¹The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

²Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth,

For the Lord has spoken.

“I have raised sons and brought them up,

But they have rebelled against me.

³The ox knows his owner,

And the donkey his master's stall,

But Israel does not know

– My people do not understand.

⁴Alas, a sinful nation,

A people laden with iniquity,

A seed acting wickedly,

Sons acting corruptly.

They have deserted the Lord,

They have despised the holy one of Israel;

They have drawn back.

⁵Why should you be struck any more?

You would add to the apostasy.

Every head is ailing,

And every heart is faint.

⁶From the sole of the foot to the head

There is no health in it,

But bruising and scars and raw wounds.

They have not been bathed,

And they have not been bound up,

And they have not been dressed with oil.

⁷Your land is a desolation,

Your cities have been burned with fire;

As for your land in front of you,

Foreigners are devouring it,

And it is a desolation,

As overthrown by foreigners.

⁸And the daughter of Zion is left like a shed in a vineyard,

Like a shack in a cucumber field,

Like a besieged city.”

¹⁰Hear the word of the Lord,

You leaders of Sodom;

Listen to the word of our God,

You people of Gomorrah.

¹¹“To what end is the abundance of your sacrifices to me?

Says the Lord.

I am replete with burnt offerings of rams

And the fat of fatted calves,

And I do not take pleasure in the blood of bulls

And lambs and he-goats.

¹²When you come to see my face,

I will ask, ‘Who requested this on your part

To trample over my courtyards?’

¹³Do not bring a vain meal-offering any more;

Incense is an abomination to me.

I cannot bear the new moon and the Sabbath

Or the convening of a convocation.

They are iniquity,

As is the solemn assembly.

¹⁴My being hates your new moons and your festivals;

They are a burden on me,

Which I am weary of bearing.

¹⁵And when you stretch out your hands,

I will hide my eyes from you.

Even if you make much prayer,

I will not hear it.

Your hands are full of blood.

¹⁶Wash, cleanse yourselves,

Banish evil from your works in my sight;

Cease doing wrong.

¹⁷Learn to do good,

Seek justice,

Succour the oppressed,

Give the orphan justice;

Defend the case of the widow.

¹⁸Come now, and let us come to a settlement,

Says the Lord,

Even if your sins are as scarlet,

They will become as white as snow.

Even if they are as red as the cochineal worm,

They will become like wool.

¹⁹If you are willing, and you are heedful,

You will eat the goodness of the land.

²⁰But if you refuse and rebel,

You will be consumed by the sword,

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

²¹How did the faithful city become a prostitute?

She was full of justice,

Righteousness used to dwell in her,

But now – murderers.

²²Your silver has become dross;

Your liquor has been adulterated

With water.

²³Your officials are recalcitrant

And are friends of thieves.

Each one loves bribes

And pursues corrupt payments.

They do not give the orphan justice,

And the case of the widow does not reach them.

²⁴“That is why,

Says the Lord

– The Lord of hosts,

The mighty one of Israel –

Alas, I will rid myself of my adversaries,

And I will avenge myself on my enemies.

²⁵And I will draw my hand over you

And refine your dross,

As is done with potash,

And I will remove all your tin.

²⁶And I will restore your judges as in the beginning,

And your counsellors as at the start.

After that you will be called

The City of Righteousness,

The Faithful Town.

²⁷Zion will be redeemed justly,

As will those returning to her, righteously.

²⁸And it will be the demise of transgressors and sinners together,

Whilst those who abandon the Lord

Will be annihilated.

²⁹For they will be ashamed of the terebinths

Which you delighted in,

And you will be ashamed of the parks

Which you were partial to.

³⁰For they will be like a terebinth

Whose leaves are withering,

And like a park

Which has no water.

³¹And he who is strong

Will be like hemp fibres,

And his work will be tinder to a spark,

And both will burn together,

And there will be no-one to put them out.”

Reference(s) in Chapter 1: v.9 ↔ Romans 9:29 ● v.11 ↔ Mark 12:33.

¹The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

²And it will come to pass in the last days

That the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established

As the foremost of the mountains.

And it will be exalted above the hills,

And all the Gentiles will flock to it.

³And many peoples will go,

And they will say,

“Come, let's go up to the mountain of the Lord

– To the house of the God of Jacob –

And he will instruct us concerning his ways,

And let us walk in his paths.”

For the law will go out from Zion,

And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

⁴And he will judge among nations

And convict many peoples.

And they will beat their swords into ploughshares

And their spears into pruning shears.

Nation will not lift up sword against nation,

And they will no longer learn warfare.

⁵O house of Jacob,

Come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

⁶For you have forsaken your people

– The house of Jacob –

For they are full of eastern practices,

And they divine by clouds like the Philistines,

And they make alliances with foreigners.

⁷And his land has been filled with silver and gold,

And there is no end to his treasure stores.

And his land has been filled with horses,

And there is no end to his chariots.

⁸And his land has been filled with idols.

They worship the work of their hands

– What their fingers have made.

⁹Then when a man is made low,

And a person is humbled,

Do not lift them up.

¹⁰Go into the rock,

And hide in the dust,

For fear of the Lord

And because of the splendour of his majesty.

¹¹A man's arrogant eyes will be humbled,

And the haughtiness of the people will be brought low,

And the Lord alone will be exalted

On that day.

¹²For the day of the Lord of hosts

Is against all the proud and haughty,

And against everyone exalted,

And each one will be humbled,

¹³And against all the cedars of Lebanon,

Which are high and exalted,

And against all the oaks of Bashan,

¹⁴And against all the high mountains,

And against all the exalted hills,

¹⁵And against every tall tower,

And against every fortified wall,

¹⁶And against all the ships of Tarshish,

And against all attractive sights.

¹⁷And the arrogance of man will be brought low,

And the haughtiness of people will be humbled,

And the Lord alone will be exalted

On that day.

¹⁸And the idols will vanish in their entirety.

¹⁹And they will go into the caves in the rocks

And the caverns of the ground,

For fear of the Lord

And because of the splendour of his majesty

When he arises to terrify the earth.

²⁰On that day

Man will throw his silver idols

And his golden idols,

Which were made for him to worship,

To the moles and bats,

²¹As he goes into the clefts in the rocks,

And into the cracks in the outcrops,

For fear of the Lord

And because of the splendour of his majesty

When he arises to terrify the earth.

²²Renounce your ties with man,

Whose breath is in his nose,

For what is he considered worth?

Reference(s) in Chapter 2: v.12 ↔ Revelation 1:10 ● v.19 ↔ Revelation 6:15.

¹For behold, the Lord – the Lord of hosts –

Is removing supplies and provisions from Jerusalem and from Judah –

All supplies of bread

And all supplies of water,

²Affecting the warrior and soldier,

Judge and prophet and diviner,

And old man,

³Commander of fifty and dignitary,

And counsellor and skilled craftsman,

And the initiate in incantations.

⁴And I will appoint youngsters as their officials,

And children will rule over them.

⁵And the people will be oppressed,

One man by another,

And one man by his neighbour.

And a young man will be insolent to an old man,

As will a common man to an honourable man.

⁶For a man will take hold of his brother in his father's house,

And he will say, “You have a coat;

You shall be our leader,

And these ruins will be under your direction.”

⁷He will take an oath

On that day, and he will say,

“I will not be the one who remedies this

While there is no food and no coat in my house.

Do not make me a leader of the people.”

⁸For Jerusalem has toppled over,

And Judah has fallen down,

For their tongue and their deeds were directed against the Lord,

In grieving his majestic gaze.

⁹The expression on their faces testifies against them,

And they betray their sin like Sodom;

They do not conceal it.

Woe to their very selves,

For they are recompensed with evil.

¹⁰Say to the righteous man that this is pleasing:

That men will eat the fruit of their works.

¹¹Woe to the evil wicked man!

For the just deserts of his hands

Will be repaid him.

¹²As for my people, their taskmasters are juvenile,

And women rule over them.

My people, those guiding you are leading you astray,

And they have subverted the way of your paths.

¹³The Lord is poised to take issue,

And he is taking a stand in judging various peoples.

¹⁴The Lord will enter into a judicial process

With the elders of his people and their officials,

For you have consumed the vineyard,

And the plunder taken from the poor is in your houses.

¹⁵“What concern has it been to you

Who tread my people down

And grind down the dignity of the poor?”

Says the Lord,

The Lord of hosts.

¹⁶And the Lord said,

“Since the daughters of Zion have been haughty

And have walked vaunting their throats

And flirting with their eyes,

Mincing along as they walk,

And wearing anklets on their feet,

¹⁷The Lord^* will make the hair of the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion fall out,

And the Lord will expose their nakedness.

¹⁸On that day the Lord^* will remove the adornment of anklets,

And the sun-disks,

And the moon-bangles,

¹⁹The pendants, and the bracelets,

And the veils,

²⁰The headdresses and the ankle-chains and the waistbands,

And the perfume boxes,

And the amulets,

²¹The rings on fingers and the noserings,

²²The mantles and the fine coats,

And the cloaks,

And the purses,

²³And the mirrors,

And the linen underwear,

And the turbans

And the scarves.

²⁴And it will come to pass

That instead of perfume there will be rottenness,

And instead of a girdle, a cord,

And instead of hairstyling, baldness,

And instead of an overcoat, a wrapping of sackcloth;

Burn marks instead of beauty.

²⁵Your men will fall by the sword,

As will your military might in war.

²⁶And her gates will sigh and mourn,

And she will be vacated

And remain on the ground.”

¹And on that day,

Seven women will take hold of one man

And will say,

“We will eat our own bread,

And we will wear our own clothing,

Only let us be called by your name

To remove our reproach.”

²On that day the Lord's branch will be

The source of beauty and of honour,

And the fruit of the land

Will demonstrate excellence and splendour

To the escaped remnant of Israel.

³And it will come to pass that he who is left in Zion, and he who remains in Jerusalem, will be declared holy to him – everyone in Jerusalem who is written as destined for life, ⁴when the Lord^* washes away the excrement of the daughters of Zion and purges the blood of Jerusalem from its confines, with a spirit of judgment and with a spirit of burning. ⁵And the Lord will create over every dwelling place in Mount Zion, and over its assemblies, a cloud by day, and smoke, and a flaming fiery glow by night, for all glory will have a canopy over it. ⁶But there will be a booth as a shade from the heat, and as a shelter and refuge from storm and rain.

¹Let me now sing to my lover

The song of my loved one about his vineyard.

My lover had a vineyard

On a fertile hilltop.

²And he dug it and cleared it of stones,

And he planted it with a choice vine,

And he built a tower in the middle of it,

And he also hewed out a wine vat in it.

And he expected it to produce good grapes,

But it produced blighted ones.

³So now, O inhabitant of Jerusalem,

And men of Judah,

Please judge between me and my vineyard.

⁴What more was there to do to my vineyard

That I didn't do in it?

How is it that I expected it to produce good grapes,

But it produced blighted ones?

⁵So now let me make known to you what I am about to do to my vineyard.

I will remove its hedge,

And it will be consigned to burning;

And I will tear down its wall,

And it will become a place trodden down.

⁶And I will make it a desolate place,

Where it is not pruned or hoed,

And the briar and thorn will come up.

And I will command the rainclouds

Not to precipitate rain on it.

⁷For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts

Is the house of Israel,

And the men of Judah

Are his delightful plantation.

And he expected justice

But what came was bloodshed;

And righteousness,

But what came was crying out.

⁸Woe to those who join house to house,

And who adjoin field to field,

Until there is no room,

And you are housed on your own,

In the middle of the land.

⁹In my ear, the Lord of hosts said,

“Many houses will certainly become a desolation

– Large ones and good ones –

For want of an occupant.

¹⁰For ten times what a yoke of oxen plough in a day in a vineyard

Will yield one bath,

And seed for a homer

Will yield one ephah.”

¹¹Woe to those who get up early in the morning

And go looking for strong drink;

They stay up until late in the night,

While wine inflames them.

¹²And there will be at their banquets

The harp and the lute,

The drum and the pipe, and wine,

But they do not have respect for the Lord's deeds,

And they do not regard the work of his hands,

¹³Which is why my people have gone into captivity,

For want of knowledge.

And what was its glory

Is now hungry men,

And what was its populousness

Is now thirsty dryness.

¹⁴That is why the grave has opened itself wide

And distended its mouth without limit,

And their glory and their many people, and their bustling,

And he who is joyful

Will descend into it.

¹⁵A man is made low,

And a person is humbled,

And the eyes of the arrogant will be brought down,

¹⁶But the Lord of hosts is exalted by justice,

And holy God is sanctified by righteousness.

¹⁷And lambs will feed according to what pasture they have,

And foreigners will eat from the desolate places of the well-fed.

¹⁸Woe to those who pull iniquity along

With cords of vanity,

And sinfulness,

As if with a cart-rope,

¹⁹Who say, “Let his work come quickly,

Let it hasten so we can see it,

And let the counsel of the holy one of Israel draw near and arrive

So we can acknowledge it.”

²⁰Woe to those who call bad good,

And good bad,

Substituting darkness for light,

And light for darkness,

Substituting bitter for sweet,

And sweet for bitter.

²¹Woe to the wise in their own eyes,

And the intelligent in their own opinion.

²²Woe to the champions in drinking liquor,

And the masters in mixing strong drink,

²³And those who justify the wicked for a bribe,

But as for the justice of the righteous,

They deny him it.

²⁴That is why as a tongue of fire consumes the stubble,

And the hay collapses before the flame.

Their root will be rotten,

And their blossoms will appear like dust,

For they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts,

And they have despised the words of the holy one of Israel.

²⁵This is why the Lord's anger is kindled against his people,

And why he stretched out his hand against them and struck them,

And the mountains stood in awe,

And their corpses were like the filth in the middle of the open places.

Yet for all this,

His anger is not receding,

And his hand is still stretched out.

²⁶And he will raise a banner to the Gentiles from afar off,

And he will whistle for them from the end of the earth,

And behold, they will come

With haste and speed.

²⁷There is no-one weary, and no-one stumbles among them;

They do not slumber and do not sleep,

And the girdle around their waist does not come loose,

And the fastening of their shoes does not come undone.

²⁸And their arrows are sharp,

And all their bows are drawn,

And the hoofs of their horses are considered as flint,

And their chariot wheels are like a hurricane.

²⁹They have a roar like a lion,

And they roar like lion cubs,

And they growl and seize prey,

And they make off with it,

And there is no-one to rescue it.

³⁰But he will roar at them on that day,

Like the roaring of the sea.

And if one looks at the earth,

There will be darkness and distress,

And the light will be made dark

By its overclouding.

¹In the year of the death of King Uzziah, I saw the Lord^* sitting on a throne, high and exalted, and his robe-train filled the temple. ²Seraphim were standing around him, each having six wings. With two each covered his face, and with two each covered his feet, and with two each flew. ³And one called to another and said,

His glory is the fulness

Of all the earth.”

⁴And the bases of the thresholds moved at the sound of the one calling, and the house became filled with smoke. ⁵Then I said,

“Woe is me,

For I am reduced to silence,

For I am a man of unclean lips,

And I live among a people of unclean lips,

For my eyes have seen the king

– The Lord of hosts.”

⁶And one of the Seraphim flew towards me, in whose hand was a hot coal in tongs, which he had taken from the altar. ⁷And he brought it in contact with my mouth, and he said,

“Look, this has touched your lips,

And your iniquity has departed,

And your sin has been expiated.”

⁸And I heard the voice of the Lord^*, who said,

“Whom shall I send,

And who will go on our behalf?”

And I said, “Here I am; send me.” ⁹And he said, ¹¹Then I said, “For how long is it, Lord^*?” And he said,

“Until the cities have become desolate,

For want of an inhabitant,

And houses, for want of a man,

And the ground will be laid waste in desolation.

¹²And the Lord will put man at a distance,

And the abandonment within the land will be great.

¹³But there will still be a tenth in it,

For that tenth will return,

But it will be ravaged.

Yet just as the terebinth and the oak

After felling retain a stump,

So shall the holy seed be, as its stump.”

Reference(s) in Chapter 6: v.3 ↔ Revelation 4:8 ● v.4 ↔ Revelation 15:8 ● v.9 ↔ Matthew 13:14, Mark 4:12, Luke 8:10, John 12:40, Acts 28:26, Romans 11:8 ● v.10 ↔ Matthew 13:15, Mark 4:12, Luke 8:10, John 12:40, Acts 28:27.

¹And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, the king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aramaea, with Pekah the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem in a war against it, but he could not prevail against it. ²And it was reported to the house of David as follows: “Aramaea has taken up a position in Ephraim.” And his heart and the heart of his people were moved, like the movement of the trees of the forest by the wind. ³And the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-Jashub your son, at the end of the conduit at the upper pool, to the road of the fuller's field, ⁴and say to him, ‘Take care, and keep quiet. Do not fear and do not become faint-hearted at these two tails of smoking firebrands, at the burning anger of Rezin and Aramaea and the son of Remaliah, ⁵in that Aramaea has taken evil counsel against you, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, saying, ⁶«Let us go up into Judah and besiege it and divide it among ourselves and appoint a king in it – the son of Tabeal.» ⁷This is what my Lord the Lord, says:

«It will not arise

And it will not come to pass.

⁸For the head of Aramaea is Damascus,

And the head of Damascus is Rezin,

And in sixty-five years' time,

Ephraim will be severed from being a people.

⁹And the head of Ephraim is Samaria,

And the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.

If your faith does not hold up,

You will not be upheld.» ’ ”

¹⁰Then the Lord spoke to Ahaz again and said, ¹¹“Ask for a sign for yourself from the Lord your God. Make the request profound or make it soaringly high.” ¹²But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not test the Lord.” ¹³Then Isaiah said, “Listen now, O house of David. Is it a small matter to you to weary men? For you are also wearying my God. ¹⁴Therefore the Lord^* himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and she will call him Immanuel. ¹⁵He will eat curds and honey, for him to know to reject evil and to choose good. ¹⁶For before the boy knows to reject evil and choose good, the land which you loathe will be deserted by its two kings. ¹⁷The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father days which have not come before, since the day when Ephraim departed from Judah allying himself with the king of Assyria.

¹⁸And it will come to pass on that day

That the Lord will whistle for the fly

Which is at the far end of the River of Egypt,

And for the bee

Which is in the land of Assyria.

¹⁹And they will all come and settle

In the watercourses of the ravines,

And the fissures in the rocks,

And in all the thorn bushes

And in all the pasture lands.

²⁰On that day, the Lord^* will shave with a razor

– With the hired company on the far side of the river –

With the king of Assyria,

Shaving the head and the hair on the feet,

And it will also remove the beard.

²¹And it will come to pass on that day

That a man will keep a heifer and two sheep,

²²And it will come to pass,

From the high yield of the production of milk,

That he will eat curds.

For everyone who remains in the land

Will eat curds and honey.

²³And it will come to pass on that day

That in every place where there were a thousand vineyards for a thousand pieces of silver,

It will be consigned to briars and thorns.

²⁴With arrows and the bow one will go there,

For all the land will be briars and thorns.

²⁵And as for all the mountains which had been hoed with a hoe,

You shall not go there,

For fear of briars and thorns.

And it will be a place to drive oxen to,

And for sheep to tread down.”

Reference(s) in Chapter 7: v.14 ↔ Matthew 1:23.

¹And the Lord said to me, “Get yourself a large tablet, and write on it with a stylus of a common man, for Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.” ²And I took faithful witnesses to be witnesses for me: Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. ³And I approached the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son, and the Lord said to me, “Call him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. ⁴For before the boy knows how to shout, ‘My father’, or, ‘My mother’, an army will carry away the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria in the presence of the king of Assyria.” ⁵The Lord spoke to me yet again and said,

⁶“Since this people rejects the waters of Shiloah,

Which flow gently,

And rejoices in Rezin and the son of Remaliah,

⁷You will see the Lord^* bringing up over them

The mighty and massive waters of the river

– The king of Assyria and all his glory –

And he will come up through all his channels

And overflow all his banks.

⁸And he will pass through Judah,

Inundating and crossing through,

Coming up to the neck.

And he will spread his wings

Over the full width of your land, Immanuel.

⁹Do harm, you various peoples,

And come to harm.

So listen, all you distant parts of the earth,

Gird yourselves,

And come to harm,

Gird yourselves,

And come to harm.

¹⁰Take counsel,

But it will be frustrated.

Speak a word,

But it will not stand,

For God is with us.”

¹¹For this is what the Lord said to me, as a shot in the arm, and he warned me against walking in the way of this people and said,

¹²“You shall not say, ‘A conspiracy’,

To everything where the people say, ‘A conspiracy.’

¹³Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself,

For he is to be your fearfulness,

And he is to be your trepidation.

¹⁴And he will become a sanctuary,

To the two houses of Israel,

And a trap and a snare

To the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

¹⁵And many will stumble at them,

And they will fall and be broken,

And be ensnared and be caught.

¹⁶Bind up the testimony;

Seal the law among those who learn from me.”

¹⁷And I will wait for the Lord,

Who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob,

And I will confide in him.

As signs and as miracles in Israel

From the Lord of hosts,

Who dwells in Mount Zion.

¹⁹“Now when they say to you, ‘Seek the necromancers and the wizards, who whisper and who mutter’, and say, ‘Should not a people seek their God? Does one really turn to the dead for the benefit of the living?’ ²⁰If they do not speak in accordance with the law and the testimony – so these words – it is because they do not have a glimmer of reason. ²¹And one will pass through the land suffering hardship, and hungry, and it will come to pass when he is hungry that he will become angry and curse his king and his God, and he will turn to things above, ²²and he will look to the earth, and he will find adversity, and darkness and oppressive gloom, and repulsive murkiness.

Reference(s) in Chapter 8: v.12 ↔ 1 Peter 3:14 ● v.13 ↔ 1 Peter 3:15 ● v.14 ↔ Romans 9:33, 1 Peter 2:8 ● v.15 ↔ Matthew 24:10 ● v.18 ↔ Hebrews 2:13.

¹For it will not be faint, as regards the land's straitness, as on the first occasion when he brought the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali into contempt, and later made it more grievous, on the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles.

²The people who walked in darkness

Have seen a great light,

And on those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death

A light has shone.”

³You have multiplied the nation,

You have increased its joy;

They rejoice before you

As they do with joy at harvest time,

Or as when they delight

As they share the spoil.

⁴For you have broken their burdensome yoke

And their shoulder bar

– The rod which was used to drive them on –

As on the day of Midian.

⁵For every boot treading in the tumult

And shirt rolled in blood

Will be fit for burning,

As fuel for fire.

⁶For a child is to be born for us,

A son is to be given to us,

And he will shoulder government,

And he will be called Wonderful, Counsellor,

Mighty God, Father of Perpetuity,

Prince of Peace.

⁷There will be no end to the great extent of government,

Or to peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom,

In setting it up and in perpetuating it in justice and in righteousness,

From that time and age-abidingly.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.

⁸The Lord^* sent a word through Jacob,

And it alighted on Israel.

⁹And the entire people will know

– Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria –

Those who in the arrogance

And haughtiness of their heart said,

¹⁰“The bricks have fallen,

But we will build with hewn stone;

The sycamores have been cut down,

But we will replace them with cedars.”

¹¹But the Lord will strengthen the adversaries of Rezin against the people,

And he will incite their enemies –

¹²Aramaea from the east

And the Philistines from the west –

And they will consume Israel with a voracious appetite.

Yet for all this, his anger will not recede,

And his hand will still be stretched out.

¹³But the people are not returning

To him who is striking them,

And they have not sought the Lord of hosts.

¹⁴And the Lord will cut off from Israel

Head and tail,

Palm-branch and bulrush,

In one day.

¹⁵The elder and dignitary

Is who the head is,

And the prophet who teaches lies

Is who the tail is.

¹⁶And those guiding this people

Have led it astray,

And those guided by them

Have been swallowed up.

¹⁷This is why the Lord^* will not rejoice over their young men

And will not have compassion on their orphans and their widows,

For they are all profane and wrongdoing,

And every mouth speaks foolishness.

Despite all this, his anger will not recede,

And his hand will still be stretched out.

¹⁸For wickedness burns like fire;

It consumes briars and thorns,

And it kindles fire in the thickets of the forest,

And they will swell up

Like the billowing of smoke.

¹⁹In the wrath of the Lord of hosts,

The land will be burned,

And the people will be like fuel for the fire.

A man will not spare his brother.

²⁰And he will divide a portion on the right hand side,

Yet be hungry,

And eat on the left hand side.

But they will not be satisfied.

Each will eat the flesh of his own arm.

²¹Manasseh will eat Ephraim,

And Ephraim Manasseh.

Together they will be against Judah.

Despite all this, his anger will not recede,

And his hand will still be stretched out.

Reference(s) in Chapter 9: v.1 ↔ Matthew 4:15 ● v.2 ↔ Matthew 4:16 ● v.6 ↔ Luke 2:11.

¹Woe to those who issue vain decrees,

And the state secretaries who draw up iniquitous edicts,

²In denying the needy a legal process,

In robbing the poor among my people of justice,

With widows being their spoil,

And who plunder orphans.

³What will you do on the day of punishment,

And in the destruction which will come from far away?

To whom will you flee for help,

And where will you leave your honour?

⁴How will one not collapse in imprisonment,

Or what if they fall to join those killed?

Despite all this, his anger will not recede,

And his hand will still be stretched out.

⁵O Assyria, the rod of my anger,

The stick in whose hand is my indignation!

⁶I will send against them a profane nation,

And I will command them to go against the people with whom I am angry,

To take spoil and to seize plunder,

And to make them a trodden down phenomenon

Like the mire of the streets.

⁷However, they will not be conscious of this purpose,

And their heart will not so reason,

For it will just be in their heart

To destroy and cut off

Not a few nations.

⁸For he will say,

“Are not my officials a collection of kings?

⁹Is Calno not like Carchemish?

Or is Hamath not like Arpad?

Or is Samaria not like Damascus?

¹⁰When my hand finds idolatrous kingdoms,

And their carved images,

Surpassing those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

¹¹Will I not do to Jerusalem and its images

What I did to Samaria and its idols?”

¹²And it will come to pass, when the Lord^* has carried out all his work in Mount Zion and Jerusalem, that I will inflict punishment for the result of the high-mindedness of the king of Assyria and for the glorying of his haughty eyes. ¹³For he said,

“I acted in the strength of my hand,

And in my own wisdom,

For I am astute,

And I remove national borders,

And I plunder their lucre,

And I overthrow populations,

Like a mighty man.

¹⁴And my hand found the riches of various peoples like a nest.

And as one collects eggs that are abandoned,

So I collected the whole earth,

And there was no-one that fluttered a wing

Or opened his mouth and whispered.”

¹⁵Will the axe vaunt itself over him who hews with it?

Or will the saw make itself greater than him who handles it?

Likewise, can a rod lift the very ones who raise it?

Similarly, can a stick raise him who is not wood?

¹⁶This is why my Lord the Lord of hosts

Will send leanness into his fat places,

And instead of his glory,

There will be burning, as a fire burns.

¹⁷And the light of Israel will become fire,

And its holy one a flame,

And it will blaze and consume

Its briars and its thorns

In one day.

¹⁸And he will lay the glory of his forest and his orchard waste,

Both spiritually and physically,

And it will become like the exhausted state

Of one wasting away.

¹⁹And the remainder of the trees of his forest will be few in number,

And a boy will be able to set them down in writing.

²⁰And it will come to pass on that day

That the remainder of Israel

And the escaped remnant of the house of Jacob

Will no longer rely on the one who struck them,

And they will rely on the Lord

– The holy one of Israel –

In truth.

²¹The remainder will return

– The remainder of Jacob –

To the mighty God.

²⁴Therefore my Lord the Lord of hosts says this:

“My people who live in Zion,

Do not be afraid of Assyria.

They will strike you with a rod,

And lift their stick up against you,

In the way Egypt did,

²⁵But in a very short time,

The indignation will be concluded,

As will my anger,

At the time of their destruction.”

²⁶And the Lord of hosts will stir up a scourge over them,

Like the attack in Midian at the rock of Oreb.

And as his rod was on the sea,

So he will raise it,

In the same way as in Egypt.

²⁷And it will come to pass on that day

That his burden will be removed from your shoulder,

And his yoke from your neck.

And the yoke will be destroyed in front of the anointing oil.

²⁸He has come to Aiath,

He has crossed over to Migron;

He has deposited his equipment in Michmas.

²⁹They have crossed the pass;

They have taken up quarters in Geba.

Ramah is trembling;

Gibeah of Saul has fled.

³⁰Shout out, O daughter of Gallim,

Listen, O Laish,

O poor Anathoth.

³¹Madmenah has moved away;

The inhabitants of Gebim have secured their effects.

³²On the very day when he stands in Nob,

He will shake his fist

At the mountain of the daughter of Zion

– The hill of Jerusalem.

³³Behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts,

Will cut off a bough with terror,

And those of high stature will be cut down,

And the haughty will be humbled.

³⁴And he will cut down the thickets of the forest with iron,

And Lebanon will be felled by a mighty one.

Reference(s) in Chapter 10: v.22 ↔ Romans 9:27, Romans 9:28 ● v.23 ↔ Romans 9:28.

¹And a shoot will come out of the stem of Jesse,

And a branch from his roots will become fruitful.

²And the spirit of the Lord will rest on him

– The spirit of wisdom and understanding,

The spirit of counsel and valour,

The spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.

³He will delight in him

Through his fear of the Lord,

And he will not judge by appearance to the eyes,

Nor will he arbitrate by what his ears hear,

⁴But he will judge the poor righteously,

And he will arbitrate for the meek of the land equitably,

And he will strike the land with the rod of his mouth,

And he will kill the wicked by the breath of his lips.

⁵And righteousness will be the girdle around his waist,

And faithfulness the girdle around his loins.

⁶And the wolf will dwell with the lamb,

And the leopard will lie down with the goat,

And the calf and the young lion and the fatted calf will be together,

And a small boy will lead them.

⁷And the cow and the bear will graze,

And their young will lie down together,

And the lion will eat straw like the ox.

⁸And a baby will play at a vipers' den,

And an infant will put his hand on an adder's hole.

⁹They will not do harm

And they will not cause damage

Anywhere in my holy mountain,

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord,

As the waters cover the sea.

¹⁰And it will come to pass on that day

That the Gentiles will seek the root of Jesse,

Which will stand as a sign to the nations.

And rest in him will be glorious.

¹¹And it will come to pass on that day

That the Lord^* will extend his hand a second time

To acquire the remainder of his people, who remain,

From Assyria and from Egypt,

And from Pathros and from Ethiopia,

And from Elam and from Shinar,

And from Hamath and from the coastlands of the sea.

¹²And he will raise a sign to the Gentiles,

And he will gather those driven out of Israel,

And he will collect up those of Judah who are dispersed,

From the four corners of the earth.

¹³And Ephraim's envy will fade away,

And the adversaries of Judah will be cut off.

Ephraim will not envy Judah,

And Judah will not be hostile to Ephraim.

¹⁴They will attack the Philistines on the slopes to the west;

Together they will spoil the inhabitants of the east.

Edom and Moab will be for them to lay their hands on,

And the Ammonites will be in subjection to them.

¹⁵And the Lord will lay the gulf of the Egyptian sea waste,

And he will lift his hand against the river with the ardour of his breath,

And he will strike it into seven streams,

And he will enable them to cross wearing shoes.

¹⁶And there will be a highway for the rest of his people who remain,

To come from Assyria,

As there was for Israel

When they came up from the land of Egypt.

Reference(s) in Chapter 11: v.1 ↔ John 7:42, Matthew 2:23 ● v.10 ↔ Matthew 12:21, Romans 15:12, John 7:42, Revelation 5:5, Revelation 22:16.

¹And on that day you will say,

“I will praise you, O Lord.

Although you were angry with me,

Your anger has receded,

And you have comforted me.

²Behold, O God of my salvation,

I will trust and not be afraid,

For the Lord, the Lord

Is my strength and my song of praise,

And he has become my salvation.”

³And you will draw water with joy,

From the springs of this salvation.

⁴And on that day, you will say,

“Praise the Lord,

Call on his name,

Make his deeds known among the nations;

Bring to mind that his name is exalted.

⁵Sing praises to the Lord,

For he has acted illustriously.

Let this be known over all the earth.

⁶Shout out and sing for joy,

O inhabitant of Zion,

For great among you

Is the holy one of Israel.”

Reference(s) in Chapter 12: v.3 ↔ John 7:38.

¹The burden of Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.

²Set up a banner on a conspicuous mountain,

Raise a voice to them,

Lift up a hand,

So that they may come to the gates of the willing.

³I have commanded my sanctified ones;

I have also summoned my warriors

In service of my anger,

Who exult in my exaltation.

⁴The sound of a crowd in the mountains,

The image of a numerous people,

The tumultuous sound of kingdoms of Gentiles who have gathered

– The Lord of hosts is mobilizing an army for war.

⁵They are coming from a distant land,

From the end of the horizon

– The Lord and instruments of his indignation –

To lay the whole land waste.

⁶Howl, for the day of the Lord is near.

It will come as devastation from the Almighty.

⁷For that reason, all hands will become limp,

And every human heart will melt.

⁸And they will be terrified;

Writhings and pains will seize them;

They will writhe like a woman giving birth.

Every man will be astonished at his neighbour;

Their faces will be ablaze in appearance.

⁹Behold, the day of the Lord is coming,

Cruel in wrath and furious anger,

To make the land a desolation,

And he will obliterate its sinners from it.

¹¹And I will inflict punishment on the world for its evil,

And on the wicked for their iniquity,

And I will put an end to the pride of the insolent,

And I will humble the haughtiness of the fierce.

¹²I will make a man more precious than pure gold,

And a human being more precious than fine gold from Ophir.

¹³For this reason I will shake the heavens,

And the earth will be wrenched from its place,

In the wrath of the Lord of hosts,

And on the day of his furious anger.

¹⁴And it will be like a chased gazelle,

And like a sheep with no-one to gather it.

Every man will turn to his own people,

And each one will flee to his own country.

¹⁵Everyone who is found

Will be thrust through,

And everyone who has withdrawn

Will fall by the sword.

¹⁶And their children will be dashed before their eyes,

And their houses will be plundered,

And their women will be raped.

¹⁷I am about to stir Media up against them,

Medians who do not care for silver,

And who do not delight in gold.

¹⁸And bows will strike boys to the ground,

And they will not have mercy on the fruit of the womb

– Their eyes will not spare sons.

¹⁹And Babylon, the splendour of the kingdoms,

The proud grandeur of the Chaldeans,

Will be as God's overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.

²⁰It will never be inhabited,

And it will not be dwelt in from generation to generation,

Nor will the Arabian pitch a tent there,

Nor will shepherds tend their sheep there.

²²And jackals will howl in its desolate places,

And wild dogs in the luxurious palaces.

And its time is near to coming,

And its days will not be prolonged.

Reference(s) in Chapter 13: v.6 ↔ Revelation 1:10 ● v.9 ↔ Revelation 1:10 ● v.10 ↔ Matthew 24:29, Mark 13:24, Mark 13:25 ● v.21 ↔ Revelation 18:2.

¹When the Lord has mercy on Jacob, and he chooses Israel again, and he puts them in their land, the foreigner will join them, and they will be associated with the house of Jacob. ²And various nations will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them on the Lord's land, and they will be menservants and maidservants, and the house of Israel will take their captors captive, and they will subdue those who oppressed them. ³And it will come to pass on the day when the Lord gives you rest from your grief and from your disquiet, and from the hard labour which was imposed on you, ⁴that you will quote this parable about the king of Babylon and say,

“How the oppressor has come to a stop!

How the golden city has come to a standstill!

⁵The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked,

And the sceptre of rulers.

⁶He strikes nations in wrath

With unremitting beating;

He subdues peoples in anger,

In a relentless pursuit.

⁷All the earth is at rest and is quiet;

They break out into jubilation.

⁸Even the fir trees rejoice for you,

And the cedars of Lebanon,

Saying, ‘Since you have been brought down low,

The lumberjack has not come up against us.’

⁹The grave below stands in awe on account of you;

At the approach of your coming,

It arouses the Rephaim because of you

– All the he-goats of the earth.

It raises all the kings of the nations from their thrones.

¹⁰They will all break silence and say to you,

‘Have you also become weak like us?

Have you come to resemble us?’

¹¹Your pride has been brought down to the grave

With the sound of your lutes.

Under you the worms have embedded themselves,

And maggots cover you.

¹²How you have fallen from heaven, Lucifer,

Son of the dawn!

You have been struck down to the earth,

You who overthrew nations.

¹³And you have said in your heart,

‘I will ascend to heaven;

Above the stars of God,

I will set up my throne,

And I will sit at the mount of the assembly

In the remote parts of the north.

¹⁴I will ascend on the heights of a cloud;

I will be like the Most High.’

¹⁵But you will be brought down to the grave,

To the remote parts of the pit.

¹⁶Those who see you will gaze at you,

And contemplate and say,

‘Is this the man who held the earth in thrall

– Who shook kingdoms?

¹⁷– Who made the world like a desert

And demolished its cities,

Who did not release his captive population,

For them to go home?’

¹⁸All the kings of the nations

– All of them –

Lie in state,

Each one in his royal house,

¹⁹But you have been cast down

Instead of having your tomb,

Like a repugnant branch of a tree,

Being clothed like those killed,

Like those struck through with the sword,

Who descend to the stones of the pit,

Like a carcase trodden under foot.

²⁰You will not be united with them in burial,

Because you devastated your land,

And you killed your people.

The seed of those who do evil

Will never be spoken well of.

²¹Prepare slaughter for his sons,

For the iniquity of their fathers.

They shall not rise or inherit the land,

Or fill the surface of the world with cities.”

²²“And I will rise against them,

Says the Lord of hosts,

And I will cut off Babylon's fame

And remnant and posterity and progeny,

Says the Lord.

²³And I will make it a habitat of the porcupine,

And pools of water,

And I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,

Says the Lord of hosts.”

²⁴The Lord of hosts has sworn and said,

“It will certainly come to pass just as I intended.

And as I have purposed it,

So it will be established,

²⁵Namely that I will break the Assyrian in my land,

And I will trample on him on my mountains,

And his yoke will be removed from them,

And his burden will be removed from his shoulder.

²⁶This is the course of action decided on

In relation to the whole world,

And this is the hand which is stretched out

Over all the nations.

²⁷For the Lord of hosts has decided,

And who can frustrate it?

And his hand is stretched out,

And who can push it back?”

²⁸In the year of the death of King Ahaz, there was this burden:

²⁹Do not rejoice, Philistia – the whole of you –

On the basis that the rod which struck you has broken,

Because from a serpent's stock comes an adder,

And its fruit is a flying fiery serpent.

³⁰And the very poorest will be nourished,

And the needy will lie down in safety,

But I will bring death to your root with a famine,

And it will kill your remnant.

³¹Howl, O gate!

Cry out, O city!

Philistia – the whole of you – has melted down,

For smoke has come from the north,

And there is not a solitary person at his festivals.

³²And what will the messengers of the Gentiles report back?

That the Lord has established Zion.

And the poor of his people will put their trust in it.

¹The burden of Moab.

For in a night

Ar-Moab will be laid waste

And reduced to silence,

For in a night

Kir-Moab will be laid waste

And reduced to silence.

²The royal house and Dibon have gone up

To the idolatrous raised sites to weep.

Moab will wail over Nebo and over Medeba.

On all their heads will be baldness,

And every beard will be removed.

³In its outlying areas,

They will gird themselves with sackcloth,

And on its roofs and in its streets

All will wail.

Tears will run down with weeping.

⁴And Heshbon will cry out,

As will Elealeh.

Their voice will be heard as far as Jahaz,

Which is why the armed men of Moab will shout out.

His inner being will alarm him.

⁵My heart will cry out for Moab,

Its fugitives will flee to Zoar

– A heifer three years old.

For he will climb the ascent of Luhith with weeping,

For they will raise a cry of destruction

On the road to Horonaim.

⁶For the waters of Nimrim will become desolations,

For the pastures will dry up.

Grass will shrivel;

There will be no greenery.

⁷This is why they will carry the wealth which they gained,

And their store,

To the brook of the willows.

⁸For the cry has gone around the border of Moab;

Its wailing has reached Eglaim,

And its lamentation has come to Beer-Elim.

⁹For the waters of Dimon will be full of blood,

For I will appoint additional things concerning Dimon:

The lion for the escapees of Moab

And the remainder of the territory.

¹Send a tribute-lamb to the ruler of the land,

From Sela to the desert,

To the mountain of the daughter of Zion.

²And it will come to pass

That the daughters of Moab will be like a wandering bird,

From a rejected nest

At the Arnon fords.

³Obtain advice,

Execute justice,

Cast your shadow like the night at noon,

Hide those driven out;

Do not betray the wanderer.

⁴Let those of mine who have been driven out

Dwell with you.

Moab, be a shelter from the plunderer for them.

For the oppressor will come to nothing;

Plundering will come to an end,

And they who tread down

Will be obliterated from the land.

⁵And a throne will be established in kindness,

And he will sit on it

In truth in David's tent,

Judging and seeking justice,

And being quick with righteousness.

⁶And we have heard of the pride of Moab

– He is very proud –

With his haughtiness and his pride and his presumptuousness.

His lies are groundless.

⁷This is why Moab will wail.

Each one will wail for all Moab;

You will lament the foundations of Kir-Hareseth,

Seeing how much they have been battered.

⁸For the cornfields of Heshbon languish,

As does the vine of Sibmah.

The Gentile rulers have struck its tendrils;

They have reached Jazer;

Those struck wander in the desert.

Its shoots have been forsaken;

Those forsaken have crossed the sea.

⁹That is why I will tearfully weep

For Jazer and the vine of Sibmah.

I will saturate you with my tears,

Heshbon and Elealeh,

For a war cry has fallen against your summer fruit

And against your harvest.

¹⁰And joy and rejoicing will be taken away from the orchard,

And in the vineyards there will be neither shouting for joy nor jubilation.

The treader will not tread wine in the wine vats;

I have put a stop to shouting.

¹¹That is why my inward parts are humming for Moab,

Like a harp,

And my inside

For Kir-Hares.

¹²And it will come to pass

That it will be seen

That Moab is weary on the idolatrous raised site,

And it will go to its sanctuary to pray,

But it will not gain strength.

¹³This is the word which the Lord spoke to Moab at that time. ¹⁴But the Lord has spoken now and said, “In three years according to the contractual years of a hired worker, the glory of Moab will be made light of, despite all its vast multitude. And the remnant will be few – minute – and by no means great.”

¹The burden of Damascus.

“Behold, Damascus will be deprived of its existence as a city,

And it will become a heap of ruins.

²The cities of Aroer will be abandoned;

They will be for flocks,

Which will lie down,

And there will be no-one to cause fear.

³Fortifications will cease to exist in Ephraim,

As will the kingdom in Damascus and the rest of Aramaea.

They will be like the glory of the sons of Israel,

Says the Lord of hosts.

⁴And it will come to pass on that day

That the glory of Jacob will be brought low,

And his complexion will become leaner,

⁵And it will come to pass,

When the reaper gathers the corn,

And his arm reaps the ears of corn,

That he will be like a gleaner of ears of corn

In the Valley of the Rephaim.

⁶But there will remain gleanings in it,

And at the beating of the olive tree

There will fall two or three fruits on the topmost bough,

And four or five on its fruit-bearing branches,

Says the Lord God of Israel.

⁷On that day a man will behold his maker,

And his eyes will see the holy one of Israel.

⁸And he will not behold the altars which are the work of his hands,

And he will not look at what his fingers have made –

Neither the phallic parks

Nor the sun-images.

⁹On that day his fortified cities

Will be like the wilderness of a copse or a thicket,

Which they have abandoned because of the sons of Israel,

And they will become a desolation.

¹⁰For you have forgotten the God of your salvation,

And you have not remembered the rock of your stronghold,

Which is why you will plant pleasant plants,

But you will graft foreign branches on it.

¹¹On the day you plant it,

You cause it to grow,

And on the morning you sow it,

You make it thrive,

But the harvest will be a worthless heap

On a day of sickness and grievous pain.

¹²Woe to the multitude of many nations,

Who are in a tumult like the turbulence of the seas,

And the uproar of peoples

– Like the roaring sound

When mighty waters roar.

¹³The peoples roar

Like the roaring sound when mighty waters roar.

But he will rebuke them and they will flee far away,

And they will be chased like chaff of the mountains before the wind,

And like swirling debris in a whirlwind.

¹⁴At evening time there will be terror,

And before the morning they will not be there.

This is the part of those who spoil us,

And the fate of those who plunder us.

¹Woe to the land of rustling wings,

Which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,

²Which sends ambassadors by sea

In papyrus vessels over the water,

To say, ‘Go, you swift messengers,

To a people under strain

And plucked bald,

To a people fearsome ever since when they first existed

– A nation of strong rule but trodden down,

Whose land the rivers have devastated.’

³All you inhabitants of the world

And dwellers of the earth:

At the raising of an ensign on the mountains,

Observe it,

And at the sounding of the ramshorn,

Listen.

⁴For this is what the Lord has said to me:

‘I will be quiet,

And I will look at my abode,

Like a serene heat in daylight,

And like a cloud of dew

In the heat of the harvest.’

⁵For before the harvest when the blossom has come to an end,

And unripe grapes become mature from the flower,

He will cut the branches with pruning shears

And cut and remove the shoots.

⁶They will be left together

To the birds of prey of the mountains

And the wild animals.

And the birds of prey will prey on them in the summer,

While all the wild animals will be the predators in the winter.

⁷At that time a gift will be brought to the Lord of hosts

– By a people under strain

And plucked bald,

And from a people fearsome ever since when they first existed,

A nation of strong rule but trodden down,

Whose land the rivers have devastated –

Brought to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts:

Mount Zion.”

¹The burden of Egypt.

“Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud,

And is coming to Egypt.

Then the idols of Egypt will reel at his presence,

And Egypt's heart will melt inside it.

²And I will incite Egypt against Egypt,

And a man will fight his brother,

And a man his neighbour,

And a city a city,

And a kingdom a kingdom.

³And the spirit of Egypt will drain away inside them,

And I will overthrow their counsel,

And they will seek the idols and the necromancers,

And the soothsayers and the wizards.

⁴And I will deliver Egypt up into the hand of a harsh master,

And a fierce king will rule over them,

Says the Lord,

The Lord of hosts.

⁵And the waters of the sea will dry up,

And the river will become parched and arid.

⁶And the rivers will stink,

And the canals for fortifications will run low and will dry up;

The reed and the sedge will wither.

⁷The pastures by the river

And in the river estuary,

And every crop dependent on the river

Will dry up and be driven about,

And it will be gone.

⁸And the fishermen will sigh and mourn;

All who cast a hook into the river,

And those who stretch a net over the water

Will languish.

⁹And the workers in combed flax will be at a loss,

As will the weavers of white linen.

¹⁰And its foundations will be broken in pieces

– All who earn wages from lakes

Harbouring aquatic life.

¹¹What fools the officials of Zoan are

– The wise men who give Pharaoh dim-witted advice!

How can you say to Pharaoh,

‘I am a son of the wise;

I am a son of the eastern kings’?

¹²Where are they?

Where are your wise men?

And may they tell you, and may they discern

What the Lord of hosts has decreed

Concerning Egypt.

¹³The officials of Zoan have become foolish;

The officials of Noph have been deceived.

They – the elite of its tribes –

Have led Egypt astray.

¹⁴The Lord has infused a spirit of misdirection in its precincts,

And they have led Egypt astray in all its dealings,

As a drunk strays off in his vomit.

¹⁵And Egypt will not have any work,

Which the head or tail,

Palm-branch or bulrush

Might do.

¹⁶On that day, Egypt will be like women, and it will tremble and be fearful of the Lord of hosts raising his hand which he raises over them. ¹⁷And the land of Judah will be an object of dread to Egypt. Everyone who mentions it will fear for himself, because of the decision of the Lord of hosts which he has taken concerning it. ¹⁸On that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt speaking the language of Canaan, and who swear to the Lord of hosts. One will be called the City of Destruction. ¹⁹On that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the middle of the land of Egypt, and a monument to the Lord at its border. ²⁰And it will be as a sign and a testimony to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt, for they will cry out to the Lord because of oppressors, and he will send them a saviour who will be great and who will save them. ²¹And the Lord will be known to Egypt, and Egypt will know the Lord on that day, and they will make sacrifices and meal-offerings, and they will make vows to the Lord and fulfil them. ²²And the Lord will strike Egypt – strike and heal – and they will return to the Lord, and he will accede to their entreaty and heal them. ²³On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come to Egypt, and Egypt to Assyria, and Egypt will serve with Assyria. ²⁴On that day, Israel will be a joint third with Egypt and Assyria, as a blessing in the middle of the land, ²⁵because the Lord of hosts will bless it and say, ‘Blessed is my people Egypt, and the work of my hands Assyria, and my inheritance Israel.’ ”

Reference(s) in Chapter 19: v.2 ↔ Matthew 24:7, Mark 13:8, Luke 21:10.

¹In the year when Tartan came to Ashdod, when Sargon king of Assyria sent him, he fought against Ashdod and captured it. ²At that time the Lord spoke through Isaiah the son of Amoz and said, “Go and unbind the sackcloth around your waist, and remove your shoes from your feet.” And he did so and went around naked and barefoot. ³And the Lord said, “Just as my servant Isaiah is walking around naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portent concerning Egypt and Ethiopia, ⁴so the king of Assyria will lead the captives of Egypt and the deportees of Ethiopia – children and the elderly – naked and barefoot and with exposed buttocks, to Egypt's shame. ⁵And they will fear and be ashamed of Ethiopia, the object of their expectation, and of Egypt the object of their glorying. ⁶And the inhabitant of this coastland will say on that day, ‘Just look at the object of our expectation to whom we fled for help, to be delivered from the king of Assyria! And how will we escape?’ ”

¹The burden of the Desert of the Sea.

Like the passing of whirlwinds in the south,

It is coming from the desert

– From a fearsome country.

²A harsh vision has been shown to me:

The traitor betraying, and the plunderer plundering.

Go up, Elam! Besiege, Media!

I have put a stop to all sighing.

³This is why my waist is in pain:

Writhings have seized me,

Like the writhings of a woman giving birth.

I am bent with pain at hearing it;

I am terrified at seeing it.

⁴My heart is distraught.

Something horrible has terrified me;

It has made my pleasant night

My time of trepidation.

⁵Prepare the table,

Let the watch keep watch,

Eat and drink,

Arise, you commanders;

Anoint the shield.

⁶For this is what the Lord^* says to me:

“Go and appoint a watchman

Who will report what he sees.”

⁷And he saw a chariot fleet

– Horsemen in pairs,

A chariot fleet with donkeys,

A chariot fleet with camels –

And he listened attentively,

Very attentively.

⁸And he called out, “A lion.

O Lord^*.

I stand continually on the watchtower by day,

And I am stationed at my guard post every night.

⁹And here is what is coming:

A manned chariot fleet and horsemen in pairs.”

And he answered and said,

“Babylon has fallen; it has fallen.

And he has torn all the carved images of its gods

Down to the ground.”

¹⁰O threshed people of mine,

And my product of the threshing floor,

I have reported to you

What I have heard from the Lord of hosts

– The God of Israel.

¹¹The burden of Idumea.

He is calling out to me from Seir,

“Watchman, what is there to report from the night?

Watchman, what is there to report from the night?”

¹²The watchman said,

“The morning is coming,

And also the night.

If you will inquire,

Do inquire.

Return and come.”

¹³The burden in Arabia.

You will lodge in the forest in Arabia,

You Dedanite travelling companies.

¹⁴The inhabitants of the land of Tema

Brought water to him who is thirsty;

They met the fugitive

With food for him.

¹⁵For they flee from swords,

From the drawn sword

And from the drawn bow,

And from the violence of war.

¹⁶For this is what the Lord^* said to me:

“In another year

According to the contractual years of a hired worker,

All the glory of Kedar

Will come to an end.

¹⁷And the number of archers remaining

– The warriors from among the sons of Kedar –

Will become few,

For the Lord God of Israel has spoken.”

Reference(s) in Chapter 21: v.9 ↔ Revelation 14:8, Revelation 18:2.

¹The burden of the Valley of Vision.

What is the matter with you, then?

For you have all gone up to the roofs.

²You bustling city,

Full of noise,

Joyful town,

Your casualties are not casualties of the sword,

And are not dead from war.

³All your officers have fled together;

They have been brought into bondage by the bow.

All those present have been brought into bondage together;

They have fled far away.

⁴This is why I said,

“Look away from me;

I will weep bitterly.

Do not hasten to comfort me

About the devastation of the daughter of my people.”

⁵For it is a day of tumult and treading down and confusion of the Lord

– The Lord of hosts –

In the Valley of Vision,

Of undermining walls,

And crying out to the mountain.

⁶And Elam has borne the quiver,

With a manned chariot fleet and horsemen,

And Kir has bared the shield.

⁷And it came to pass that your choice valleys were full of chariots,

And the horsemen drew themselves up with vigour at the gate,

⁸And they removed Judah's covering,

And you saw on that day

The weaponry of the house of the Forest.

⁹And you have seen how numerous the breaches in the City of David are,

And you have collected the water of the lower pool.

¹⁰And you have counted the houses in Jerusalem,

And you have pulled down houses

To fortify the wall.

¹¹And you made a reservoir between the two walls

For the water of the old pool,

But you have not had respect to its maker

Or had regard for him who formed it long ago.

¹²And on that day,

My Lord the Lord of hosts proclaimed

Weeping and mourning and baldness

And girding up with sackcloth.

¹³But what he saw was

Rejoicing and merrymaking,

Killing the ox and slaughtering the sheep,

Eating meat and drinking wine, saying,

“Eat and drink,

For tomorrow we die.”

¹⁴And this was revealed in my ears

By the Lord of hosts:

“This iniquity of yours will certainly not be expiated

Until you die,

Says the Lord,

The Lord of hosts.”

¹⁵This is what my Lord the Lord of hosts says:

“Depart and go to this steward,

To Shebna, who is in charge of the house,

¹⁶And say, ‘What business do you have here?

And just who are you here,

That you should have hewn yourself a tomb here,

Like someone hewing his tomb high up,

Carving out an abode for himself in the rock?

¹⁷Look, the Lord is about to hurl you away with a mighty fling,

And to completely envelop you.

¹⁸He will wrap a wrapping right around you

And throw you like a ball into a very wide country,

And there you will die,

And there the chariots representing your glory

Will be to the shame of the house of your master.

¹⁹And I will thrust you from your station,

And he will pull you down from your high standing.

²⁰And it will come to pass on that day

That I will call for my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah.

²¹And I will clothe him with your gown,

And I will strengthen him with your girdle,

And I will put your dominion in his hand,

And he will become a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem

And to the house of Judah.

²²And I will put the key to the house of David on his shoulder,

²³And I will secure him like a peg in a secure place,

And he will become the occupier of the glorious throne

Of the house of his father.

²⁴And they will bestow on him

All the honour of his father's house,

The offspring and the offshoots

– All vessels of small capacity,

From vessels of the bowl kind

To all vessels of the jar kind.’

²⁵On that day, says the Lord of hosts,

The peg which was secured in a faithful place

Will be removed, and it will be cut down,

And it will fall,

And the burden on it will be withdrawn,

For the Lord has spoken.”

Reference(s) in Chapter 22: v.13 ↔ 1 Corinthians 15:32 ● v.22 ↔ Revelation 3:7.

¹The burden of Tyre.

Wail, O ships of Tarshish,

For it has been plundered,

Not leaving a house or a way in.

This was revealed to them

From the land of Chittim.

²Be silent, you inhabitants of the coastland,

You whom the merchants of Sidon,

Who cross the sea,

Have stocked up,

³Bringing over the high seas

Seed from Shihor.

The harvest from the river

Is Tyre's source of income,

So that it became the emporium of the nations.

⁴Sidon, be ashamed,

For the sea

– The stronghold that the sea is –

Has said, “I have not been in the pains of childbirth,

Nor have I given birth,

Nor have I raised young lads,

Nor have I brought chaste maidens up.”

⁵As at the report of Egypt,

So shall they writhe

At the report of Tyre.

⁶Cross over to Tarshish and wail,

You inhabitants of the coastland.

⁷Was this your joy,

Whose origin dates from ancient times?

Its feet will bring it

Somewhere far away to dwell.

⁸Who decided this against Tyre

– Tyre who confers crowns,

Whose merchants are princes,

Whose traders are the dignitaries of the land?

⁹The Lord of hosts decided it,

To defame the pride in all the splendour;

To bring all the dignitaries of the land into contempt.

¹⁰Cross your country like a river,

O daughter of Tarshish,

There is no longer any girding yourself up.

¹¹He stretched out his hand over the sea;

He shocked kingdoms.

The Lord has given commandment against Canaan

To destroy its strongholds.

¹²And he said,

“You will no longer exult,

You oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon.

Arise and cross over to Chittim,

But you will not be at rest there either.”

¹³Look at the land of the Chaldeans:

This people did not exist previously.

Assyria founded it for the inhabitants of the desert.

The attackers erected their watchtowers,

They demolished its palaces,

And he made it ruins.

¹⁴Wail, you ships of Tarshish,

For your stronghold has been laid waste.

¹⁵And it will come to pass on that day that Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, according to the days of one king, then after seventy years Tyre will very much have a prostitute's song to sing.

¹⁶Take the harp,

Go around the city,

You forgotten prostitute.

Play music well,

Do much singing,

In order that you may be remembered.

¹⁷And after seventy years, it will come to pass that the Lord will visit Tyre, and it will return to its earnings from prostitution, and it will engage in prostitution with all the kingdoms of the world over the face of the earth. ¹⁸But its profit and its earnings from prostitution will be holy to the Lord, and they will not be treasured up or hoarded away, for its profit will be for those who live before the Lord, so as to eat to satiety, and to have good quality clothing.

¹Behold, the Lord is about to depopulate the land

And empty it,

And he will overturn the face of it

And scatter its inhabitants.

²And it will come to pass that

As the people at large are,

So the priest will be;

As the manservant is,

So his master will be;

As the maidservant is,

So her mistress will be;

As the buyer is,

So the seller will be;

As the lender is,

So the borrower will be;

As the creditor is,

So his debtor will be.

³The land will certainly be depopulated,

And it will certainly be plundered,

For the Lord has spoken these words.

⁴The land will mourn and fade,

The world will languish and fade;

The haughty among the people of the land will languish.

⁵And the land has been defiled by its inhabitants,

For they have transgressed the laws.

They have disregarded the statute;

They have violated the age-abiding covenant,

⁶Which is why a curse has devoured the land,

And those who inhabit it bear the guilt.

It is why the inhabitants of the land are fuming,

And very few men remain.

⁷The new wine is mourning,

The vine is languishing;

All those of joyful heart

Are now sighing.

⁸The rejoicing of drums has ceased,

The tumult of those exulting has stopped;

The rejoicing of the harp has ceased.

⁹They shall not drink wine with singing;

The liquor will become bitter

To those who drink it.

¹⁰The town of desolation has been broken up;

Every house is shut up,

Preventing entering.

¹¹There is a cry for wine in the streets;

All joy has drawn to a close,

And the rejoicing in the land has passed away.

¹²What remains in the city is desolation,

And the gate has been pounded to ruins.

¹³For so it will be on the earth among the nations,

As when the olive tree has been beaten,

Like the gleanings when the grape harvest has finished.

¹⁴They will raise their voices;

They will be jubilant.

They will shout for joy from across the sea

Because of the majesty of the Lord.

¹⁵For this reason, glorify the Lord with lights

– The name of the Lord God of Israel –

In the coastlands of the sea.

¹⁶From the extremities of the earth we have heard singing

To the illustriousness of the righteous one,

But I said,

“Woe is me, woe is me, alas for me,

Traitors have betrayed me,

And the traitors have committed a betrayal.”

¹⁷Fear, and a pitfall, and a snare

Are looming over you,

You inhabitants of the earth.

¹⁸And it will come to pass

That he who flees at a fearful sound

Will fall into the pit,

And he who comes up out of the pit

Will be caught in the snare,

For the floodgates on high will open,

And the foundations of the earth will shake.

¹⁹The earth will be utterly broken into pieces,

The earth will be thoroughly torn apart;

The earth will totter perilously.

²⁰The earth will stagger precariously like a drunkard,

And it will sway like a shack,

And its transgression will weigh heavily on it,

And it will fall

And not rise again.

²¹And it will come to pass on that day

That the Lord will visit the higher powers

In a high place,

And the kings of the earth

On the earth.

²²And they will be gathered up,

Like the herding of prisoners into the pit,

And they will be shut up in confinement,

Then after many days they will be visited.

²³And the moon will blush,

And the sun will be at a loss,

When the Lord of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,

With glory in the presence of his appointed elders.

¹O Lord, you are my God.

I will exalt you;

I will praise your name,

For you have acted wonderfully,

With counsel from the distant past,

In sure faithfulness.

²For you turn a city into a heap of rubble,

And a fortified town into ruins,

And a foreign citadel into what is not a city,

Which will never be rebuilt.

³This is why a fierce people will glorify you,

And a violent Gentile town will fear you.

⁴For you are a refuge for the weak,

A refuge for the poor when he is in distress,

A shelter from a downpour,

Shade from heat,

For the onslaught of the violent

Is like a downpour against a wall.

⁵You will bring down the bustle of foreigners,

Which is like heat on parched land.

As heat is shielded by a cloud,

So the singing of the violent

Will be dispirited.

⁶And the Lord of hosts will hold for all nations,

At this mountain,

A rich feast, a feast of settled wine,

Of rich marrowy meat

And of racked wine.

⁷And on this mountain,

He will remove the veil

Which shrouds all the nations,

And the covering

Which is spread over all the Gentiles.

And he will remove the reproach on his people

From the whole world,

For the Lord has spoken.

⁹And on that day, people will say,

“Behold this God of ours;

We waited for him, and he has saved us.

This is the Lord for whom we waited.

Let us rejoice and delight in his salvation.”

¹⁰For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain,

And Moab will be trodden down under him,

As straw is trodden down

In Madmenah.

¹¹And he will spread out his arms in their midst,

As a swimmer spreads his arms to swim,

And he will bring their haughtiness down

Together with the proceeds of the fraudulence of their hands.

¹²And as for the fortification

– The high fort of your walls –

He will bring it down;

He will demolish it

And raze it to the ground as dust.

Reference(s) in Chapter 25: v.8 ↔ 1 Corinthians 15:54, Revelation 7:17, Revelation 21:4.

¹On that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

We have a strong city;

He will provide salvation

Like walls and fortifications.

²Open the gates,

And let a righteous nation enter,

One which keeps to what is faithful.

³You will keep him in deep peace

Whose thoughts are to rely on you,

For it is in you that he trusts.

⁴Trust in the Lord in all perpetuity,

For the rock of the ages

Is found in the Lord, the Lord.

⁵For he brings down those who dwell in a high place

– In a town at high elevation.

He will raze it,

He will raze it to the ground;

He will bring it to the dust.

⁶A foot – the feet of the poor –

Will trample on it,

As will the steps of the needy.

⁷The way of the righteous is straight;

You make the path of the righteous

Straight and level.

⁸Indeed, O Lord, we have waited for you

In the way of your judgments.

The longing of our inner being

Is for your name

And for remembrance of you.

⁹My inner being longs for you at night,

My spirit also inside me seeks you at dawn.

For when your judgments are given on the earth,

The inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

¹⁰Although the wicked man may be shown favour,

He does not learn righteousness.

In an upright land, he acts iniquitously,

And he will not see the majesty of the Lord.

¹¹O Lord, your hand is high;

They do not see it,

But they will see the zeal of the people

And be ashamed.

Indeed, fire will consume your adversaries.

¹²O Lord, you arrange peace for us,

For you are even the one at work in all our deeds for us.

¹³O Lord our God,

Various masters other than you have had dominion over us,

But yours is the only name that we make mention of.

¹⁴They are dead,

They shall not live,

The Rephaim shall not rise,

Which is why you have visited them and destroyed them

And have obliterated all memory of them.

¹⁵You have enlarged the nation, O Lord,

You have increased the nation.

You are glorified;

You have extended all the boundaries of the land.

¹⁶In distress they appealed to you, O Lord;

They poured out whispering

When they were receiving your discipline.

¹⁷As a pregnant woman who is about to give birth,

Who writhes and shouts in her birth pangs,

So were we before you, O Lord.

¹⁸We have conceived,

We have been through birth pangs,

But it is as if we have given birth to wind,

Not to salvation which we were to bring to the earth,

Nor did any inhabitants of the earth come out of the womb.

¹⁹Your dead, and my dead body,

Will live and rise.

Awake, and sing for joy,

You who lie in the dust,

For your dew is resplendent dew,

But the earth will bring down the Rephaim.

²⁰Go, my people,

Enter your rooms,

Close your doors after you;

Hide for a very little while

Until the indignation has passed.

²¹For behold, the Lord is about to come out of his place

To requite the iniquity of the inhabitants of the land.

And the earth will reveal its blood,

And it will no longer cover up

Those killed which it holds.

¹On that day the Lord will requite

With his firm and large and strong sword

Leviathan the fugitive serpent,

And Leviathan the crooked serpent,

And he will kill the monster in the sea.

²On that day,

Sing to her of a delightful vineyard.

³I am the Lord who guards it;

I water it from time to time.

So that no-one encroaches on it,

I guard it night and day.

⁴I am not furious;

Who would assign me to briars and thorns in war?

I would march against them;

I would set them on fire

In one go.

⁵Or who would seize my stronghold?

Let him make peace with me;

Let it be peace that he makes with me.

⁶When they come,

Jacob will strike root,

Israel will flower and flourish,

And the face of the world will be full of fruit.

⁷Has he attacked him

Like the attack of the one attacking him?

Or has he been killed

In a way like the killing of those killed by him?

⁸In moderation, when you sent them away,

You disputed with them.

He expelled them by means of his harsh wind,

On the day of the east wind.

⁹So by this means,

Jacob's iniquity will be atoned for,

When he makes all the stones of the altar

Like chalk stones which are dashed to pieces.

The phallic parks and the sun-images

Shall not stand.

¹⁰For a fortified city will be forlorn;

A dwelling place will be forsaken

And abandoned like the desert.

There the calf will graze,

And there it will lie down,

And eat from its branches.

¹¹When its harvest is dried up,

They will be broken.

Women will come to set it on fire,

For it is not a people of understanding,

Which is why their maker

Will not show them compassion,

And he who formed them

Will not show them mercy.

¹²And it will come to pass on that day

That the Lord will thresh you out,

From the rising of the river

To the Brook of Egypt,

And you will be gleaned up one by one,

You sons of Israel.

¹³And it will come to pass on that day

That the great ramshorn will be sounded,

And those who were about to perish in the land of Assyria will come,

As will those driven out in the land of Egypt,

And they will worship the Lord

In the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

Reference(s) in Chapter 27: v.9 ↔ Romans 11:27.

¹Woe to the crown of pride,

To the drunkards of Ephraim,

Whose magnificent splendour

Is a fading flower

Which is in the best fertile valley

– You who are impaired by wine.

²Behold, the Lord^* has what is strong and powerful,

Such as a deluge of hail

– A destructive storm –

Such as a deluge of torrential water,

Causing flooding,

Which he sends down to earth with his hand.

³The crown of pride,

The drunkards of Ephraim,

Will be trodden under foot.

⁴And the magnificent splendour,

Which is in the best fertile valley,

Will be a fading flower,

Like its early fruit before the summer,

Which, when the observer sees it,

He swallows down

While it is still in his hand.

⁵On that day the Lord of hosts

Will be a crown of splendour

And a diadem of magnificence

To the remainder of his people,

⁶And a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment,

And a spirit of valour to them

Who repulse the assault on the gate.

⁷So these too have erred because of wine

And have gone astray because of liquor.

Priest and prophet have erred because of liquor;

They have been swallowed up by the wine.

They have gone astray because of the liquor,

They have erred in the vision;

They have floundered in the administration of justice.

⁸For all the tables are full of vomit and excrement

Without a clean space.

⁹To whom will he impart knowledge?

And to whom will he disclose information?

– Those who have been weaned from milk,

And who have grown out of breastfeeding.

¹⁰For it is commandment upon commandment,

Commandment upon commandment,

Rule upon rule,

Rule upon rule;

A little here, a little there.

¹²– To this people to whom he said,

“This is the rest;

Give the weary rest”,

And, “This is the tranquillity.”

But they were unwilling to hear.

¹³And the word of the Lord to them was

Commandment upon commandment,

Commandment upon commandment,

Rule upon rule,

Rule upon rule,

A little here, a little there,

So that they might proceed.

But they staggered backwards

And were crippled

And ensnared and caught.

¹⁴So then, hear the word of the Lord,

You scornful men,

You rulers of this people

Who are in Jerusalem.

¹⁵For you have said,

“We have made a covenant with death,

And we have made a contract with the grave,

That when the overwhelming scourge passes through,

It will not come on us,

For we have made the lie our refuge,

And we have hidden in falsehood.”

¹⁶This is why my Lord the Lord says,

¹⁷And I will establish justice according to a straight line,

And righteousness according to a plummet.

And hail will sweep away the covering of the lie,

And water will flush secrecy out.

¹⁸And your covenant with death will be abolished,

And your contract with the grave will not stand.

When the overwhelming scourge passes through,

You will be an object for it to tread down.

¹⁹Every time when it passes through

It will take you,

For morning by morning it will pass through,

By day and by night.

And it will be a shocking thing

Just to contemplate hearing about.

²⁰For the bed will be too short

To stretch oneself in,

And the blanket too narrow,

To wrap oneself up in.

²¹For the Lord will arise as at Mount Perazim;

He will be stirred up as in the Valley of Gibeon,

To carry out his business

– His peculiar business –

And to accomplish his work

– His strange work.”

²²So now, don't behave like mockers,

So that your fetters are not tightened,

For I have heard of a conclusion

From the Lord

– The Lord of hosts –

Which has been determined over all the earth.

²³Listen and hear my voice;

Attend and hear what I have to say.

²⁴Does the ploughman plough all day

In order to sow?

Does he open up and harrow his ground?

²⁵Does he not,

When he has levelled its surface,

Scatter black caraway

And strew cumin?

And put wheat in a row,

And is barley not marked off,

And is spelt not sown

In its allocated area?

²⁶And there is one who instructs him in justice:

His God teaches him.

²⁷For black caraway is not threshed with a threshing board,

Nor is a wagon wheel turned on cumin,

For black caraway is beaten with a stick,

And cumin with a rod.

²⁸Is flour ground fine?

For he will not thresh away at it for ever,

Nor will he drive the wheel of his wagon,

Nor will his horsemen grind it fine.

²⁹This too originates

From the Lord of hosts.

He has made a wonderful decision;

He has shown magnificent sound wisdom.

Reference(s) in Chapter 28: v.11 ↔ 1 Corinthians 14:21 ● v.12 ↔ 1 Corinthians 14:21 ● v.16 ↔ Romans 9:33, Romans 10:11, 1 Peter 2:6.

¹Woe to Ariel, to Ariel,

The town where David encamped.

Let the years mount up,

Let the festivals come round,

²But I will distress Ariel,

And there will be sighing and sorrow,

And it will be to me

A veritable lion of God.

³And I will encamp against you in a circle,

And I will besiege you with a garrison,

And I will raise siege works against you.

⁴And you will be low,

And you will speak from the ground,

And being weighed down,

Your speech will be from the dust,

And your voice will be like that of a necromancer,

Coming out of the ground,

And your articulation will be whispering from the dust.

⁵And there will be a horde of people foreign to you,

Like fine dust,

And a horde of violent men,

Like chaff passing by,

And it will happen all of a sudden.

⁶You will be visited by the Lord of hosts

With thunder and with an earthquake and a loud noise,

A whirlwind and a storm,

And a flame of devouring fire,

⁷And a horde from all the nations which are at war with Ariel.

And all those attacking it and its citadel,

And those who distress it

Will be like a bad dream

– A vision in the night.

⁸And it will come to pass

That just as when a hungry man dreams that he is eating,

But when he wakes up,

His belly is empty,

And as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking,

But when he wakes up,

He finds that he is weary,

And his being craves water,

So the horde of all the nations waging war against Mount Zion will be.

⁹Rest and be astonished;

Indulge yourself and be dazzled:

They are drunk, but not with wine;

They stagger, but not with strong liquor.

He has covered over the prophets,

And your leaders, the seers.

¹¹And the vision of all this will be to you like the words of a sealed book which they give to a literate man, saying, “Please read this”, but he says, “I am not able to, for it is sealed.” ¹²Or like a book which is given to someone who does not know how to read, while they say, “Do read this”, and he says, “I do not know how to read.” ¹³And the Lord^* said,

“Since this people approaches with their mouth,

And with their lips they honour me,

But they have put their heart far from me,

And their fear of me is a commandment of men

Which has been taught them,

¹⁴Watch out for me doing more wonders with this people

– Doing wondrous wonders –

¹⁵Woe to those who lay deep designs

Away from the Lord,

So hiding their purpose,

And whose works are in darkness,

And who say, “Who can see us?”

And, “Who knows us?”

¹⁶Such is your perverseness.

Will the potter be considered as clay?

For will the product say of its maker,

“He didn't make me”?

Or will the artefact say of its fashioner,

“He doesn't have any understanding”?

¹⁷Is it not in a very little while

That Lebanon will be restored as well-cultivated ground,

And that the well-cultivated ground

Will be considered a forest?

¹⁸And on that day,

The deaf will hear the words of the book,

And the eyes of the blind,

Which were in obscurity and darkness,

Will see.

¹⁹And the meek will increase their joy in the Lord,

And the poor among men

Will exult in the holy one of Israel.

²⁰For the violent one will come to nothing,

And the mocker will come to an end,

And all those who lie in wait iniquitously

Will be cut off

²¹– Those who make a man sin with a word,

And ensnare one who reproves at the gate,

And lead a righteous man astray with confusion.

²²This is why the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, says this to the house of Jacob:

“It is not now that Jacob will be ashamed,

And it is not now that his face will turn pale,

²³But when he sees his children,

The work of my hands.

In his company,

They will sanctify my name,

And they will sanctify the holy one of Jacob,

And they will fear the God of Israel.

²⁴And those who were erring in spirit

Will have understanding,

And those who were rebellious

Will learn lessons.”

Reference(s) in Chapter 29: v.10 ↔ Romans 11:8 ● v.13 ↔ Matthew 15:8, Matthew 15:9, Mark 7:6, Mark 7:7 ● v.14 ↔ 1 Corinthians 1:19 ● v.16 ↔ Romans 9:20.

¹“Woe to the recalcitrant sons,

Says the Lord,

Who take counsel, but not from me,

And pour out a libation,

But not with my spirit,

So as to add sin upon sin,

²Who are setting out to go down to Egypt,

But they did not ask for my oracle,

Having decided to be strong in the stronghold of Pharaoh,

And to put trust in the shadow of Egypt.

³But Pharaoh's stronghold

Will be something you will be ashamed of,

And your trust in the shadow of Egypt

Will be to your disgrace.

⁴For his officers were in Zoan,

And his envoys arrived in Hanes.

⁵Everyone became ashamed because of a people

Who did not benefit them.

They were neither a help nor a benefit,

But rather a matter of shame

And ignominy as well.”

⁶The burden of the animals of the south.

In a distressed and troubled land,

Among them being the great lion and the old lion,

The viper and the fiery flying serpent,

They will transport their wealth on the shoulder of ass-colts,

And their treasure on the humps of camels,

To a people who will not benefit them.

⁷And Egypt will help

In a vacuous and empty way,

Which is why I have called it,

“Rahab sits still.”

⁸So now, go and write it on a tablet, with them present,

And inscribe it in a book,

So that it is there for the last day,

And in age-abiding perpetuity.

⁹For it is a rebellious people,

Dishonest sons,

Sons who are unwilling

To heed the law of the Lord,

¹⁰Who say to the seers,

“Don't see”,

And to those who see visions,

“Don't see righteous visions for us.

Speak flatteries to us,

See delusory visions,

¹¹Depart from the way,

Turn off from the path;

Remove the holy one of Israel

From our presence.”

¹²That is why this is what the holy one of Israel says:

“Since you have rejected these words

And trusted in oppression and deviousness

And relied on it,

¹³This iniquity will be ascribed to you,

Like a breach about to fall,

Bulging out in a high wall,

Whose collapse comes all of a sudden.

¹⁴And he will break it,

Like the breaking of a shattered potter's jar.

He will not show mercy,

And in his act of shattering,

Not a shard will be found

Which will be any use for taking fire from a burning mass,

Or drawing water from a cistern.”

¹⁵For this is what my Lord the Lord, the holy one of Israel, says:

“You will be saved with a return and rest.

Your valour will be with quietness and confidence.

But you were unwilling,

¹⁶And you said,

‘No, but rather we will flee on horseback.’

That is why you will flee.

And you said,

‘We will ride on swift horses.’

That is why those who pursue you will be swift.

¹⁷One thousand will flee at the rebuke of one;

At the rebuke of five, you will flee,

Until you remain like a mast on the summit of a mountain,

Or like an ensign on a hill.”

¹⁸And this is why the Lord will wait:

So as to be gracious to you.

And this is why he will arise to have compassion on you:

For the Lord is a God of justice.

Blessed are all those who wait for him.

¹⁹For the people will dwell in Zion in Jerusalem,

And you will certainly not weep.

He will be very gracious at the sound of your crying out;

When he hears it,

He will answer you.

²⁰And the Lord^* will give you bread of adversity,

And water of oppression,

But your teachers will no longer be kept at a distance,

And your eyes will see your teachers.

²¹And your ears will hear words behind you,

Saying, “This is the way;

Walk in it”,

Whenever you go off to the right

Or go off to the left.

²²And you will defile the silver overlay of your idols,

And the costume of your golden cast image.

You will dispose of them like the discharge of a menstruating woman.

“Away with you”,

You will say to it.

²³And he will give rain for your seed,

Which you sow on the ground,

And as for food

– The produce of the land –

It will be rich and fat.

Your cattle will graze on that day

On broad pasture land.

²⁴And the oxen and the donkeys which till the ground

Will eat wholesome fodder,

Which has been winnowed with a winnowing fan

Or a winnowing shovel.

²⁵And there will be on every high mountain,

And on every lofty hill,

Streams – brooks of water –

On the day of great slaughter,

When towers fall.

²⁶And the light of the moon

Will be like the light of the sun,

And the light of the sun will be seven times stronger,

Like seven days' light,

On the day when the Lord binds up

The fracture of his people,

And heals

The bruise of their blow.

²⁷Behold, the name of the Lord is coming from afar;

His anger is burning,

And the burden is heavy.

His lips are full of indignation,

And his tongue is like a consuming fire.

²⁸And his breath is like an overflowing stream,

Whose level comes up to the neck,

To sift the nations with a sieve to separate the worthless,

And a bridle in the jaws of the peoples,

Causing them to go astray.

²⁹You will have a song

As on the night of sanctifying a festival,

And joy in the heart,

As when a person goes with a pipe

To come to the mount of the Lord

– To the rock of Israel.

³⁰And the Lord will have his majestic voice heard,

And he will show how his arm comes down

In raging anger

And in the flame of a consuming fire

– In a violent flood and a downpour

And hailstones.

³¹For at the Lord's voice,

Assyria will slump;

He will strike them with a rod.

³²And every passage of the rod as decreed,

Which the Lord will lay on them,

Will be with drums and with harps,

And he will fight against them

In tumultuous wars.

³³For Topheth was set up in the former time;

It was even prepared for the king.

He has made it deep;

He has made it wide.

It is a pyre of fire and much wood;

The breath of the Lord,

Like a stream of sulphur,

Burns in it.

¹Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help.

They rely on horses,

And they trust in chariots,

For there are many;

And in horsemen,

For they are very numerous.

But they do not look to the holy one of Israel,

And they do not seek the Lord.

²However, he is wise,

And he will bring harm,

And he will not revoke his words,

And he will rise against the house of the evildoers,

And against the accomplices of workers of iniquity.

³For the Egyptians are men and not God,

And their horses are flesh and not spirit,

And the Lord will stretch out his hand,

And he who helps will stumble,

And he who is helped will fall,

And all of them will come to an end together.

⁴For this is what the Lord says to me:

“As when the lion or the young lion

Growls over his prey,

When a large group of shepherds are called out against it,

And it is not terrified by their voices,

And it is not deterred by their sound,

So the Lord of hosts will descend

To fight for Mount Zion

And for its hill.

⁵Like birds flying,

So the Lord of hosts will defend Jerusalem.

He will defend and deliver

And act as in the Passover,

And rescue.

⁶Return to him,

From whom you have made a deep departure,

You sons of Israel.

⁷For on that day

A man will reject his silver idols,

And his golden idols,

Which your sinful hands have made for yourselves.

⁸And Assyria will fall by the sword,

But not that of a man.

And a sword,

But not that of a human,

Will consume them.

And they will take flight from the sword,

And their young men will become tribute-bearing.

⁹And their rock of refuge will vanish for fear,

And their officials will be terrified at the banner”,

Says the Lord,

Who has a fire in Zion

And a furnace in Jerusalem.

¹Behold, a king will reign in righteousness,

And men will rule as officials for justice.

²And a man will be like a shelter from the wind,

And a refuge from a downpour;

Like springs of water in a dry region,

Like the shadow of a massive rock

In a weary land.

³And the eyes of those who see

Will not look away,

And the ears of those who hear

Will be attentive.

⁴And the heart of the hasty

Will understand the importance of having knowledge,

And the tongue of the stammerers

Will be fluent in speaking clearly.

⁵The fool will no longer be called noble,

And the miser will not be said to be generous.

⁶For the fool will speak folly,

And his heart will occupy itself with vanity

In perpetrating profanity,

In speaking error to the Lord,

In draining the energy of the hungry,

And causing the drink of the thirsty

To be lacking.

⁷And the methods of the miser are wicked.

He decides on schemings

To take advantage of the poor

With deceitful talk,

Whereas when the needy man speaks,

It is for justice.

⁸And the generous man decides on generosity,

And by generosity he will stand.

⁹You women who are at ease,

Arise and hear my voice;

You confident daughters,

Listen to my discourse.

¹⁰For many days annually,

You will be agitated,

You confident women,

For the grape harvest will fail

– The ingathering will not come.

¹¹Tremble, you women at ease,

Be awestruck, you confident women;

Strip off and be naked,

Then gird up your waist.

¹²Babes lament for the breasts;

Parents for the delightful fields

– For the fruitful vine.

¹³On the land of my people

The thistle and the briar will come up,

For they will be over all joyous households,

In the delightful town.

¹⁴For the castle will be abandoned,

The liveliness of the city will disappear;

The raised ground and the watchtower will become dens age-abidingly

– The joy of wild asses,

And pasture for flocks –

¹⁵Until a spirit is poured out on us from above,

And the desert becomes a well-cultivated plain,

And the well-cultivated plain

Is considered a forest.

¹⁶And justice will prevail

In the desert,

And righteousness will be prevalent

In the well-cultivated plain.

¹⁷And the accomplishment of righteousness

Will be peace,

And the work of rectitude

Will be quietness and security age-abidingly.

¹⁸And my people will dwell

In a peaceful abode,

And in secure dwelling places,

And in quiet resting places.

¹⁹And when hail comes down in the forest,

The city will lie low in the lowland.

²⁰Blessed are you who sow

Wherever there is water,

And who drive the ox and the donkey.

¹Woe to the plunderer,

You who were not plundered,

And to the traitor,

Him whom no-one betrayed.

When you stop plundering,

You will be plundered,

When you finish betraying,

You will be betrayed.

²O Lord, be gracious to us;

We have put our hope in you.

Be their strong arm in the mornings,

And also our salvation

In a time of adversity.

³At the sound of a multitude,

The various peoples will flee;

At your exaltation,

The nations will be scattered.

⁴And your plunder will be gathered

Like a swarm of consuming locusts;

They will be greedy for it,

Like the greed of desert locusts.

⁵The Lord is exalted,

For he inhabits the heights;

He will fill Zion

With justice and righteousness.

⁶And the abundance of acts of salvation, wisdom and knowledge

Will be the mainstay of your times,

And fear of the Lord

Will be his treasure.

⁷Behold, their heroes will cry out in the open;

The messengers of peace will weep bitterly.

⁸The highways will be devastated;

The wayfarer will cease to be found.

He will break the covenant,

He will show contempt for the cities;

He will not consider man.

⁹The earth mourns and is languishing,

And Lebanon is ashamed and is withering.

Sharon has become like an arid tract,

And Bashan and Carmel

Have cast off their foliage.

¹⁰“Now I will arise”,

The Lord will say,

“Now I will be exalted;

Now I will be extolled.

¹¹You will conceive stubble;

You will give birth to chaff.

Your own fiery breath will consume you.

¹²And nations will be like the burning of lime;

They will be set on fire,

Like thorn plants that have been cut down.

¹³Hear, you who are far away,

What I have done,

And know, you who are nearby, my might.”

¹⁴The sinners in Zion will be afraid;

Trembling will seize the profane.

Who among us can withstand a consuming fire?

Who among us can withstand

Age-abiding burning?

¹⁵As for him who walks righteously

And speaks uprightly,

Rejecting unjust gain

From fraudulent practices,

Dismissing with a wave of his hands

Any offer of a bribe,

Shutting his ear

So as not to hear plots of bloodshed,

And closing his eyes

So as not to see plans for evil,

¹⁶He will dwell high up;

His high fort is a citadel of rock.

His food is provided for;

His water supply is reliable.

¹⁷Your eyes will see the king in his magnificence;

They will see a far-stretching land.

¹⁸Your heart will be taken up with dread.

Where is the scribe?

Where is the weigher?

Where is he who counts the towers?

¹⁹You will not see a fierce people,

Nor a people of unintelligible speech,

Jabbering in a tongue

Not understood.

²⁰Behold Zion,

Town of our festival times.

Your eyes will see Jerusalem,

A dwelling place at ease,

A tent which does not move around,

Whose pegs do not for ever journey,

And none of whose guylines are detached.

²¹For the mighty Lord will be there,

As our place of rivers

– Watercourses – very wide ones.

No galley will go into it,

And no mighty ship will pass through it.

²²For the Lord is our judge,

The Lord is our legislator,

The Lord is our king;

He will save us.

²³Your rigging has been loosened,

They have not strengthened the base of their mast;

They have not unfurled a sail.

Then the booty of much spoil is divided;

The lame grab the plunder.

²⁴And the inhabitant will not say,

“I am ill.”

The people who live in it

Are forgiven their iniquity.

¹Approach you nations, to hear,

And listen, you peoples.

Let earth and its fulness hear

– The world and all its offspring.

²For the Lord is angry with all the nations,

And is wrathful over all their armies.

He will obliterate them;

He will deliver them to slaughter.

³And their casualties will be dumped,

And from their corpses their stench will come,

And mountains will melt

From their blood.

Like the falling off of foliage from a vine,

Or like a fig falling from a fig tree.

⁵For my sword will be satiated in the heavens,

And behold, it will descend on Edom,

And on a people I have condemned in judgment.

⁶The Lord's sword is full of blood;

It is besmeared with fat

From the blood of fatted lambs and he-goats

And with the fat from the kidneys of rams,

For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,

And great slaughter in the land of Edom.

⁷And the buffaloes will be brought down with them,

And oxen with strong bulls,

And their land will be saturated with blood,

And their dust will be made greasy with fat.

⁸For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance

– The year of retribution –

For the controversy over Zion.

⁹And its streams will be turned into pitch,

And its dust into sulphur,

And its land will become burning pitch.

¹⁰Night and day it will not be extinguished;

Its smoke will rise up age-abidingly.

From generation to generation it will be desolate;

In all perpetuity

No-one will pass through it.

¹²As for their nobles,

There will be nothing there

Which they can proclaim as a kingdom,

And all its officials

Will be no more.

¹³And thorns will come up in its palaces,

And nettles and thistles in its fortifications,

And it will be an abode of jackals,

And pasture for ostriches.

¹⁴And the desert animals will meet the jackals,

And the goat will call to its fellow.

Indeed the screech-owl will settle quietly there

And will find itself a resting place.

¹⁵The eagle-owl will make its nest there

And lay its eggs and hatch them

And brood over them in its shadow.

Vultures will also gather there

– The female and her mate.

¹⁶Seek in the book of the Lord,

And read.

Not one of these females will be left behind.

No female will lack its mate,

For it is my mouth which has commanded it,

And it is his spirit which will gather them.

¹⁷And he has cast their lot,

And his hand has allocated them an area marked off by a measuring line.

They will inherit it age-abidingly;

From generation to generation

They will dwell in it.

Reference(s) in Chapter 34: v.4 ↔ Matthew 24:29, Mark 13:25, Hebrews 1:12, Revelation 6:13-14 ● v.10 ↔ Revelation 14:11, Revelation 19:3 ● v.11 ↔ Revelation 18:2.

¹The desert and the dry place will take delight in them,

And the arid tract will rejoice

And blossom like a lily.

²It will blossom beautifully and rejoice;

It will rejoice and exult all the more.

The glory of Lebanon will be given to it

– The splendour of Carmel and Sharon.

They will see the glory of the Lord

– The splendour of our God.

⁴Say to those of a panic-stricken heart,

“Be strong and do not fear.

Behold, your God will come with vengeance

– With God's retribution.

He will come and save you.”

⁵Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,

And opened will be the ears of the deaf.

⁶Then the lame will leap like the deer,

And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy,

At a time when water will be laid open in the desert,

As will streams in the arid tracts.

⁷And the parched ground will become a lake,

And the thirsty land springs of water.

In the jackals' den where they lie down

Will be pasture with reeds and papyrus.

⁸And there will be a highway and a road there,

And it will be called the holy road.

No-one unclean will pass over it,

And it will be for him who walks in the way,

And the impious will not stray onto it.

⁹There will not be any lions there,

And rapacious animals will not come up to it,

Nor be found there,

But the redeemed will walk on it.

¹⁰And the Lord's redeemed will return

And come to Zion in jubilation,

With age-abiding joy on their heads.

They will obtain happiness and joy,

Whereas sorrow and sighing will flee.

Reference(s) in Chapter 35: v.3 ↔ Hebrews 12:12 ● v.5 ↔ Matthew 15:31, Luke 4:18; Matthew 11:5 ● v.6 ↔ Matthew 11:5, Matthew 15:31.

¹And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib king of Assyria went up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them. ²And the king of Assyria sent the chief butler from Lachish to Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah, with a sizeable army, and they stood at the conduit at the upper pool, which is at the aqueduct to the washer's site. ³And Eliakim, Hilkiah's son, who was in charge of the house, came out to him, as did Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the state secretary. ⁴And the chief butler said to them, “Kindly say to Hezekiah, ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: «What is this object of trust in which you trust? ⁵I quote you – but it is vain talk – ‹I have counsel and wherewithal for war.› Now in whom have you trusted? For you have rebelled against me. ⁶Look, you have put trust in this buckled reed staff – in Egypt – and if a man leans on it, it slips into his hand and pierces it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. ⁷And if you say to me, ‹We trust in the Lord our God›, is that not he whose raised sites and whose altars Hezekiah removed, when he said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‹It is before this altar that you will worship›?» ’ ⁸So now, please, enter into a contract with my lord the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses if you are able to provide yourself with riders on them. ⁹And how can you decline the offer of a governor among the least of my lord's servants, and entrust yourself to Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? ¹⁰Now did I come up without the Lord against this land, to bring it to ruin? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land and bring it to ruin.’ ” ¹¹Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to the chief butler, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it, and do not speak to us in Judaean, it being intelligible to the people who are on the wall.” ¹²Then the chief butler said, “Is it to your master and to you that my lord has sent me to speak these words? Is it not to the people sitting on the wall, that they will have to eat their excrement and drink their urine with you?” ¹³Then the chief butler stood up and called out in a loud voice in Judaean and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. ¹⁴This is what the king says: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. ¹⁵And do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord, saying, «The Lord will certainly deliver us, and this city will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.» ’ ¹⁶Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: ‘Make things a blessing in partnership with me, and come out to me, then let each man eat from his vine, and each man from his fig tree, and let each man drink water from his cistern, ¹⁷until I come and take you to a land like your own land – a land of corn and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. ¹⁸And don't let Hezekiah entice you, saying, «The Lord will deliver us.» Have the gods of the nations delivered anyone's land from the grip of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And have they, then, delivered Samaria from my grip? ²⁰Who are there among all the gods of these countries who have delivered their country from my grip? So will the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my grip?’ ” ²¹And they fell silent, and they did not answer him a word, for the king's commandment was, “Do not answer him.” ²²Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the state secretary, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they told him the chief butler's words.

¹And it came to pass, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes and covered himself in sackcloth, and he went to the house of the Lord. ²And he sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests – having covered themselves in sackcloth – to Isaiah, the son of Amoz, the prophet. ³And they said to him, “This is what Hezekiah says: ‘This day is a day of anguish and chastening and indignity, for the sons have arrived at the stage of breaking out of the womb, but there isn't the strength to give birth. ⁴Perhaps the Lord your God will have heard the words of the chief butler, whom the king of Assyria, his master, sent to defy the living God, and he will condemn the words which the Lord your God has heard, so you will take up a prayer for the remnant which is found.’ ” ⁵And when King Hezekiah's servants came to Isaiah, ⁶Isaiah said to them, “This is what you will say to your master: ‘This is what the Lord says: «Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, because the servants of the king of Assyria have vilified me. ⁷I am about to put in him a certain spirit, and he will hear a rumour, and he will return to his country, and I will bring him down by the sword in his own country.» ’ ” ⁸Then the chief butler returned and found the king of Assyria at war with Libnah, for he had heard that he had moved from Lachish. ⁹And he heard about Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, when informants said, “He has gone out to wage war with you.” And when he heard about it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah to say, ¹⁰“This is what you will say to Hezekiah king of Judah. Say, ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you when he says, «Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.» ¹¹Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, in obliterating them. So will you be delivered? ¹²Have the gods of the nations delivered them – nations which my fathers brought to ruin: Gozan and Haran and Rezeph and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar? ¹³Where is the king of Hamath or the king of Arpad or the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena or Ivvah?’ ” ¹⁴And Hezekiah took the communiqué from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the Lord, and Hezekiah spread it before the Lord. ¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord and said, ¹⁶“O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, you who dwell between the cherubim, you alone are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made heaven and the earth. ¹⁷Incline, O Lord, your ear and hear; open, O Lord, your eyes and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib who sent a messenger to defy the living God. ¹⁸Indeed, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid all the nations and their land waste, ¹⁹and they have put their gods in a fire – although they are not gods, but the product of man's hands, wood and stone – and they have destroyed them. ²⁰So now, O Lord our God, save us from his grip, so that all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you are the Lord, and only you.” ²¹Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah as follows: “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria’, ²²these are the words which the Lord spoke concerning him,

‘The virgin daughter of Zion despises you,

Derides you;

The daughter of Jerusalem

Shakes her head at you.

²³Whom have you defied and vilified,

And against whom have you raised your voice?

Well, you have lifted your eyes haughtily

Against the holy one of Israel.

²⁴Through your servants you have defied the Lord^*

And said, «By the numerical weight of my chariot fleet

I have ascended to the heights of mountains

In the remote parts of Lebanon.

And I will cut down the tallest of its cedars

And the choice of its cypresses,

And I will come to its ultimate height

In its Carmel forest.

²⁵I have dug wells and drunk water,

And by my expeditions

I have caused all the channels to places under siege

To dry up.»

²⁶Have you not heard from long ago

That I made this?

– That in ancient days I formed it?

I have brought it about now,

And it was so that you should reduce fortified cities

To desolate heaps of stones.

²⁷And their inhabitants were powerless,

They were afraid and were put to shame;

They were wild vegetation and grassy verdure

– Wild grass on rooftops,

And blight on standing corn.

²⁸Now I have known your way of life,

And your coming and going,

And your rage against me.

²⁹Because your rage against me and your wantonness

Have come up to my ears,

I will put my hook in your nose,

And my bridle in your lips,

And I will turn you back to the road

By which you came.’

³⁰‘And this will be a sign to you:

This year you will eat the produce of spilt grain,

And in the second year the produce of self-sown grain,

But in the third year,

Sow and reap and plant vineyards

And eat their fruit.

³¹And the remnant of the house of Judah which remains

Will again strike root downward

And yield fruit upward.

³²For the remainder will go out from Jerusalem,

As will the remnant from Mount Zion.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts

Will perform this.’

³³Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria:

‘He shall not come to this city,

And he shall not shoot an arrow there,

And he shall not advance on it with a shield,

And he shall not raise an earthwork against it.

³⁴He will return by the road on which he came,

And he shall not come to this city,

Says the Lord.

³⁵And I will defend this city,

So as to save it,

For my own sake,

And for the sake of David my servant.’ ”

³⁶And the angel of the Lord went out and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrians' camp, and when people arose in the morning, they saw that they were all dead – corpses. ³⁷So Sennacherib king of Assyria moved off and departed, and he returned and stayed in Nineveh. ³⁸And it came to pass, while he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sarezer his sons struck him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

¹In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill, and Isaiah the son of Amoz, the prophet, came to him and said to him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Give your last orders to your household, for you are going to die, and you will not live.’ ” ²Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, ³and he said, “I implore you, O Lord, do remember how I have walked before you in truth, and with a sincere heart, and how I have done what is right in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept with great weeping. ⁴And the word of the Lord came to Isaiah as follows: ⁵“Go and say to Hezekiah, ‘This is what the Lord God of David your father says: «I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. I am about to add fifteen years to your days. ⁶I will deliver you and this city from the grip of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city. ⁷And this is your sign from the Lord, for the Lord will perform this pronouncement which he spoke: ⁸I am about to make the shadow of the sundial go back, the shadow which was cast by Ahaz's sundial in the sun – ten degrees backwards.» ’ ” And the sun went back ten degrees on the sundial by which it was cast. ⁹The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah when he was ill and recovered from his sickness: ¹⁰I said,

“In the quiet period of my life,

I was to go to the gates of the grave;

I was to be left without the rest of my years.”

¹¹I said, “I shall not see the Lord,

The Lord in the land of the living.

I shall no longer see a man

Among the inhabitants of the transitory world.

¹²My span of life has been torn away,

And it has been carried away from me

Like a shepherd's tent.

I have severed off my life;

Like a weaver cutting yarn,

He will cut me off.

From day to night

You were to bring me to an end.

¹³I waited expectantly until the morning.

As a lion tears apart,

So he would break all my bones,

And from day to night I waited

For you to make an end of me.

¹⁴Like a swallow or a crane,

So I chirped;

I cooed like a dove.

My eyes are weak with looking upward.

O Lord^*, I am oppressed;

Become my security.

¹⁵What shall I say,

In that he has spoken to me,

And he has acted?

I will proceed softly for all my years

On account of inward grief.

¹⁶O Lord^*, by these things men live,

And in all of them is my spiritual life,

And you are restoring me to health

And reviving me.

¹⁷But it was for peace

That I had great bitterness,

But you were pleased to deliver my being

From the pit of destruction,

For you have cast all my sins behind your back.

¹⁸For the grave does not praise you,

Nor does death laud you.

Those who go down to the pit

Do not await your truth.

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

As I do today.

A father will make your truth known

To his sons.

²⁰The Lord was there to save me,

And we will play my music on string instruments,

All the days of our life,

At the house of the Lord.”

²¹And Isaiah said, “Let them take a cake of pressed figs and rub it on the inflammation, and he will recover.” ²²Then Hezekiah said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?”

¹At that time Merodach-Baladan the son of Baladan, the king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, having heard that he had become ill and had recovered. ²And Hezekiah was pleased with them, and he showed them the spice house, the silver and the gold, and the fragrances, and the good quality oil, and all his armoury, and everything that was present in his treasuries. There was nothing which Hezekiah did not show them in his house and in all his realm. ³Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say, and where have they come to you from?” And Hezekiah said, “They have come to me from a distant land, from Babylon.” ⁴And he said, “What did they see in your house?” And Hezekiah said, “They saw everything in my house. There is nothing which I didn't show them in my treasuries.” ⁵Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of hosts. ⁶‘Behold, the days are coming when everything in your house, and which your fathers have treasured up, up to this day, will be carried away to Babylon. Nothing will remain, says the Lord. ⁷And they will take away some of your sons who will descend from you, whom you will beget, and they will be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’ ” ⁸Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord, which you have spoken, is right.” And he said, “For there will be peace and truth in my days.”

¹“Take comfort, take comfort, my people”,

Says your God.

²“Speak kindly to Jerusalem,

And proclaim to her

That her warfare has been concluded,

That her iniquity has been propitiated;

That she has received double at the hand of the Lord

For all her sins.”

⁵And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,

And all flesh will see it together,

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

⁶A voice said,

“Make a proclamation.”

And he said,

“What shall I proclaim?”

For the spirit of the Lord blows on it.

Truly,

The people are grass.

⁹Get up onto a high mountain,

Zion, which announces good news.

Raise your voice strongly,

Jerusalem, which announces good news.

Raise it; do not fear.

Say to the cities of Judah,

“Behold your God.”

¹⁰Behold, my Lord the Lord

Will come with strength,

And his arm will rule for him.

Behold, his reward is with him,

And his recompense is before him.

¹¹He will tend his flock like a shepherd

And gather lambs in his arm,

And he will carry them in his bosom

And lead dairy cattle along.

¹²Who has measured the waters in the palm of his hand

Or sized up the heavens by the span?

Or calculated the volume of the dust of the earth

With a third-ephah container

Or weighed in a balance the mountains,

And the hills in scales?

¹⁴With whom does he confer who can instruct him

And teach him in the way of justice,

And teach him knowledge

And indicate to him the way of understanding?

¹⁵Look, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,

And they are counted as dust in the balance.

Look, he can lift up the coastlands

Like fine powder.

¹⁶Even Lebanon isn't enough to burn,

And its animals aren't enough as a burnt offering.

¹⁷All the nations are like nothing before him;

They are considered less than nothing and desolation by him.

¹⁸So to whom will you liken God,

And with what comparison

Will you draw a parallel with him?

¹⁹The artisan casts an idol,

And refines gold and overlays it,

And refines silver for chains.

²⁰As for the heave-offering of the impoverished,

He selects some wood which will not rot,

And finds himself a skilled artisan

To prepare an idol

Which will not be shaken.

²¹Have you not known,

Have you not heard,

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood

The foundations of the earth?

²²It is he who sits above the earth's sphere,

Whose inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

It is he who stretches out the heavens like fine cloth,

And spans them like a tent to dwell in,

²³Who reduces princes to nothing,

And makes the judges of the world desolate.

²⁴They certainly won't be planted,

They simply won't be sown;

Their main stem just will not strike root.

Also a wind will blow on them

And they will dry up,

And a storm will carry them away

Like chaff.

²⁵“So to whom will you liken me,

So that I will be comparable?”

Says the holy one.

²⁶“Raise your eyes and look.

Who created these things?

He who produced the array of them by number

– He calls them all by name –

By great strength and mighty power;

Not one is missing.

²⁷Jacob, why do you say,

And Israel, why do you declare,

‘My way is hidden from the Lord,

And my just deserts

Will be overlooked by my God?’

²⁸Have you not known,

Or have you not heard,

That the age-abiding God

– The Lord,

The creator of the ends of the earth –

Does not become exhausted

And does not become weary,

And that there is no fathoming

Of his understanding?

²⁹He gives the exhausted strength,

And he increases the vigour

Of those who have no energy.

³⁰But youths will become exhausted and weary,

And young men will surely stumble.

³¹But those who confide in the Lord

Will revive in strength;

They will soar in flight like eagles.

They will run

And not grow weary,

They will proceed

And not become exhausted.

Reference(s) in Chapter 40: v.3 ↔ Matthew 3:3, Mark 1:2, Mark 1:3, Luke 3:4, John 1:23 ● v.4 ↔ Luke 3:5 ● v.5 ↔ Luke 3:6 ● v.6 ↔ 1 Peter 1:24 ● v.7 ↔ 1 Peter 1:24 ● v.8 ↔ 1 Peter 1:24, 1 Peter 1:25 ● v.13 ↔ Romans 11:34, 1 Corinthians 2:16.

¹Be silent towards me, you coastlands,

And may the nations revive their strength.

Let them approach at that time,

And let them speak;

Let us draw near together

For judgment.

²Whom did he raise up from the east?

He called him to righteousness in his footsteps;

He set nations before him,

And he had him subdue kings.

He made them like dust with his sword

– Like chaff driven about with his bow.

³He pursued them;

He came through in safety

Along a way which he had not taken on foot.

⁴Who has performed it and accomplished it,

Calling generations from the beginning?

I, the Lord,

The first and with the last;

I am he.

⁵The coastlands have seen it,

And they feared.

The ends of the earth trembled;

They approached and came.

⁶They helped each other,

And each said to his brother,

‘Take courage.’

⁷And the artisan encouraged the refiner,

And he who hammers thin encouraged him who strikes on the anvil,

As he said, ‘It is right for soldering.’

And he fastened it with rivets

Which would not come loose.

⁸But you, Israel, are my servant,

And Jacob, you whom I chose,

Are the seed of my friend Abraham,

⁹And I took you from the ends of the earth,

And I called you from its remote parts.

And I said to you,

‘You are my servant;

I have chosen you,

And I have not rejected you.

¹⁰Do not fear, for I am with you.

Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you,

And I will help you,

And I will support you

With my righteous right hand.’

¹¹Behold, they will be put to shame,

And they will be disgraced.

All who were furious with you will be as nothing,

And the men who contended with you will perish.

¹²You will seek them,

But you will not find them.

The men who strove with you

Will be as nothing,

And the men who fought you

Will be as a void.

¹³For I am the Lord your God,

Who will hold your right hand,

Who says to you,

‘Do not fear;

I will help you.’

¹⁴‘Do not fear, Jacob,

Worm that you are

– You men of Israel –

I will help you’,

Says the Lord your redeemer

– The holy one of Israel.

¹⁵Behold, I have made you into a threshing board,

Sharp and new,

With many cutting edges.

You will thresh mountains

And grind them small,

And you will make hills like chaff.

¹⁶You will winnow them,

And the wind will carry them away,

And a storm will scatter them.

And you will rejoice in the Lord;

You will boast in the holy one of Israel.

¹⁷The poor and the needy seek water,

But there isn't any.

Their tongue has dried up from thirst.

I, the Lord, will answer them;

The God of Israel will not desert them.

¹⁸I will open up rivers on high ground,

And springs in the middle of valleys.

I will make the desert a pool of water,

And arid land a fountain of water.

¹⁹I will put in the desert

Cedar and acacia,

And myrtle and oil-yielding trees.

I will place in the arid regions

Cypress, elm and box trees together,

²⁰In order that they may see,

And know, and take note,

And act wisely together,

For the hand of the Lord has done this,

And the holy one of Israel has brought it about.

²¹Advance your arguments,

Says the Lord;

Bring forward your strong reasoning,

Says the king of Jacob.

²²Let them produce it

And tell us what things are going to take place,

And what the first things were.

Tell us, and we will pay attention,

So that we may know their end result,

Or make known to us

Things to come.

²³Tell us the things

Which are going to happen in the future,

So that we may know,

For you are gods,

And also do good or do evil,

So we can be overawed

And fear together.

²⁴Look, you are less than nothing,

And your practices are less than vacuous.

And he who chooses you

Is an abomination.

²⁵I have raised one up from the north,

And he shall come.

From the rising of the sun,

He will proclaim my name,

And he will cut through administrators like loam,

And as a potter treads clay.

²⁶Who has told it in advance,

So that we may know?

And beforehand,

So that we may say,

‘Quite right’?”

“There just isn't anyone who tells it,

There just isn't anyone who proclaims it;

How much less is there

Anyone hearing your proclamations!

²⁷First, I will say to Zion,

‘Look, here they are’,

Then I will give to Jerusalem

Someone who brings good news.

²⁸And I looked,

But there was no-one,

And I sought among them,

But there was no counsellor.

Nor when I questioned them

Were there any who could answer.

²⁹Behold, they are all vanity,

Their works are without substance;

Their cast images

Are wind and wreckage.

Reference(s) in Chapter 41: v.4 ↔ Revelation 1:8, Revelation 1:17, Revelation 2:8, Revelation 21:6, Revelation 22:13;, Revelation 1:11 ● v.8 ↔ Matthew 12:18, James 2:23 ● v.23 ↔ John 10:34.

¹Behold my servant whom I will sustain

– My chosen one in whom my being delights.

I have cast my spirit over him;

He will bring justice

To the Gentiles.

²He will not shout, and he will not act high-handedly,

Nor make his voice heard in the street.

³He will not break a buckled reed,

And he will not extinguish a smouldering wick.

He will bring justice

In accordance with truth.

⁴He will not grow faint,

And he will not buckle

Before he has set up justice on the earth,

And the coastlands will await his law.”

⁵This is what God, the Lord

– Who created the heavens and stretched them out,

Who pitched the earth and what it brings forth,

Who gives breath to the people upon it,

And spirit to those who walk on it – says:

⁶“I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness,

And I will hold your hand,

And I will guard you,

And I will make you into a covenant people

– A light of the Gentiles –

⁷To open blind eyes,

To take prisoners out of confinement

And those who dwell in darkness out of their prison.

⁸I am the Lord;

That is my name,

And I will not give my honour to another,

Nor my praiseworthiness to idols.

⁹As for the former things,

You see that they have come about,

And as for the new things,

I declare them.

Before they arise,

I will proclaim them to you.

¹⁰Sing a new song to the Lord

– His praiseworthiness from the end of the earth –

You who go down to the sea and its fulness,

You coastlands

And you who live in them.

¹¹Let the desert and its cities raise their voices,

And the courtyards which Kedar inhabits.

Let the inhabitants of the rock be jubilant,

Let them shout from the peak of the mountains,

¹²Let them give glory to the Lord,

And let them proclaim his praiseworthiness

In the coastlands.

¹³The Lord will come out as a warrior,

He will arouse zeal as a man of war;

He will cry out and shout

And overcome his enemies.

¹⁴I have been silent for a long time;

I have been quiet and restrained myself.

But I will scream like a woman giving birth;

I will puff and pant at the same time.

¹⁵I will lay mountains and hills waste,

And I will dry up all their herbaceous vegetation.

I will make rivers into coastlands,

And I will dry up lakes.

¹⁶And I will enable the blind to walk along a way they haven't known,

And I will enable them to tread paths they have not been familiar with.

I will make the darkness in front of them light

And the impracticable ways level.

These are the words;

I will carry them out

And not renounce them.

¹⁷As for those who trust in an idol,

Who say to cast imagery,

‘You are our gods’,

They have drawn back;

They will be put to great shame.

¹⁸You deaf ones, hear!

You blind ones,

Look up so as to see!

¹⁹Who is blind, but my servant?

Or deaf, like my messenger whom I sent?

Who is blind like the one who has been preserved?

Or blind, like the servant of the Lord?

²⁰For you have seen many things,

But you do not take note of them;

You have pricked up the ears

But no-one takes heed.”

²¹The Lord takes delight for the sake of his own righteousness;

He magnifies the law

And gives it honour.

²²But it is a people plundered and preyed on,

By those ensnaring them all in pits,

While they hide in confinement.

They have been a target of plunder,

With no-one delivering them

– A prey, with no-one saying,

“Give it back.”

²³Who among you will attend to this?

Who will listen and heed it afterwards?

²⁴Who made Jacob a target of spoil

And delivered Israel to the plunderers?

Was it not the Lord,

Against whom we have sinned?

For they did not want to walk in his ways,

And they did not heed his law.

²⁵And he poured out fury – his wrath – over him,

And the force of war,

And it set him on fire round about,

But he did not discern anything,

And it burned him,

But he did not lay it to heart.

Reference(s) in Chapter 42: v.1 ↔ Matthew 12:18 ● v.2 ↔ Matthew 12:19 ● v.3 ↔ Matthew 12:20 ● v.6 ↔ Luke 2:32.

¹And now, this is what the Lord,

Your creator, O Jacob,

And your fashioner, O Israel,

Says:

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.

I have called you by your name;

You are mine.

²When you cross over water,

I will be with you,

And when you traverse rivers,

They will not overwhelm you.

When you go through fire,

You will not be scorched,

And not a flame will burn you.

³For I am the Lord your God,

The holy one of Israel,

Your saviour.

I have given Egypt as a ransom for you,

And Ethiopia and Seba on behalf of you,

⁴Because you are precious in my eyes;

You are honoured, and I love you,

And I will give a man for you,

And nations for your existence.

⁵Do not fear, for I am with you.

I will bring your seed from the east,

And I will gather you from the west.

⁶I will say to the north,

‘Give them up’,

And to the south,

‘Do not shut them in.’

Bring my sons from afar,

And my daughters from the end of the earth.

⁷I created everyone who is called by my name,

And it is for my glory.

I fashioned him;

Indeed, I made him.

⁸Bring out the blind people

Who nevertheless have eyes,

And the deaf,

Who nevertheless have ears.

⁹All the Gentiles will be gathered together,

And the nations will be assembled.

Who among them can recount this,

And proclaim to us the former things?

Let them produce their witnesses,

And be justified.

Or let them hear, and let them say,

‘It is the truth.’

¹⁰You are my witnesses,

Says the Lord,

And my servant whom I have chosen,

So that you may know and believe me,

And understand that I am he.

Before me no God was fashioned

Nor will there be after me.

¹¹I, I am the Lord,

And there is no saviour besides me.

¹²I have declared it,

And I have saved,

And I have proclaimed it,

While among you there is nothing extraneous,

And you are my witnesses,

Says the Lord,

And I am God.

¹³Indeed, since the existence of a day,

I am he,

And there is no-one who delivers from my hand.

I act,

And who can avert it?”

¹⁴This is what the Lord, your redeemer,

The holy one of Israel, says:

“For your sake I have sent a force to Babylon,

And I have brought down all the fugitives,

And the Chaldeans are in outcry in their ships.

¹⁵I am the Lord your holy one,

The creator of Israel,

Your king.”

¹⁶This is what the Lord

– Who makes a passage in the sea,

And a route in raging water,

¹⁷Who brings out chariot and horse,

An army and a force – says:

“They will lie down together,

They will not get up,

They will be extinguished;

They will be snuffed out like a wick.

¹⁸Do not remember the former things,

And do not consider ancient matters.

– It will spring up now.

Do you not know it?

Indeed, I will build a road in the desert

And establish rivers in the wasteland.

²⁰The wildlife will glorify me

– The jackals and the ostriches –

Because I will have given them water in the desert

And rivers in the wasteland,

To give drink to my chosen people

²¹– A people whom I fashioned for myself,

Who will relate my praiseworthiness.

²²And it is not that you called me, O Jacob,

For you have grown weary of me,

O Israel.

²³You have not brought me the sheep

For your burnt offerings,

And you have not honoured me with your sacrifices.

I have not overburdened you with the meal-offering,

And I have not wearied you with incense.

²⁴You have not bought me sweet cane with money,

And you have not satiated me with the fat of your sacrifices,

But you have overburdened me with your sins

And wearied me with your iniquities.

²⁵I, I am he

Who wipes out your trespasses

For my own sake,

And I will not remember your sins.

²⁶Bring me to remembrance;

Let us appeal to law together.

Put your case

So that you may be justified.

²⁷Your first father sinned,

And your mediators have transgressed against me.

²⁸So I have profaned the holy officiators,

And I have consigned Jacob to condemnation,

And Israel to reproaches.

Reference(s) in Chapter 43: v.19 ↔ Revelation 21:5.

¹But now, hear, O Jacob my servant,

And Israel, whom I have chosen.

²This is what the Lord

– Your maker and your fashioner from the womb,

Who will help you – says:

Do not fear, Jacob, my servant,

And Jeshurun

Whom I have chosen.

³For I will pour water on him who is thirsty,

And precipitation on dry land.

I will pour my spirit on your seed,

And my blessing on your descendants,

⁴And they will sprout up among the vegetation

Like willows by streams of water.

⁵One will say, ‘I belong to the Lord’,

And another will call out in the name of Jacob,

While another will write by hand,

‘Of the Lord’,

And he will designate himself

By the name Israel.”

⁶This is what the Lord

– The king of Israel,

And his kinsman redeemer,

The Lord of hosts – says:

And besides me there is no God.

⁷And who, being like me,

Has been able to proclaim and describe it,

And arrange it for me,

Since I appointed an age-abiding people?

And let them describe to them

The things to come

And those which will arrive.

⁸Do not fear and do not be afraid.

Have I not informed you previously

And described it,

While you are my witnesses?

Is there a God besides me?

Indeed there is no rock;

I do not know of any.

⁹As for the fashioners of an idol,

They are all a cause of ruin,

And their sought-after objects

Are of no benefit.

And they are their own witnesses

– They do not see, and they do not know.

So they will be ashamed.

¹⁰Who is it who forms a god

Or casts an idol

– Which is to no avail?

¹¹You will see that all his colleagues will be put to shame

– Those who are artisans from among men.

Let them all assemble,

Let them take a stand,

But they will fear

And all be put to shame together.

¹²The blacksmith with a chisel,

As he works at burning coal,

Fashions it with a hammer,

And works at it with his strong arm,

Even if he is hungry

And has no strength

And has not drunk water

And has become weary.

¹³The woodcarver applies a straight edge,

And delineates it with a stylus,

And processes the wood with a plane,

And marks it out with a pair of compasses,

And makes it in the shape of a man,

In the elegance of a human,

To stand in a house.

¹⁴He chops down some cedars for himself

And takes some holm-oak and oak

And encourages himself with the trees of the forest,

And he plants mountain ash,

And the rain makes them grow.

¹⁵And the wood becomes something for a man to burn,

And he takes some of the logs and warms himself,

And he also fires up an oven and bakes bread,

Yet he also fashions a god

And worships it;

He makes it into an idol

And prostrates himself to it.

¹⁶He burns half of it in a fire,

He eats meat cooked on half of it,

And roasts a joint,

And has his fill,

And also warms himself and says,

‘Ah, I have become warm;

I have provided myself with a fire.’

¹⁷Then he turns the rest of it into a god

– Into his idol –

And prostrates himself to it

And worships it

And prays to it and says,

‘Save me,

For you are my god.’

¹⁸They do not know,

And they do not understand,

For he has covered over their eyes

So that they do not see,

And their hearts

So that they do not perceive.

¹⁹And no-one lays it to heart,

And there is no knowledge and no understanding,

Whereby they would say,

‘I have burned part in a fire,

And I have also used some for baking bread on its hot embers;

I have roasted meat and eaten it,

So shall I make the rest an abomination,

And prostrate myself to a wooden product?’

²⁰He feeds on ash;

A deluded heart has misguided him,

And he cannot save his life,

And he cannot say,

‘Isn't there something false

In my right hand?’

²¹Remember these things, O Jacob,

And Israel, that you are my servant.

I fashioned you;

You are my servant.

Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.

²²I have wiped out your transgressions

Like a thick cloud,

And your sins

Like a raincloud.

Come back to me,

For I have redeemed you.

²³Be jubilant, O heavens,

For the Lord has taken action.

Shout out, you lower parts of the earth;

Break out into jubilation, you mountains,

You forest and all the trees within,

For the Lord has redeemed Jacob,

And glorifies himself in Israel.

²⁴This is what the Lord

– Your redeemer and your fashioner from the womb –

Says:

I am the Lord,

Who is the maker of everything,

Who stretches out the heavens on my own,

Who pitched the earth – who did so with me? –

²⁵Who obstructs false signs,

And who puts magicians to shame,

Who refutes the wise,

And who shows the fallacy of their knowledge,

²⁶Who brings to pass the word of his servant

And fulfils the counsel committed to his messengers,

Who says to Jerusalem,

‘You will be inhabited’,

And to the cities of Judah,

‘You will be rebuilt’,

For I will restore her desolate places,

²⁷I who say to the deep,

‘Become dry’,

And I dry your rivers up,

²⁸I who say to Cyrus,

‘My shepherd.’

And he will fulfil all my desire

And say to Jerusalem,

‘You will be rebuilt’,

And to the temple,

‘You will be founded.’

Reference(s) in Chapter 44: v.6 ↔ Revelation 1:8, Revelation 1:17, Revelation 2:8, Revelation 21:6, Revelation 22:13;, Revelation 1:11.

¹This is what the Lord says to his anointed one,

To Cyrus whose right hand I have taken hold of,

To subdue nations before him,

As I slacken the loins of kings,

And to open double doors in front of him,

And to see to it that gates will not be closed:

²‘I will walk before you,

And I will straighten twisting places;

I will shatter copper doors,

And I will break iron bolts in pieces.

³And I will give you dark treasures,

And valuables hidden in secret places,

In order that you may know that I am the Lord

Who is calling you by your name,

And that I am the God of Israel.

⁴It is for the sake of my servant Jacob,

And Israel my chosen one,

That I have called you by your name.

I have given you a title,

But you have not known me.

⁵I am the Lord,

And there is no other;

There is no God apart from me.

I gird you up,

But you haven't known me.

⁶This is so that they may know,

From the rising of the sun to the west,

That there is no-one apart from me.

I am the Lord,

And there is no other.

⁷I form light and create darkness,

I make peace and create harm;

I am the Lord

Who does all these things.

⁸Distil dew, O heavens above,

And let the skies drip down righteousness.

Let the earth open,

And let them be fruitful with salvation,

And let righteousness spring up together with them.

I am the Lord;

I created it.

⁹Woe to him who quarrels with the one who fashioned him,

In the way a potsherd quarrels with the potsherds of the ground.

Shall the clay say to its fashioner,

«What are you making?»?

Or shall your work say,

«He has no hands»?

¹⁰Woe to him who says to his father,

«What have you begotten?»

Or to a woman,

«What have you given birth to?» ’ ”

¹¹This is what the Lord,

The holy one of Israel,

And their maker, says:

“Ask me about things to come;

Command me concerning my sons,

And about the work of my hands.

¹²I made the earth,

And I created man on it;

It was my hands which stretched out the heavens,

And it was me who set out all their array.

¹³I have raised him up in righteousness,

And I will direct all his ways.

He will rebuild my city

And let my captives go,

Without them paying a price or bribe,

Says the Lord of hosts.”

¹⁴This is what the Lord says:

“The hard-earned wealth of Egypt

And the merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabaeans

– Men of tall stature –

Will cross over to you and will be yours.

They will walk behind you

And cross over in fetters,

And they will prostrate themselves to you

And implore you, and say,

‘God is definitely among you,

And there is no-one other than God.’ ”

¹⁵Truly, you are a God who hides himself,

O God of Israel,

The saviour.

¹⁶The fashioners of images will all be put to shame;

They will walk in ignominy together.

¹⁷But Israel will be saved by the Lord,

With an age-abiding salvation.

You will not be ashamed,

Nor will you suffer ignominy

Throughout the ages of all time.

¹⁸For this is what the Lord says,

The creator of the heavens,

Who is God,

The fashioner of the earth

And the maker of it,

Who prepared it

– He did not create it desolate;

He formed it to be inhabited – :

“I am the Lord,

And there is no other.

¹⁹I have not spoken in secret,

In a dark place of the earth;

I have not said to the seed of Jacob,

‘Seek me in a desolate place.’

I, the Lord, speak righteousness,

Stating things which are sound.

²⁰Gather and come, approach together,

You Gentile escapees.

Those who set up their wooden idols

Do not know,

And they pray to a god

Who cannot save.

²¹Report and bring them near;

Let them even consult together.

Who has announced this in advance

– Reported it ever since ancient times?

Is it not I, the Lord?

And there is no other God apart from me,

A just God and a saviour.

There is none besides me.

²²Turn to me and be saved,

All you ends of the earth,

For I am God,

And there is no other.

²³I have sworn by myself

– The utterance has gone out of my mouth righteously

And will not be revoked –

For every knee will bow to me,

And every tongue will swear.

²⁴A person will say,

‘Surely in the Lord

I have righteous things and strength.’

To him he will come,

But all who are angry with him

Will be put to shame.

²⁵It is by the action of the Lord

That all the seed of Israel

Will be justified and will glory.

Reference(s) in Chapter 45: v.5 ↔ Mark 12:32 ● v.9 ↔ Romans 9:20 ● v.23 ↔ Romans 14:11, Philippians 2:10, Philippians 2:11.

¹Bel has collapsed, Nebo is buckling;

They were their idols,

Modelled on wild animals and cattle,

Things you carried as burdens

– A wearisome load.

²They have buckled and collapsed together;

They could not save the carried load,

And they themselves have gone into captivity.

³Hear me, house of Jacob,

And all the remainder of the house of Israel,

Who have been sustained from the time of the belly,

Who have been nurtured since the womb.

⁴Up to your old age,

I am he,

And I will support you up to advanced years.

I act and I nurture,

And I support and deliver.

⁵To whom will you compare me

And make me equal?

Or liken me,

So that we may be similar?

⁶They shake out gold from a bag

And weigh silver by the beam of a balance.

They hire a metalworker,

And he makes it into a god.

Then they prostrate themselves,

And indeed they worship.

⁷They lift it up;

They carry it on the shoulder

And put it down in its place,

And it stands there.

It does not move away from its place.

Moreover, if one cries out to it,

It does not answer.

It cannot save a person from his distress.

⁸Remember this

And show yourselves men;

Lay this, you transgressors,

To heart again.

⁹Remember the former things of old,

For I am God,

And there is no other.

I am God,

And there is no-one like me,

¹⁰Who tells from the start the final state,

And from old time things which have not been done,

Who says,

‘My counsel will stand firm,

And I will carry out all of my will.’

¹¹I call a bird of prey from the east

– The man on whom I have decided –

From a distant country.

I have spoken,

And I will bring it to pass;

I have designed it,

And I will also carry it out.

¹²Listen to me,

You stout-hearted men,

Who are far from righteousness.

¹³I have brought my righteousness near;

It is not far away,

And my salvation will not be long coming.

And I have appointed salvation in Zion for Israel my splendour.

¹Come down and sit on the dust,

You virgin daughter of Babylon;

Sit on the ground where there is no chair,

You daughter of the Chaldeans,

For you will no longer have them calling you

Tender and delicate.

²Take the millstones and grind flour,

Uncover your veil,

Lift the train of your robe,

Uncover the calf of your leg;

Cross the rivers.

³Let your nakedness be revealed;

Let also your ignominy be seen.

I will take revenge;

I will not regard a man with favour.

⁴As for our redeemer,

His name is the Lord of hosts

– The holy one of Israel.

⁵Sit in silence and go into darkness,

You daughter of the Chaldeans,

For you will no longer have them calling you

The Lady of Kingdoms.

⁶I have been angry with my people;

I have profaned my inheritance

And delivered them into your hand.

You did not show them mercy;

You made your yoke on an old man

Very heavy.

⁷And you have said,

‘I will be the lady age-abidingly.’

But during all this time you have not laid these things to heart,

Nor have you called her final state to mind.

⁸And now, hear this, you delicate one,

Who sits in security,

Who says in her heart,

‘I am the one,

And there is no-one besides me.

I shall not sit as a widow,

And I shall not know bereavement of children.’

⁹But these two things will come over you,

In a moment, on one day,

Bereavement of children, and widowhood.

In their entirety they will come over you,

For the abundance of your sorceries,

For the great profusion of your incantations.

¹⁰And you trusted in your wickedness;

You said, ‘There is no-one who can see me.’

It is your wisdom and your knowledge which have turned you away,

And you say in your heart,

‘I am the one,

And there is no-one besides me.’

¹¹And evil will come over you,

And you will not know its origin,

And calamity will befall you,

Which you will not be able to avert,

And destruction will come over you suddenly,

When you are unaware.

¹²Stand firm in your incantations, then,

And in the profusion of your sorceries,

With which you have exhausted yourself from your youth.

Maybe you can benefit;

Maybe you will instil fear.

¹³You weary yourself with the large number of your consultations.

So let the astrologers who foresee by the stars

And make things known by new moons

Stand up and save you

From what will come over you.

¹⁴Look, they are like stubble;

Fire will burn them up.

They cannot save themselves

From the reach of the flame.

It will not be burning coals to warm oneself,

Or a fire to sit around.

¹⁵This is what will become

Of what you have wearied yourself with.

Those merchants of yours from your youth

Have each gone astray in his own direction.

You do not have a saviour.

Reference(s) in Chapter 47: v.8 ↔ Revelation 18:7.

¹Hear this, house of Jacob,

Who are called by the name of Israel,

And who came out of the waters of Judah,

Who swear by the name of the Lord,

And who make mention of the God of Israel,

But not in truth

And not in righteousness.

²For they are called a people from the holy city,

Who trust in the God of Israel

– The Lord of hosts is his name.

³I have foretold the first things,

And they proceeded from my mouth,

And I proclaimed them.

Then suddenly I perform them,

And they come to pass,

⁴Because I know that you are stubborn,

And that your neck has an iron sinew,

And that you have a brazen forehead.

⁵And I have told you beforehand

– Before it came about,

I proclaimed it to you –

So that you cannot say,

‘My idol performed those things’,

Or, ‘My carved image and my cast figure commanded them.’

⁶You have heard, ‘Look at all this.’

And will you not announce it?

I have proclaimed to you new things, recently,

And secret things

Which you have not known.

⁷They are being created now

– And not in the past,

Before the day,

Before you had heard –

So that you cannot say,

‘Look, I knew these things.’

⁸You neither heard it nor knew it,

Nor has your ear been open since then,

For I knew that you would take to dealing treacherously.

So you have been called

A transgressor from the womb.

⁹For the sake of my name I will defer my anger,

And for my praiseworthiness I will restrain myself from you,

So as not to cut you off.

¹⁰Behold, I have refined you,

But not for money;

I have chosen you

In the furnace of affliction.

¹¹It is for my sake, it is for my sake,

That I will act,

For how could that be profaned?

And I shall not give my glory to another.

¹²Hear me, Jacob,

And Israel, my called out people:

I am he.

I am the first;

I am also the last.

¹³Indeed, my hand founded the earth,

And my right hand spread the heavens out.

I call out to them,

And they take up position together.

¹⁴Gather together, all of you, and hear.

Who among them has told of these things?

The Lord loved him;

He will do his will in Babylon,

With his arm among the Chaldeans.

¹⁵I, I have spoken,

And I have called him too;

I have brought him onto the scene,

And he will make his way prosperous.

¹⁶Come close to me and hear this:

From the start I have not spoken in secret.

From the start of time

There I have been.”

And now my Lord the Lord has sent me,

With his spirit.

¹⁷This is what the Lord, your redeemer,

The holy one of Israel, says:

“I am the Lord your God,

Your teacher in how to be benefited,

Your guide in the way you should go.

¹⁸If only you had heeded my commandments!

Then your peace would have been like a river,

And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

¹⁹And your seed would have been like sand,

And the offspring of your loins like fine gravel.

Their name will not be cut off,

And they will not be destroyed before me.

²⁰Go out of Babylon;

Flee from the Chaldeans with a jubilant voice.

Announce this, proclaim this,

Utter it as far as the end of the earth.

Say, ‘The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.’

²¹They did not thirst

When he led them in desolate places;

He made water gush from a rock for them

When he split the rock

And the water flowed.

²²There is no peace,

Says the Lord,

For the wicked.”

Reference(s) in Chapter 48: v.12 ↔ Revelation 22:13 ● v.20 ↔ Revelation 18:4.

¹“Hear me, you coastlands,

And listen, you distant peoples.

The Lord has called me from the womb;

From my mother's belly

He had made mention of my name.

²And he has made my mouth like a sharp sword;

He has hidden me in the shadow of his hand,

He has made me as a perfected arrow,

And he has hidden me in his quiver.

³And he said to me,

‘You are my servant

– Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’

⁴But I said,

‘I have toiled in vain,

I have expended my energy on a wasteful thing,

And a futile matter,

Yet my vindication is with the Lord,

And my recompense

Is with my God.’ ”

⁵And now, says the Lord,

Who formed me from the womb

To be his servant,

To bring Jacob back to him,

So that Israel shall be gathered to him,

I will be glorified in the eyes of the Lord,

And my God will be my strength.

⁶And he said,

“Is it a trivial matter to be my servant,

To establish the tribes of Jacob,

And to restore those preserved of Israel?

And I will make you a light of the Gentiles

To be my salvation

As far as the end of the earth.”

⁷This is what the Lord,

Israel's redeemer,

Their holy one, says:

“Kings will see and arise,

And princes,

And these will prostrate themselves

To him who was considered despicable,

To a nation regarded as an abomination,

To one subservient to rulers,

This being for the sake of the Lord,

Who is faithful

– The holy one of Israel –

Who has chosen you.”

And I will preserve you and make you a covenant people,

To establish the earth,

By giving desolate places an inheritance,

⁹As you say to prisoners,

‘Come out’;

To those in darkness,

‘Come into the open.’

They will feed along the ways,

And their pasture will be in all high places.

¹¹And I will turn all my mountains into a road,

And my highways will be raised up.

¹²Behold, these things will come from far away,

And you will see some coming from the north,

And from the west,

And some from the land of China.”

¹³Be jubilant, O heavens,

And rejoice, O earth.

And break out into jubilation, O mountains,

For the Lord has comforted his people,

And has mercy on his needy.

¹⁴Yet Zion said,

“The Lord has deserted me,

And the Lord^* has forgotten me.”

¹⁵“Can a woman forget her breastfeeding child,

So as not to have compassion on her son from her own womb?

Even if these women were to forget,

Yet I will not forget you.

¹⁶Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;

Your walls are always before me.

¹⁷Your sons have been hasty,

But those who demolished you and laid you waste

Will depart from you.

¹⁸Lift up your eyes round about, and see:

All of them have gathered and come to you.

As I live, says the Lord,

You will surely clothe yourself with them all like an ornament,

And bind them onto yourself,

Adorning yourself like a bride.

¹⁹For your wastelands and your desolate places,

And your devastated land

Are such that now you are too hard pressed for anyone to inhabit you,

But those who are swallowing you up

Will be removed.

²⁰Your sons who have been bereaved of children

Will yet have a word to say in your ear,

‘The place is too hostile to me.’

‘Come near to me,

So that I can live there.’

²¹Then you will say in your heart,

‘Who bore me these,

As I have been bereaved and am barren,

Captive and deported?

So who brought these up?

Look, I have remained on my own.

As for these,

Where are they from?’ ”

²²This is what my Lord the Lord says:

“Behold I will raise my hand to the Gentiles,

And I will raise my banner to the nations,

And they will bring your sons in their bosom,

And your daughters will be carried on their shoulders.

²³And kings will be your foster fathers,

And their princesses will be your nurses.

They will prostrate themselves to you with the face to the ground,

And they will lick the dust of your feet,

And you will know that I am the Lord,

And that those who await me

Will not be put to shame.”

²⁴Can spoil be taken from a warrior?

Or can a righteous captive be delivered?

²⁵But this is what the Lord says:

“Even the warrior's captive will be taken back,

And the spoil of the fierce will be recovered.

And I will contend with him who contends with you,

And I will save your sons.

²⁶And I will feed those who dispossess you with their own flesh,

And they will become drunk with their own blood,

As with new wine,

And all flesh will know

That I am the Lord,

Your saviour and your redeemer

– The mighty one of Jacob.”

Reference(s) in Chapter 49: v.2 ↔ Revelation 1:16, Revelation 2:16, Revelation 19:15 ● v.6 ↔ Luke 2:32, Acts 13:47 ● v.8 ↔ 2 Corinthians 6:2 ● v.10 ↔ Revelation 7:16, Revelation 7:17 ● v.13 ↔ Revelation 12:12.

¹This is what the Lord says:

“Where is the bill of divorce of your mother,

Whom I have sent away?

Or who of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you?

Look, it is for your iniquities that you were sold,

And for your transgressions

That your mother was sent away.

²Why is it that when I came,

There was not a single man?

That when I called,

There was no-one who answered?

Am I really incapable of redeeming?

Or do I not have the power to save?

Look, at my rebuke I dry up the sea;

I make rivers a desert,

And their fish stink for lack of water

And die of thirst.

³I can clothe the heavens in obscurity

And make sackcloth their covering.”

⁴“My Lord the Lord has given me a learned tongue,

To know how to help the weary with a word.

He awakens me from morning to morning;

He awakens my ear

To hear like the learned.

⁵My Lord the Lord has opened my ear,

And I have not rebelled;

I have not slid back.

⁶I have given my back to those who beat it,

And my cheeks to those who pluck the beard;

I have not hidden my face from ignominious treatment

And spittle.

⁷And my Lord the Lord will help me,

Which is why I will not be held in contempt,

And why I have been resolute like flint,

And I know that I shall not be ashamed.

⁸My justifier is near;

Who will contend with me?

Let us stand together.

Who is my prosecutor?

Let him approach me.

⁹Behold, my Lord the Lord will help me.

Who is it who can condemn me?

You will see that they will all become worn out like a garment;

A moth will consume them.

¹⁰Who among you fears the Lord,

In obeying his servant,

Who walks in darkness and has no light?

Let him trust in the name of the Lord

And rely on his God.

¹¹Behold, all of you who kindle a fire,

Who arm yourselves with fiery darts,

Go into the glow of your fire,

And into the fiery darts you have ignited.

This came from my hand to you;

You will lie down in sorrow.”

¹“Listen to me,

You who pursue justice,

You who seek the Lord.

Look at the rock from which you have been hewn,

And at the hollow of the pit

From which you have been quarried.

²Look at Abraham your father,

And Sarah who gave birth to you,

For I called him as the only one,

And I will bless him and multiply him.

³For the Lord will comfort Zion;

He will comfort all her desolate places,

And he will make her desert like Eden,

And her arid tract like the Lord's garden.

Rejoicing and happiness will be found in her,

And thanksgiving and the sound of singing.

⁴Listen to me, my people,

And hear me, my nation,

For the law will go out from me,

And I will make my judicature rest

As a light for the nations.

⁵My justice is near,

My salvation has gone out,

And my arms will judge nations.

The coastlands will put their hope in me,

And confide in my arm.

⁶Lift up your eyes to the heavens,

And look at the earth below,

For the heavens will pass away like smoke,

And the earth will wear out like a garment,

And its inhabitants will die in a similar way,

But my salvation will be age-abiding,

And my justice will not be thwarted.

⁷Listen to me, you who know righteousness

– You who are a people with my law in your heart –

Do not fear the reproach of man,

And do not be dismayed at their vilifications.

⁸For the moth will consume them like a garment,

And the larva will consume them like wool,

But my justice will be age-abiding,

As will my salvation

From generation to generation.

⁹Wake up, wake up,

Put on strength,

O arm of the Lord.

Wake up as in former days,

In generations of past ages.

Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces

– Who wounded the land of crocodile?

¹⁰Was it not you who dried up the sea

– The water of the mighty deep –

Who made the depths of the sea

A way for those ransomed to cross over?

¹¹And the Lord's redeemed will return

And come to Zion in jubilation,

With age-abiding joy on their heads.

They will obtain happiness and joy,

Whereas sorrow and sighing will flee.

¹²I, I myself am the one who comforts you.

Who are you to be afraid of mortal man,

Or of a son of Adam

Who will be laid under the grass?

¹³But you are forgetting the Lord your maker,

Who stretched out the heavens,

And who laid the foundations of the earth,

And you have been afraid continually,

All day long,

Of the fury of the oppressor,

Of one as he prepares to bring ruination.

But where is the fury of the oppressor?

¹⁴The exile hastens to be released

And not to die in the pit,

And not to have lack of food.

¹⁵But I am the Lord your God,

Who stirs up the sea

So that its waves roar

– The Lord of hosts is his name.

¹⁶And I will put my words in your mouth;

I will cover you with the shadow of my hand

So as to plant the heavens

And to found the earth,

And to say to Zion,

‘You are my people.’

¹⁷Rouse yourself, rouse yourself, arise, Jerusalem,

You who have drunk from the hand of the Lord

The cup of his fury.

You have drunk;

You have wrung out the goblet

– The cup of reeling.

¹⁸There is no-one from all the sons she has borne

Leading her,

And there is no-one out of all the sons she has brought up

Holding her hand.

¹⁹There are two things which call out to you:

Who will console you?

Regarding the devastation, the ruination, the hunger and the sword,

Who says, ‘I will comfort you’?

²⁰Your sons have fainted;

They lie at the head of all the streets,

Like an oryx in a trap.

They are full of the Lord's fury

– A rebuke from your God.

²¹So then, do hear this,

You afflicted one

– Drunk,

But not from wine.”

²²This is what your Lord the Lord and your God,

Who will contend for his people, says:

“Look, I have taken from your hand the cup of reeling,

The goblet – the cup of my fury.

You will not drink it any more.

²³And I will put it in the hand

Of those who afflict you,

Who have said to you personally,

‘Bow down so that we may pass.’

And you positioned your back like the ground,

And like the street for passers-by to walk on.”

¹Wake up, wake up,

Put on your strength, O Zion;

Put on your splendid clothes, O Jerusalem,

You holy city,

For the uncircumcised and the unclean

Will no longer come into you.

²Shake the dust off yourself,

Arise and sit, O Jerusalem;

Loose yourself from the bonds around your neck,

O captive daughter of Zion.

³For this is what the Lord says:

“You were sold for nothing,

And you will be redeemed

Without money.”

⁴For this is what my Lord the Lord says:

“In time past,

My people went down to Egypt

To live there,

And Assyria oppressed them for no reason,

⁵And now who do I have here?

Says the Lord,

For my people were taken undeservedly.

Those ruling them make them howl,

Says the Lord,

And my name is continuously despised

All day long.

⁶This is why my people will know my name;

This is why they will know on that day

That I am he who speaks and says,

‘Here I am.’ ”

Who proclaims salvation,

Who says to Zion,

“Your God reigns.”

⁸There is the voice of your watchmen.

They raise their voice;

They are jubilant together,

For they will see face to face

When the Lord returns to Zion.

⁹Break out into singing,

Be jubilant together,

You desolate areas of Jerusalem,

For the Lord has comforted his people;

He has redeemed Jerusalem.

¹⁰The Lord has made his holy arm bare

In the sight of all the nations,

And all the ends of the earth will see

The salvation of our God.

Be purified,

You who carry the Lord's equipment.

¹²For you will not go out in haste,

And you will not go in flight,

For the Lord will go before you,

And the God of Israel will gather you up at the rear.

¹³Behold, my servant will act prudently;

He will be exalted

And extolled,

And he will be very high.

¹⁴Just as many were astonished at you

– Such was the disfigurement of his appearance,

More than that of any man,

And of his looks,

More than that of any of the sons of Adam –

¹⁵So he will sprinkle many nations;

Kings will shut their mouths at him,

Reference(s) in Chapter 52: v.5 ↔ Romans 2:24 ● v.7 ↔ Romans 10:15 ● v.11 ↔ 2 Corinthians 6:17, Revelation 18:4 ● v.15 ↔ Romans 15:21.

²For he grew up before him like a shoot,

And like a root from arid ground.

He had no handsome form or splendour,

And when we saw him,

It was not a sight

That we should desire him.

³He was despised and repudiated by men

– A man of sorrows and acquainted with affliction –

While we were like a person hiding his face from him.

He was despised,

And we did not esteem him.

⁴Surely he has borne our ailments

And taken the weight of our sorrows,

But we considered him stricken

– Struck by God and afflicted.

⁵He was wounded for our transgressions;

He was bruised for our iniquities.

The punishment for our peace was on him,

⁶We like sheep have all gone astray;

We have each turned our own way.

But the Lord has laid on him

The iniquity of us all.

⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

But he did not open his mouth.

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

And as a ewe before its shearers is silent

He did not open his mouth.

For the transgression of my people

He was struck down.

⁹And his grave was appointed with the wicked,

But with a rich man in his death,

¹⁰Yet the Lord was pleased to bruise him,

And to ravage him.

When his life makes a guilt-offering,

He will see his seed,

He will prolong his days,

And the pleasure of the Lord

Will prosper in his hand.

¹¹He will see the result of his inward toil;

He will be satisfied.

My righteous servant will justify many by his knowledge,

And he will bear their iniquities.

¹²That is why I will apportion him among the great,

And he will share spoil with the mighty,

Because he poured out his being to death,

And he was counted with the transgressors,

And he bore the sin of many,

And he pleaded for the transgressors.

Reference(s) in Chapter 53: v.1 ↔ John 12:38, Romans 10:16 ● v.4 ↔ Matthew 8:17, 1 Peter 2:24 ● v.5 ↔ 1 Peter 2:24 ● v.6 ↔ 1 Peter 2:25 ● v.7 ↔ Acts 8:32, 1 Peter 2:23 ● v.8 ↔ Acts 8:33 ● v.9 ↔ 1 Peter 2:22 ● v.12 ↔ Mark 15:28, Luke 22:37.

Says the Lord.

²Make a wide open space in your tent,

And let the curtains of your abodes be stretched.

Do not hold back;

Lengthen your guylines

And strengthen your pegs.

³For you will spread out to the right and to the left,

And your seed will dispossess nations,

And they will make desolate places habitable.

⁴Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed,

And you will not suffer ignominy,

For you will not come into disrepute,

And you will forget the shame of your youth,

And you will no longer remember

The reproach of your widowhood.

⁵For your husband is your maker

– The Lord of hosts is his name –

And your redeemer is the holy one of Israel.

He will be called

The God of all the earth.

⁶For the Lord has called you

As a woman who has been deserted,

And who is grieved in spirit,

And as a youthful wife

– For you were rejected,

Says your God.

⁷For a short while I left you,

But I will gather you

With great tender affection.

⁸In a surge of wrath

I hid my face from you for a while,

But I will have compassion on you

With age-abiding kindness,

Says your redeemer,

The Lord.

⁹For this is like Noah's waters to me,

About which I swore

That Noah's waters would no longer pass over the earth.

Likewise, I have sworn

Not to be angry with you

Nor to rebuke you.

¹⁰For the mountains will retreat,

And the hills will totter,

But my kindness will not retreat from you,

And my covenant of peace will not totter,

Says the Lord,

Who has mercy on you.

¹¹Poor, tossed about,

And not comforted as you are,

I am about to set your stones,

In dark surround,

And I will give you foundations of sapphires.

¹²And I will make your windows of rubies,

And your gates of garnet,

And all your border

Of attractive gemstones.

¹³And all your sons will be the Lord's disciples,

And the peace of your sons

Will be great.

¹⁴You will be established in righteousness;

You will certainly be far from oppression,

For you will not fear,

And you will be far from terror,

For it will not come near you.

¹⁵Behold, no-one at all will dwell with you

Unless it is authorized by my sign;

He who has dwelt with you

Would attack you.

¹⁶Behold, I created the craftsman,

Who puffs on the coal fire

And produces an instrument for his work.

And I created the ruiner

To lay waste.

¹⁷No weapon produced against you will be successful,

And you will condemn every tongue which confronts you in law.

This is the inheritance of the Lord's servants,

Whose righteousness comes from me”,

Says the Lord.

Reference(s) in Chapter 54: v.1 ↔ Galatians 4:27 ● v.13 ↔ John 6:45.