come upon you in full measure,
Despite your many enchantments
And all your countless spells.",
"You were secure in your wickedness;
You thought, “No one can see me.”
It was your skill and your science
That led you astray.
And you thought to yourself,
“I am, and there is none but me.”",
"Evil is coming upon you
Which you will not know how to charm away;
Disaster is falling upon you
Which you will not be able to appease;
Coming upon you suddenly
Is ruin of which you know nothing.",
"Stand up, with your spells and your many enchantments
On which you labored since youth!
Perhaps you’ll be able to profit,
Perhaps you will find strength.",
"You are helpless, despite all your art.
Let them stand up and help you now,
The scanners of heaven, the star-gazers,
Who announce, month by month,
Whatever will come upon you.",
"See, they are become like straw,
Fire consumes them;
They cannot save themselves
From the power of the flame;
This is no coal for warming oneself,
No fire to sit by!",
"This is what they have profited you—
The traders you dealt with since youth—
Each has wandered off his own way,
There is none to save you."
],
[
"Listen to this, O House of Jacob,
Who bear the name Israel
And have issued from the waters of Judah,
Who swear by the name of the LORD
And invoke the God of Israel—
Though not in truth and sincerity—",
"For you are called after the Holy City
And you do lean on the God of Israel,
Whose name is LORD of Hosts:
",
"Long ago, I foretold things that happened,
From My mouth they issued, and I announced them;
Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.",
"Because I know how stubborn you are
(Your neck is like an iron sinew
And your forehead bronze),",
"Therefore I told you long beforehand,
Announced things to you ere they happened—
That you might not say, “My idol caused them,
My carved and molten images ordained them.”",
"You have heard all this; look, must you not acknowledge it?
As of now, I announce to you new things,
Well-guarded secrets you did not know.",
"Only now are they created, and not of old;
Before today you had not heard them;
You cannot say, “I knew them already.”",
"You had never heard, you had never known,
Your ears were not opened of old.
Though I know that you are treacherous,
That you were called a rebel from birth,",
"For the sake of My name I control My wrath;
To My own glory, I am patient with you,
And I will not destroy you.",
"See, I refine you, but not as silver;
I test you in the furnace of affliction.",
"For My sake, My own sake, do I act—
Lest [My name] be dishonored!
I will not give My glory to another.
",
"Listen to Me, O Jacob,
Israel, whom I have called:
I am He—I am the first,
And I am the last as well.",
"My own hand founded the earth,
My right hand spread out the skies.
I call unto them, let them stand up.",
"Assemble, all of you, and listen!
Who among you foretold these things:
“He whom the LORD loves
Shall work His will against Babylon,
And, with His might, against Chaldea”?",
"I, I predicted, and I called him;
I have brought him and he shall succeed in his mission.",
"Draw near to Me and hear this:
From the beginning, I did not speak in secret;
From the time anything existed, I was there.
“And now the Lord GOD has sent me, endowed with His spirit.”
",
"Thus said the LORD your Redeemer,
The Holy One of Israel:
I the LORD am your God,
Instructing you for your own benefit.
Guiding you in the way you should go.",
"If only you would heed My commands!
Then your prosperity would be like a river,
Your triumph like the waves of the sea.",
"Your offspring would be as many as the sand,
Their issue as many as its grains.
Their name would never be cut off
Or obliterated from before Me.
",
"Go forth from Babylon,
Flee from Chaldea!
Declare this with loud shouting,
Announce this,
Bring out the word to the ends of the earth!
Say: “The LORD has redeemed
His servant Jacob!”",
"They have known no thirst,
Though He led them through parched places;
He made water flow for them from the rock;
He cleaved the rock and water gushed forth.
",
"There is no safety—said the LORD—for the wicked."
],
[
"Listen, O coastlands, to me,
And give heed, O nations afar:
The LORD appointed me before I was born,
He named me while I was in my mother’s womb.",
"He made my mouth like a sharpened blade,
He hid me in the shadow of His hand,
And He made me like a polished arrow;
He concealed me in His quiver.",
"And He said to me, “You are My servant,
Israel in whom I glory.”",
"I thought, “I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for empty breath.”
But my case rested with the LORD,
My recompense was in the hands of my God.",
"And now the LORD has resolved—
He who formed me in the womb to be His servant—
To bring back Jacob to Himself,
That Israel may be restored to Him.
And I have been honored in the sight of the LORD,
My God has been my strength.",
"For He has said:
“It is too little that you should be My servant
In that I raise up the tribes of Jacob
And restore the survivors of Israel:
I will also make you a light of nations,
That My salvation may reach the ends of the earth.”
",
"Thus said the LORD,
The Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One,
To the despised one,
To the abhorred nations,
To the slave of rulers:
Kings shall see and stand up;
Nobles, and they shall prostrate themselves—
To the honor of the LORD, who is faithful,
To the Holy One of Israel who chose you.",
"Thus said the LORD:
In an hour of favor I answer you,
And on a day of salvation I help you—
I created you and appointed you a covenant people—
Restoring the land,
Allotting anew the desolate holdings,",
"Saying to the prisoners, “Go free,”
To those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
They shall pasture along the roads,
On every bare height shall be their pasture.",
"They shall not hunger or thirst,
Hot wind and sun shall not strike them;
For He who loves them will lead them,
He will guide them to springs of water.",
"I will make all My mountains a road,
And My highways shall be built up.",
"Look! These are coming from afar,
These from the north and the west,
And these from the land of Sinim.",
"Shout, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth!
Break into shouting, O hills!
For the LORD has comforted His people,
And has taken back His afflicted ones in love.
",
"Zion says,
“The LORD has forsaken me,
My Lord has forgotten me.”",
"Can a woman forget her baby,
Or disown the child of her womb?
Though she might forget,
I never could forget you.",
"See, I have engraved you
On the palms of My hands,
Your walls are ever before Me.",
"Swiftly your children are coming;
Those who ravaged and ruined you shall leave you.",
"Look up all around you and see:
They are all assembled, are come to you!
As I live
—declares the LORD—
You shall don them all like jewels,
Deck yourself with them like a bride.",
"As for your ruins and desolate places
And your land laid waste—
You shall soon be crowded with settlers,
While destroyers stay far from you.",
"The children you thought you had lost
Shall yet say in your hearing,
“The place is too crowded for me;
Make room for me to settle.”",
"And you will say to yourself,
“Who bore these for me
When I was bereaved and barren,
Exiled and disdained—
By whom, then, were these reared?
I was left all alone—
And where have these been?”
",
"Thus said the Lord GOD:
I will raise My hand to nations
And lift up My ensign to peoples;
And they shall bring your sons in their bosoms,
And carry your daughters on their backs.",
"Kings shall tend your children,
Their queens shall serve you as nurses.
They shall bow to you, face to the ground,
And lick the dust of your feet.
And you shall know that I am the LORD—
Those who trust in Me shall not be shamed.
",
"Can spoil be taken from a warrior,
Or captives retrieved from a victor?",
"Yet thus said the LORD:
Captives shall be taken from a warrior
And spoil shall be retrieved from a tyrant;
For I will contend with your adversaries,
And I will deliver your children.",
"I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh,
They shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine.
And all mankind shall know
That I the LORD am your Savior,
The Mighty One of Jacob, your Redeemer."
],
[
"Thus said the LORD:
Where is the bill of divorce
Of your mother whom I dismissed?
And which of My creditors was it
To whom I sold you off?
You were only sold off for your sins,
And your mother dismissed for your crimes.",
"Why, when I came, was no one there,
Why, when I called, would none respond?
Is my arm, then, too short to rescue,
Have I not the power to save?
With a mere rebuke I dry up the sea,
And turn rivers into desert.
Their fish stink from lack of water;
They lie dead of thirst.",
"I clothe the skies in blackness
And make their raiment sackcloth.
",
"The Lord GOD gave me a skilled tongue,
To know how to speak timely words to the weary.
Morning by morning, He rouses,
He rouses my ear
To give heed like disciples.",
"The Lord GOD opened my ears,
And I did not disobey,
I did not run away.",
"I offered my back to the floggers,
And my cheeks to those who tore out my hair.
I did not hide my face
From insult and spittle.",
"But the Lord GOD will help me—
Therefore I feel no disgrace;
Therefore I have set my face like flint,
And I know I shall not be shamed.",
"My Vindicator is at hand—
Who dares contend with me?
Let us stand up together!
Who would be my opponent?
Let him approach me!",
"Lo, the Lord GOD will help me—
Who can get a verdict against me?
They shall all wear out like a garment,
The moth shall consume them.
",
"Who among you reveres the LORD
And heeds the voice of His servant?—
Though he walk in darkness
And have no light,
Let him trust in the name of the LORD
And rely upon his God.",
"But you are all kindlers of fire,
Girding on firebrands.
Walk by the blaze of your fire,
By the brands that you have lit!
This has come to you from My hand:
You shall lie down in pain."
],
[
"Listen to Me, you who pursue justice,
You who seek the LORD:
Look to the rock you were hewn from,
To the quarry you were dug from.",
"Look back to Abraham your father
And to Sarah who brought you forth.
For he was only one when I called him,
But I blessed him and made him many.
",
"Truly the LORD has comforted Zion,
Comforted all her ruins;
He has made her wilderness like Eden,
Her desert like the Garden of the LORD.
Gladness and joy shall abide there,
Thanksgiving and the sound of music.
",
"Hearken to Me, My people,
And give ear to Me, O My nation,
For teaching shall go forth from Me,
My way for the light of peoples.
In a moment I will bring it:",
"The triumph I grant is near,
The success I give has gone forth.
My arms shall provide for the peoples;
The coastlands shall trust in Me,
They shall look to My arm.
",
"Raise your eyes to the heavens,
And look upon the earth beneath:
Though the heavens should melt away like smoke,
And the earth wear out like a garment,
And its inhabitants die out as well,
My victory shall stand forever,
My triumph shall remain unbroken.
",
"Listen to Me, you who care for the right,
O people who lay My instruction to heart!
Fear not the insults of men,
And be not dismayed at their jeers;",
"For the moth shall eat them up like a garment,
The worm shall eat them up like wool.
But My triumph shall endure forever,
My salvation through all the ages.
",
"Awake, awake, clothe yourself with splendor.
O arm of the LORD!
Awake as in days of old,
As in former ages!
It was you that hacked Rahab in pieces,
That pierced the Dragon.",
"It was you that dried up the Sea,
The waters of the great deep;
That made the abysses of the Sea
A road the redeemed might walk.",
"So let the ransomed of the LORD return,
And come with shouting to Zion,
Crowned with joy everlasting.
Let them attain joy and gladness,
While sorrow and sighing flee.
",
"I, I am He who comforts you!
What ails you that you fear
Man who must die,
Mortals who fare like grass?",
"You have forgotten the LORD your Maker,
Who stretched out the skies and made firm the earth!
And you live all day in constant dread
Because of the rage of an oppressor
Who is aiming to cut [you] down.
Yet of what account is the rage of an oppressor?",
"Quickly the crouching one is freed;
He is not cut down and slain,
And he shall not want for food.",
"For I the LORD your God—
Who stirs up the sea into roaring waves,
Whose name is LORD of Hosts—",
"Have put My words in your mouth
And sheltered you with My hand;
I, who planted the skies and made firm the earth,
Have said to Zion: You are My people!",
"Rouse, rouse yourself!
Arise, O Jerusalem,
You who from the LORD’s hand
Have drunk the cup of His wrath,
You who have drained to the dregs
The bowl, the cup of reeling!",
"She has none to guide her
Of all the sons she bore;
None takes her by the hand,
Of all the sons she reared.",
"These two things have befallen you:
Wrack and ruin—who can console you?
Famine and sword—how shall I comfort you?",
"Your sons lie in a swoon
At the corner of every street—
Like an antelope caught in a net—
Drunk with the wrath of the LORD,
With the rebuke of your God.",
"Therefore,
Listen to this, unhappy one,
Who are drunk, but not with wine!",
"Thus said the LORD, your Lord,
Your God who champions His people:
Herewith I take from your hand
The cup of reeling,
The bowl, the cup of My wrath;
You shall never drink it again.",
"I will put it in the hands of your tormentors,
Who have commanded you,
“Get down, that we may walk over you”—
So that you made your back like the ground,
Like a street for passersby."
],
[
"Awake, awake, O Zion!
Clothe yourself in splendor;
Put on your robes of majesty,
Jerusalem, holy city!
For the uncircumcised and the unclean
Shall never enter you again.",
"Arise, shake off the dust,
Sit [on your throne], Jerusalem!
Loose the bonds from your neck,
O captive one, Fair Zion!
",
"For thus said the LORD:
You were sold for no price,
And shall be redeemed without money.",
"For thus said the Lord GOD:
Of old, My people went down
To Egypt to sojourn there;
But Assyria has robbed them,
Giving nothing in return.",
"What therefore do I gain here?
—declares the LORD—
For My people has been carried off for nothing,
Their mockers howl
—declares the LORD—
And constantly, unceasingly,
My name is reviled.",
"Assuredly, My people shall learn My name,
Assuredly [they shall learn] on that day
That I, the One who promised,
Am now at hand.
",
"How welcome on the mountain
Are the footsteps of the herald
Announcing happiness,
Heralding good fortune,
Announcing victory,
Telling Zion, “Your God is King!”",
"Hark!
Your watchmen raise their voices,
As one they shout for joy;
For every eye shall behold
The LORD’s return to Zion.",
"Raise a shout together,
O ruins of Jerusalem!
For the LORD will comfort His people,
Will redeem Jerusalem.",
"The LORD will bare His holy arm
In the sight of all the nations,
And the very ends of earth shall see
The victory of our God.
",
"Turn, turn away, touch naught unclean
As you depart from there;
Keep pure, as you go forth from there,
You who bear the vessels of the LORD!",
"For you will not depart in haste,
Nor will you leave in flight;
For the LORD is marching before you,
The God of Israel is your rear guard.
",
"“Indeed, My servant shall prosper,
Be exalted and raised to great heights.",
"Just as the many were appalled at him—
So marred was his appearance, unlike that of man,
His form, beyond human semblance—",
"Just so he shall startle many nations.
Kings shall be silenced because of him,
For they shall see what has not been told them,
Shall behold what they never have heard.”"
],
[
"“Who can believe what we have heard?
Upon whom has the arm of the LORD- been revealed?",
"For he has grown, by His favor, like a tree crown,
Like a tree trunk out of arid ground.
He had no form or beauty, that we should look at him:
No charm, that we should find him pleasing.",
"He was despised, shunned by men,
A man of suffering, familiar with disease.
As one who hid his face from us,
He was despised, we held him of no account.",
"Yet it was our sickness that he was bearing,
Our suffering that he endured.
We accounted him plagued,
Smitten and afflicted by God;",
"But he was wounded because of our sins,
Crushed because of our iniquities.
He bore the chastisement that made us whole,
And by his bruises we were healed.",
"We all went astray like sheep,
Each going his own way;
And the LORD visited upon him
The guilt of all of us.”
",
"He was maltreated, yet he was submissive,
He did not open his mouth;
Like a sheep being led to slaughter,
Like a ewe, dumb before those who shear her,
He did not open his mouth.",
"By oppressive judgment he was taken away,
Who could describe his abode?
For he was cut off from the land of the living
Through the sin of my people, who deserved the punishment.",
"And his grave was set among the wicked,
And with the rich, in his death—
Though he had done no injustice
And had spoken no falsehood.",
"But the LORD chose to crush him by disease,
That, if he made himself an offering for guilt,
He might see offspring and have long life,
And that through him the LORD’s purpose might prosper.",
"Out of his anguish he shall see it;
He shall enjoy it to the full through his devotion.
“My righteous servant makes the many righteous,
It is their punishment that he bears;",
"Assuredly, I will give him the many as his portion,
He shall receive the multitude as his spoil.
For he exposed himself to death
And was numbered among the sinners,
Whereas he bore the guilt of the many
And made intercession for sinners.”"
],
[
"Shout, O barren one,
You who bore no child!
Shout aloud for joy,
You who did not travail!
For the children of the wife forlorn
Shall outnumber those of the espoused
—said the LORD.",
"Enlarge the site of your tent,
Extend the size of your dwelling,
Do not stint!
Lengthen the ropes, and drive the pegs firm.",
"For you shall spread out to the right and the left;
Your offspring shall dispossess nations
And shall people the desolate towns.
",
"Fear not, you shall not be shamed;
Do not cringe, you shall not be disgraced.
For you shall forget
The reproach of your youth,
And remember no more
The shame of your widowhood.",
"For He who made you will espouse you—
His name is “LORD of Hosts.”
The Holy One of Israel will redeem you—
He is called “God of all the Earth.”
",
"The LORD has called you back
As a wife forlorn and forsaken.
Can one cast off the wife of his youth?
—said your God.",
"For a little while I forsook you,
But with vast love I will bring you back.",
"In slight anger, for a moment,
I hid My face from you;
But with kindness everlasting
I will take you back in love
—said the LORD your Redeemer.",
"For this to Me is like the waters of Noah:
As I swore that the waters of Noah
Nevermore would flood the earth,
So I swear that I will not
Be angry with you or rebuke you.",
"For the mountains may move
And the hills be shaken,
But my loyalty shall never move from you,
Nor My covenant of friendship be shaken
—said the LORD, who takes you back in love.
",
"Unhappy, storm-tossed one, uncomforted!
I will lay carbuncles as your building stones
And make your foundations of sapphires.",
"I will make your battlements of rubies,
Your gates of precious stones,
The whole encircling wall of gems.",
"And all your children shall be disciples of the LORD,
And great shall be the happiness of your children;",
"You shall be established through righteousness.
You shall be safe from oppression,
And shall have no fear;
From ruin, and it shall not come near you.",
"Surely no harm can be done
Without My consent:
Whoever would harm you
Shall fall because of you.",
"It is I who created the smith
To fan the charcoal fire
And produce the tools for his work;
So it is I who create
The instruments of havoc.",
"No weapon formed against you
Shall succeed,
And every tongue that contends with you at law
You shall defeat.
Such is the lot of the servants of the LORD,
Such their triumph through Me
—declares the LORD."
],
[
"Ho, all who are thirsty,
Come for water,
Even if you have no money;
Come, buy food and eat:
Buy food without money,
Wine and milk without cost.",
"Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
Your earnings for what does not satisfy?
Give heed to Me,
And you shall eat choice food
And enjoy the richest viands.",
"Incline your ear and come to Me;
Hearken, and you shall be revived.
And I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
The enduring loyalty promised to David.",
"As I made him a leader of peoples,
A prince and commander of peoples,",
"So you shall summon a nation you did not know,
And a nation that did not know you
Shall come running to you—
For the sake of the LORD your God,
The Holy One of Israel who has glorified you.
",
"Seek the LORD while He can be found,
Call to Him while He is near.",
"Let the wicked give up his ways,
The sinful man his plans;
Let him turn back to the LORD,
And He will pardon him;
To our God,
For He freely forgives.",
"For My plans are not your plans,
Nor are My ways your ways
—declares the LORD.",
"But as the heavens are high above the earth,
So are My ways high above your ways
And My plans above your plans.",
"For as the rain or snow drops from heaven
And returns not there,
But soaks the earth
And makes it bring forth vegetation,
Yielding seed for sowing and bread for eating,",
"So is the word that issues from My mouth:
It does not come back to Me unfulfilled,
But performs what I purpose,
Achieves what I sent it to do.",
"Yea, you shall leave in joy and be led home secure.
Before you, mount and hill shall shout aloud,
And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.",
"Instead of the brier, a cypress shall rise;
Instead of the nettle, a myrtle shall rise.
These shall stand as a testimony to the LORD,
As an everlasting sign that shall not perish."
],
[
"Thus said the LORD:
Observe what is right and do what is just;
For soon My salvation shall come,
And my deliverance be revealed.
",
"Happy is the man who does this,
The man who holds fast to it:
Who keeps the sabbath and does not profane it,
And stays his hand from doing any evil.
",
"Let not the foreigner say,
Who has attached himself to the LORD,
“The LORD will keep me apart from His people”;
And let not the eunuch say,
“I am a withered tree.”",
"For thus said the LORD:
“As for the eunuchs who keep My sabbaths,
Who have chosen what I desire
And hold fast to My covenant—",
"I will give them, in My House
And within My walls,
A monument and a name
Better than sons or daughters.
I will give them an everlasting name
Which shall not perish.",
"As for the foreigners
Who attach themselves to the LORD,
To minister to Him,
And to love the name of the LORD,
To be His servants—
All who keep the sabbath and do not profane it,
And who hold fast to My covenant—",
"I will bring them to My sacred mount
And let them rejoice in My house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
Shall be welcome on My altar;
For My House shall be called
A house of prayer for all peoples.”",
"Thus declares the Lord GOD,
Who gathers the dispersed of Israel:
“I will gather still more to those already gathered.”
",
"All you wild beasts, come and devour,
All you beasts of the forest!",
"The watchmen are blind, all of them,
They perceive nothing.
They are all dumb dogs
That cannot bark;
They lie sprawling,
They love to drowse.",
"Moreover, the dogs are greedy;
They never know satiety.
As for the shepherds, they know not
What it is to give heed.
Everyone has turned his own way,
Every last one seeks his own advantage.",
"“Come, I’ll get some wine;
Let us swill liquor.
And tomorrow will be just the same,
Or even much grander!”"
],
[
"The righteous man perishes,
And no one considers;
Pious men are taken away,
And no one gives thought
That because of evil
The righteous was taken away.",
"Yet he shall come to peace,
He shall have rest on his couch
Who walked straightforward.
",
"But as for you, come closer,
You sons of a sorceress,
You offspring of an adulterer and a harlot!",
"With whom do you act so familiarly?
At whom do you open your mouth
And stick out your tongue?
Why, you are children of iniquity,
Offspring of treachery—",
"You who inflame yourselves
Among the terebinths,
Under every verdant tree;
Who slaughter children in the wadis,
Among the clefts of the rocks.",
"With such are your share and portion,
They, they are your allotment;
To them you have poured out libations,
Presented offerings.
Should I relent in the face of this?
",
"On a high and lofty hill
You have set your couch;
There, too, you have gone up
To perform sacrifices.",
"Behind the door and doorpost
You have directed your thoughts;
Abandoning Me, you have gone up
On the couch you made so wide.
You have made a covenant with them,
You have loved bedding with them;
You have chosen lust.",
"You have approached the king with oil,
You have provided many perfumes.
And you have sent your envoys afar,
Even down to the netherworld.",
"Though wearied by much travel,
You never said, “I give up!”
You found gratification for your lust,
And so you never cared.",
"Whom do you dread and fear,
That you tell lies?
But you gave no thought to Me,
You paid no heed.
It is because I have stood idly by so long
That you have no fear of Me.",
"I hereby pronounce judgment upon your deeds:
Your assorted [idols] shall not avail you,",
"Shall not save you when you cry out.
They shall all be borne off by the wind,
Snatched away by a breeze.
But those who trust in Me shall inherit the land
And possess My sacred mount.",
"[The LORD] says:
Build up, build up a highway!
Clear a road!
Remove all obstacles
From the road of My people!",
"For thus said He who high aloft
Forever dwells, whose name is holy:
I dwell on high, in holiness;
Yet with the contrite and the lowly in spirit—
Reviving the spirits of the lowly,
Reviving the hearts of the contrite.",
"For I will not always contend,
I will not be angry forever:
Nay, I who make spirits flag,
Also create the breath of life.",
"For their sinful greed I was angry;
I struck them and turned away in My wrath.
Though stubborn, they follow the way of their hearts,",
"I note how they fare and will heal them:
I will guide them and mete out solace to them,
And to the mourners among them",
"heartening, comforting words:
It shall be well,
Well with the far and the near
—said the LORD—
And I will heal them.",
"But the wicked are like the troubled sea
Which cannot rest,
Whose waters toss up mire and mud.",
"There is no safety
—said my God—
For the wicked."
],
[
"Cry with full throat, without restraint;
Raise your voice like a ram’s horn!
Declare to My people their transgression,
To the House of Jacob their sin.
",
"To be sure, they seek Me daily,
Eager to learn My ways.
Like a nation that does what is right,
That has not abandoned the laws of its God,
They ask Me for the right way,
They are eager for the nearness of God:",
"“Why, when we fasted, did You not see?
When we starved our bodies, did You pay no heed?”
Because on your fast day
You see to your business
And oppress all your laborers!",
"Because you fast in strife and contention,
And you strike with a wicked fist!
Your fasting today is not such
As to make your voice heard on high.",
"Is such the fast I desire,
A day for men to starve their bodies?
Is it bowing the head like a bulrush
And lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Do you call that a fast,
A day when the LORD is favorable?",
"No, this is the fast I desire:
To unlock fetters of wickedness,
And untie the cords of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free;
To break off every yoke.",
"It is to share your bread with the hungry,
And to take the wretched poor into your home;
When you see the naked, to clothe him,
And not to ignore your own kin.
",
"Then shall your light burst through like the dawn
And your healing spring up quickly;
Your Vindicator shall march before you,
The Presence of the LORD shall be your rear guard.",
"Then, when you call, the LORD will answer;
When you cry, He will say: Here I am.
If you banish the yoke from your midst,
The menacing hand, and evil speech,",
"And you offer your compassion to the hungry
And satisfy the famished creature—
Then shall your light shine in darkness,
And your gloom shall be like noonday.",
"The LORD will guide you always;
He will slake your thirst in parched places
And give strength to your bones.
You shall be like a watered garden,
Like a spring whose waters do not fail.",
"Men from your midst shall rebuild ancient ruins,
You shall restore foundations laid long ago.
And you shall be called
“Repairer of fallen walls,
Restorer of lanes for habitation.”",
"If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
From pursuing your affairs on My holy day;
If you call the sabbath “delight,”
The LORD’s holy day “honored”;
And if you honor it and go not your ways
Nor look to your affairs, nor strike bargains—",
"Then you can seek the favor of the LORD.
I will set you astride the heights of the earth,
And let you enjoy the heritage of your father Jacob—
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
],
[
"No, the LORD’s arm is not too short to save,
Or His ear too dull to hear;",
"But your iniquities have been a barrier
Between you and your God,
Your sins have made Him turn His face away
And refuse to hear you.",
"For your hands are defiled with crime
And your fingers with iniquity.
Your lips speak falsehood,
Your tongue utters treachery.",
"No one sues justly
Or pleads honestly;
They rely on emptiness and speak falsehood,
Conceiving wrong and begetting evil.
",
"They hatch adder’s eggs
And weave spider webs;
He who eats of those eggs will die,
And if one is crushed, it hatches out a viper.",
"Their webs will not serve as a garment,
What they make cannot serve as clothing;
Their deeds are deeds of mischief,
Their hands commit lawless acts,",
"Their feet run after evil,
They hasten to shed the blood of the innocent.
Their plans are plans of mischief,
Destructiveness and injury are on their roads.",
"They do not care for the way of integrity,
There is no justice on their paths.
They make their courses crooked,
No one who walks in them cares for integrity.
",
"“That is why redress is far from us,
And vindication does not reach us.
We hope for light, and lo! there is darkness;
For a gleam, and we must walk in gloom.",
"We grope, like blind men along a wall;
Like those without eyes we grope.
We stumble at noon, as if in darkness;
Among the sturdy, we are like the dead.",
"We all growl like bears
And moan like doves.
We hope for redress, and there is none;
For victory, and it is far from us.",
"For our many sins are before You,
Our guilt testifies against us.
We are aware of our sins,
And we know well our iniquities:",
"Rebellion, faithlessness to the LORD,
And turning away from our God,
Planning fraud and treachery,
Conceiving lies and uttering them with the throat.",
"And so redress is turned back
And vindication stays afar,
Because honesty stumbles in the public square
And uprightness cannot enter.",
"Honesty has been lacking,
He who turns away from evil is despoiled.”
The LORD saw and was displeased
That there was no redress.",
"He saw that there was no man,
He gazed long, but no one intervened.
Then His own arm won Him triumph,
His victorious right hand supported Him.",
"He donned victory like a coat of mail,
With a helmet of triumph on His head;
He clothed Himself with garments of retribution,
Wrapped himself in zeal as in a robe.",
"According to their deserts,
So shall He repay fury to His foes;
He shall make requital to His enemies,
Requital to the distant lands.",
"From the west, they shall revere the name of the LORD,
And from the east, His Presence.
For He shall come like a hemmed-in stream
Which the wind of the LORD drives on;",
"He shall come as redeemer to Zion,
To those in Jacob who turn back from sin
—declares the LORD.
",
"And this shall be My covenant with them, said the LORD: My spirit which is upon you, and the words which I have placed in your mouth, shall not be absent from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your children, nor from the mouth of your children’s children—said the LORD—from now on, for all time."
],
[
"Arise, shine, for your light has dawned;
The Presence of the LORD has shone upon you!",
"Behold! Darkness shall cover the earth,
And thick clouds the peoples;
But upon you the LORD will shine,
And His Presence be seen over you.",
"And nations shall walk by your light,
Kings, by your shining radiance.
",
"Raise your eyes and look about:
They have all gathered and come to you.
Your sons shall be brought from afar,
Your daughters like babes on shoulders.",
"As you behold, you will glow;
Your heart will throb and thrill—
For the wealth of the sea shall pass on to you,
The riches of nations shall flow to you.",
"Dust clouds of camels shall cover you,
Dromedaries of Midian and Ephah.
They all shall come from Sheba;
They shall bear gold and frankincense,
And shall herald the glories of the LORD.",
"All the flocks of Kedar shall be assembled for you,
The rams of Nebaioth shall serve your needs;
They shall be welcome offerings on My altar,
And I will add glory to My glorious House.
",
"Who are these that float like a cloud,
Like doves to their cotes?",
"Behold, the coastlands await me,
With ships of Tarshish in the lead,
To bring your sons from afar,
And their silver and gold as well—
For the name of the LORD your God,
For the Holy One of Israel, who has glorified you.",
"Aliens shall rebuild your walls,
Their kings shall wait upon you—
For in anger I struck you down,
But in favor I take you back.",
"Your gates shall always stay open—
Day and night they shall never be shut—
To let in the wealth of the nations,
With their kings in procession.
",
"For the nation or the kingdom
That does not serve you shall perish;
Such nations shall be destroyed.
",
"The majesty of Lebanon shall come to you—
Cypress and pine and box—
To adorn the site of My Sanctuary,
To glorify the place where My feet rest.
",
"Bowing before you, shall come
The children of those who tormented you;
Prostrate at the soles of your feet
Shall be all those who reviled you;
And you shall be called
“City of the LORD,
Zion of the Holy One of Israel.”",
"Whereas you have been forsaken,
Rejected, with none passing through,
I will make you a pride everlasting,
A joy for age after age.",
"You shall suck the milk of the nations,
Suckle at royal breasts.
And you shall know
That I the LORD am your Savior,
I, The Mighty One of Jacob, am your Redeemer.",
"Instead of copper I will bring gold,
Instead of iron I will bring silver;
Instead of wood, copper;
And instead of stone, iron.
And I will appoint Well-being as your government,
Prosperity as your officials.",
"The cry “Violence!”
Shall no more be heard in your land,
Nor “Wrack and ruin!”
Within your borders.
And you shall name your walls “Victory”
And your gates “Renown.”
",
"No longer shall you need the sun
For light by day,
Nor the shining of the moon
For radiance [by night];
For the LORD shall be your light everlasting,
Your God shall be your glory.",
"Your sun shall set no more,
Your moon no more withdraw;
For the LORD shall be a light to you forever,
And your days of mourning shall be ended.",
"And your people, all of them righteous,
Shall possess the land for all time;
They are the shoot that I planted,
My handiwork in which I glory.",
"The smallest shall become a clan;
The least, a mighty nation.
I the LORD will speed it in due time."
],
[
"The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
Because the LORD has anointed me;
He has sent me as a herald of joy to the humble,
To bind up the wounded of heart,
To proclaim release to the captives,
Liberation to the imprisoned;",
"To proclaim a year of the LORD’s favor
And a day of vindication by our God;
To comfort all who mourn—",
"To provide for the mourners in Zion—
To give them a turban instead of ashes,
The festive ointment instead of mourning,
A garment of splendor instead of a drooping spirit.
They shall be called terebinths of victory,
Planted by the LORD for His glory.",
"And they shall build the ancient ruins,
Raise up the desolations of old,
And renew the ruined cities,
The desolations of many ages.",
"Strangers shall stand and pasture your flocks,
Aliens shall be your plowmen and vine-trimmers;",
"While you shall be called “Priests of the LORD,”
And termed “Servants of our God.”
You shall enjoy the wealth of nations
And revel in their riches.",
"Because your shame was double—
Men cried, “Disgrace is their portion”—
Assuredly,
They shall have a double share in their land,
Joy shall be theirs for all time.",
"For I the LORD love justice,
I hate robbery with a burnt offering.
I will pay them their wages faithfully,
And make a covenant with them for all time.",
"Their offspring shall be known among the nations,
Their descendants in the midst of the peoples.
All who see them shall recognize
That they are a stock the LORD has blessed.
",
"I greatly rejoice in the LORD,
My whole being exults in my God.
For He has clothed me with garments of triumph,
Wrapped me in a robe of victory,
Like a bridegroom adorned with a turban,
Like a bride bedecked with her finery.",
"For as the earth brings forth her growth
And a garden makes the seed shoot up,
So the Lord GOD will make
Victory and renown shoot up
In the presence of all the nations."
],
[
"For the sake of Zion I will not be silent,
For the sake of Jerusalem I will not be still,
Till her victory emerge resplendent
And her triumph like a flaming torch.",
"Nations shall see your victory,
And every king your majesty;
And you shall be called by a new name
Which the LORD Himself shall bestow.",
"You shall be a glorious crown
In the hand of the LORD,
And a royal diadem
In the palm of your God.
",
"Nevermore shall you be called “Forsaken,”
Nor shall your land be called “Desolate”;
But you shall be called “I delight in her,”
And your land “Espoused.”
For the LORD takes delight in you,
And your land shall be espoused.",
"As a youth espouses a maiden,
Your sons shall espouse you;
And as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
So will your God rejoice over you.
",
"Upon your walls, O Jerusalem,
I have set watchmen,
Who shall never be silent
By day or by night.
O you, the LORD’s remembrancers,
Take no rest",
"And give no rest to Him,
Until He establish Jerusalem
And make her renowned on earth.
",
"The LORD has sworn by His right hand,
By His mighty arm:
Nevermore will I give your new grain
To your enemies for food,
Nor shall foreigners drink the new wine
For which you have labored.",
"But those who harvest it shall eat it
And give praise to the LORD;
And those who gather it shall drink it
In My sacred courts.",
"Pass through, pass through the gates!
Clear the road for the people;
Build up, build up the highway,
Remove the rocks!
Raise an ensign over the peoples!",
"See, the LORD has proclaimed
To the end of the earth:
Announce to Fair Zion,
Your Deliverer is coming!
See, his reward is with Him,
His recompense before Him.",
"And they shall be called, “The Holy People,
The Redeemed of the LORD,”
And you shall be called, “Sought Out,
A City Not Forsaken.”"
],
[
"Who is this coming from Edom,
In crimsoned garments from Bozrah—
Who is this, majestic in attire,
Pressing forward in His great might?
“It is I, who contend victoriously,
Powerful to give triumph.”
",
"Why is your clothing so red,
Your garments like his who treads grapes?",
"“I trod out a vintage alone;
Of the peoples no man was with Me.
I trod them down in My anger,
Trampled them in My rage;
Their life-blood bespattered My garments,
And all My clothing was stained.",
"For I had planned a day of vengeance,
And My year of redemption arrived.",
"Then I looked, but there was none to help;
I stared, but there was none to aid—
So My own arm wrought the triumph,
And My own rage was My aid.",
"I trampled peoples in My anger,
I made them drunk with My rage,
And I hurled their glory to the ground.”
",
"I will recount the kind acts of the LORD,
The praises of the LORD—
For all that the LORD has wrought for us,
The vast bounty to the House of Israel
That He bestowed upon them
According to His mercy and His great kindness.",
"He thought: Surely they are My people,
Children who will not play false.
So He was their Deliverer.",
"In all their troubles He was troubled,
And the angel of His Presence delivered them.
In His love and pity
He Himself redeemed them,
Raised them, and exalted them
All the days of old.",
"But they rebelled, and grieved
His holy spirit;
Then He became their enemy,
And Himself made war against them.",
"Then they remembered the ancient days,
Him, who pulled His people out [of the water]:
“Where is He who brought them up from the Sea
Along with the shepherd of His flock?
Where is He who put
In their midst His holy spirit,",
"Who made His glorious arm
March at the right hand of Moses,
Who divided the waters before them
To make Himself a name for all time,",
"Who led them through the deeps
So that they did not stumble—
As a horse in a desert,",
"Like a beast descending to the plain?”
’Twas the spirit of the LORD gave them rest;
Thus did You shepherd Your people
To win for Yourself a glorious name.
",
"Look down from heaven and see,
From Your holy and glorious height!
Where is Your zeal, Your power?
Your yearning and Your love
Are being withheld from us!",
"Surely You are our Father:
Though Abraham regard us not,
And Israel recognize us not,
You, O LORD, are our Father;
From of old, Your name is “Our Redeemer.”",
"Why, LORD, do You make us stray from Your ways,
And turn our hearts away from revering You?
Relent for the sake of Your servants,
The tribes that are Your very own!",
"Our foes have trampled Your Sanctuary,
Which Your holy people possessed but a little while.",
"We have become as a people You never ruled,
To which Your name was never attached.
If You would but tear open the heavens and come down,
So that mountains would quake before
You—"
],
[
"As when fire kindles brushwood,
And fire makes water boil—
To make Your name known to Your adversaries
So that nations will tremble at Your Presence,",
"When You did wonders we dared not hope for,
You came down
And mountains quaked before You.",
"Such things had never been heard or noted.
No eye has seen [them], O God, but You,
Who act for those who trust in You.",
"Yet you have struck him who would gladly do justice,
And remember You in Your ways.
It is because You are angry that we have sinned;
We have been steeped in them from of old,
And can we be saved?",
"We have all become like an unclean thing,
And all our virtues like a filthy rag.
We are all withering like leaves,
And our iniquities, like a wind, carry us off.",
"Yet no one invokes Your name,
Rouses himself to cling to You.
For You have hidden Your face from us,
And made us melt because of our iniquities.",
"But now, O LORD, You are our Father;
We are the clay, and You are the Potter,
We are all the work of Your hands.",
"Be not implacably angry, O LORD,
Do not remember iniquity forever.
Oh, look down to Your people, to us all!",
"Your holy cities have become a desert:
Zion has become a desert,
Jerusalem a desolation.",
"Our holy Temple, our pride,
Where our fathers praised You,
Has been consumed by fire:
And all that was dear to us is ruined.",
"At such things will You restrain Yourself, O LORD,
Will You stand idly by and let us suffer so heavily?"
],
[
"I responded to those who did not ask,
I was at hand to those who did not seek Me;
I said, “Here I am, here I am,”
To a nation that did not invoke My name.",
"I constantly spread out My hands
To a disloyal people,
Who walk the way that is not good,
Following their own designs;",
"The people who provoke My anger,
Who continually, to My very face,
Sacrifice in gardens and burn incense on tiles;",
"Who sit inside tombs
And pass the night in secret places;
Who eat the flesh of swine,
With broth of unclean things in their bowls;",
"Who say, “Keep your distance! Don’t come closer!
For I would render you consecrated.”
Such things make My anger rage,
Like fire blazing all day long.",
"See, this is recorded before Me;
I will not stand idly by, but will repay,
Deliver their sins into their bosom,",
"And the sins of their fathers as well
—said the LORD—
For they made offerings upon the mountains
And affronted Me upon the hills.
I will count out their recompense in full,
Into their bosoms.",
"Thus said the LORD:
As, when new wine is present in the cluster,
One says, “Don’t destroy it; there’s good in it,”
So will I do for the sake of My servants,
And not destroy everything.",
"I will bring forth offspring from Jacob,
From Judah heirs to My mountains;
My chosen ones shall take possession,
My servants shall dwell thereon.",
"Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks,
And the Valley of Achor a place for cattle to lie down,
For My people who seek Me.
",
"But as for you who forsake the LORD,
Who ignore My holy mountain,
Who set a table for Luck
And fill a mixing bowl for Destiny:",
"I will destine you for the sword,
You will all kneel down, to be slaughtered—
Because, when I called, you did not answer,
When I spoke, you would not listen.
You did what I hold evil,
And chose what I do not want.
",
"Assuredly, thus said the Lord GOD:
My servants shall eat, and you shall hunger;
My servants shall drink, and you shall thirst;
My servants shall rejoice, and you shall be shamed;",
"My servants shall shout in gladness,
And you shall cry out in anguish,
Howling in heartbreak.",
"You shall leave behind a name
By which My chosen ones shall curse:
“So may the Lord GOD slay you!”
But His servants shall be given a different name.",
"For whoever blesses himself in the land
Shall bless himself by the true God;
And whoever swears in the land
Shall swear by the true God.
The former troubles shall be forgotten,
Shall be hidden from My eyes.
",
"For behold! I am creating
A new heaven and a new earth;
The former things shall not be remembered,
They shall never come to mind.",
"Be glad, then, and rejoice forever
In what I am creating.
For I shall create Jerusalem as a joy,
And her people as a delight;",
"And I will rejoice in Jerusalem
And delight in her people.
Never again shall be heard there
The sounds of weeping and wailing.",
"No more shall there be an infant or graybeard
Who does not live out his days.
He who dies at a hundred years
Shall be reckoned a youth,
And he who fails to reach a hundred
Shall be reckoned accursed.",
"They shall build houses and dwell in them,
They shall plant vineyards and enjoy their fruit.",
"They shall not build for others to dwell in,
Or plant for others to enjoy.
For the days of My people shall be
As long as the days of a tree,
My chosen ones shall outlive
The work of their hands.",
"They shall not toil to no purpose;
They shall not bear children for terror,
But they shall be a people blessed by the LORD,
And their offspring shall remain with them.",
"Before they pray, I will answer;
While they are still speaking, I will respond.",
"The wolf and the lamb shall graze together,
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox,
And the serpent’s food shall be earth.
In all My sacred mount
Nothing evil or vile shall be done
—said the LORD."
],
[
"Thus said the LORD:
The heaven is My throne
And the earth is My footstool:
Where could you build a house for Me,
What place could serve as My abode?",
"All this was made by My hand,
And thus it all came into being
—declares the LORD.
Yet to such a one I look:
To the poor and brokenhearted,
Who is concerned about My word.
",
"As for those who slaughter oxen and slay humans,
Who sacrifice sheep and immolate dogs,
Who present as oblation the blood of swine,
Who offer incense and worship false gods—
Just as they have chosen their ways
And take pleasure in their abominations,",
"So will I choose to mock them,
To bring on them the very thing they dread.
For I called and none responded,
I spoke and none paid heed.
They did what I deem evil
And chose what I do not want.
",
"Hear the word of the LORD,
You who are concerned about His word!
Your kinsmen who hate you,
Who spurn you because of Me, are saying,
“Let the LORD manifest His Presence,
So that we may look upon your joy.”
But theirs shall be the shame.",
"Hark, tumult from the city,
Thunder from the Temple!
It is the thunder of the LORD
As He deals retribution to His foes.
",
"Before she labored, she was delivered;
Before her pangs came, she bore a son.",
"Who ever heard the like?
Who ever witnessed such events?
Can a land pass through travail
In a single day?
Or is a nation born
All at once?
Yet Zion travailed
And at once bore her children!",
"Shall I who bring on labor not bring about birth?
—says the LORD.
Shall I who cause birth shut the womb?
—said your God.",
"Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her,
All you who love her!
Join in her jubilation,
All you who mourned over her—",
"That you may suck from her breast
Consolation to the full,
That you may draw from her bosom
Glory to your delight.
",
"For thus said the LORD:
I will extend to her
Prosperity like a stream,
The wealth of nations
Like a wadi in flood;
And you shall drink of it.
You shall be carried on shoulders
And dandled upon knees.",
"As a mother comforts her son
So I will comfort you;
You shall find comfort in Jerusalem.",
"You shall see and your heart shall rejoice,
Your limbs shall flourish like grass.
The power of the LORD shall be revealed
In behalf of His servants;
But He shall rage against His foes.
",
"See, the LORD is coming with fire—
His chariots are like a whirlwind—
To vent His anger in fury,
His rebuke in flaming fire.",
"For with fire will the LORD contend,
With His sword, against all flesh;
And many shall be the slain of the LORD.
",
"Those who sanctify and purify themselves to enter the groves, imitating one in the center, eating the flesh of the swine, the reptile, and the mouse, shall one and all come to an end—declares the LORD.",
"For I [know] their deeds and purposes.
[The time] has come to gather all the nations and tongues; they shall come and behold My glory.",
"I will set a sign among them, and send from them survivors to the nations: to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud—that draw the bow—to Tubal, Javan, and the distant coasts, that have never heard My fame nor beheld My glory. They shall declare My glory among these nations.",
"And out of all the nations, said the LORD, they shall bring all your brothers on horses, in chariots and drays, on mules and dromedaries, to Jerusalem My holy mountain as an offering to the LORD—just as the Israelites bring an offering in a pure vessel to the House of the LORD.",
"And from them likewise I will take some to be levitical priests, said the LORD.
",
"For as the new heaven and the new earth
Which I will make
Shall endure by My will
—declares the LORD—
So shall your seed and your name endure.",
"And new moon after new moon,
And sabbath after sabbath,
All flesh shall come to worship Me
—said the LORD.",
"They shall go out and gaze
On the corpses of the men who rebelled against Me:
Their worms shall not die,
Nor their fire be quenched;
They shall be a horror
To all flesh.
And new moon after new moon,
And sabbath after sabbath,
All flesh shall come to worship Me
—said the LORD."
]
],
"sectionNames": [
"Chapter",
"Verse"
]
}