Isaiah

 

Chapter 1

 

1 The vision which Isaiah the son of Amos saw, which he saw concerning Judea and concerning Jerusalem, in the reign of Uzziah and Jotham and Ahaz and Hezekiah, who reigned over Judea.

 

2 Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken: I have begotten sons and raised them up, but they have rejected me.

 

3 The ox knows its owner, and the donkey the manger of its master; but Israel has not known me, and my people have not understood me.

 

4 Woe, sinful nation, people full of sins, evil seed, lawless sons: you have forsaken the Lord and provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger.

 

5 Why should you be struck any more, adding lawlessness? Every head is in pain, and every heart in sorrow.

 

6 From the feet to the head there is neither wound nor bruise nor festering blow; there is no salve to apply, nor oil, nor bandages.

 

7 Your land is desolate, your cities burned with fire; strangers devour your country before your eyes, and it lies desolate, overthrown by foreign peoples.

 

8 The daughter of Zion shall be left as a tent in a vineyard, and as a hut in a cucumber field, as a besieged city.

 

9 And if the Lord of Sabaoth had not left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah.

 

10 Hear the word of the Lord, rulers of Sodom; give heed to the law of God, people of Gomorrah.

 

11 What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? says the Lord. I am full of whole burnt offerings of rams, and I do not desire the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and goats,

 

12 not even if you come to appear before me. For who has required these things from your hands? You shall not continue to tread my court.

 

13 If you bring fine flour, it is vain; incense is an abomination to me; I cannot endure your new moons and sabbaths and the great day;

 

14 fasting and idleness and your new moons and your feasts my soul hates. You have become a surfeit to me; I will no longer forgive your sins.

 

15 When you stretch out your hands to me, I will turn my eyes away from you, and if you multiply your supplication, I will not listen to you; for your hands are full of blood.

 

16 Wash yourselves, become clean, remove the evils from your souls before my eyes; cease from your evils,

 

17 learn to do good, seek out judgment, rescue the one who is wronged, judge for the orphan, and do justice to the widow.

 

18 And come, and let us reason together, says the Lord; and if your sins are like crimson, I will make them white as snow, and if they are like scarlet, I will make them white as wool.

 

19 And if you are willing and listen to me, you shall eat the good things of the land;

 

20 but if you are not willing and do not listen to me, a sword shall devour you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.

 

21 How has the faithful city Zion become a harlot, she who was full of judgment, in whom righteousness lodged, but now murderers!

 

22 Your silver is worthless; your merchants mix the wine with water;

 

23 your rulers are disobedient, companions of thieves, loving bribes, pursuing recompense, not judging for orphans, and not attending to the cause of widows.

 

24 Therefore thus says the Master, the Lord of Sabaoth: Woe to the mighty of Israel; for my wrath shall not cease against my adversaries, and I will execute judgment upon my enemies.

 

25 And I will bring my hand upon you, and I will purify you by fire until you are clean, and I will destroy the disobedient, and I will remove all the lawless from you, and I will humble all the arrogant.

 

26 And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning; and after these things you shall be called the City of Righteousness, the faithful mother-city Zion.

 

27 For her captivity shall be saved with judgment and with mercy;

 

28 and the lawless and the sinners shall be crushed together, and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed.

 

29 For they shall be ashamed of their idols, which they themselves desired, and they were ashamed of their gardens, which they coveted;

 

30 for they shall be like a terebinth that has shed its leaves, and like a garden that has no water;

 

31 and their strength shall be like a stalk of tow, and their works like sparks of fire, and the lawless and the sinners shall be burned up together, and there shall be no one to quench them.    

Chapter 2

 

1 The word that came from the Lord to Isaiah son of Amos concerning Judea and concerning Jerusalem.

 

2 For in the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God upon the tops of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and all the nations shall come to it,

 

3 and many nations shall go and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will declare to us his way, and we will walk in it." For out of Zion shall go forth a law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

 

4 And he shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people, and they shall beat their swords into plows and their spears into sickles, and nation shall no longer take up sword against nation, and they shall no longer learn to make war.

 

5 And now, O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.

 

6 For he has abandoned his people, the house of Israel, because their land was filled, as it was from the beginning, with divinations, like that of the foreigners, and many foreign children were born to them.

 

7 For their land was filled with silver and gold, and there was no number to their treasures; and the land was filled with horses, and there was no number to their chariots;

 

8 and the land was filled with abominations, the works of their hands, and they worshiped what their own fingers had made;

 

9 and man bowed down, and man was humbled, and I will not forgive them.

 

10 And now enter into the rocks and hide yourselves in the earth from the presence of the fear of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he rises to shatter the earth.

 

11 For the eyes of the Lord are lofty, but man is lowly; and the loftiness of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

 

12 For the day of the Lord Sabaoth is against everyone insolent and arrogant, and against everyone lofty and high, and they shall be humbled,

 

13 and against every cedar of Lebanon, of those that are lofty and high, and against every oak tree of Bashan,

 

14 and against every mountain and against every high hill,

 

15 and against every high tower and against every high wall,

 

16 and against every ship of the sea and against every display of beautiful ships;

 

17 and every man shall be humbled, and the loftiness of men shall fall, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

 

18 And they shall hide away all the things made by hands,

 

19 carrying them into the caves and into the clefts of the rocks and into the holes of the earth, from the presence of the fear of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he rises to shatter the earth.

 

20 For in that day a man shall cast out his abominations of silver and of gold, which they made in order to worship, to the vain things and to the bats,

 

21 so as to enter into the holes of the solid rock and into the clefts of the rocks, from the presence of the fear of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he rises to shatter the earth.

 

Chapter 3

 

1 Behold now, the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts, will take away from Judea and from Jerusalem the mighty man and the mighty woman, the strength of bread and the strength of water,

 

2 the giant and the strong man, and the man of war and the judge and the prophet and the diviner and the elder,

 

3 and the captain of fifty and the wondrous counselor and the wise architect and the intelligent hearer.

 

4 And I will set young men as their rulers, and mockers shall lord it over them.

 

5 And the people shall fall together, man against man, and a man against his neighbor; the child shall strike against the old man, the dishonored against the honorable.

 

6 For a man shall lay hold of his brother or of the household member of his father, saying, "You have a garment; become our leader, and let my food be under you."

 

7 And answering he shall say in that day, "I will not be your leader, for there is neither bread nor garment in my house; I will not be leader of this people."

 

8 For Jerusalem is abandoned, and Judea has fallen, and their tongues are joined with lawlessness, being disobedient in the things concerning the Lord; therefore now their glory has been brought low,

 

9 and the shame of their face has risen up against them; and they have announced and displayed their sin like Sodom. Woe to their soul, because they have counseled an evil counsel against themselves,

 

10 saying, "Let us bind the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us." Therefore they shall eat the fruits of their works.

 

11 Woe to the lawless one: evil things shall befall him according to the works of his hands.

 

12 O my people, your exactors glean you, and those who demand payment lord it over you; O my people, those who call you blessed lead you astray, and they disturb the path of your feet.

 

13 But now the Lord will take his stand for judgment, and will set his people for judgment;

 

14 the Lord himself will come to judgment with the elders of the people and with its rulers: "But you, why have you set fire to my vineyard, and why is the plunder of the poor in your houses?

 

15 Why do you wrong my people and put to shame the face of the poor?"

 

16 Thus says the Lord: Because the daughters of Zion have been lifted up, and have walked with lofty neck and with winkings of the eyes, and in the walking of their feet trailing their tunics and at the same time playing with their feet,

 

17 God will humble the ruling daughters of Zion, and the Lord will uncover their form

 

18 in that day; and the Lord will take away the glory of their clothing and their ornaments and the braided ornaments and the fringes and the crescents,

 

19 and the necklace and the adornment of their face,

 

20 and the assemblage of the ornament of glory, and the armlets and the bracelets and the braided hair-ornament and the arm-bands and the rings and the earrings,

 

21 and the garments bordered with purple and those interwoven with purple,

 

22 and the coverings for the house and the transparent Laconian garments,

 

23 and the fine linen and the hyacinth-blue and the scarlet garments and the fine linen woven together with gold and hyacinth-blue, and the light flowing veils.

 

24 And there shall be, instead of a sweet fragrance, dust; and instead of a girdle you shall gird yourself with a rope; and instead of the golden adornment of the head you shall have baldness because of your works; and instead of the tunic interwoven with purple you shall gird yourself with sackcloth.

 

25 And your most beautiful son, whom you love, shall fall by the sword, and your strong ones shall fall by the sword.

 

26 And the storehouses of your ornaments shall be humbled and shall mourn, and you shall be left alone, and shall be dashed to the ground.

 

Chapter 4

 

1 And seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, "We will eat our own bread and clothe ourselves with our own garments; only let your name be called upon us—take away our reproach."

 

2 And on that day God shall shine forth in counsel with glory upon the earth, to exalt and glorify the remnant of Israel.

 

3 And it shall be that what is left in Zion and what remains in Jerusalem shall be called holy, all who are written for life in Jerusalem.

 

4 For the Lord shall wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion and shall purge the blood from their midst with a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning.

 

5 And he shall come, and every place of Mount Zion and all round about her a cloud shall overshadow by day, and as of smoke and as the light of burning fire by night; with all glory shall it be covered.

 

6 And it shall be for a shade from the heat, and for shelter and hiding from harshness and rain.

 

Chapter 5

 

1 I will sing now to my beloved a song of my loved one concerning my vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a hill in a fertile place.

 

2 And I set a hedge around it and fenced it with stakes and planted a sorech vine, and I built a tower in the midst of it and dug out a winepress in it; and I waited for it to produce grapes, but it produced thorns.

 

3 And now, O man of Judah and you who dwell in Jerusalem, judge between me and my vineyard.

 

4 What shall I do more for my vineyard that I have not done for it? For I waited for it to produce grapes, but it produced thorns.

 

5 But now I will declare to you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be for plunder; and I will pull down its wall, and it shall be trampled underfoot.

 

6 And I will abandon my vineyard, and it shall not be pruned nor dug, and thorns shall come up in it as in a wasteland; and I will command the clouds not to rain any rain upon it.

 

7 For the vineyard of the Lord Sabaoth is the house of Israel, and the man of Judah his beloved new planting; I waited for him to do judgment, but he did lawlessness and not righteousness, but a cry.

 

8 Woe to those who join house to house and bring field near to field, in order to take something from their neighbor. Will you dwell alone upon the earth?

 

9 For these things were heard in the ears of the Lord Sabaoth: for though many houses arise, great and fine, they shall become a desolation, and there shall be none dwelling in them.

 

10 For where ten yoke of oxen labor, it shall yield one jar, and he who sows six artabas shall get three measures.

 

11 Woe to those who rise in the morning and pursue strong drink, who linger until evening; for the wine shall consume them.

 

12 For with harp and psaltery and drums and flutes they drink their wine, but they do not look upon the works of the Lord, nor consider the works of his hands.

 

13 Therefore my people have gone into captivity because they did not know the Lord, and a multitude of the dead came to be through hunger and thirst for water.

 

14 And Hades has enlarged its soul and opened its mouth without ceasing, and her glorious ones and her great ones and her rich and her pestilent shall go down.

 

15 And man shall be humbled, and man shall be dishonored, and the lofty eyes shall be brought low.

 

16 And the Lord Sabaoth shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy God shall be glorified in righteousness.

 

17 And those who were plundered shall graze like bulls, and lambs shall feed on the wastelands of those who have been taken away.

 

18 Woe to those who draw sins as with a long cord, and lawless deeds as with the strap of a heifer's yoke,

 

19 who say, "Let what he will do come quickly, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know it."

 

20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who make darkness light and light darkness, who make the bitter sweet and the sweet bitter.

 

21 Woe to those who are wise in themselves and knowing in their own eyes.

 

22 Woe to your strong ones who drink wine, and the mighty who mix strong drink,

 

23 who justify the ungodly for the sake of gifts and take away the right of the righteous.

 

24 Therefore, as stubble shall be burned by a coal of fire and consumed by a raging flame, their root shall be as chaff, and their blossom shall go up like dust; for they did not desire the law of the Lord Sabaoth, but provoked the oracle of the Holy One of Israel.

 

25 And the Lord Sabaoth was enraged with wrath against his people, and he laid his hand upon them and struck them, and the mountains were provoked, and their carcasses became like dung in the midst of the road. And in all these things his anger was not turned away, but his hand is still lifted high.

 

26 Therefore he will raise a signal among the nations that are far away, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth; and behold, quickly and swiftly they come.

 

27 They shall not hunger nor grow weary nor slumber nor sleep, nor shall they loosen the belts from their loins, nor shall the straps of their sandals be broken;

 

28 whose arrows are sharp and their bows bent; the hooves of their horses were counted as solid rock, the wheels of their chariots as a storm.

 

29 They rush on like lions, and stand by like a lion's cub; and he will seize and roar like a wild beast, and will cast out, and there shall be no one to deliver them.

 

30 And he will roar because of them in that day like the sound of a surging sea; and they will look to the land, and behold, harsh darkness in their distress.

 

Chapter 6

 

1 And it came to pass in the year in which King Uzziah died, that I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the house was full of his glory.

 

2 And seraphim stood round about him: each one had six wings, and each one had six wings; and with two they covered their face, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.

 

3 And they cried one to another and said, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Sabaoth; the whole earth is full of his glory."

 

4 And the lintel was lifted up at the voice with which they cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

 

5 And I said, "Woe is me, for I am pricked to the heart; for being a man and having unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of a people having unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord of Sabaoth."

 

6 And one of the seraphim was sent to me, and he had in his hand a coal, which he had taken with the tongs from the altar;

 

7 and he touched my mouth and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips, and it will take away your iniquities and thoroughly cleanse your sins."

 

8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people?" And I said, "Behold, here am I; send me."

 

9 And he said, "Go and say to this people: You shall hear indeed, but you shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, but you shall not perceive.

 

10 For the heart of this people has grown dull, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn back, and I should heal them."

 

11 And I said, "How long, Lord?" And he said, "Until the cities are laid waste for lack of inhabitants, and the houses for lack of people, and the land shall be left desolate."

 

12 And after this God will remove the people far away, and those who are left shall be multiplied upon the earth.

 

13 And still there is a tenth part upon it, and again it shall be for plunder, like a terebinth and like an acorn when it falls from its husk.

 

Chapter 7

 

1 And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up against Jerusalem to make war on it, but they were not able to besiege it.

 

2 And it was reported to the house of David, saying, "Aram has conspired with Ephraim"; and his soul was shaken, and the soul of his people, as when in a forest a tree is shaken by the wind.

 

3 And the Lord said to Isaiah, "Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub, your son who remains, at the pool of the upper way of the fuller's field,

 

4 and you shall say to him: Take care to be quiet, and do not fear, nor let your soul grow faint because of these two smoldering firebrand sticks; for when the anger of my wrath comes, I will heal again.

 

5 And as for the son of Aram and the son of Remaliah, because they have devised an evil plan concerning you, saying,

 

6 'Let us go up against Judea, and having conferred with them, we will turn them to us and make the son of Tabeel king over it,'

 

7 thus says the Lord of hosts: This plan shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass;

 

8 but the head of Aram is Damascus, yet within sixty-five years the kingdom of Ephraim shall cease from being a people

 

9 and the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah; and if you do not believe, neither shall you understand."

 

10 And the Lord spoke further to Ahaz, saying,

 

11 "Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height."

 

12 And Ahaz said, "I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord."

 

13 And he said, "Hear now, O house of David: is it a small thing for you to give trouble to men? And how do you give trouble to the Lord?

 

14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel.

 

15 He shall eat butter and honey; before he knows or prefers evil, he shall choose the good;

 

16 for before the child knows good or evil, he refuses wickedness so as to choose the good, and the land which you fear because of the two kings shall be forsaken.

 

17 But God will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house days that have not come since the day Ephraim departed from Judah, the king of the Assyrians.

 

18 And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord will whistle for the flies that rule over a part of the river of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of the Assyrians,

 

19 and they shall all come and rest in the ravines of the land, and in the holes of the rocks, and into the caves, and into every cleft, and on every tree.

 

20 In that day the Lord will shave with the great and drunken razor, which is beyond the river of the king of the Assyrians, the head and the hair of the feet, and he will take away the beard.

 

21 And it shall come to pass in that day that a man shall keep a heifer of the herd and two sheep,

 

22 and it shall come to pass that from producing milk in abundance, everyone left in the land shall eat butter and honey.

 

23 And it shall come to pass in that day that every place where there may be a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels shall become dry land and thorns;

 

24 with arrow and bow they shall enter there, because all the land shall be dry land and thorns.

 

25 And every mountain that is plowed shall be plowed, and fear shall not come there; for from the dry land and thorns it shall become pasture for sheep and trampling-ground for cattle.

 

Chapter 8

 

1 And the Lord said to me, "Take for yourself a scroll of a great new one, and write on it with a man's pen: 'To make a swift plunder of spoils'; for it is at hand.

 

2 And make for me witnesses, faithful men: Uriah and Zechariah son of Barachiah."

 

3 And I went in to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. And the Lord said to me, "Call his name 'Quickly plunder, swiftly despoil';

 

4 for before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of the Assyrians."

 

5 And the Lord spoke to me yet again:

 

6 "Because this people does not want the water of Siloam that flows gently, but wants to have Rezin and the son of Remaliah as king over you,

 

7 therefore behold, the Lord is bringing up against you the water of the river, strong and abundant—the king of the Assyrians and his glory—and it shall rise over every ravine of yours and walk over every wall of yours,

 

8 and it shall take away from Judea any man who can lift up a head or who is able to accomplish anything; and his encampment shall be such as to fill the breadth of your land. God is with us.

 

9 Know, you nations, and be defeated; give ear, even to the end of the earth: though you have grown strong, be defeated; for if you grow strong again, again you shall be defeated.

 

10 And whatever counsel you take, the Lord will scatter it; and whatever word you speak, it shall not stand for you, because the Lord God is with us."

 

11 Thus says the Lord: "With a strong hand they disobey the course of the way of this people, saying,

 

12 'Never say "hard"; for everything that this people says is hard. But do not fear their fear, nor be troubled.

 

13 Sanctify the Lord himself, and he shall be your fear.

 

14 And if you trust in him, he shall be to you for a sanctuary, and you shall not encounter him as a stumbling stone nor as a fall of rock. But the house of Jacob is in a snare, and those dwelling in Jerusalem are in a hollow.

 

15 Therefore many among them shall be powerless, and shall fall and be crushed; and men who are in safety shall draw near and be taken.'"

 

16 Then those who seal up the law so as not to learn shall be made manifest.

 

17 And he shall say, "I will wait for God, who has turned away his face from the house of Jacob, and I will trust in him.

 

18 Behold, I and the children whom God has given me; and they shall be for signs and wonders in the house of Israel from the Lord Sabaoth, who dwells on Mount Zion."

 

19 And if they say to you, "Seek those who speak from the earth and the ventriloquists, those who speak emptily, who utter from the belly" Should not a nation seek its God? Why do they inquire of the dead concerning the living?

 

20 For he gave a law for a help, so that they should not speak like this word, concerning which there are no gifts to give for it.

 

21 And a hard famine shall come upon you, and it shall be that when you hunger, you shall be grieved and shall speak evil of the ruler and the ancestral customs; and they shall look up to heaven above

 

22 and shall look down at the earth below, and behold, distress and anguish and darkness, narrow straits and darkness so as not to see;

 

23 and the one who is in anguish shall not be in despair until a time. Do this first, do it quickly, land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, and the rest who inhabit the coastland, and beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations, the parts of Judea.

 

Chapter 9

 

1 O people walking in darkness, behold a great light; you who dwell in the land and shadow of death, a light shall shine upon you.

 

2 The greater part of the people, which you brought down in your joy, they shall also rejoice before you as those who rejoice at harvest, and as those who divide spoils.

 

3 Because the yoke that lay upon them has been taken away, and the rod that was on their neck; for the Lord has shattered the rod of the exactors, as in the day against Midian.

 

4 For every garment gathered by deceit, and every cloak, they shall repay with restitution, and they shall wish that they had been burned with fire.

 

5 For a child was born to us, a son also was given to us, whose government came upon his shoulder; and his name is called Messenger of Great Counsel; for I will bring peace upon the rulers, peace and health to him.

 

6 Great is his government, and of his peace there is no boundary, upon the throne of David and his kingdom, to set it right and to uphold it with righteousness and with judgment, from now and for everlasting time; the zeal of the Lord Sabaoth will do these things.

 

7 The Lord sent death upon Jacob, and it came upon Israel,

 

8 and all the people of Ephraim shall know, and those dwelling in Samaria, in insolence and with a haughty heart, saying,

 

9 "Bricks have fallen, but come, let us hew stones and cut down sycamores and cedars and build ourselves a tower."

 

10 And God will strike down those who rise up against Mount Zion upon them, and he will scatter their enemies

 

11 Syria from the rising of the sun and the Greeks from the setting of the sun, who devour Israel with their whole mouth. For all these things his wrath was not turned away, but his hand is still raised high.

 

12 And the people did not turn back until they were struck, and they did not seek out the Lord.

 

13 And the Lord took away from Israel head and tail, great and small, in one day

 

14 the elder and those who show partiality to persons (this is the head), and the prophet teaching lawless things (this one is the tail).

 

15 And those who call this people blessed shall be leading them astray, and they lead them astray so that they may swallow them up.

 

16 Therefore God will not rejoice over their young men, and he will not have mercy on their orphans and their widows, because all are lawless and wicked, and every mouth speaks unjust things. For all these things his wrath was not turned away, but his hand is still raised high.

 

17 And lawlessness shall burn like fire, and like dry grass it shall be consumed by fire; and it shall burn in the thickets of the forest, and it shall devour everything round about the hills together.

 

18 Because of the fury of the Lord's anger the whole land has been burned up, and the people shall be as one consumed by fire; a man shall not have mercy on his brother,

 

19 but he shall turn aside to the right, because he shall hunger, and he shall eat from the left, and a man shall by no means be satisfied eating the flesh of his own arm.

 

20 For Manasseh shall eat Ephraim's, and Ephraim Manasseh's, because together they shall besiege Judah. For all these things his wrath was not turned away, but his hand is still raised high.

 

Chapter 10

 

1 Woe to those who write wickedness; for in writing, they write wickedness,

 

2 turning aside the judgment of the poor, seizing the just claim of the needy of my people, so that the widow may be theirs for plunder and the orphan for spoil.

 

3 And what will they do in the day of visitation? For your affliction will come from afar; and to whom will you flee for help? And where will you leave your glory,

 

4 so as not to fall into captivity? For all this his anger has not turned away, but his hand is still raised high.

 

5 Woe to the Assyrians; the rod of my anger and wrath is in their hands.

 

6 I will send my wrath against a lawless nation, and I will charge my own people to take spoils and plunder, and to trample the cities and turn them into dust.

 

7 But he himself did not intend it so, nor did he reason so in his soul; rather, his mind will change, even to destroy nations not a few.

 

8 And if they say to him, "You alone are ruler,"

 

9 then he will say, "Did I not take the country above Babylon and Chalanne, where the tower was built? And I took Arabia and Damascus and Samaria.

 

10 Just as I took these in my hand, so I will take all the dominions. Wail, you carved images in Jerusalem and in Samaria;

 

11 for just as I did to Samaria and her handmade idols, so will I do also to Jerusalem and her idols."

 

12 And it shall be, when the Lord has finished doing all things on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, he will bring punishment upon the great mind, the ruler of the Assyrians, and upon the loftiness of the glory of his eyes.

 

13 For he said, "By my strength I will act, and by the wisdom of my understanding; I will remove the boundaries of nations, and I will plunder their strength, and I will shake inhabited cities;

 

14 and I will seize the whole world in my hand like a nest, and like abandoned eggs I will take it up, and there is no one who will escape me or contradict me."

 

15 Shall the axe be glorified without the one who cuts with it? Or shall the saw be exalted without the one who draws it? Likewise if someone lifts a rod or a piece of wood.

 

16 But not so; rather the Lord Sabaoth will send dishonor upon your honor, and against your glory a burning fire will be kindled;

 

17 and the light of Israel will become a fire, and it will sanctify him with burning fire and will devour the wood like grass. On that day

 

18 the mountains and the hills and the forests will be extinguished, and it will devour from soul to flesh; and the one who flees will be like one fleeing from a burning flame;

 

19 and those left of them will be a small number, and a child will write them down.

 

20 And it shall be on that day, the remnant of Israel will no longer be joined, and those of Jacob who are saved will no longer put their trust in those who wronged them, but they will trust in God, the Holy One of Israel, in truth,

 

21 and the remnant of Jacob will rely on the mighty God.

 

22 And even if the people of Israel become like the sand of the sea, the remnant of them will be saved; for he is completing and cutting short a word in righteousness,

 

23 because God will perform a word cut short in the whole world.

 

24 Therefore thus says the Lord Sabaoth: Do not fear, my people who dwell in Zion, because of the Assyrians, because he will strike you with a rod; for I am bringing a blow upon you so that you may see the way of Egypt.

 

25 For yet a little while and the wrath will cease, but my anger is against their counsel;

 

26 and God will rouse against them according to the blow of Madiam in the place of affliction, and his wrath will be by the way that is by the sea, toward the way that is by Egypt.

 

27 And it shall be on that day, his fear will be taken from you, and his yoke from your shoulder, and the yoke will be destroyed from your shoulders.

 

28 For he will come to the city of Angai, and will pass on to Magedo, and in Machmas he will lay up his equipment;

 

29 and he will pass through a ravine and come to Angai; fear will seize Rama, the city of Saul;

 

30 the daughter of Gallim will flee; Laisa will listen; Anathoth will listen;

 

31 Madebena was astounded, and the inhabitants of Gibbir. Take courage

 

32 today, to remain on the way; take courage with your hand, O mountain, O daughter Zion, and you hills that are in Jerusalem.

 

33 For behold, the Master, the Lord Sabaoth, throws the glorious into confusion with might, and the lofty in their arrogance will be crushed, and the lofty will be humbled,

 

34 and the lofty will fall by the sword, and Lebanon will fall with its lofty ones.

 

Chapter 11

 

1 And there shall come forth a rod from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall come up from the root.

 

2 And the Spirit of God shall rest upon him, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and might, a spirit of knowledge and godliness;

 

3 a spirit of the fear of God shall fill him. He shall not judge according to appearance, nor reprove according to report,

 

4 but he shall judge the cause of the lowly, and reprove the lowly of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the word of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall destroy the ungodly.

 

5 And he shall have his loins girded with righteousness, and his sides wrapped with truth.

 

6 And the wolf shall feed with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the young calf and the bull and the lion shall feed together, and a little child shall lead them.

 

7 And the ox and the bear shall feed together, and their young shall be together, and the lion and the ox shall eat straw together.

 

8 And an infant child shall put his hand upon the hole of asps, and upon the nest of the young of asps.

 

9 And they shall in no wise do harm, nor shall they be able to destroy anyone upon my holy mountain, for the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as much water covers the seas.

 

10 And it shall be in that day: the root of Jesse, even he who rises up to rule the nations—in him shall the nations hope, and his rest shall be honor.

 

11 And it shall be in that day, the Lord shall again show his hand, to be zealous for the remnant that is left of the people, whatever is left from the Assyrians, and from Egypt, and Babylonia, and Ethiopia, and from the Elamites, and from the rising of the sun, and out of Arabia.

 

12 And he shall lift up a sign for the nations, and shall gather the lost ones of Israel, and he shall gather the dispersed of Judah from the four wings of the earth.

 

13 And the jealousy of Ephraim shall be taken away, and the enemies of Judah shall perish; Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not afflict Ephraim.

 

14 And they shall fly in ships of foreigners over the sea; together they shall plunder both those from the rising of the sun and Idumea; and upon Moab first they shall lay their hands, and the sons of Ammon shall be the first to obey.

 

15 And the Lord shall make desolate the sea of Egypt, and shall lay his hand upon the river with a violent wind, and shall smite the seven channels, so that one may pass through it in sandals.

 

16 And there shall be a passage for my people that is left in Egypt, and it shall be for Israel as the day when they came out of the land of Egypt.

 

Chapter 12

 

1 And you will say in that day: I will bless you, O Lord, because you were angry with me, and you turned away your wrath and had mercy on me.

 

2 Behold, my God is my savior, the Lord; I will trust in him and be saved by him, and I will not be afraid, because the Lord is my glory and my praise, and he has become my salvation.

 

3 And you will draw water with gladness from the springs of salvation.

 

4 And you will say in that day: Sing hymns to the Lord, cry aloud his name, declare his glorious deeds among the nations, remember that his name has been exalted.

 

5 Sing praise to the name of the Lord, for he has done lofty things; declare these things in all the earth.

 

6 Rejoice and be glad, you inhabitants of Zion, for the Holy One of Israel has been exalted in her midst.

 

Chapter 13

 

1 The vision which Isaiah son of Amos saw against Babylon.

 

2 Lift up a signal on a level mountain; raise your voice to them; do not fear; beckon with the hand: Open, you rulers!

 

3 I give the command, and I lead them; they are sanctified, and I lead them; giants are coming to fulfill my wrath, rejoicing and exulting insolently at once.

 

4 A voice of many nations upon the mountains, like that of many nations, a voice of kings and of nations gathered together. The Lord Sabaoth has given orders to a nation armed for war,

 

5 to come from a land far off, from the utmost foundation of heaven—the Lord and his armed warriors, to destroy the whole inhabited world.

 

6 Wail, for the day of the Lord is near, and destruction will come from God.

 

7 Therefore every hand will grow slack, and every soul of man will be afraid;

 

8 and the elders will be troubled, and pangs will seize them like those of a woman in labor; and they will lament to one another and be amazed, and their faces will change like a flame.

 

9 For behold, the day of the Lord comes, incurable, of wrath and anger, to make the whole world desolate and to destroy the sinners from it.

 

10 For the stars of heaven and Orion and all the array of heaven will not give their light, and it will grow dark as the sun rises, and the moon will not give her light.

 

11 And I will decree evils for the whole world, and for the impious their sins; and I will destroy the insolence of the lawless and will bring low the insolence of the arrogant.

 

12 And those who are left will be more precious than unrefined gold, and a man will be more precious than the stone from Souphir.

 

13 For heaven will be enraged, and the earth will be shaken from its foundations because of the fury of the anger of the Lord Sabaoth, on the day when his wrath comes.

 

14 And those who are left will be like a fleeing gazelle and like a straying sheep, and there will be no one to gather them, so that a man will turn back to his own people and a man will hasten to his own land.

 

15 For whoever is caught will be overcome, and those who are gathered together will fall by the sword;

 

16 and they will dash their children before their eyes, and plunder their houses, and take their wives.

 

17 Behold, I am stirring up against you the Medes, who do not reckon silver, nor have they need of gold.

 

18 They will shatter the bows of the young men, and they will have no mercy on your children, nor will their eyes spare the children.

 

19 And Babylon, which is called glorious by the king of the Chaldeans, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah;

 

20 it will not be inhabited for everlasting time, nor will they enter it for many generations, nor will Arabs pass through it, nor will shepherds rest in it;

 

21 and wild beasts will rest there, and the houses will be filled with noise, and sirens will rest there, and demons will dance there,

 

22 and donkey-centaurs will dwell there, and hedgehogs will make their nests in their houses. It comes quickly and will not delay.

 

Chapter 14

 

1 And the Lord will have mercy on Jacob and will yet choose Israel, and they shall rest upon their land, and the sojourner shall be added to them and shall be added to the house of Jacob.

 

2 And nations shall take them and bring them into their place, and they shall inherit them, and they shall be multiplied upon the land of God as male and female servants; and those who took them captive shall be captives, and those who lorded it over them shall be lorded over.

 

3 And it shall be in that day that God will give you rest from your pain and your wrath and your hard servitude, in which you served them.

 

4 And you shall take up this lament against the king of Babylon, and you shall say in that day: How the exactor has ceased, and the taskmaster has ceased!

 

5 God has broken the yoke of the sinners, the yoke of the rulers,

 

6 having struck a nation in wrath with an incurable blow, smiting a nation with a blow of wrath, which spared not.

 

7 He rested confidently. All the earth cries out with gladness,

 

8 and the trees of Lebanon rejoiced over you, and the cedar of Lebanon: Since you have fallen asleep, no one has come up to cut us down.

 

9 Hades below was embittered at meeting you; all the giants who ruled the earth rose up together for you, they who raised from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

 

10 All shall answer and say to you: You too have been taken as we have, and you have been counted among us.

 

11 And your glory has gone down to Hades, your great gladness; beneath you they shall spread rottenness, and your covering shall be the worm.

 

12 How has the day-star, that rose in the morning, fallen from heaven! He that sent to all the nations has been crushed to the earth.

 

13 But you said in your mind: I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven, I will sit on a lofty mountain, upon the lofty mountains toward the north;

 

14 I will ascend above the clouds, I will be like the Most High.

 

15 But now you shall go down to Hades, even to the foundations of the earth.

 

16 Those who see you will marvel at you and say: Is this the man who provoked the earth, who shook kings?

 

17 He who made the whole world a desert and destroyed its cities; those in captivity he did not release.

 

18 All the kings of the nations have slept in honor, each man in his own house;

 

19 but you shall be cast forth on the mountains like a loathed corpse, with many dead pierced through with swords, going down to Hades. As a garment defiled with blood shall not be clean,

 

20 so neither shall you be clean, because you destroyed my land and killed my people; you shall by no means endure for everlasting time, evil seed.

 

21 Prepare your children to be slain for the sins of your father, that they may not rise up and inherit the earth and fill the earth with cities.

 

22 And I will rise up against them, says the Lord Sabaoth, and I will destroy their name and remnant and seed, thus says the Lord

 

23 and I will make Babylonia a desert, so that hedgehogs dwell there, and it shall come to nothing; and I will make it a pit of clay, for destruction.

 

24 Thus says the Lord Sabaoth: As I have spoken, so shall it be; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:

 

25 to destroy the Assyrians from my land and from my mountains, and they shall be trampled underfoot; and their yoke shall be taken away from them, and their glory shall be taken from their shoulders.

 

26 This is the purpose which the Lord has purposed upon the whole world, and this is the hand lifted up against all the nations of the world.

 

27 For what the holy God has purposed, who shall scatter? And the hand that is lifted up, who shall turn back?

 

28 In the year in which King Ahaz died, this word came:

 

29 Rejoice not, all you Philistines, for the yoke of him who struck you has been broken; for from the seed of serpents shall come forth offspring of asps, and their offspring shall come forth as flying serpents.

 

30 And the poor shall be fed by him, and poor men shall rest in peace; but he shall destroy your seed with famine, and shall destroy your remnant.

 

31 Wail, you gates of cities; let the troubled cities cry out, all you Philistines; for smoke comes from the north, and there is no escape.

 

32 And what shall the kings of the nations answer? That the Lord has founded Zion, and through him the lowly of the people shall be saved.

 

Chapter 15

 

1 The word against the land of Moab. By night the land of Moab shall perish, for by night the wall of the land of Moab shall perish.

 

2 Grieve for yourselves, for Debon also shall perish; where your altar is, there you shall go up to weep; over Nabau of the land of Moab wail; on every head is baldness, all arms are gashed.

 

3 In her streets gird yourselves with sackcloth and mourn; on her housetops and in her lanes wail, all of you, with weeping.

 

4 For Hesebon and Eleale have cried out; their voice was heard as far as Iassa; therefore the loins of the land of Moab cry aloud; her soul shall know.

 

5 The heart of the land of Moab cries within her as far as Segor, for she is a three-year-old heifer; and on the ascent of Louith they shall go up to you weeping; by the way of Aroniim she cries: destruction and quaking!

 

6 The water of Nemrim shall be desolate, and her grass shall fail; for there shall be no green grass.

 

7 Shall she even so be saved? For I will bring Arabs upon the valley, and they shall take her.

 

8 For the cry has reached the border of the land of Moab, of Agallim, and her wailing as far as the well of Ailim.

 

9 And the water of Remmon shall be filled with blood; for I will bring Arabs upon Remmon, and I will take away the seed of Moab and Ariel and the remnant of Adama.

 

Chapter 16

 

1 I will send forth as creeping things upon the land: is Mount Zion a desolate rock?

 

2 For you shall be like a fledgling taken away from a bird that has flown up, O daughter of Moab. But then, O Arnon,

 

3 take further counsel; make for her a shelter of mourning continually; they flee in the darkness of midday; they are distraught, do not be led away.

 

4 The fugitives of Moab shall sojourn with you; they shall be a shelter to you from the face of the pursuer, because your alliance has been taken away, and the ruler who trampled upon the land has perished.

 

5 And a throne shall be set right with mercy, and one shall sit upon it with truth in the tent of David, judging and seeking out judgment and hastening righteousness.

 

6 We have heard of the pride of Moab—he is exceedingly insolent; you have exalted his arrogance. Not so is your divination,

 

7 not so. Moab shall wail, for in the land of Moab all shall wail; you shall care for the inhabitants of Deseth, and you shall not be put to shame.

 

8 The plains of Heshbon shall mourn, the vine of Sibmah; you who swallow down the nations, trample down her vines as far as Jazer. You shall by no means come together; wander into the wilderness; those who were sent have been forsaken, for they have crossed the wilderness.

 

9 Therefore I will weep as with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah; he has cast down your trees, O Heshbon and Elealeh, for upon your harvest and upon your vintage I will trample, and all shall fall.

 

10 And gladness and rejoicing shall be taken away from your vineyards, and in your vineyards they shall by no means rejoice, and they shall by no means tread out wine into the vats, for it has ceased.

 

11 Therefore my belly shall sound over Moab like a harp, and my inward parts like a wall, which you renewed.

 

12 And it shall be for your shame, because Moab has grown weary at the altars, and she shall enter into her handmade things to pray, and they shall by no means be able to deliver her.

 

13 This is the word that the Lord spoke against Moab, when indeed he spoke.

 

14 And now I say: In three years, as the years of a hireling, the glory of Moab shall be dishonored with all her great wealth, and he shall be left few in number and without honor.

 

Chapter 17

 

1 The word against Damascus: Behold, Damascus shall be taken away from among cities and shall become a ruin,

 

2 abandoned forever, as a fold for flocks and a resting place, and there shall be no one to pursue.

 

3 And there shall no longer be a stronghold for Ephraim to flee to, and there shall no longer be a kingdom in Damascus, and the remnant of the Syrians shall perish; for you are not better than the sons of Israel and their glory. Thus says the Lord of hosts.

 

4 In that day there shall be an eclipse of the glory of Jacob, and the rich things of his glory shall be shaken.

 

5 And it shall be as when someone gathers standing harvest and reaps the seed of the ears with his arm; and it shall be as when someone gathers ears of grain in a hard ravine,

 

 6 and stubble is left in it, or like two or three olive berries on the topmost bough, or four or five left on their branches. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.

 

7 In that day a man shall trust in him who made him, and his eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel,

 

8 and they shall by no means trust in the altars nor in the works of their hands, which their fingers made, and they shall not look upon their trees nor their abominations.

 

9 In that day your cities shall be abandoned, just as the Amorites and the Hivites abandoned theirs before the face of the sons of Israel, and they shall be desolate,

 

10 because you forsook God your Savior and did not remember the Lord your helper. Therefore you shall plant a faithless plant and a faithless seed;

 

11 and on the day you plant, you shall be deceived; and in the morning, if you sow, it shall blossom for a harvest on the day when you receive your inheritance, and as a man's father you shall allot to your sons.

 

12 Woe to the multitude of many nations: like a surging sea you shall be troubled, and the back of many nations shall roar like water.

 

13 Many nations are like much water, like the force of much water rushing down; and he shall drive him away and pursue him far off, like the dust of chaff of those winnowing before the wind, and like the dust of a wheel carried by a whirlwind.

 

14 Toward evening there shall be mourning; before morning, and it shall be no more. This is the portion of those who plundered you, and the inheritance of those who took you as inheritance.

 

Chapter 18

 

1 Woe to the land of winged ships beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,

 

2 which sends hostages by sea and papyrus letters upon the water; for swift messengers will go to a lofty nation and a strange and harsh people, who is beyond it? A nation without hope and trodden down. Now all the rivers of the land

 

3 are like an inhabited country; their country shall be inhabited as when a signal is raised from a mountain, it shall be heard like the sound of a trumpet.

 

4 For thus the Lord said to me: There shall be security in my city, like the light of the heat of midday, and it shall be like a cloud of dew on the day of harvest.

 

5 Before the reaping, when the flower is completed and the unripe grape blossoms, a flower bearing sour grapes, then he will take away the little clusters with pruning hooks, and take away the branches and cut them down,

 

6 and he will leave them together for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth; and the birds of the sky shall be gathered upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall come upon him.

 

7 At that time gifts will be brought to the Lord Sabaoth from a people afflicted and plucked, and from a great people, from now and forever; a nation hoping and trodden down, which is in a part of the river of its land, to the place where the name of the Lord Sabaoth is invoked, Mount Zion.

 

Chapter 19

 

1 A vision of Egypt. Behold, the Lord sits upon a swift cloud and will come into Egypt, and the handmade idols of Egypt will be shaken before his face, and their heart will be defeated within them.

 

2 And Egyptians will be stirred up against Egyptians, and a man will fight his brother, and a man his neighbor, city against city and district against district.

 

3 And the spirit of the Egyptians will be troubled within them, and I will scatter their counsel, and they will inquire of their gods and their images and those who speak from the earth and the ventriloquists.

 

4 And I will hand over Egypt into the hands of men, harsh masters, and harsh kings will rule over them; thus says the Lord Sabaoth.

 

5 And the Egyptians will drink the water that is by the sea, but the river will fail and be dried up;

 

6 and the rivers and the canals of the river will fail, and every gathering of water will be dried up, and in every marsh of reed and papyrus;

 

7 and all the green herbage around the river, and everything sown along the river, will be dried up, blasted by the wind.

 

8 And the fishermen will groan, and all who cast a hook into the river will groan, and those who cast nets and those who throw casting-nets will mourn.

 

9 And shame will seize those who work the combed flax and those who work fine linen,

 

10 and those who weave them will be in anguish, and all who make beer will be grieved and pained in their souls.

 

11 And the rulers of Tanis will be fools; as for the wise counselors of the king, their counsel will be made foolish. How will you say to the king, "We are sons of the wise, sons of kings from the beginning"?

 

12 Where now are your wise men? Let them declare to you and say what the Lord Sabaoth has planned against Egypt.

 

13 The rulers of Tanis have failed, and the rulers of Memphis have been exalted, and they will lead Egypt astray tribe by tribe.

 

14 For the Lord has mixed for them a spirit of error, and they have led Egypt astray in all their works, as a drunkard staggers and vomits at the same time.

 

15 And the Egyptians will have no work that makes head or tail, beginning or end.

 

16 On that day the Egyptians will be like women, in fear and trembling before the hand of the Lord Sabaoth, which he himself will lay upon them.

 

17 And the country of the Jews will be a terror to the Egyptians; everyone who names it to them will be afraid, because of the plan that the Lord has planned against it.

 

18 On that day there will be five cities in Egypt speaking the Canaanite language and swearing by the name of the Lord; the one city will be called City-of-asedek.

 

19 On that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the country of the Egyptians, and a pillar at its border to the Lord,

 

20 and it will be a sign forever to the Lord in the country of Egypt, because they will cry out to the Lord because of those who oppress them, and the Lord will send them a man who will save them; judging, he will save them.

 

21 And the Lord will be known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord on that day, and they will offer sacrifices and make vows to the Lord and pay them.

 

22 And the Lord will strike the Egyptians with a great blow and will heal them with healing, and they will turn to the Lord, and he will hear them and heal them.

 

23 On that day there will be a road from Egypt to the Assyrians, and the Assyrians will enter into Egypt, and the Egyptians will go to the Assyrians, and the Egyptians will serve the Assyrians.

 

24 On that day Israel will be third among the Assyrians and among the Egyptians, blessed in the land,

 

25 which the Lord Sabaoth blessed, saying, "Blessed be my people that is in Egypt and that is among the Assyrians, and my inheritance Israel."

 

Chapter 20

 

1 In the year in which Tanathan entered Azotus, when he was sent by Arna, king of the Assyrians, and made war on Azotus and captured it,

 

2 then the Lord spoke to Isaiah, saying: Go and remove the sackcloth from your loins and unbind your sandals from your feet. And he did so, going about naked and barefoot.

 

3 And the Lord said: Just as my servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot for three years, there shall be signs and wonders for the Egyptians and Ethiopians;

 

4 for thus shall the king of the Assyrians lead away the captivity of Egypt and of the Ethiopians, young men and old, naked and barefoot, with the shame of Egypt uncovered.

 

5 And the Egyptians, being defeated, shall be ashamed because of the Ethiopians, in whom the Egyptians had trusted, for they were their glory.

 

6 And those who dwell on this island shall say: Behold, we had trusted to flee to them for help, who could not be saved from the king of the Assyrians; and how shall we be saved?

 

Chapter 21

 

1 The vision of the desert. As a storm might pass through the desert, coming from a desert, out of a land,

 

2 a fearful and harsh vision was announced to me. The betrayer betrays, the lawless one acts lawlessly. Upon me are the Elamites, and the envoys of the Persians come against me. Now I will groan and comfort myself.

 

3 Therefore my loins were filled with faintness, and pangs seized me like a woman in labor; I did wrong so as not to hear, I hastened so as not to see.

 

4 My heart wanders, and lawlessness overwhelms me; my soul is set upon fear.

 

5 Prepare the table; drink, eat; rise up, you rulers, prepare shields.

 

6 For thus said the Lord to me: Go, station a watchman for yourself, and whatever you see, report.

 

7 And I saw two mounted horsemen, a rider on a donkey and a rider on a camel. Listen with much listening,

 

8 and call Urias to the watchtower of the Lord. And he said: I stood continually by day, and I stood over the camp the whole night,

 

9 and behold, there comes a rider of a chariot-pair. And answering he said: Babylon has fallen, and all her images and her handmade idols have been shattered to the ground.

 

10 Hear, you who are left behind and you who are in anguish, hear what I heard from the Lord Sabaoth; the God of Israel has announced it to us.

 

11 The vision of Idumea. He calls to me from Seir: Guard the battlements.

 

12 I keep watch in the morning and at night; if you seek, seek, and dwell with me;

 

13 in the thicket you shall sleep in the evening, on the road to Daidan.

 

14 Bring water to meet the thirsty one, you who dwell in the land of Thaiman; meet the fugitives with bread,

 

15 because of the multitude of those fleeing, and because of the multitude of those wandering, and because of the multitude of the sword, and because of the multitude of the bows drawn taut, and because of the multitude of those fallen in the war.

 

16 For thus the Lord said to me: Yet a year, like the year of a hireling, and the glory of the sons of Kedar shall fail,

 

17 and the remainder of the bows of the mighty sons of Kedar shall be few, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken.

 

Chapter 22

 

1 The word of the valley of Zion. What has happened to you now, that you have all gone up to vain

 

2 housetops? The city is filled with people shouting; your wounded are not wounded by the sword, nor are your dead the dead of war.

 

3 All your rulers have fled, and those who were captured are harshly bound, and the strong among you have fled far away.

 

4 Therefore I said, Leave me alone; I will weep bitterly; do not prevail to comfort me over the destruction of the daughter of my people.

 

5 For it is a day of confusion and destruction and trampling and wandering from the Lord Sabaoth in the valley of Zion; they wander from small to great, they wander upon the mountains.

 

6 And the Elamites took quivers, men mounted on horses, and a gathering of battle array.

 

7 And it shall be that your choice valleys shall be filled with chariots, and horsemen shall block up your gates;

 

8 and they shall uncover the gates of Judah, and they shall look in that day upon the choice houses of the city,

 

9 and they shall uncover the hidden places of the houses of the citadel of David. And they saw that they were many, and that they had turned back the water of the ancient pool into the city,

 

10 and that they had pulled down the houses of Jerusalem for a fortification of the wall for the city.

 

11 And you made for yourselves water between the two walls, inward of the ancient pool, and you did not look to the one who made it from the beginning, and you did not see the one who created it.

 

12 And the Lord Sabaoth called in that day for weeping and mourning and shaving and girding with sackcloth,

 

13 but they made mirth and rejoicing, slaughtering calves and sacrificing sheep, so as to eat meat and drink wine, saying, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.

 

14 And these things are revealed in the ears of the Lord Sabaoth, for this sin shall not be forgiven you until you die.

 

15 Thus says the Lord Sabaoth: Go into the chamber, to Somnas the steward, and say to him,

 

16 Why are you here, and what have you here, that you have hewn for yourself a tomb here, and made for yourself a tomb on high, and carved for yourself a dwelling in the rock?

 

17 Behold now, the Lord Sabaoth shall cast out and destroy a man, and shall take away your robe

 

18 and your glorious crown, and shall hurl you into a great and boundless land, and there you shall die; and he shall make your fine chariot a dishonor, and the house of your ruler a thing trampled underfoot,

 

19 and you shall be removed from your stewardship and from your station.

 

20 And it shall be in that day that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Chelkias,

 

21 and I will clothe him with your robe, and I will give him your crown, and I will give the power and your stewardship into his hands; and he shall be as a father to those who dwell in Jerusalem and to those who dwell in Judah.

 

22 And I will give him the glory of David, and he shall rule, and there shall be no one to gainsay.

 

23 And I will set him as a ruler in a sure place, and he shall be for a throne of glory of the house of his father.

 

24 And everyone who is glorious in the house of his father shall trust in him, from small to great, and they shall depend upon him.

 

25 In that day, thus says the Lord Sabaoth, the man who is fixed in a sure place shall be shaken and shall fall, and the glory that is upon him shall be taken away, for the Lord has spoken.

 

Chapter 23

 

1 The vision of Tyre. Wail, ships of Carthage, for it has perished, and they come no more from the land of the Kitians; it has been led away captive.

 

2 To whom have the inhabitants of the island become like, the merchants of Phoenicia who cross over the sea

 

3 through much water, the offspring of merchants? As when the harvest is gathered in, so are the merchants of the nations.

 

4 Be ashamed, Sidon, said the sea; and the strength of the sea said, I have not travailed, nor given birth, nor brought up young men, nor raised up virgins.

 

5 But when it becomes heard in Egypt, anguish shall seize them concerning Tyre.

 

6 Depart to Carthage; wail, you who dwell on this island.

 

7 Was not this your pride from the beginning, before she was delivered up?

 

8 Who has devised these things against Tyre? Is she inferior, or has she no strength? Her merchants were glorious, rulers of the earth.

 

9 The Lord of Sabaoth has purposed to bring down all the pride of the glorious and to dishonor everything glorious upon the earth.

 

10 Work your land, for ships come no more from Carthage.

 

11 And your hand no longer prevails by sea, the hand that provoked kings; the Lord of Sabaoth has given command concerning Canaan, to destroy her strength.

 

12 And they shall say, You shall no longer continue to insult and wrong the daughter of Sidon; and if you depart to the Kitians, not even there shall there be rest for you;

 

13 and to the land of the Chaldeans—this too has been laid waste by the Assyrians—not even there shall there be rest for you, for her wall has fallen.

 

14 Wail, ships of Carthage, for your stronghold has perished.

 

15 And it shall come to pass in that day that Tyre shall be left seventy years, as the time of a king, as the time of a man; and it shall be after seventy years that Tyre shall be as the song of a harlot:

 

16 Take a harp, wander through the cities, forgotten harlot; play well, sing many songs, that you may be remembered.

 

17 And it shall come to pass after seventy years that God will make a visitation of Tyre, and she shall again be restored to her ancient state, and shall be a market for all the kingdoms of the inhabited world.

 

18 And her trade and her wages shall be holy to the Lord; it shall not be gathered for themselves, but all her trade shall be for those who dwell before the Lord, to eat and drink and be filled, for a contribution as a memorial before the Lord.

 

Chapter 24

 

1 Behold, the Lord is destroying the inhabited world, and he will make it desolate and lay bare its face and scatter those dwelling in it.

 

2 And the people shall be as the priest, and the servant as the master, and the maidservant as the mistress; the buyer shall be as the seller, and the lender as the borrower, and the debtor as the one to whom he owes.

 

3 With destruction the earth shall be destroyed, and with plunder the earth shall be plundered, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.

 

4 The earth mourned, and the world was destroyed; the lofty ones of the earth mourned.

 

5 And the earth acted lawlessly because of those inhabiting it, because they transgressed the law and changed the ordinances, an everlasting covenant.

 

6 Therefore a curse shall devour the earth, because those inhabiting it have sinned; therefore those dwelling in the land shall be poor, and few people shall be left.

 

7 The wine shall mourn, the vine shall mourn; all who rejoice in soul shall groan.

 

8 The mirth of drums has ceased; the willfulness and wealth of the impious have ceased; the sound of the lyre has ceased.

 

9 They were ashamed; they did not drink wine; strong drink became bitter to those who drink it.

 

10 Every city was made desolate; one will shut the house so that none may enter.

 

11 Wail everywhere over the wine; all the mirth of the earth has ceased.

 

12 And cities shall be left desolate, and houses abandoned shall perish.

 

13 All these things shall come to pass in the earth in the midst of the nations, just as if one gleans an olive tree, so shall they be gleaned, even when the harvest has ceased.

 

14 These shall cry aloud with a voice, and those left upon the earth shall rejoice together with the glory of the Lord. The water of the sea shall be troubled.

 

15 Therefore the glory of the Lord shall be in the islands of the sea; the name of the Lord shall be glorious: O Lord, God of Israel.

 

16 From the wings of the earth we heard wonders: Hope for the pious! And they will say, Woe to the treacherous, those who set aside the law!

 

17 Fear and pit and snare are upon you who dwell upon the earth;

 

18 and it shall be that he who flees the fear shall fall into the pit, and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught by the snare, for windows were opened from heaven, and the foundations of the earth shall be shaken.

 

19 With confusion the earth shall be confounded, and with perplexity the earth shall be perplexed.

 

20 The earth has bent and shall be shaken like a garden watchman's hut, like one who is drunk and revels; and it shall fall and shall not be able to rise, for lawlessness has prevailed upon it.

 

21 And God shall bring his hand against the host of heaven and against the kings of the earth;

 

22 and they shall gather them and shut them up in a stronghold and in a prison; after many generations there shall be a visitation of them.

 

23 And the brick shall melt, and the wall shall fall, for the Lord shall reign in Zion and in Jerusalem, and before the elders he shall be glorified.

 

Chapter 25

 

1 O Lord my God, I will glorify you, I will sing praise to your name, for you have done wondrous things, an ancient and true counsel; may it come to pass, Lord.

 

2 For you have made cities into a heap, fortified cities, so that their foundations should fall; the city of the ungodly shall never be built forever.

 

3 Therefore the poor people will bless you, and cities of wronged men will bless you;

 

4 for you became a helper to every lowly city, and a shelter to those disheartened through want; you will deliver them from evil men, a shelter for the thirsty, and a breath for wronged men.

 

5 They will bless you as fainthearted men thirsting in Zion, delivered from ungodly men, to whom you handed us over.

 

6 And the Lord of Sabaoth will make a feast for all the nations on this mountain. They will drink gladness, they will drink wine, they will anoint themselves with perfume.

 

7 On this mountain deliver all these things to the nations; for this counsel is upon all the nations.

 

8 Death, having prevailed, swallowed them up, and again God took away every tear from every face; he took away the reproach of the people from all the earth, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

 

9 And they will say on that day: Behold our God, in whom we hoped and rejoiced, and we shall be glad in our salvation.

 

10 For God will give rest on this mountain, and the land of Moab shall be trodden down, as they tread a threshing floor with wagons;

 

11 and he will stretch out his hands, as he himself also brought low so as to destroy, and he will bring low his pride upon the things on which he laid his hands;

 

12 and he will bring low the height of the refuge of your wall, and it shall come down to the ground.

 

Chapter 26

 

1 On that day they shall sing this song in the land of Judah, saying: Behold, a strong city, and he shall set our salvation as a wall and outer wall.

 

2 Open the gates; let a people enter that keeps righteousness and keeps truth,

 

3 laying hold of truth and keeping peace. For in you

 

4 they have hoped, O Lord, forever, the great, eternal God,

 

5 who, having humbled them, brought down those dwelling in high places; you will cast down strong cities and bring them down to the ground,

 

6 and the feet of the meek and lowly shall trample them.

 

7 The way of the godly has become straight, and the way of the godly is prepared.

 

8 For the way of the Lord is judgment; we have hoped in your name and in the remembrance

 

9 which our soul desires. From the night my spirit rises early to you, O God, because your ordinances are light upon the earth. Learn righteousness, you who dwell upon the earth.

 

10 For the ungodly one has ceased; he shall by no means learn righteousness upon the earth; he shall by no means do truth. Let the ungodly one be taken away, that he may not see the glory of the Lord.

 

11 O Lord, your arm is exalted, and they did not know it, but when they know it they shall be ashamed. Zeal shall seize an untaught people, and now fire shall devour the adversaries. —

 

12 O Lord our God, give us peace, for you have rendered all things to us.

 

13 O Lord our God, take possession of us; O Lord, apart from you we know no other; we name your name.

 

14 But the dead shall by no means see life, nor shall physicians raise them up; therefore you have brought upon them and destroyed and taken away every male of theirs.

 

15 Add evils to them, O Lord, add evils to all the glorious ones of the earth.

 

16 O Lord, in affliction I remembered you; in small affliction your chastening was upon us.

 

17 And as a woman in labor draws near to give birth and cries out in her pangs, so we became to your beloved because of your fear, O Lord.

 

18 We conceived and travailed and gave birth; we brought forth the spirit of your salvation upon the earth; but those dwelling upon the earth shall fall.

 

19 The dead shall rise, and those in the tombs shall be raised, and those in the earth shall rejoice; for the dew from you is healing to them, but the land of the ungodly shall fall. —

 

20 Go, my people, enter into your chambers, shut your door, hide yourself a little while, until the wrath of the Lord passes by;

 

21 for behold, the Lord from his holy place brings wrath upon those dwelling upon the earth, and the earth shall uncover its blood and shall not cover over the slain.

 

Chapter 27

 

1 On that day God will bring the holy and great and mighty sword against the dragon, the fleeing serpent, against the dragon, the crooked serpent, and he will slay the dragon.

 

2 On that day there will be a fine vineyard; a desire to sing over it.

 

3 I am a strong city, a city besieged; in vain shall I water it, for it will be captured by night, and by day the wall will fall.

 

4 There is no woman who has not laid hold of it. Who will set me to guard stubble in a field? Because of this hostility I have rejected it. Therefore on this account the Lord God has done all that he ordained. I have been burned up;

 

5 those who dwell in it will cry out, "Let us make peace with him, let us make peace."

 

6 Those who are coming, the children of Jacob—Israel shall bud and blossom, and the world shall be filled with his fruit.

 

7 Shall he not be struck as he himself struck, and be slain as he himself slew?

 

8 Fighting and reproaching, he will send them away. Were you not the one who meditated with a harsh spirit to slay them with a spirit of wrath?

 

9 Therefore the lawlessness of Jacob shall be taken away, and this is his blessing, when I take away his sin—when they make all the stones of the altars crushed like fine dust; and their trees shall not remain, and their idols shall be cut down like a forest far away.

 

10 The inhabited flock shall be left loose like a flock abandoned; and it shall be a place of pasture for a long time, and there they shall rest.

 

11 And after a time there shall be no green thing in it because of its being dried up. Women coming from a spectacle, come here! For it is not a people having understanding; therefore he who made them shall not have compassion, nor shall he who formed them show mercy.

 

12 And it shall be on that day, the Lord will fence in from the channel of the river as far as Rhinocorura; but you, gather the sons of Israel one by one.

 

13 And it shall be on that day, they shall sound the great trumpet, and those who were lost in the land of the Assyrians shall come, and those who were lost in Egypt, and they shall worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

 

Chapter 28

 

1 Woe to the crown of pride, the hirelings of Ephraim; the flower that has fallen from its glory upon the top of the fat mountain, those who are drunken without wine.

 

2 Behold, the wrath of the Lord is strong and hard, like hail rushing down where there is no shelter, rushing down with violence; like a great mass of water sweeping away a land, he will give rest to the land, to the hands.

 

3 And the crown of pride, the hirelings of Ephraim, shall be trodden underfoot.

 

4 And the fallen flower of the hope of glory upon the summit of the high mountain shall be like an early fig: he who sees it, before he takes it into his hand, will wish to swallow it down.

 

5 In that day the Lord of Sabaoth will be the crown of hope, woven of glory, for the remnant of my people;

 

6 they shall be left in a spirit of judgment for judgment, and strength hindering destruction.

 

7 For these have gone astray through wine; they have gone astray through strong drink; priest and prophet are beside themselves because of wine, they have been shaken by the drunkenness of strong drink, they have gone astray: this is a phantom.

 

8 A curse shall devour this counsel, for this counsel is for the sake of greed.

 

9 To whom have we declared evils, and to whom have we declared a message, those weaned from milk, those drawn away from the breast?

 

10 Expect affliction upon affliction, hope upon hope, yet a little, yet a little,

 

11 because of contempt of lips, through another tongue; for they shall speak to this people,

 

12 saying to it: This is the rest for the hungry, and this is the destruction; and they would not hear.

 

13 And the oracle of the Lord God shall be to them affliction upon affliction, hope upon hope, yet a little, yet a little, that they may go and fall backwards, and be endangered, and be crushed, and be taken.

 

14 Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you afflicted men and rulers of this people that is in Jerusalem.

 

15 Because you have said: We have made a covenant with Hades and agreements with death; a rushing storm, if it pass by, shall not come upon us; we have made falsehood our hope, and by falsehood we shall be sheltered;

 

16 therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I lay for the foundations of Zion a costly stone, a chosen, precious cornerstone, for her foundations; and he who believes on it shall by no means be put to shame.

 

17 And I will make judgment into hope, and my mercy into measures; and those who trust vainly in falsehood—for the storm shall by no means pass you by,

 

18  lest it also take away from you the covenant of death; and your hope toward Hades shall not stand; if a rushing storm comes upon you, you shall be to it something to be trampled.

 

19 When it passes by, it will take you; morning by morning it will pass by, by day, and in the night there will be an evil hope. Learn to hear.

 

20 Being hard pressed, we cannot fight, and we ourselves are too weak to be gathered together.

 

21 He shall rise up like a mountain of the ungodly, and shall be in the valley of Gibeon; with wrath he will do his works, a work of bitterness; but his wrath will act strangely, and his bitterness is strange.

 

22 And do not rejoice, nor let your bonds grow strong; for I have heard from the Lord of Sabaoth of things accomplished and cut short, which he will do upon all the earth.

 

23 Give ear and hear my voice; attend and hear my words.

 

24 Will the plowman plow all day long? Or will he prepare the seed before he works the ground?

 

25 When he has leveled its surface, does he not then sow a little black cumin and cumin, and again sow wheat and barley and spelt within your borders?

 

26 And you shall be instructed by the judgment of your God, and shall rejoice.

 

27 For the black cumin is not cleansed with harshness, nor shall a cart wheel be turned upon the cumin; but the black cumin is shaken out with a rod, and the cumin

 

28 shall be eaten with bread. For I will not be angry with you forever, nor shall the voice of my bitterness trample you.

 

29 And these wonders came forth from the Lord of Sabaoth. Take counsel; lift up vain consolation.

 

Chapter 29

 

1 Woe to the city Ariel, against which David made war: gather produce year upon year, for you shall eat together with Moab.

 

2 For I will oppress Ariel, and her strength and her wealth shall be mine.

 

3 And I will encircle you like David, and I will cast a palisade around you, and I will set towers around you,

 

4 and your words shall be brought low to the ground, and your words shall sink into the earth; and your voice shall be like those who speak from out of the earth, and your voice shall grow faint toward the ground.

 

5 And the wealth of the ungodly shall be like dust from a wheel, and like chaff carried away; and it shall be as in a moment, suddenly,

 

6 from the Lord Sabaoth; for there shall be a visitation with thunder and earthquake and a great sound, a rushing tempest and a devouring flame of fire.

 

7 And the wealth of all the nations, as many as marched against Ariel, shall be like one who dreams in sleep, and all those who made war against Jerusalem, and all who were gathered against her and afflicted her.

 

8 And they shall be like those who drink and eat in sleep, and when they rise up their dream is vain; and just as a thirsty man dreams as though drinking, and when he rises he still thirsts, and his soul has hoped in vain, so shall be the wealth of all the nations, as many as marched against Mount Zion.

 

9 Be faint and be amazed, and be dizzy—not from strong drink nor from wine;

 

10 for the Lord has made you drink with a spirit of stupor, and he will close their eyes, and those of their prophets and of their rulers, who see hidden things.

 

11 And all these words shall be to you like the words of this sealed book, which if they give it to a man who knows letters, saying, "Read this," then he will say, "I cannot read, for it is sealed."

 

12 And this book shall be given into the hands of a man who does not know letters, and one will say to him, "Read this," and he will say, "I do not know letters."

 

13 And the Lord said: This people draws near to me; with their lips they honor me, but their heart is far away from me, and in vain do they worship me, teaching commandments and doctrines of men.

 

14 Therefore behold, I will proceed to remove this people, and I will remove them, and I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will hide the understanding of the understanding ones.

 

15 Woe to those who make counsel deeply, and not through the Lord; woe to those who take counsel in secret, and their works shall be in darkness, and they will say, "Who has seen us, and who will know us, or the things we do?"

 

16 Shall you not be reckoned as the potter's clay? Shall the thing formed say to him who formed it, "You did not form me"? Or the thing made to its maker, "You did not make me wisely"?

 

17 Is it not yet a little while, and Lebanon shall be changed like Mount Carmel, and Mount Carmel shall be reckoned as a forest?

 

18 And on that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and those in darkness and those in the mist—the eyes of the blind shall see.

 

19 And the poor shall rejoice with gladness because of the Lord, and those among men who had despaired shall be filled with gladness.

 

20 The lawless one has failed, and the arrogant one has perished, and those who act lawlessly in wickedness have been utterly destroyed,

 

21 and those who cause men to sin by a word; and they shall make all who reprove in the gates a stumbling block, and have turned aside the righteous unjustly.

 

22 Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the house of Jacob, whom he set apart from Abraham: Not now shall Jacob be ashamed, nor now shall Israel change his countenance;

 

23 but when their children see my works, for my sake they shall sanctify my name, and they shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and they shall fear the God of Israel.

 

24 And those who err in spirit shall know understanding, and those who murmur shall learn to obey, and the stammering tongues shall learn to speak peace.

 

Chapter 30

 

1 Woe to you, apostate children, says the Lord: you have made a plan not through me, and covenants not through my Spirit, to add sins upon sins

 

2 those who go down into Egypt, but have not asked me, to be helped by Pharaoh and sheltered by the Egyptians.

 

3 For the shelter of Pharaoh shall be a shame to you, and a reproach to those who trust in Egypt.

 

4 For there are in Tanis leaders who are wicked messengers; they shall toil in vain

 

5 for a people that will not profit them either for help or for benefit, but for shame and reproach.

 

6 The vision of the four-footed beasts that are in the wilderness: In affliction and distress, a lion and a lion's whelp are from there, and asps and the offspring of flying asps—those who carried their wealth on donkeys and camels to a nation that will not profit them for help, but for shame and reproach.

 

7 The Egyptians shall profit you vainly and to no purpose; declare to them, "This your consolation is vain."

 

8 Now therefore sit down and write these things on a tablet and in a book, because these things shall be for days of appointed times, even forever.

 

9 For it is a disobedient people, false sons, who were not willing to hear the law of God,

 

10 who say to the prophets, "Do not proclaim to us," and to those who see visions, "Do not speak to us; rather speak to us and proclaim to us another deception,

 

11 and turn us away from this way; remove from us this path, and remove from us the Holy One of Israel."

 

12 Therefore thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel: Because you have disobeyed these words and hoped in a lie, and because you have murmured and become trusting in this word,

 

13 therefore this sin shall be to you like a wall suddenly falling of a fortified city that has been captured, whose collapse comes suddenly,

 

14 and its collapse shall be like the shattering of an earthen vessel, broken so fine from a jar that among them you cannot find a potsherd with which to carry fire or with which to skim off a little water.

 

15 Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel: When you turn back and groan, then you shall be saved and shall know where you were; when you trusted in vain things, your strength became vain. And you were not willing to hear,

 

16 but said, "We will flee on horses", therefore you shall flee; and you said, "We will be riders on swift steeds", therefore those who pursue you shall be swift.

 

17 At the voice of one, a thousand shall flee, and at the voice of five, many shall flee, until you are left like a mast on a mountain and like one bearing a standard on a hill.

 

18 And again God will wait to have compassion on you, and therefore he will be exalted to have mercy on you; for the Lord our God is a judge and where will you leave your glory? Blessed are they that abide in him.

 

19 For a holy people shall dwell in Zion, and Jerusalem has wept bitterly, "Have mercy on me." He will have mercy on you at the sound of your cry; when he saw, he listened to you.

 

20 And the Lord will give you the bread of affliction and scant water, and those who lead you astray shall no longer come near you; for your eyes shall see those who lead you astray,

 

21 and your ears shall hear the words of those who led you astray behind you—those who say, "This is the way; let us walk in it, whether to the right or to the left."

 

22 And you shall remove the idols overlaid with silver and overlaid with gold; you shall grind them fine and scatter them like the water of a woman set apart, and you shall thrust them away like dung.

 

23 Then shall there be rain for the seed of your land, and the bread of the produce of your land shall be plenteous and rich; and on that day your cattle shall graze in a fat and spacious place,

 

24 your bulls and the oxen that work the land shall eat chaff prepared with winnowed barley.

 

25 And on every high mountain and on every lofty hill there shall be water flowing in that day, when many perish and when towers fall.

 

26 And the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold in the day when the Lord heals the brokenness of his people; and he will heal the pain of your wound.

 

27 Behold, the name of the Lord comes after a long time, his anger burning; the utterance of his lips comes with glory, an utterance full of wrath, and the wrath of his anger shall devour like fire.

 

28 And his breath, like water rushing in a ravine, shall reach up to the neck, and shall be divided to throw the nations into confusion over a vain deception; and deception shall pursue them and shall take them face to face.

 

29 Must you continually rejoice and enter into my holy places continually, as those keeping festival, and as those rejoicing enter with a flute into the mountain of the Lord, to the God of Israel?

 

30 And God will make the glory of his voice heard, and will show the fury of his arm with fury and wrath and devouring flame; he will strike with thunderbolts violently, and like water and hail rushing down together with force.

 

31 For by the voice of the Lord the Assyrians shall be defeated by the blow with which he strikes them.

 

32 And it shall come upon him from all around, from where his hope of help had been, in which he had trusted; they, with flutes and lyre, shall fight against him in turn.

 

33 For you shall be called to account before your days; has there been prepared for you too a deep ravine to reign over, wood laid out, fire and much wood? The wrath of the Lord is like a ravine burning with brimstone.

 

Chapter 31

 

1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who trust in horses and in chariots, for they are many and in horses, an exceedingly great multitude; and they did not trust in the Holy One of Israel, and they did not seek God.

 

2 And he, being wise, brought evils upon them, and his word shall by no means be set aside; and he will rise up against the houses of wicked men and against their vain hope,

 

3 an Egyptian man and not God, the flesh of horses, and there is no help; but the Lord will bring his hand upon them, and those who help will grow weary, and all together they will perish.

 

4 For thus the Lord said to me: As when the lion or the lion's cub roars over the prey which it has taken, and cries out over it until the mountains are filled with its voice, and they were defeated and were terrified at the abundance of its fury, so shall the Lord Sabaoth come down to make war upon Mount Zion, upon her mountains.

 

5 Like birds flying, so shall the Lord shield Jerusalem, and he will deliver and preserve and save.

 

6 Turn back, you who devise deep and lawless counsel.

 

7 For in that day men will renounce their handmade things of silver and of gold, which their hands made.

 

8 And Assur shall fall: not the sword of a man, nor the sword of a human being, shall devour him, and he shall flee, not from the face of a sword; and the young men shall be for defeat,

 

9 for they shall be surrounded by a rock as by a palisade and shall be defeated, and he who flees shall be caught. Thus says the Lord: Blessed is he who has seed in Zion and kinsfolk in Jerusalem.

 

Chapter 32

 

1 For behold, a righteous king shall reign, and rulers shall rule with judgment.

 

2 And the man shall be one who hides his words, and he shall be hidden as from rushing water; and he shall appear in Zion like a rushing river, glorious in a thirsty land.

 

3 And no longer shall they put their trust in men, but they shall give their ears to hear.

 

4 And the heart of the weak shall attend to hear, and the stammering tongues shall quickly learn to speak peace.

 

5 And no longer shall they tell the fool to rule, and no longer shall your servants say, "Be silent."

 

6 For the fool shall speak foolish things, and his heart shall devise vain things, to accomplish lawless deeds and to speak error against the Lord, to scatter hungry souls and to make the thirsty souls empty.

 

7 For the counsel of the wicked shall devise lawless things, to destroy the lowly with unjust words and to scatter the words of the lowly in judgment.

 

8 But the godly have devised understanding things, and this counsel shall remain.

 

9 Rich women, rise up and hear my voice; daughters in hope, hear my words.

 

10Make mention of a day of a year in pain with hope; the vintage is consumed, the sowing has ceased and shall come no more.

 

11  Be amazed, be grieved, you who are confident; strip yourselves, become bare, gird sackcloth about your loins,

 

12 and beat upon your breasts for the desirable field and the fruit of the vine.

 

13 The land of my people shall bring forth thorn and grass, and gladness shall be taken away from every house. A rich city,

 

14 houses abandoned—they shall leave the wealth of the city and the desirable houses; and the villages shall be caves forever, the joy of wild asses, pastures of shepherds,

 

15 until a spirit from on high comes upon you. And Chermel shall be a desert, and Chermel shall be counted as a forest.

 

16 And judgment shall rest in the desert, and righteousness shall dwell in Carmel;

 

17 and the works of righteousness shall be peace, and righteousness shall hold rest, and they shall be confident forever;

 

18 and his people shall dwell in a city of peace and shall inhabit it in confidence, and they shall rest with wealth.

 

19 But if the hail comes down, it shall not come upon you. And those who dwell in the forests shall be as confident as those in the plain.

 

20 Blessed are those who sow beside every water, where ox and ass tread.

 

Chapter 33

 

1 Woe to those who afflict you, though no one makes you miserable, and he who rejects you does not reject; those who reject shall be captured and delivered up, and like a moth on a garment, so shall they be defeated.

 

2 Lord, have mercy on us, for we have trusted in you; the offspring of the disobedient has come to destruction, but our salvation is in a time of affliction.

 

3 At the sound of the fear of you, peoples were astounded for fear of you, and the nations were scattered.

 

4 But now your spoils shall be gathered, of small and great; as if one should gather locusts, so shall they mock you.

 

5 Holy is God, who dwells on high; Zion has been filled with judgment and righteousness.

 

6 They shall be delivered up by law; our salvation is in treasuries; there are wisdom and knowledge and piety toward the Lord, these are treasuries of righteousness.

 

7 Behold now, in the fear of you they themselves shall be afraid; those whom you feared shall fear because of you; for messengers shall be sent asking for peace, weeping bitterly, pleading for peace.

 

8 For the ways of these shall be made desolate; the fear of the nations has ceased, and the covenant with them is taken away, and you shall by no means reckon them as human beings.

 

9 The land mourned; Lebanon was ashamed; Sharon became marshes; Galilee and Carmel shall be exposed.

 

10 Now I will arise, says the Lord, now I will be glorified, now I will be exalted.

 

11 Now you shall see, now you shall perceive; the strength of your spirit shall be vain; fire shall devour you.

 

12 And nations shall be burned up like a thorn in a field cast away and burned up.

 

13 Those who are far off shall hear what I have done; those who draw near shall know my strength.

 

14 The lawless in Zion have departed; trembling shall seize the impious. Who will announce to you that a fire is burning? Who will announce to you the eternal place?

 

15 He who walks in righteousness, speaking a straight way, hating lawlessness and injustice and shaking his hands free from bribes, stopping his ears so that he may not hear a judgment of blood, shutting his eyes so that he may not see injustice

 

16 this one shall dwell in a high cave of strong rock; bread shall be given to him, and his water is assured.

 

17 You shall see a king with glory, and your eyes shall see a land from afar.

 

18 Your soul shall meditate on fear. Where are the scribes? Where are those who give counsel? Where is he who counts those being nourished,

 

19 a small and a great people? With whom they took no counsel, nor did he know one deep of speech, so that a despised people could not hear, and there is no understanding in the one who hears.

 

20 Behold, Zion, the city, our salvation; your eyes shall see Jerusalem, a wealthy city, tents that shall not be shaken, nor shall the pegs of her tent be moved forever, nor shall her ropes be broken.

 

21 For the name of the Lord is great to you; you shall have a place—rivers and channels broad and spacious. You shall not go this way, nor shall a ship under oar go.

 

22 For my God is great; the Lord will not pass me by; the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our ruler, the Lord is our king; he will save us.

 

23 Your ropes have broken, because it had no strength; your mast has bent over; it will not let down the sails; it will not raise a signal until it is delivered up for plunder; therefore many lame shall take plunder.

 

24 And the people dwelling among them shall by no means say, "I am weary," for their sin has been forgiven them.

 

Chapter 34

 

1 Draw near, you nations, and hear, you rulers; let the earth hear, and those in it, the inhabited world and the people in it.

 

2 For the wrath of the Lord is upon all the nations, and his anger upon their number, to destroy them and to hand them over to slaughter.

 

3 And their wounded shall be cast out, and their dead, and their stench shall rise up, and the mountains shall be soaked with their blood.

 

4 And heaven shall be rolled up like a scroll, and all the stars shall fall like leaves from a vine, and as leaves fall from a fig tree.

 

5 My sword has been made drunk in heaven; behold, it shall come down upon Idumea and upon the people of destruction with judgment.

 

6 The sword of the Lord has been filled with blood; it has grown thick with the fat of lambs and with the fat of goats and rams; for there is a sacrifice to the Lord in Bosor, and a great slaughter in Idumea.

 

7 And the mighty shall fall with them, and the rams and the bulls, and the land shall be made drunk with blood, and it shall be filled with their fat.

 

8 For it is a day of the Lord's judgment, and a year of recompense for the judgment of Sion.

 

9 And her ravines shall be turned into pitch, and her land into brimstone, and her land shall be burning like pitch

 

10 night and day, and it shall not be quenched for everlasting time, and her smoke shall go up on high; for generations it shall be made desolate, and for a long time.

 

11 And birds shall dwell in it, and hedgehogs and ibises and ravens, and a measuring line of desolation shall be cast over it, and donkey-centaurs shall dwell in it.

 

12 Her rulers shall be no more; for her kings and her rulers and her great ones shall come to destruction.

 

13 And thorny trees shall spring up in their cities and in her strongholds, and it shall be a habitation of sirens and a courtyard of ostriches.

 

14 And demons shall meet with donkey-centaurs, and they shall cry out one to another; there donkey-centaurs shall rest, for they have found rest for themselves.

 

15 There the hedgehog has made its nest, and the earth has kept her children safe with security; there deer met and saw one another's faces;

 

16 they passed by in full number, and not one of them perished; they did not seek one another, for the Lord commanded them, and his spirit gathered them.

 

17 And he himself shall cast lots for them, and his hand has apportioned pasture; you shall inherit for everlasting time; for generations of generations they shall rest upon it.

 

Chapter 35

 

1 Rejoice, thirsty wilderness; let the desert be glad and blossom like a lily,

 

2 and the desert places of the Jordan shall blossom and rejoice; and the glory of Lebanon has been given to it, and the honor of Carmel, and my people shall see the glory of the Lord and the majesty of God.

 

3 Be strong, you weakened hands and feeble knees;

 

4 take comfort, you who are faint-hearted in mind; be strong, do not fear; behold, our God renders judgment and will render it; he himself will come and save us.

 

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear.

 

6 Then the lame man shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be clear, for water has burst forth in the wilderness, and a ravine in a thirsty land,

 

7 and the waterless place shall become marshes, and in the thirsty land there shall be a spring of water; there shall be the joy of birds, a dwelling of reeds and marshes.

 

8 There shall be there a pure way, and it shall be called a holy way, and no unclean person shall pass by there, nor shall there be there an unclean way; but the dispersed shall walk on it and shall not go astray.

 

9 And there shall be no lion there, nor shall any of the evil beasts go up onto it, nor be found there; but the redeemed shall walk on it.

 

10 And those gathered because of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with joy, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; for upon their heads shall be praise and exultation, and joy shall seize them; pain and sorrow and sighing have fled away.

 

Chapter 36

 

1 And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah that Sennacherib king of the Assyrians came up against the fortified cities of Judea and took them.

 

2 And the king of the Assyrians sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a great force, and he stood by the conduit of the upper pool, on the road of the fuller's field.

 

3 And there came out to him Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, the steward, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder.

 

4 And Rabshakeh said to them: Say to Hezekiah, Thus says the king, the great king of the Assyrians: In what have you placed your trust?

 

5 Is a battle line formed by counsel or by words of the lips? And now, in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me?

 

6 Behold, you are trusting in this bruised reed of a staff, in Egypt; whoever leans upon it, it will go into his hand. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt and all who trust in him.

 

7 But if you say, We trust in the Lord our God,

 

8 now join yourselves to my lord the king of the Assyrians, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able to set riders upon them.

 

9 And how can you turn back the face of a single governor? Those who trust in the Egyptians for horse and rider are servants.

 

10 And now, have we come up against this land to make war on it without the Lord?

 

11 And Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to him: Speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it, and do not speak to us in the language of Judah; and why do you speak into the ears of the men who are on the wall?

 

12 And Rabshakeh said to them: Has my lord sent me to your lord or to you to speak these words? Has he not sent me to the men sitting on the wall, that they may eat dung and drink urine together with you?

 

13 And Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the language of Judah and said: Hear the words of the king, the great king of the Assyrians.

 

14 Thus says the king: Let not Hezekiah deceive you with words, which will not be able to deliver you;

 

15 and let not Hezekiah say to you, God will deliver you, and this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of the Assyrians.

 

16 Do not listen to Hezekiah. Thus says the king of the Assyrians: If you wish to be blessed, come out to me, and each of you shall eat of his own vine and his fig trees, and drink water from your own cistern,

 

17 until I come and take you to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine and bread and vineyards.

 

18 Let not Hezekiah deceive you, saying, Your God will deliver you. Have the gods of the nations delivered, each one his own land, from the hand of the king of the Assyrians?

 

19 Where is the god of Hamath and Arpad? And where is the god of the city of Sepharvaim? Were they able to deliver Samaria from my hand?

 

20 Which of the gods of all these nations has delivered his land from my hand, that God should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?

 

21 And they were silent, and no one answered him a word, because the king had commanded that no one should answer.

 

22 And Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, the steward, and Shebna the scribe of the army, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came in to Hezekiah with their tunics torn, and they reported to him the words of Rabshakeh.

 

Chapter 37

 

1 And it came to pass, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his garments and put on sackcloth and went up to the house of the Lord.

 

2 And he sent Eliakim the steward and Somnas the scribe and the elders of the priests, clothed in sackcloth, to Isaiah son of Amos, the prophet.

 

3 And they said to him, "Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of affliction and of reproach and of rebuke and of wrath, for the pang has come upon her who is in labor, but she has no strength to give birth.

 

4 May the Lord your God hear the words of Rabshakeh, which the king of the Assyrians sent to reproach the living God and to reproach with words that the Lord your God has heard; and you shall pray to the Lord your God concerning these who are left."

 

5 And the servants of the king came to Isaiah,

 

6 and Isaiah said to them, "Thus shall you say to your master: Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the envoys of the king of the Assyrians reproached me.

 

7 Behold, I will put a spirit into him, and having heard a report he will return to his own country and will fall by the sword in his own land."

 

8 And Rabshakeh returned and found the king besieging Lomna. And the king of the Assyrians heard that

 

9 Tharaka king of the Ethiopians had come out to besiege him; and hearing it, he returned and sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

 

10 "Thus shall you say to Hezekiah king of Judea: Let not your God, in whom you trust, deceive you, saying, 'Jerusalem shall by no means be delivered into the hands of the king of the Assyrians.'

 

11 Or have you not heard what the kings of the Assyrians have done to all the land, how they destroyed it?

 

12 Did the gods of the nations deliver them, those whom my fathers destroyed—Gozan and Harran and Raphes, which are in the country of Themad?

 

13 Where are the kings of Hamath and Arphath and of the city of Sepharim, Anag, Ougaua?"

 

14 And Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers and opened it before the Lord,

 

15 and Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying,

 

16 "Lord Sabaoth, God of Israel, who sit upon the cherubim, you alone are God of every kingdom of the inhabited world; you made heaven and earth.

 

17 Hear, O Lord, look, O Lord, and see the words that Sennacherib has sent to reproach the living God.

 

18 For in truth the kings of the Assyrians have laid waste the whole inhabited world and their country,

 

19 and they have cast their idols into the fire, for they were not gods but the works of men's hands, wood and stones, and they destroyed them.

 

20 But you, O Lord our God, save us from their hand, that every kingdom of the earth may know that you alone are God."

 

21 And Isaiah son of Amos was sent to Hezekiah and said to him, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I have heard what you prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of the Assyrians.

 

22 This is the word that God has spoken concerning him: The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and mocked you; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.

 

23 Whom have you reproached and provoked? Or against whom have you lifted up your voice? And have you not raised your eyes on high to the Holy One of Israel?

 

24 For by messengers you have reproached the Lord; for you said, 'With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the height of the mountains and to the farthest parts of Lebanon, and I have cut down the height of its cedar and the beauty of its cypress, and I entered into the height of the region of the forest,

 

25 and I made a bridge and dried up waters and every gathering of water.'

 

26 Have you not heard of these things long ago, which I did? From ancient days I ordained them, and now I have shown it, to make desolate nations in strongholds and those dwelling in fortified cities.

 

27 I weakened their hands, and they were dried up and became like dry grass on housetops and like wild grass.

 

28But now I know your resting and your going out and your coming in;

 

29 and your fury with which you have raged, and your bitterness, has come up to me, and I will put a muzzle in your nose and a bridle on your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.

 

30 And this shall be the sign for you: eat this year what you have sown, and in the second year what remains, and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

 

31 And those who are left in Judea shall take root downward and bear seed upward.

 

32 For out of Jerusalem shall go forth those who are left, and those who are saved out of Mount Zion; the zeal of the Lord Sabaoth shall do these things.

 

33 Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians: He shall by no means enter this city, nor shall he cast an arrow against it, nor set a shield against it, nor surround it with a siege-work,

 

34 but by the way by which he came, by it he shall return. Thus says the Lord.

 

35 I will defend this city so as to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of David my servant."

 

36 And an angel of the Lord went out and slew from the camp of the Assyrians one hundred eighty-five thousand; and when they arose in the morning they found all the bodies dead.

 

37 And the king of the Assyrians turned back and departed and dwelt in Nineveh.

 

38 And while he was worshiping in the house of Nasarach his idol, Adramelech and Sarasar his sons struck him down with swords, and they escaped safely into Armenia; and Asordan his son reigned in his place.

 

Chapter 38

 

1 And it came to pass at that time that Hezekiah fell sick unto death; and Isaiah the son of Amos, the prophet, came to him and said to him, "Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you are dying and shall not live."

 

2 And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord,

 

3 saying, "Remember, O Lord, how I have walked before you in truth with a true heart, and have done the things pleasing in your sight." And Hezekiah wept with great weeping.

 

4 And the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying,

 

5 "Go and say to Hezekiah: Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard the voice of your prayer and I have seen your tears; behold, I add to your time fifteen years;

 

6 and I will save you from the hand of the king of the Assyrians, and I will shield this city.

 

7 And this is the sign to you from the Lord, that God will perform this word:

 

8 the shadow of the steps down which the sun has gone, the ten steps of your father's house, I will turn back the sun the ten steps." And the sun went up the ten steps down which the shadow had gone.

 

9 A prayer of Hezekiah, king of Judea, when he was sick and rose up from his sickness:

 

10 I said, "In the height of my days, at the gates of Hades I shall leave behind my remaining years."

 

11 I said, "No more shall I see the salvation of God upon the earth; no more shall I see a man

 

12 of my kindred. I have left behind the remainder of my life; it has gone out and departed from me, like one who takes down a tent he has pitched; my spirit within me has become like the web of a weaver about to cut it off. On that day I was given up

 

13 until morning, as to a lion; so did he crush my bones, for from day until night I was given up.

 

14 Like a swallow, so shall I cry, and like a dove, so shall I moan; for my eyes have failed from looking to the height of heaven, to the Lord, who delivered me

 

15 and took away from me the pain of my soul.

 

16 O Lord, for concerning it word was brought to you, and you revived my breath, and being comforted I lived.

 

17 For you chose my soul, that it might not perish, and you have cast behind me all my sins.

 

18 For those in Hades shall not praise you, nor shall the dead bless you, nor shall those in Hades hope in your mercy;

 

19 the living shall bless you, as I also do. For from this day I will beget children who shall declare your righteousness,

 

20 O Lord of my salvation; and I will not cease blessing you with the psaltery all the days of my life before the house of God."

 

21 And Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Take a cake of figs and crush it and apply it as a plaster, and you shall be well."

 

22 And Hezekiah said, "This is the sign, that I shall go up to the house of the Lord God."

 

Chapter 39

 

1 At that time Merodach, the son of Laadan, the king of Babylonia, sent letters and envoys and gifts to Hezekiah; for he had heard that he had been sick unto death and had recovered.

 

2 And Hezekiah rejoiced over them with great joy, and he showed them the house of the treasury and of the oil of myrrh and of the incense and of the perfume and of the silver and of the gold, and all the houses of the vessels of the treasure, and everything that was in his storehouses; and there was nothing that Hezekiah did not show them in his house.

 

3 And Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, "What do these men say, and from where have they come to you?" And Hezekiah said, "They have come to me from a land far away, from Babylon."

 

4 And Isaiah said, "What did they see in your house?" And Hezekiah said, "They saw everything in my house, and there is nothing in my house that they did not see, but also the things in my storehouses."

 

5 And Isaiah said to him, "Hear the word of the Lord Sabaoth:

 

6 Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when they will take everything in your house, and all that your fathers have gathered up to this day will go to Babylon, and they shall leave nothing behind. And God said

 

7 that they will also take some of your children, whom you have begotten, and will make them eunuchs in the house of the king of the Babylonians."

 

8 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "Good is the word of the Lord which he has spoken; let there indeed be peace and righteousness in my days."

 

Chapter 40

 

1 "Comfort, comfort my people," says God.

 

2 "Priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem, comfort her; for her humiliation is fulfilled, her sin has been loosed; for she has received from the Lord's hand double for her sins."

 

3 A voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God;

 

4 every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and all the crooked places shall become straight, and the rough place plains;

 

5 and the glory of the Lord shall appear, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God; for the Lord has spoken."

 

6 A voice of one saying, "Cry out"; and I said, "What shall I cry?" "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man is like the flower of grass;

 

7 the grass has withered, and the flower has fallen,

 

8 but the word of our God endures forever."

 

9 Go up onto a high mountain, you who bring good tidings to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem; lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!"

 

10 Behold, the Lord comes with strength, and his arm with dominion; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.

 

11 Like a shepherd he will shepherd his flock, and with his arm he will gather the lambs, and will comfort those with young.

 

12 Who has measured the water with his hand, and heaven with a span, and all the earth with a handful? Who has weighed the mountains in a balance and the wooded valleys with a scale?

 

13 Who has known the mind of the Lord, and who has been his counselor, who instructs him?

 

14 Or with whom did he take counsel, and who instructed him? Or who showed him judgment? Or who showed him the way of understanding?

 

15 If all the nations are counted as a drop from a bucket and as the tilt of a balance, they shall be counted also as spittle;

 

16 and Lebanon is not sufficient for burning, and all the four-footed beasts are not sufficient for a whole burnt offering,

 

17 and all the nations are as nothing, and are counted as nothing.

 

18 To whom have you likened the Lord, and with what likeness have you likened him?

 

19 Has a craftsman made an image, or has a goldsmith, having melted gold, gilded him, fashioned him as a likeness?

 

20 For a craftsman chooses wood that will not rot, and wisely seeks how he shall set up his image, so that it may not be shaken.

 

21 Will you not know? Will you not hear? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not known the foundations of the earth?

 

22 He who holds the circle of the earth, and those who dwell in it are like locusts; he who set up heaven like a vault and stretched it out like a tent to dwell in,

 

23 who appoints rulers to rule as nothing, and has made the earth as nothing.

 

24 For they shall not sow, nor shall they plant, nor shall their root take root in the earth; he blew upon them, and they withered, and a whirlwind will carry them off like brushwood.

 

25 "Now then, to whom have you likened me, that I may be exalted?" says the Holy One.

 

26 Lift your eyes up on high and see: who has displayed all these things? He who brings out his host by number will call them all by name; because of great glory and by the might of strength, nothing has escaped your notice.

 

27 For do not say, Jacob—and why have you spoken, Israel—"My way has been hidden from God, and my God has taken away my judgment and departed"?

 

28 And now, have you not known, unless you have heard? God everlasting, the God who fashioned the ends of the earth, will not hunger nor grow weary, nor is there any searching out of his understanding;

 

29 he gives strength to those who hunger, and grief to those who do not suffer pain.

 

30 For young men shall hunger, and youths shall grow weary, and the chosen shall be without strength;

 

31 but those who wait for God shall renew their strength; they shall grow wings like eagles; they shall run and not grow weary; they shall walk and not hunger.

 

Chapter 41

 

1 Be renewed toward me, you islands, for the rulers shall change their strength; let them draw near and speak together; then let them declare judgment.

 

2 Who raised up righteousness from the east, called it to his feet, and it shall go? He shall set it before nations, and shall astonish kings, and shall put their swords into the earth, and their bows as brushwood driven out;

 

3 and he shall pursue them, and the way of his feet shall pass through in peace.

 

4 Who has wrought and done these things? He who calls it from the beginning of generations has called it: I, God, am first, and unto the things to come, I am.

 

5 The nations saw and were afraid; the ends of the earth drew near and came together,

 

6 each one judging to help his neighbor and his brother, and he shall say,

 

7 The craftsman has grown strong, and the smith striking with the hammer, hammering at the same time; at one time he will say, It is a good joining; they have strengthened them with nails; they will set them, and they shall not be moved.

 

8 But you, Israel, my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, whom I loved,

 

9 whom I took hold of from the ends of the earth, and from its watchtowers I called you, and I said to you, You are my servant; I have chosen you and have not forsaken you:

 

10 do not fear, for I am with you; do not go astray, for I am your God who has strengthened you, and I have helped you and secured you with my righteous right hand.

 

11 Behold, all who oppose you shall be ashamed and confounded, for they shall be as though they were not, and all your adversaries shall perish.

 

12 You shall seek them and shall not find the men who shall act insolently against you; for they shall be as though they were not, and those who war against you shall not be.

 

13 For I am your God, who holds your right hand, who says to you, Do not fear,

 

14 Jacob, little Israel; I have helped you, says God, the one redeeming you, Israel.

 

15 Behold, I have made you as threshing wheels of a wagon, new, saw-shaped; and you shall thresh mountains, and shall grind hills small, and shall make them as dust;

 

16 and you shall winnow them, and the wind shall take them, and a tempest shall scatter them; but you shall rejoice in the holy ones of Israel. And

 

17 the poor and the needy shall exult; for they shall seek water, and there shall be none; their tongue is parched with thirst; I the Lord God, I will hear, the God of Israel, and I will not forsake them,

 

18 but I will open rivers upon the mountains and springs in the midst of plains; I will make the desert into marshes and the thirsting land into watercourses;

 

19 I will set in the waterless land the cedar and box and myrtle and cypress and white poplar,

 

20 that they may see and know and consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord has done all these things, and the Holy One of Israel has displayed them.

 

21 Your judgment draws near, says the Lord God; your counsels have drawn near, says the King of Jacob.

 

22 Let them draw near and declare to you what shall happen, or tell what the former things were, and we will apply our mind and know what the last things are; and tell us the things that are coming.

 

23 Declare to us the things coming at the last, and we shall know that you are gods; do good and do harm, and we shall wonder and see together;

 

24 for whence are you, and whence is your workmanship? From the earth; they have chosen you as an abomination.

 

25 But I raised up the one from the north and the one from the rising of the sun; they shall be called by my name; let rulers come, and as the clay of a potter, and as a potter treading the clay, so shall you be trodden down.

 

26 For who shall declare the things from the beginning, that we may know, and the former things, and we shall say that they are true? There is none who foretells, nor any who hears your words.

 

27 I will give dominion to Zion, and I will comfort Jerusalem for the way.

 

28 For from the nations, behold, there is no one, and from their idols there was none who declares; and if I ask them, Whence are you? they shall by no means answer me.

 

29 For those who make you exist, and in vain are those who lead you astray.

 

Chapter 42

 

1 Jacob is my servant; I will uphold him. Israel is my chosen one; my soul has accepted him. I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth judgment to the nations.

 

2 He will not cry out nor lift up his voice, nor will his voice be heard outside.

 

3 A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoking wick he will not quench, but he will bring forth judgment unto truth.

 

4 He will shine forth and will not be crushed until he establishes judgment on the earth; and in his name the nations will hope.

 

5 Thus says the Lord God, who made the heaven and fixed it, who established the earth and the things in it, and who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who tread on it:

 

6 I, the Lord God, have called you in righteousness, and I will hold your hand and strengthen you; and I have given you as a covenant of a race, as a light of nations,

 

7 to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out from bonds those who are bound, and from the prison house those who sit in darkness.

 

8 I am the Lord God; this is my name. My glory I will not give to another, nor my virtues to graven images.

 

9 The things from the beginning, behold, they have come, and new things which I shall announce; even before they arose they were made known to you.

 

10 Sing to the Lord a new hymn, his dominion; glorify his name from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea and sail upon it, the islands and those who dwell in them.

 

11 Rejoice, O wilderness and its villages, the settlements and those who dwell in Kedar. Those who inhabit Petra will rejoice; from the tops of the mountains they will shout.

 

12 They will give glory to God; his virtues they will announce in the islands.

 

13 The Lord, the God of hosts, will go forth and crush war; he will stir up zeal and will shout against his enemies with strength.

 

14 I have kept silence; shall I keep silence forever and endure? I have persevered like a woman in labor; I will astonish and wither at once.

 

15 And I will turn rivers into islands and dry up marshes.

 

16 And I will lead the blind by a way they did not know, and I will make them tread paths they did not know; I will make the darkness light for them and the crooked places straight. These words I will perform, and I will not forsake them.

 

17 But they have turned back. Be utterly ashamed, you who trust in graven images, who say to the molten images, "You are our gods."

 

18 You deaf, hear; and you blind, look up to see.

 

19 And who is blind but my servants, and deaf but those who lord over them? Even the servants of God have been blinded.

 

20 You have seen many times, yet you did not take heed; your ears were opened, yet you did not hear.

 

21 The Lord God willed that he be justified and magnify praise. And I saw,

 

22 and the people became plundered and despoiled; for the snare was in the storerooms everywhere, and in houses as well, where they hid them; they became spoil, and there was no one to rescue the prey, and there was no one to say, "Give it back."

 

23 Who among you will give ear to these things, will listen with regard to the things to come?

 

24 Who gave Jacob over to despoiling, and Israel to those who plundered him? Was it not God, against whom they sinned, and they were unwilling to walk in his ways or to hear his law?

 

25 And he brought upon them the wrath of his anger, and war prevailed against them, and those burning them round about; and none of them understood, nor did they lay it to heart.

 

Chapter 43

 

1 And now thus says the Lord God who made you, Jacob, who formed you, Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are mine.

 

2 And if you pass through water, I am with you, and rivers shall not overwhelm you; and if you go through fire, you shall by no means be burned; the flame shall not consume you.

 

3 For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, who saves you; I have made Egypt and Ethiopia and Soene your ransom in exchange for you.

 

4 Since you became precious in my sight, you have been glorified, and I have loved you; and I will give many men in exchange for you, and rulers for your head.

 

5 Fear not, for I am with you; from the east I will bring your seed, and from the west I will gather you.

 

6 I will say to the north, Bring, and to the southwest, Do not hinder; bring my sons from a land far off and my daughters from the ends of the earth,

 

7 all who are called by my name. For in my glory I prepared him and formed and made him;

 

8 and I brought out a blind people, and their eyes are likewise blind, and they are deaf though having ears.

 

9 All the nations were gathered together, and rulers shall be gathered out of them. Who will declare these things? Or who will declare to you the things from the beginning? Let them bring their witnesses and be justified, and let them speak the truth.

 

10 Be my witnesses, and I too am a witness, says the Lord God, and the servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe and understand that I am he; before me there was no other god, and after me there shall be none.

 

11 I am God, and besides me there is none who saves.

 

12 I declared and I saved; I reproached, and there was no strange god among you; you are my witnesses, and I am a witness, says the Lord God.

 

13 Even from the beginning, and there is none who can deliver out of my hands; I will act, and who will turn it back?

 

14 Thus says the Lord God who redeems you, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake I will send to Babylon and stir up all who flee, and the Chaldeans shall be bound in ships.

 

15 I am the Lord God, your Holy One, who appointed Israel your king.

 

16 Thus says the Lord, who gives a way in the sea and a path in mighty water,

 

17 who brought forth chariots and horse and a mighty throng; but they lay down and shall not rise; they were quenched like a quenched wick.

 

18 Do not remember the former things, and do not consider the ancient things.

 

19 Behold, I am doing new things which shall now spring forth, and you shall know them; and I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the dry land.

 

20 The beasts of the field shall bless me, sirens and daughters of ostriches, because I have given water in the wilderness and rivers in the dry land, to give drink to my chosen race,

 

21 my people whom I have acquired to recount my virtues.

 

22 It is not now that I have called you, Jacob, nor have I made you weary, Israel.

 

23 You have not brought me the sheep of your whole burnt offering, nor have you glorified me with your sacrifices, nor have I wearied you with frankincense,

 

24 nor have you bought me incense with silver, nor have I desired the fat of your sacrifices; but in your sins and in your iniquities I stood over you.

 

25 I am, I am he who blots out your lawless deeds, and I will by no means remember them.

 

26 But you, remember, and let us go to judgment; state your lawless deeds first, that you may be justified.

 

27 Your fathers first and their rulers acted lawlessly against me,

 

28 and the rulers defiled my holy things, and I gave Jacob over to destruction and Israel to reproach.

 

Chapter 44

 

1 But now hear, Jacob my servant, and Israel, whom I have chosen.

 

2 Thus says the Lord God who made you and who formed you from the womb: You shall still be helped; do not fear, my servant Jacob, and beloved Israel, whom I have chosen.

 

3 For I will give water in thirst to those who walk in a dry land; I will put my spirit upon your seed and my blessings upon your children,

 

4 and they shall spring up like grass amid water, and like a willow by flowing water.

 

5 This one will say, "I am God's," and this one will cry out in the name of Jacob, and another will write, "I am God's," in the name of Israel.

 

6 Thus says God, the King of Israel, the God of hosts who delivered him: I am first, and I am after these things; besides me there is no god.

 

7 Who is like me? Let him stand, let him call, and let him prepare for me, from the time I made man forever; and let them declare to you the things that are coming before they come.

 

8 Do not hide yourselves; have you not heard from the beginning, and did I not declare it to you? You are witnesses whether there is a god besides me; and there were none then.

 

9 All those who form and carve are vain, those who make the things their hearts desire, which will not profit them; but they shall be put to shame,

 

10 all who form a god and carve useless things,

 

11 and all from whom they came have withered; and let them all, deaf among men, be gathered and stand together; let them be humiliated and put to shame together.

 

12 For the craftsman sharpened iron; he worked it with an adze and bored it with an auger; he worked it with the arm of his strength; and he will hunger and grow weak and drink no water.

 

13 The craftsman, having chosen wood, set it up by a measure and fitted it with glue; he made it like the form of a man and like the beauty of a human being, to set it up in a house

 

14 wood that he cut from the forest, which the Lord planted and the rain made grow,

 

15 that it might serve men for burning; and taking some of it, he warmed himself, and having kindled a fire they baked bread on it; but the rest they worked into gods, and they worship them.

 

16 Half of it they burned in the fire, and having kindled it they baked bread on it; and on it he roasted meat and ate and was filled; and having warmed himself he said, "It is pleasant to me that I have been warmed, and I have seen fire."

 

17 But the rest he made into a carved god, and he worships it and prays, saying, "Deliver me, for you are my god."

 

18 They did not know how to understand, for they were darkened so as not to see with their eyes nor to comprehend with their heart.

 

19 And he did not consider in his heart, nor reason in his soul, nor know by understanding, that he burned half of it in the fire and baked bread on its coals, and roasted meat and ate, and made the rest of it into an abomination, and they worship it.

 

20 Know that their heart is ashes, and they go astray, and no one is able to deliver his soul. See, will you not say, "There is a lie in my right hand"?

 

21 Remember these things, Jacob and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you as my servant, and you, Israel, do not forget me.

 

22 For behold, I have wiped away your lawless deeds like a cloud, and your sins like darkness; return to me, and I will redeem you.

 

23 Rejoice, O heavens, for God has had mercy on Israel; sound the trumpet, foundations of the earth; shout gladness, O mountains, you hills and all the trees in them, for God has redeemed Jacob, and Israel shall be glorified.

 

24 Thus says the Lord who redeems you and who forms you from the womb: I am the Lord who accomplishes all things; I alone stretched out the heaven and made firm the earth. Who else

 

25 will scatter the signs of ventriloquists and divinations from the heart, turning the wise backward and making their counsel foolish,

 

26 and confirming the words of his servant and proving true the counsel of his messengers? He who says to Jerusalem, "You shall be inhabited," and to the cities of Judea, "You shall be built," and her deserted places shall spring up;

 

27 he who says to the deep, "You shall be made desolate, and I will dry up your rivers";

 

28 he who tells Cyrus to be wise, and "He shall do all my will"; he who says to Jerusalem, "You shall be built, and I will lay the foundation of my holy house."

 

Chapter 45

 

1 Thus says the Lord God to my anointed, Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, that nations might obey before him, and I will break the strength of kings; I will open doors before him, and cities shall not be shut.

 

2 I will go before you and level mountains; I will shatter bronze doors and break iron bars,

 

3 and I will give you dark treasures; I will open to you hidden, unseen stores, that you may know that I am the Lord God who calls your name, the God of Israel.

 

4 For the sake of Jacob my servant and Israel my chosen, I will call you by your name and receive you, though you did not know me.

 

5 For I am the Lord God, and there is no god besides me, and you did not know me,

 

6 so that those from the rising of the sun and those from its setting may know that there is none besides me; I am the Lord God, and there is no other.

 

7 I am the one who prepared light and made darkness, who makes peace and creates evils; I am the Lord God who does all these things.

 

8 Let heaven rejoice from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness; let the earth bring forth mercy, and let it bring forth righteousness together; I am the Lord who created you.

 

9 What better thing have I fashioned, as a potter's clay? Shall the plowman plow the earth all day long? Shall the clay say to the potter, "What are you doing, for you are not working, nor have you hands"?

 

10 Woe to the one who says to a father, "What will you beget?" and to a mother, "With what will you travail?"

 

11 For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, who made the things to come: Ask me concerning my sons and concerning my daughters, and concerning the works of my hands command me.

 

12 I made the earth and humankind upon it; I with my hand established the heaven; I gave commands to all the stars.

 

13 I have raised him up as a king with righteousness, and all his ways are straight; he shall build my city and shall return the captivity of my people, not with ransoms nor with gifts, said the Lord Sabaoth.

 

14 Thus says the Lord Sabaoth: Egypt has toiled, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall cross over to you and shall be your slaves, and they shall follow behind you, bound in fetters, and shall bow down to you and shall pray to you, because God is in you, and they shall say, "There is no god besides you;

 

15 for you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior."

 

16 All who oppose him shall be ashamed and confounded and shall walk in shame. Be renewed toward me, you islands.

 

17 Israel is saved by the Lord with an everlasting salvation; they shall not be ashamed nor confounded forevermore.

 

18 Thus says the Lord who made heaven—this God who displayed the earth and made it, he himself marked out its bounds; he did not make it in vain but to be inhabited, I am, and there is no other.

 

19 I have not spoken in secret, nor in a dark place of the earth; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, "Seek a vain thing." I am, I am the Lord, speaking righteousness and declaring truth.

 

20 Assemble and come, take counsel together, you who are being saved from among the nations. They who lift up the wood, their carved image, have no knowledge, praying as to gods who do not save.

 

21 If they will declare it, let them draw near, that they may know together who made these things heard from the beginning. Then it was declared to you: I am God, and there is no other besides me; there is no righteous one and savior apart from me.

 

22  Turn to me and you shall be saved, you who are from the end of the earth; I am God, and there is no other.

 

23 By myself I swear: Surely righteousness shall go forth from my mouth; my words shall not be turned back, for to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God,

 

24 saying, "Righteousness and glory shall come to him, and all who set themselves apart shall be ashamed."

 

25 By the Lord shall they be justified, and in God shall all the seed of the sons of Israel be glorified.

 

Chapter 46

 

1 Bel has fallen, Dagon has been broken in pieces; their carved images have become for beasts and cattle. You carry them bound up as a burden for one who is weary

 

2 and hungry and faint, having no strength at all; they will not be able to be saved from war, but they themselves have been led away as captives.

 

3 Hear me, O house of Jacob and all the remnant of Israel, you who are carried from the womb and instructed from childhood:

 

4 until old age I am, and until you grow old, I am; I bear with you; I have made, and I will let go; I will take up and save you.

 

5 To whom have you likened me? See, contrive, you who go astray.

 

6 Those who contribute gold out of a purse, and silver, will weigh it in a balance on the scales; and having hired a goldsmith, they made handmade things, and bowing down they worship them.

 

7 They lift it upon their shoulders and go; and if they set it down, it stays in its place; it shall by no means be moved; and whoever cries out to it, it shall by no means hear; it shall by no means save him from evils.

 

8 Remember these things and groan; repent, you who have gone astray; return in your heart.

 

9 And remember the former things from of old, that I am God, and there is no other besides me,

 

10 declaring beforehand the last things before they come to be, and at once they were accomplished; and I said, All my counsel shall stand, and all that I have purposed I will do;

 

11 calling a bird from the east and from a far land those concerning whom I have purposed; I spoke and brought it to pass; I created and made; I brought him and prospered his way.

 

12 Hear me, you who have lost heart, who are far from righteousness.

 

13 I have brought near my righteousness, and I will not delay the salvation that is from me; I have given salvation in Zion to Israel for glory.

 

Chapter 47

 

1 Come down, sit upon the ground, virgin daughter of Babylon; enter into the darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans, for you shall no more be called tender and delicate.

 

2 Take a millstone, grind meal; remove your veil, uncover your gray hairs, bare your legs, cross over rivers.

 

3 Your shame shall be uncovered, your reproaches shall be seen; I will take what is just from you; I will no longer deliver you to men.

 

4 Your redeemer has spoken—the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel:

 

5 Sit stricken with grief, enter into the darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans; you shall no more be called the strength of a kingdom.

 

6 I was provoked against my people; you defiled my inheritance. I gave them into your hand, but you showed them no mercy; you made the yoke of the elder exceedingly heavy.

 

7 And you said, "I shall be ruler forever." You did not consider these things in your heart, nor did you remember the end.

 

8 But now hear these things, you delicate one who sits secure, who says in her heart, "I am, and there is no other; I shall not sit as a widow, nor shall I know bereavement of children."

 

9 But now these two things shall come upon you suddenly in one day: widowhood and childlessness shall come suddenly upon you—in your sorcery, in the great strength of your enchantments,

 

10 in the hope of your wickedness. For you said, "I am, and there is no other." Know that the understanding of these things and your fornication shall be your shame. And you said in your heart, "I am, and there is no other."

 

11 And destruction shall come upon you, and you shall not know it, a pit, and you shall fall into it; and misery shall come upon you, and you shall not be able to become clean; and destruction shall come upon you suddenly, and you shall not know it.

 

12 Stand now with your enchantments and your many sorceries, which you learned from your youth—see if you can be helped.

 

13 You have grown weary in your counsels; let the astrologers of heaven stand and save you; let those who see the stars declare to you what is going to come upon you.

 

14 Behold, they shall all be burned like sticks upon a fire, and they shall not deliver their soul from the flame; for you have coals of fire—sit upon them.

 

15 These shall be your help; you have grown weary in your trading from your youth; each man has gone astray on his own, and there shall be no salvation for you.

 

Chapter 48

 

1 Hear these things, O house of Jacob, you who are called by the name of Israel and who have come forth from Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord God of Israel, making mention of him not in truth nor in righteousness,

 

2 and holding fast to the name of the holy city and leaning upon the God of Israel—the Lord of hosts is his name.

 

3 The former things I declared long ago, and they went forth from my mouth and became known; suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.

 

4 I know that you are stubborn, and your neck is an iron sinew, and your forehead bronze.

 

5 And I declared them to you of old; before they came upon you I made them known to you, lest you should say, "My idols did them," and lest you should say, "The carved and the molten images commanded me."

 

6 You have heard all things, and you did not know; but I have also made known to you the new things from now on, which are about to come to pass, and you did not speak.

 

7 Now they come to pass, and not of old, nor in former days did you hear them; do not say, "Yes, I know them."

 

8 You neither knew nor understood, nor from the beginning did I open your ears; for I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that you would be called lawless even from the womb.

 

9 For my name's sake I will show you my wrath, and I will bring my glorious deeds upon you, that I may not destroy you utterly.

 

10 Behold, I have sold you, but not for silver, and I have delivered you out of the furnace of poverty.

 

11 For my own sake I will do this for you, because my name is being profaned, and my glory I will not give to another.

 

12 Hear me, O Jacob, and Israel whom I call: I am the first, and I am forever,

 

13 and my hand founded the earth, and my right hand made firm the heaven; I will call them, and they shall stand together,

 

14 and they shall all be gathered and shall hear. Who has declared these things to them? Loving you, I have done your will against Babylon, to take away the seed of the Chaldeans.

 

15 I have spoken, I have called; I brought him and made his way prosperous.

 

16 Draw near to me and hear these things: not from the beginning have I spoken in secret, nor in a dark place of the earth; when it came to pass, I was there, and now the Lord has sent me and his Spirit.

 

17 Thus says the Lord who redeemed you, the Holy One of Israel: I am your God; I have shown you how to find the way in which you shall walk.

 

18 And if you had listened to my commandments, your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like a wave of the sea;

 

19 and your seed would have been like the sand, and the offspring of your womb like the dust of the earth; nor even now shall you by any means be utterly destroyed, nor shall your name perish before me.

 

20 Go forth from Babylon, fleeing from the Chaldeans; proclaim a voice of gladness, and let this be made known; declare it to the end of the earth; say, "The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob."

 

21 And if they thirst, he will lead them through the desert; he will bring forth water for them out of the rock; the rock shall be split, and water shall flow, and my people shall drink.

 

22 There is no rejoicing for the ungodly, says the Lord.

 

Chapter 49

 

1 Listen to me, islands, and pay attention, nations: after a long time it shall stand, says the Lord. From my mother's womb he called my name,

 

2 and he made my mouth like a sharp sword, and under the shelter of his hand he hid me; he made me like a chosen arrow, and in his quiver he sheltered me.

 

3 And he said to me, "You are my servant, Israel, and in you I shall be glorified."

 

4 And I said, "In vain have I labored, and for emptiness and for nothing have I given my strength; therefore my judgment is with the Lord, and my toil before my God."

 

5 And now thus says the Lord, who formed me from the womb as a servant for himself, to gather Jacob and Israel to him, I shall be gathered and glorified before the Lord, and my God shall be my strength

 

6 and he said to me, "It is a great thing for you to be called my servant, to establish the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the dispersion of Israel. Behold, I have set you as a covenant of a race, as a light of nations, that you may be for salvation to the end of the earth."

 

7 Thus says the Lord, who delivered you, the God of Israel: "Sanctify him who despises his life, who is abhorred by the nations, the servants of rulers; kings shall see him and shall rise up, rulers also, and they shall do obeisance to him for the sake of the Lord; for the Holy One of Israel is faithful, and I have chosen you."

 

8 Thus says the Lord: "In an acceptable time I heard you, and in a day of salvation I helped you, and I gave you as a covenant of nations, to establish the land and to inherit a desolate inheritance,

 

9 saying to those in bonds, 'Come out,' and to those in darkness to be uncovered. And on all their ways they shall be pastured, and on all the paths shall be their pasture;

 

10 they shall not hunger nor thirst, nor shall burning heat strike them, nor the sun, but he who has mercy on them shall comfort them, and through springs of waters he shall lead them;

 

11 and I will make every mountain a road, and every path a pasture for them.

 

12 Behold, these come from far away, these from the north and these from the sea, and others from the land of the Persians."

 

13 Rejoice, heavens, and let the earth exult; let the mountains break forth with gladness and the hills with righteousness, for God has had mercy on his people and has comforted the lowly of his people.

 

14 But Sion said, "The Lord has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me."

 

15 Will a woman forget her child, so as not to have mercy on the offspring of her womb? But even if a woman should forget these, yet I will not forget you, said the Lord.

 

16 Behold, on my hands I have painted your walls, and you are before me continually;

 

17 and quickly you shall be built up by those by whom you were pulled down, and those who made you desolate shall go out from you.

 

18 Lift up your eyes round about and see all: behold, they have been gathered and have come to you. As I live, says the Lord, you shall clothe yourself with them all and put them on like a bride's adornment.

 

19 For your desolate and ruined and fallen places shall now be too cramped because of the inhabitants, and those who devour you shall be far removed from you.

 

20 For your sons whom you have lost shall say in your ears, "The place is too narrow for me; make room for me that I may dwell."

 

21 And you shall say in your heart, "Who has borne me these? I was childless and a widow; and who has reared these for me? I was left alone; and these, where were they for me?"

 

22 Thus says the Lord: "Behold, I lift up my hand to the nations, and to the islands I will raise my signal, and they shall bring your sons in the bosom, and your daughters they shall lift on their shoulders,

 

23 and kings shall be your foster fathers, and their princesses your nurses; upon the face of the earth they shall do obeisance to you, and they shall lick the dust of your feet; and you shall know that I am the Lord, and you shall not be put to shame."

 

24 Shall anyone take spoils from a giant? And if anyone takes captives unjustly, shall he be saved?

 

25 Thus says the Lord: "If anyone takes a giant captive, he shall take spoils; and he who takes from a mighty one shall be saved. And I will judge your case, and I will deliver your sons;

 

26 and those who afflicted you shall eat their own flesh, and they shall drink their own blood like new wine and be drunk, and all flesh shall perceive that I am the Lord who delivered you and who upholds the strength of Jacob."

 

Chapter 50

 

1 Thus says the Lord: What is the bill of divorce of your mother, with which I sent her away? Or to which creditor have I sold you? Behold, for your sins you were sold, and for your iniquities I sent your mother away.

 

2 Why was it that I came and there was no man? I called and there was no one who answered. Is my hand not strong enough to redeem? Or have I no strength to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I will make the sea a desert and turn rivers into wastelands, and their fish will be dried up for lack of water and will die of thirst.

 

3 And I will clothe the heaven with darkness and make its covering like sackcloth.

 

4 The Lord gives me a tongue of instruction, to know in season when a word must be spoken; he set me early, he added to me an ear to hear;

 

5 and the instruction of the Lord opens my ears, and I do not disobey nor contradict.

 

6 I have given my back to scourges, and my cheeks to blows, and I did not turn my face away from the shame of spitting;

 

7 and the Lord became my helper; therefore I was not put to shame, but I set my face like solid rock, and I knew that I would not be disgraced.

 

8 For he who justified me draws near; who is it that contends with me? Let him stand up against me at once; and who is it that contends with me? Let him come near to me.

 

9 Behold, the Lord helps me; who will harm me? Behold, all of you will grow old like a garment, and a moth will devour you.

 

10 Who among you fears the Lord? Let him hear the voice of his servant. You who walk in darkness and have no light, trust in the name of the Lord and lean upon God.

 

11 Behold, all of you kindle a fire and strengthen a flame; walk by the light of your fire and by the flame that you have kindled. Because of me these things have come upon you; you will lie down in sorrow.

 

Chapter 51

 

1 Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and seek the Lord; look to the solid rock which you hewed, and to the hollow of the pit which you dug.

 

2 Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you in travail; for he was one, and I called him and blessed him and loved him and multiplied him.

 

3 And now I will comfort you, Zion; and I have comforted all her desert places, and I will make her desert places like a garden of the Lord; they shall find in her joy and exultation, thanksgiving and the voice of praise.

 

4 Listen to me, listen, my people, and you kings, give ear to me; for a law shall go forth from me, and my judgment for a light of the nations.

 

5 My righteousness draws near swiftly, and my salvation shall go forth as light, and in my arm shall the nations hope; the islands shall wait for me and shall hope in my arm.

 

6 Lift up your eyes to heaven and look upon the earth beneath; for the heaven was made firm as smoke, and the earth shall grow old like a garment, and those who dwell on the earth shall die like these things; but my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not fail.

 

7 Listen to me, you who know judgment, my people, in whose heart is my law: do not fear the reproach of men, and do not be overcome by their contempt.

 

8 For as a garment shall be eaten by time, and as wool shall be eaten by the moth; but my righteousness shall be forever, and my salvation to generations of generations.

 

9 Awake, awake, Jerusalem, and put on the strength of your arm; awake as in the beginning of days, as a generation of old. Are you not

 

10 she who dried up the sea, the abundant water of the deep? she who made the depths of the sea a way of passage for the rescued

 

11 and the redeemed? For by the Lord they shall be turned back, and they shall come to Zion with joy and everlasting exultation; for upon their head shall be exultation and praise, and joy shall take hold of them; pain and sorrow and groaning have fled away.

 

12 I am, I am he who comforts you; know whom you feared and dreaded—a mortal man and a son of man, who have withered like grass.

 

13 And you forgot God who made you, who made the heaven and founded the earth, and you feared continually all your days the face of the wrath of him who oppressed you; for just as he purposed to take you away—now where is the wrath of him who oppressed you?

 

14 For in your being saved he shall not stand still nor delay;

 

15 for I am your God, who stirs up the sea and makes its waves roar; the Lord Sabaoth is my name.

 

16 I will put my words into your mouth, and under the shadow of my hand I will shelter you, by which I set up the heaven and founded the earth; and Zion shall say, You are my people.

 

17 Awake, awake, arise, Jerusalem, who have drunk the cup of wrath from the hand of the Lord; for the cup of ruin, the goblet of wrath, you have drunk to the dregs and emptied.

 

18 And there was none to comfort you of all your children whom you bore, and there was none to take hold of your hand, not even of all your sons whom you raised up.

 

19 These two things are set against you, who shall grieve with you? ruin and destruction, famine and sword; who shall comfort you?

 

20 Your sons who are at a loss, who lie sleeping at the head of every street like a half-cooked beet, full of the wrath of the Lord, made faint by the Lord God.

 

21 Therefore hear, you who are humbled and drunk, but not with wine:

 

22 thus says the Lord God, who judges his people: Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of ruin, the goblet of wrath, and you shall not drink it again;

 

23 and I will put it into the hands of those who wronged you and those who humbled you, who said to your soul, Bow down, that we may pass over; and you laid your back level with the ground, outside, for those passing by.

 

Chapter 52

 

1 Awake, awake, Zion; put on your strength, Zion, and put on your glory, Jerusalem, the holy city; no longer shall the uncircumcised and unclean continue to pass through you.

 

2 Shake off the dust and arise; sit down, Jerusalem; take off the bond from your neck, O captive daughter Zion.

 

3 For thus says the Lord: You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money.

 

4 Thus says the Lord: My people went down at first into Egypt to sojourn there, and they were led away by force to the Assyrians.

 

5 And now, why are you here? Thus says the Lord: Because my people were taken for nothing, marvel and wail. Thus says the Lord: Because of you my name is continually blasphemed among the nations.

 

6 Therefore my people shall know my name in that day, that I am he who speaks: I am here,

 

7 like a season upon the mountains, like the feet of one bringing good news of a report of peace, like one bringing good news of good things; for I will make your salvation heard, saying, Zion, your God shall reign.

 

8 For the voice of those who guard you has been lifted up, and with the voice they shall rejoice together; for eyes shall see eye to eye when the Lord has mercy on Zion.

 

9 Let the desolate places of Jerusalem break forth in joy together, for the Lord has had mercy on her and has delivered Jerusalem.

 

10 And the Lord will reveal his holy arm before all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation that comes from God.

 

11 Depart, depart, go out from there, and touch no unclean thing; go out from her midst; be set apart, you who bear the vessels of the Lord.

 

12 For you shall not go out with tumult, nor shall you go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, and the Lord, the God of Israel, is the one who gathers you.

 

13 Behold, my servant shall understand and shall be exalted and glorified exceedingly.

 

14 Just as many shall be astonished at you, so shall your appearance be without glory from men, and your glory from men

 

15 so shall many nations marvel at him, and kings shall shut their mouths; for those to whom nothing was announced concerning him shall see, and those who have not heard shall understand.

 

Chapter 53

 

1 Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

 

2 We announced before him as a child, as a root in thirsty ground; he has no form nor glory. And we saw him, and he had no form nor beauty;

 

3 but his form was without honor, failing beyond all men, a man being in affliction and knowing how to bear sickness, because his face is turned away; he was dishonored and not esteemed.

 

4 This one bears our sins and suffers pain for us, and we accounted him to be in trouble and in affliction and in ill-treatment.

 

5 But he was wounded because of our lawless deeds and was made weak because of our sins; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; by his bruise we were healed.

 

6 All we like sheep have gone astray; each man has gone astray in his own way; and the Lord gave him over for our sins.

 

7 And he, because he has been ill-treated, does not open his mouth; like a sheep he was led to slaughter, and as a lamb is voiceless before the one shearing it, so he does not open his mouth.

 

8 In his humiliation his judgment was taken away; who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth; because of the lawless deeds of my people he was led to death.

 

9 And I will give the wicked for his burial and the rich for his death, because he committed no lawlessness, nor was deceit found in his mouth.

 

10 And the Lord wishes to cleanse him of the blow; if you give an offering for sin, your soul shall see a long-lived offspring; and the Lord wishes to take away

 

11 from the pain of his soul, to show him light and to form him with understanding, to justify the righteous one who serves many well; and he himself shall bear their sins.

 

12 Therefore he shall inherit many and shall divide the spoils of the strong, because his soul was given over to death, and he was counted among the lawless; and he himself bore the sins of many, and because of their sins he was given over.

 

Chapter 54

 

1 Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry out, you who are not in labor, for the children of the desolate one are more numerous than those of her who has a husband, for the Lord has said it.

 

2 Enlarge the place of your tent and of your curtains; fasten them, do not spare; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.

 

3 Spread out still to the right and to the left, and your offspring shall inherit nations, and you shall inhabit cities that have been made desolate.

 

4 Do not fear because you were put to shame, nor be ashamed because you were reproached; for you shall forget the shame of old, and the reproach of your widowhood you shall not remember at all.

 

5 For it is the Lord who makes you—the Lord Sabaoth is his name and he who delivered you, the God of Israel himself, shall be called so in all the earth.

 

6 Not as a woman forsaken and faint of heart has the Lord called you, nor as a woman hated from her youth, said your God.

 

7 For a little while I forsook you, and with great mercy I will have mercy on you;

 

8 in a little wrath I turned my face away from you, and with everlasting mercy I will have mercy on you, said the Lord who delivered you.

 

9 From the water at the time of Noah this is to me: just as I swore to him at that time that I would not be angry with the earth on your account any more, nor in threatening you,

 

10 that the mountains would be removed nor your hills be shaken, so neither shall my mercy toward you fail, nor shall the covenant of your peace by any means be removed; for the Lord has said, "I am gracious to you."

 

11 Humble and unsettled one, you were not comforted: behold, I prepare for you carbuncle as your stone and sapphire as your foundations,

 

12 and I will make your battlements jasper and your gates stones of crystal and your enclosing wall choice stones,

 

13 and all your sons taught of God, and your children in great peace.

 

14 And in righteousness you shall be built; keep away from injustice, and you shall not fear, and trembling shall not come near you.

 

15 Behold, proselytes shall come to you through me and shall take refuge with you.

 

16 Behold, I create you, not as a smith blowing on coals and bringing out a vessel for work; but I created you not for destruction, to destroy

 

17 every perishable vessel. Against you I will not prosper it, and every voice that shall rise up against you for judgment, you shall defeat them all, and those guilty toward you shall be condemned by it. There is an inheritance for those who serve the Lord, and you shall be righteous to me, says the Lord.

 

Chapter 55

 

1 You who thirst, go to the water, and as many of you as have no money, go, buy and drink, without money and without price, wine and fat.

 

2 Why do you pay money, and your labor not for satisfaction? Listen to me, and you shall eat good things, and your soul shall delight in good things.

 

3 Give heed with your ears and follow my ways; listen to me, and your soul shall live in good things; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, the sacred and faithful things of David.

 

4 Behold, I have given him as a testimony among the nations, a ruler and commander of nations.

 

5 Nations that did not know you shall call upon you, and peoples that do not know you shall flee to you for refuge, for the sake of your God, the Holy One of Israel, because he has glorified you.

 

6 Seek God, and when you find him, call upon him; and when he draws near to you,

 

7 let the impious man forsake his ways, and the lawless man his counsels, and let him turn to the Lord, and he shall obtain mercy, for he will abundantly forgive your sins.

 

8 For my counsels are not as your counsels, nor are my ways as your ways, says the Lord;

 

9 but as the heaven is distant from the earth, so is my way distant from your ways, and your thoughts from my mind.

 

10  For as when rain or snow comes down from heaven and shall not return until it has drenched the earth, and it brings forth and sprouts and gives seed to the sower and bread for food,

 

11 so shall my word be: whatever goes forth from my mouth shall not return until all that I have willed is accomplished, and I will prosper your ways and my commandments.

 

12 For you shall go out in gladness and be taught in joy; for the mountains and the hills shall leap forth, welcoming you with joy, and all the trees of the field shall clap with their branches,

 

13 and instead of the brier shall come up the cypress, and instead of the nettle shall come up the myrtle; and the Lord shall be for a name and for an everlasting sign, and it shall not fail.

 

Chapter 56

 

1 Thus says the Lord: Keep judgment, do righteousness; for my salvation has drawn near to come, and my mercy to be revealed.

 

2Blessed is the man who does these things, and the man who holds fast to them, and who keeps the sabbaths so as not to profane them, and who guards his hands so as not to do any wrong.

 

3  Let not the foreigner who attaches himself to the Lord say, "Surely the Lord will separate me from his people"; and let not the eunuch say, "I am a dry tree."

 

4 Thus says the Lord to the eunuchs: As many as keep my sabbaths and choose the things I will and hold fast to my covenant,

 

5 I will give them in my house and within my wall a renowned place, better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, and it shall not fail.

 

6 And to the foreigners who attach themselves to the Lord, to serve him and to love the name of the Lord, to be to him for male and female servants, and all those who keep my sabbaths so as not to profane them and who hold fast to my covenant,

 

7 I will bring them to my holy mountain and make them glad in the house of my prayer; their whole burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be acceptable upon my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations,

 

8 said the Lord, who gathers the dispersed of Israel, for I will gather to him a gathering.

 

9All you wild beasts, come, eat, all you beasts of the forest.

 

10 See that they have all been blinded; they have not known how to understand; they are all dumb dogs, unable to bark, dreaming in bed, loving to slumber.

 

11 And the dogs are shameless in soul, knowing no satiety; and they are evil, knowing no understanding; they have all followed their own ways, each after his own gain.

 

Chapter 57

 

1 See how the righteous man has perished, and no one takes it to heart; and righteous men are taken away, and no one considers. For the righteous man has been taken away from the presence of injustice;

 

2 his burial shall be in peace; he has been taken out of the midst.

 

3 But you, draw near here, you lawless sons, seed of adulterers and of a harlot.

 

4 In what did you take your delight? And against whom did you open your mouth? And against whom did you loose your tongue? Are you not children of destruction, a lawless seed,

 

5 you who call upon the idols under leafy trees, slaughtering your children in the ravines among the rocks?

 

6 That is your portion, this is your lot; and to them you poured out drink offerings, and to them you offered sacrifices. Shall I not, then, be angry at these things?

 

7 Upon a high and lofty mountain—there is your bed, and there you brought up sacrifices.

 

8 And behind the doorposts of your door you set your memorials; you thought that if you departed from me, you would have something more. You loved those who lay with you,

 

9 and you multiplied your fornication with them, and you made many those who were far from you, and you sent envoys beyond your borders, and you turned back and were brought low even to Hades.

 

10 You wearied yourself with your many journeys, and you did not say, "I will cease," gathering strength; because you did these things, therefore you did not entreat me.

 

11 Of whom were you wary and afraid, that you lied to me and did not remember me, nor took me into your thought nor into your heart? And I, though I see you, overlook it, and you did not fear me.

 

12 And I will declare my righteousness and your evils, which shall not profit you.

 

13 When you cry out, let them deliver you in your affliction; for the wind shall take all these, and a tempest shall carry them off. But those who hold fast to me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain.

 

14 And they shall say, "Clear the ways before his face, and remove the stumbling blocks from the way of my people."

 

15 Thus says the Lord, the Most High, who dwells on high forever, Holy among the holy ones is his name, the Lord Most High, resting among the holy ones and giving patience to the faint-hearted and giving life to those broken in heart:

 

16 "I will not take vengeance on you forever, nor will I be angry with you continually; for a spirit shall go forth from me, and I have made every breath.

 

17 Because of sin I grieved him for a little while, and I struck him and turned my face from him; and he was grieved, and he went sullen in his ways.

 

18 I have seen his ways and healed him and comforted him and gave him true comfort,

 

19 peace upon peace to those far and to those near." And the Lord said, "I will heal them."

 

20 But the unrighteous shall be tossed like waves and shall not be able to rest.

 

21 There is no rejoicing for the impious, said the Lord God.

 

Chapter 58

 

1 Cry aloud with strength and do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their sins, and to the house of Jacob their lawless deeds.

 

2 Day after day they seek me and desire to know my ways; like a people that has practiced righteousness and has not forsaken the judgment of its God, they now ask of me righteous judgment and desire to draw near to God,

 

3 saying, "Why is it that we fasted and you did not see? We humbled our souls and you did not know?" For in the days of your fasts you find your own pleasures, and you prod all those under your hand.

 

4 If you fast for quarrels and fights, and strike the lowly with fists, why do you fast for me as you do today, so that your voice may be heard in outcry?

 

5 Not this fast have I chosen, nor a day for a man to humble his soul; not even if you bend your neck like a ring and spread sackcloth and ashes beneath you—not even so shall you call it an acceptable fast.

 

6 Not such a fast have I chosen, says the Lord; but loose every bond of injustice, undo the knots of forced contracts, send away the broken with release, and tear apart every unjust document;

 

7 break your bread for the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; if you see someone naked, clothe him, and you shall not overlook those of your own seed.

 

8 Then your light shall break forth early, and your healings shall rise up quickly, and your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of God shall enfold you.

 

9 Then you shall cry out, and God will hear you; while you are still speaking, he will say, "Behold, I am here." If you remove from yourself the bond and the pointing of the finger and the word of murmuring,

 

10 and give bread to the hungry from your soul, and satisfy the humbled soul, then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as noonday.

 

11 And your God shall be with you continually; and you shall be satisfied as your soul desires, and your bones shall be made fat; and you shall be like a well-watered garden and like a spring whose water has not failed, and your bones shall spring up like grass and grow fat, and they shall inherit generations of generations.

 

12 And your ancient desolate places shall be built up, and your foundations shall be everlasting, for generations of generations; and you shall be called Builder of walls, and you shall make the paths in between to cease.

 

13 If you turn your foot away from the sabbaths, so as not to do your own pleasures on the holy day, and call the sabbaths delightful, holy to your God, you shall not lift your foot for work, nor speak a word in anger from your mouth,

 

14 and you shall trust in the Lord, and he shall bring you up to the good things of the land, and feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.

 

Chapter 59

 

1 Is the hand of the Lord not strong to save? Or has his ear grown heavy, so as not to hear?

 

2 Rather, your sins make a separation between you and God, and because of your sins he has turned his face away from you, so as not to show mercy.

 

3 For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with sins, and your lips have spoken lawlessness, and your tongue devises injustice.

 

4 No one speaks just things, nor is there true judgment; they trust in vain things and speak empty things, for they conceive trouble and give birth to lawlessness.

 

5 They have hatched the eggs of asps, and they weave a spider's web; and he who is about to eat of their eggs, having crushed them, found a rotten one, and in it a basilisk.

 

6 Their web shall not serve for a garment, nor shall they clothe themselves from their works; for their works are works of lawlessness.

 

7 And their feet run to wickedness, swift to shed blood; and their thoughts are the thoughts of fools; destruction and misery are in their ways.

 

8 And the way of peace they do not know, and there is no judgment in their ways; for their paths, along which they travel, are crooked, and they do not know peace.

 

9 Therefore judgment has departed from them, and righteousness shall not overtake them; while they waited for light, darkness came upon them; awaiting brightness, they walked in gloom.

 

10 They shall grope for the wall like the blind, and they shall grope as if they had no eyes; and they shall fall at midday as at midnight; like dying men they shall groan.

 

11 Like a bear and like a dove they shall go together; we waited for judgment, and there is none; salvation has departed far from us.

 

12 For our lawlessness is great before you, and our sins have stood up against us; for our lawless deeds are within us, and we have known our unjust deeds:

 

13 we have acted impiously and lied and turned away from following our God; we spoke unjust things and disobeyed; we conceived and meditated from our heart unjust words;

 

14 and we have thrust judgment behind us, and righteousness has stood far off, because truth has been consumed in their ways, and they could not pass along a straight path.

 

15 And truth has been taken away, and they have turned their mind away from understanding; and the Lord saw it, and it did not please him, that there was no judgment.

 

16 And he saw, and there was no man; and he considered, and there was no one to help; and he defended them with his arm, and he steadied himself with his mercy.

 

17 And he put on righteousness like a breastplate, and set the helmet of salvation upon his head, and clothed himself with a garment of vengeance and his cloak,

 

18 as one about to render recompense, reproach to his adversaries.

 

19 And those from the west shall fear the name of the Lord, and those from the rising of the sun his glorious name; for wrath from the Lord shall come like a violent river; it shall come with fury.

 

20 And the deliverer shall come for the sake of Zion, and he shall turn away impieties from Jacob.

 

21 And this is my covenant with them, said the Lord: my spirit, which is upon you, and the words which I have put into your mouth, shall not fail from your mouth and from the mouth of your seed, for the Lord has said it, from now and forever.

 

Chapter 60

 

1 Shine, shine, O Jerusalem, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

 

2 Behold, darkness and gloom shall cover the earth upon the nations; but upon you the Lord shall appear, and his glory shall be seen upon you.

 

3 And kings shall walk by your light, and nations by your brightness.

 

4 Lift up your eyes round about and see your children gathered together; behold, all your sons have come from afar, and your daughters shall be carried on shoulders.

 

5 Then you shall see and be afraid and be amazed in your heart, because the wealth of the sea and of nations and of peoples shall turn to you. And there shall come to you

 

6 herds of camels, and the camels of Midian and Gaipha shall cover you; all from Saba shall come bearing gold, and they shall bring frankincense, and they shall proclaim the good news of the salvation of the Lord.

 

7 And all the sheep of Kedar shall be gathered to you, and the rams of Nabaioth shall come to you, and acceptable offerings shall be brought up upon my altar, and my house of prayer shall be glorified.

 

8 Who are these that fly like clouds and like doves with their young?

 

9 The islands have waited for me, and the ships of Tharsis among the first, to bring your children from afar, and their silver and gold with them, because of the holy name of the Lord and because the Holy One of Israel is glorious.

 

10 And foreigners shall build your walls, and their kings shall stand by to serve you; for because of my wrath I struck you, and because of mercy I loved you.

 

11 And your gates shall be opened continually; day and night they shall not be shut, to bring in to you the power of nations and kings being led.

 

12 For the nations and the kings that will not serve you shall perish, and the nations shall be utterly laid waste.

 

13 And the glory of Lebanon shall come to you, with cypress and pine and cedar together, to glorify my holy place.

 

14 And the sons of those who humbled you and provoked you shall come to you in fear, and you shall be called City of the Lord, Sion of the Holy One of Israel.

 

15 Because you had become forsaken and hated, and there was no one to help, I will also make you an eternal exultation, a joy of generations to generations.

 

16 And you shall suck the milk of nations and shall eat the wealth of kings; and you shall know that I am the Lord who saves you and delivers you, the God of Israel.

 

17 And instead of bronze I will bring you gold, and instead of iron I will bring you silver, and instead of wood I will bring you bronze, and instead of stones, iron. And I will give your rulers in peace and your overseers in righteousness;

 

18 and injustice shall no longer be heard in your land, nor destruction nor misery within your borders, but your walls shall be called Salvation, and your gates Engraving.

 

19 And the sun shall not be for you a light by day, nor shall the rising of the moon give you light by night, but the Lord shall be for you an everlasting light, and God your glory.

 

20 For your sun shall not set, and your moon shall not fail; for the Lord shall be for you an everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be fulfilled.

 

21 And your people shall all be righteous, and they shall inherit the land forever, guarding the planting, the works of his hands, for glory.

 

22 The least shall become thousands, and the smallest a great nation; I the Lord will gather them in due time.

 

Chapter 61

 

1 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to heal the broken in heart, to proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind,

 

2 to announce the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of recompense, to comfort all who mourn,

 

3 that there be given to those who mourn in Zion glory instead of ashes, the oil of gladness to the mourners, a garment of glory instead of a spirit of despondency; and they shall be called generations of righteousness, the planting of the Lord for glory.

 

4 And they shall build the ancient wastes, they shall raise up what was formerly desolate; and they shall renew the desolate cities, laid waste for generations.

 

5 And strangers shall come, shepherding your sheep, and foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers;

 

6 but you shall be called priests of the Lord, ministers of God; you shall consume the strength of nations, and in their wealth you shall be admired.

 

7 Thus for a second time they shall inherit the land, and everlasting joy shall be upon their head.

 

8 For I am the Lord who loves righteousness and hates plunder gotten by injustice; and I will give their toil to the righteous, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

 

9 And their seed shall be known among the nations, and their offspring; everyone who sees them shall recognize them, that they are a seed blessed by God,

 

10 and they shall rejoice with gladness in the Lord. Let my soul exult in the Lord; for he has clothed me with the garment of salvation and the tunic of gladness; as on a bridegroom he has set a turban upon me, and as a bride he has adorned me with ornament.

 

11 And as the earth makes its flower grow, and as a garden its seeds, so the Lord will make righteousness and rejoicing spring up before all the nations.

 

Chapter 62

 

1 For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until my righteousness goes forth like light, and my salvation burns like a torch.

 

2 And the nations shall see your righteousness, and kings your glory, and you shall be called by your new name, which the Lord shall name.

 

3 And you shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

 

4 And you shall no longer be called Forsaken, and your land shall not be called Desolate; for you shall be called My Delight, and your land Inhabited.

 

5 And as a young man dwells with a virgin, so shall your sons dwell with you; and as a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, so shall the Lord rejoice over you.

 

6 And upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen all the day and all the night, who shall never be silent, making mention of the Lord.

 

7 For there is none like you, when he shall establish and make Jerusalem a boast upon the earth.

 

8 The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by the strength of his arm: I will no longer give your grain and your food to your enemies, nor shall foreign sons any longer drink your wine, for which you toiled;

 

9 but those who gather it shall eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather it shall drink it in my holy courts.

 

10 Go through my gates, and make a way for my people, and cast out the stones from the road; lift up a signal to the nations.

 

11 For behold, the Lord has made it heard to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your savior comes to you, having his own reward, and his work before his face.

 

12 And he shall call it a holy people, redeemed by the Lord; and you shall be called a city sought out, and not forsaken.

 

 

Chapter 63

 

1 Who is this that comes from Edom, with reddened garments from Bosor, so beautiful in his robe, in might with strength? I speak of righteousness and the judgment of salvation.

 

2 Why are your garments red, and your clothing as if from the treading of the winepress?

 

3 Full of the trodden grape; and of the nations there is no man with me, and I trampled them in wrath and crushed them like earth and brought their blood down to the ground.

 

4 For the day of recompense has come upon them, and the year of redemption is at hand.

 

5 And I looked, and there was no helper; and I considered, and no one gave aid; and my arm delivered them, and my wrath came upon them.

 

6 And I trampled them in my anger and brought their blood down to the ground.

 

7 I remembered the mercy of the Lord, the virtues of the Lord in all things wherein the Lord recompenses us; the Lord is a good judge to the house of Israel; he deals with us according to his mercy and according to the abundance of his righteousness.

 

8 And he said, Are they not my people, children who will surely not deal falsely? And he became to them salvation

 

9 out of all affliction. Not an envoy nor an angel, but the Lord himself saved them, because he loved them and spared them; he himself redeemed them and took them up and exalted them all the days of the age.

 

10 But they disobeyed and provoked his holy spirit; and he was turned toward them into enmity, and he himself made war against them.

 

11 And he remembered the days of old, he who brought up out of the earth the shepherd of the sheep. Where is he who put in them the holy spirit?

 

12 He who led Moses by the right hand, the arm of his glory? He prevailed over the water before him, to make for himself an everlasting name.

 

13 He led them through the deep, as a horse through the wilderness, and they did not grow weary.

 

14 And as cattle through a plain, a spirit came down from the Lord and guided them. Thus you led your people, to make for yourself a name of glory.

 

15 Turn from heaven and look from your holy house and glory. Where is your zeal and your strength? Where is the abundance of your mercy and your compassions, that you have borne with us?

 

16 For you are our father; for Abraham did not know us, and Israel did not acknowledge us, but you, Lord, are our father; deliver us; from the beginning your name is upon us.

 

17 Why have you made us stray, Lord, from your way? Why have you hardened our hearts so as not to fear you? Turn back for the sake of your servants, for the sake of the tribes of your inheritance,

 

18 that we may inherit a little of your holy mountain. Our adversaries have trampled your sanctuary.

 

19 We have become as at the beginning, when you did not rule over us, nor was your name called upon us. If you open the heaven, trembling from you will seize the mountains, and they will melt away,

 

Chapter 64

 

1 As wax melts before the fire. And fire shall burn up the adversaries, and the name of the Lord shall be made manifest among the adversaries; at your presence the nations shall be troubled.

 

2 When you do glorious deeds, trembling shall seize the mountains because of you.

 

3 From of old we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen a God besides you, and your works, which you will do for those who await mercy.

 

4 For it shall meet with those who do righteousness, and they shall remember your ways. Behold, you were angry, and we sinned; therefore we went astray.

 

5 And we all became as unclean, and all our righteousness as the rag of a woman set apart; and we have fallen away like leaves because of our lawless deeds, so the wind will carry us off.

 

6 And there is no one who calls upon your name and remembers to take hold of you; for you have turned your face away from us and have handed us over because of our sins.

 

7 And now, Lord, you are our father, and we are all clay, the work of your hands;

 

8 do not be exceedingly angry with us, and do not remember our sins at the appointed time. And now look upon us, for we are all your people.

 

9 The city of your holy one has become desolate; Sion has become like a desert, Jerusalem a curse.

 

10 The house, our holy place, and the glory which our fathers blessed, has been burned with fire, and all the glorious things have fallen in ruins.

 

11 And at all these things you held back, Lord, and kept silence, and humbled us exceedingly.

 

Chapter 65

 

1 I became manifest to those who did not seek me; I was found by those who did not inquire of me. I said, "Here I am," to the nation that did not call on my name.

 

2 I stretched out my hands all day long to a disobedient and contradicting people, who did not walk in a true way, but after their own sins.

 

3 This is the people who provoke me to my face continually; they sacrifice in the gardens and burn incense on bricks to demons, which do not exist;

 

4 and they sleep in tombs and in caves for the sake of dreams, they who eat the flesh of swine and the broth of sacrifices, all their vessels are defiled

 

5 who say, "Keep far from me; do not come near me, for I am pure." This is the smoke of my wrath; a fire burns in it all the days.

 

6 Behold, it is written before me: I will not be silent until I repay into their bosom

 

7 their sins and those of their fathers, says the Lord, who burned incense on the mountains and reproached me on the hills; I will repay their works into their bosom.

 

8 Thus says the Lord: As the grape is found in the cluster and they will say, "Do not destroy it, for the blessing of the Lord is in it," so will I do for the sake of the one who serves me; for his sake I will not destroy them all.

 

9 And I will bring forth the offspring from Jacob and from Judah, and it shall inherit my holy mountain, and my chosen ones and my servants shall inherit it and dwell there.

 

10 And in the forest there shall be folds for flocks, and the valley of Achor a resting place for herds for my people, who have sought me.

 

11 But you who have forsaken me and forget my holy mountain and prepare a table for the demon and fill a mixed cup for Fortune,

 

12 I will deliver you to the sword; you shall all fall in slaughter, because I called you and you did not obey, I spoke and you would not hear, and you did what was evil before me and chose what I did not wish.

 

13 Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, those who serve me shall eat, but you shall hunger; behold, those who serve me shall drink, but you shall thirst; behold, those who serve me shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame;

 

14 behold, those who serve me shall exult with gladness, but you shall cry out because of the pain of your heart, and you shall wail from a broken spirit.

 

15 For you shall leave your name for a satiation to my chosen ones, but the Lord will destroy you; and to those who serve him a new name shall be called,

 

16 which shall be blessed on the earth; for they shall bless the true God, and those who swear on the earth shall swear by the true God; for they shall forget their former affliction, and it shall not come up upon their heart.

 

17 For the heaven shall be new and the earth new, and they shall not remember the former things, nor shall they come upon their heart,

 

18 but they shall find gladness and exultation in her; for behold, I make Jerusalem an exultation and my people a gladness.

 

19 And I will exult over Jerusalem and rejoice over my people, and no more shall be heard in her the voice of weeping or the voice of crying.

 

20 And there shall not be there one untimely, nor an old man who shall not fill out his time; for the young man shall be a hundred years old, and the sinner who dies at a hundred years shall also be accursed.

 

21 And they shall build houses and themselves dwell in them, and they shall plant vineyards and themselves eat their produce;

 

22 and they shall not build and others dwell in them, and they shall not plant and others eat; for as the days of the tree of life shall be the days of my people; they shall wear out the works of their labors.

 

23 And my chosen ones shall not labor in vain, nor bear children for a curse, because they are offspring blessed by God, and their descendants shall be with them.

 

24 And it shall be that before they cry out, I will hear them; while they are still speaking, I will say, "What is it?"

 

25 Then wolves and lambs shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the serpent earth like bread; they shall not harm nor destroy on my holy mountain, says the Lord.

 

Chapter 66

 

1 Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is the footstool of my feet; what kind of house will you build for me? Or what kind of place for my rest?

 

2 For all these things my hand has made, and all these things are mine, says the Lord; and upon whom shall I look but upon the humble and quiet one who trembles at my words?

 

3 But the lawless man who sacrifices a calf to me is like one who kills a dog, and he who offers fine flour like one offering swine's blood, he who gives frankincense as a memorial like a blasphemer. And these have chosen their own ways and their abominations, which their soul desired,

 

4 and I will choose their mockeries and will repay them their sins; because I called them and they did not obey me, I spoke and they did not hear, and they did evil before me and chose what I did not wish.

 

5 Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word: say, our brothers, to those who hate us and abhor us, that the name of the Lord may be glorified and be seen in their joy, and they shall be put to shame.

 

6 A voice of crying from the city, a voice from the temple, the voice of the Lord rendering recompense to his adversaries.

 

7 Before she who was in labor gave birth, before the pain of the birth pangs came, she escaped and bore a male child.

 

8 Who has heard such a thing, and who has seen thus? Did the earth travail in one day, or was a nation born all at once? For Zion travailed and bore her children.

 

9 But I gave this expectation, and you did not remember me, said the Lord. Behold, did I not make her who bears and her who is barren? said God.

 

10 Rejoice, Jerusalem, and hold festival in her, all you who love her; rejoice with joy, all you who mourn over her,

 

11 that you may nurse and be filled from the breast of her consolation, that having sucked you may delight yourselves from the entrance of her glory.

 

12 For thus says the Lord: Behold, I turn toward them like a river of peace and like a torrent overflowing with the glory of nations; their children shall be carried on shoulders and comforted on knees.

 

13 As if a mother should comfort someone, so also I will comfort you, and in Jerusalem you shall be comforted.

 

14 And you shall see, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall spring up like grass; and the hand of the Lord shall be known to those who worship him, and he shall threaten those who disobey.

 

15 For behold, the Lord shall come like fire, and his chariots like a whirlwind, to render vengeance in wrath and rejection in a flame of fire.

 

16 For by the fire of the Lord all the earth shall be judged, and by his sword all flesh; many shall be slain by the Lord.

 

17 Those who sanctify and purify themselves for the gardens and eat swine's flesh in the porches, and the abominations and the mouse, shall be consumed together, said the Lord,

 

18 and I know their works and their reasoning. I am coming to gather all the nations and the tongues, and they shall come and see my glory.

 

19 And I will leave signs upon them, and I will send forth from them those who have been saved to the nations, to Tarshish and Put and Lud and Meshech and Tubal and to Greece and to the islands far away, who have not heard my name nor seen my glory, and they shall declare my glory among the nations.

 

20 And they shall bring your brothers from all the nations as a gift to the Lord, with horses and chariots, in litters of mules with sunshades, to the holy city Jerusalem, said the Lord, as the sons of Israel would bring to me their sacrifices with psalms into the house of the Lord.

 

21 And from them I will take for myself priests and Levites, said the Lord.

 

22 For as the new heaven and the new earth, which I make, remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your seed and your name stand.

 

23 And it shall be that month by month and sabbath by sabbath all flesh shall come before me to worship in Jerusalem, said the Lord.

 

24 And they shall go forth and see the limbs of the men who have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh.