Isaiah 29–30

WOE TO JERUSALEM

29Woe to Ariel, Ariel,

the city where David camped!^b

Continue year after year;

let the festivals recur.

²I will oppress Ariel,

and there will be mourning and crying,

and she will be to me like an Ariel.

³I will camp in a circle around you;

I will besiege you with earth ramps,

and I will set up my siege towers against you.

⁴You will be brought down;

you will speak from the ground,

and your words will come from low in the dust.

Your voice will be like that of a spirit from the ground;^c

your speech will whisper from the dust.

⁵Your many foes^B will be like fine dust,^d

and many of the ruthless, like blowing chaff.

Then suddenly, in an instant,^e

⁶you will be punished by the Lord of Armies

with thunder, earthquake, and loud noise,

storm, tempest, and a flame of consuming fire.^f

⁷All the many nations^g

going out to battle against Ariel—

all the attackers, the siege works against her,

and those who oppress her—

will then be like a dream, a vision in the night.^h

⁸It will be like a hungry one who dreams he is eating,

then wakes and is still hungry;

and like a thirsty one who dreams he is drinking,

then wakes and is still thirsty, longing for water.

So it will be for all the many nations

who go to battle against Mount Zion.

⁹Stop and be astonished;

blind yourselves and be blind!

They are drunk,^C but not with wine;

they stagger,^A but not with beer.ⁱ

¹⁰For the Lord has poured out on you

an overwhelming urge to^B sleep;ⁱ

he has shut your eyes (the prophets)

and covered your heads (the seers).^k

¹¹For you the entire vision will be like the words of a sealed document.^l If it is given to one who can read and he is asked to read it,^C he will say, “I can’t read it, because it is sealed.” ¹²And if the document is given to one who cannot read and he is asked to read it,^D he will say, “I can’t read.”

¹³The Lord said:

These people approach me with their speeches^m

to honor me with lip-service,^E

yet their hearts are far from me,

and human rules direct their worship of me.^F

¹⁴Therefore, I will again confound these people

with wonder after wonder.ⁿ

The wisdom of their wise will vanish,^o

and the perception of their perceptive will be hidden.

¹⁵Woe to those who go to great lengths

to hide their plans from the Lord.^p

They do their works in the dark,

and say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”^q

¹⁶You have turned things around,

as if the potter were the same as the clay.

How can what is made say about its maker,

“He didn’t make me”?^r

How can what is formed

say about the one who formed it,

“He doesn’t understand what he’s doing”?

¹⁷Isn’t it true that in just a little while

Lebanon will become an orchard,

and the orchard will seem like a forest?^s

¹⁸On that day the deaf will hear^a

the words of a document,

and out of a deep darkness

the eyes of the blind will see.

¹⁹The humble will have joy

after joy in the Lord,

and the poor people will rejoice^b

in the Holy One of Israel.^c

²⁰For the ruthless one will vanish,

the scorner will disappear,^d

and all those who lie in wait with evil intent

will be killed—

²¹those who, with their speech,

accuse a person of wrongdoing,

who set a trap for the one mediating at the city gate

and without cause deprive the righteous of justice.^e

²²Therefore, the Lord who redeemed Abraham^f says this about the house of Jacob:

Jacob will no longer be ashamed,

and his face will no longer be pale.

²³For when he sees his children,

the work of my hands within his nation,

they will honor my name,

they will honor the Holy One of Jacob^g

and stand in awe of the God of Israel.^h

²⁴Those who are confused will gain understanding,

and those who grumble will accept instruction.

CONDEMNATION OF THE EGYPTIAN ALLIANCE

30Woe to the rebellious children!ⁱ

This is the Lord’s declaration.

They carry out a plan,^j but not mine;

they make an alliance,

but against my will,

piling sin on top of sin.

²Without asking my advice

they set out to go down to Egypt^k

in order to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection

and take refuge in Egypt’s shadow.^l

³But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame,

and refuge in Egypt’s shadow your humiliation.^m

⁴For though his^A princes are at Zoanⁿ

and his messengers reach as far as Hanes,

⁵everyone will be ashamed

because of a people who can’t help.

They are of no benefit, they are no help;

they are good for nothing but shame and disgrace.^o

⁶A pronouncement^p concerning the animals of the Negev:^B

Through a land of trouble and distress,

of lioness and lion,

of viper and flying serpent,^q

they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys

and their treasures on the humps of camels,

to a people who will not help them.

⁷Egypt’s help is completely worthless;

therefore, I call her:

Rahab Who Just Sits.^r

⁸Go now, write it on a tablet in their presence

and inscribe it on a scroll;

it will be for the future,

forever and ever.

⁹They are a rebellious people,

deceptive children,^s

children who do not want to listen to the Lord’s instruction.

¹⁰They say to the seers, “Do not see,”

and to the prophets,

“Do not prophesy the truth to us.

Tell us flattering things.^t

Prophesy illusions.

¹¹Get out of the way!

Leave the pathway.

Rid us of the Holy One of Israel.”^u

¹²Therefore the Holy One of Israel says:

“Because you have rejected this message

and have trusted in oppression and deceit,

and have depended on them,

¹³this iniquity^v of yours will be

like a crumbling gap,

a bulge in a high wall

whose collapse will come in an instant—suddenly!

¹⁴Its collapse will be like the shattering

of a potter’s jar,^w crushed to pieces,

so that not even a fragment of pottery

will be found among its shattered remains—

no fragment large enough to take fire from a hearth

or scoop water from a cistern.”

¹⁵For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said:

“You will be delivered by returning and resting;

your strength will lie in quiet confidence.

But you are not willing.”

¹⁶You say, “No!

We will escape on horses”—

therefore you will escape!—

and, “We will ride on fast horses”—

but those who pursue you will be faster.^a

¹⁷One thousand will flee at the threat of one,^b

at the threat of five you will flee,

until you remain

like a solitary pole on a mountaintop

or a banner on a hill.

THE LORD’S MERCY TO ISRAEL

¹⁸Therefore the Lord is waiting to show you mercy,

and is rising up to show you compassion,^c

for the Lord is a just God.

All who wait patiently for him are happy.

¹⁹For people will live on Zion in Jerusalem. You will never weep again; he will show favor to you at the sound of your outcry; as soon as he hears, he will answer you. ²⁰The Lord will give you meager bread and water during oppression,^d but your Teacher^A will not hide any longer. Your eyes will see your Teacher, ²¹and whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.”^{e 22}Then you will defile your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, and call them filth.

²³Then he will send rain for your seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food, the produce of the ground, will be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle will graze in open pastures.^{f 24}The oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat salted fodder scattered with winnowing shovel^g and fork. ²⁵Streams flowing with water will be on every high mountain and every raised hill on the day of great slaughter when the towers fall. ²⁶The moonlight will be as bright as the sunlight, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter^h—like the light of seven days—on the dayⁱ that the Lord bandages his people’s injuries and heals the wounds he inflicted.^j

ANNIHILATION OF THE ASSYRIANS

²⁷Look! The name of the Lord

his anger burning and heavy with smoke.^A

His lips are full of fury,

and his tongue is like a consuming fire.

²⁸His breath is like an overflowing torrent^k

that rises to the neck.^l

He comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction

and to put a bridle on the jaws of the peoples

to lead them astray.^m

²⁹Your singing will be like that

on the night of a holy festival,

and your heart will rejoice

like one who walks to the music of a flute,

going up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the Rock of Israel.ⁿ

³⁰And the Lord will make the splendor of his voice heard

and reveal his arm^o striking in angry wrath

and a flame of consuming fire,

in driving rain, a torrent, and hailstones.

³¹Assyria will be shattered by the voice of the Lord.

He will strike with a rod.

³²And every stroke of the appointed^B staff

that the Lord brings down on him

will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres;

he will fight against him with brandished weapons.

³³Indeed! Topheth has been ready^p

for the king for a long time.

Its funeral pyre is deep and wide,

with plenty of fire and wood.

The breath of the Lord,^q like a torrent of burning sulfur,

kindles it.