Isaiah 47–49

Chapter 47

¹Come down and sit in the dust, virgin-daughter of Babylon! Sit on the ground, —there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. ²Take the millstones, and grind meal; remove thy veil, lift up the train, uncover the leg, pass over rivers: ³thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will meet none to stay me. … ⁴Our Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. … ⁵Sit silent, and get thee into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called, Mistress of kingdoms. ⁶I was wroth with my people, I polluted mine inheritance, and gave them into thy hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the aged didst thou very heavily lay thy yoke;

⁷and thou saidst, I shall be a mistress for ever; so that thou didst not take these things to heart, thou didst not remember the end thereof. ⁸And now hear this, thou voluptuous one, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thy heart, It is I, and there is none but me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know loss of children: ⁹yet these two things shall come upon thee in a moment, in one day, loss of children and widowhood; they shall come upon thee in full measure for the multitude of thy sorceries, for the great abundance of thine enchantments. ¹⁰For thou hast confided in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath seduced thee; and thou hast said in thy heart, It is I, and there is none but me. ¹¹But evil shall come upon thee—thou shalt not know from whence it riseth; and mischief shall fall upon thee, which thou shalt not be able to ward off; and desolation that thou suspectest not shall come upon thee suddenly. ¹²Stand now with thine enchantments and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to turn them to profit, if so be thou mayest cause terror. ¹³Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the interpreters of the heavens, the observers of the stars, who predict according to the new moons what shall come upon thee, stand up, and save thee. ¹⁴Behold, they shall be as stubble, the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it. ¹⁵Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, they that trafficked with thee from thy youth: they shall wander every one to his own quarter; there is none to save thee.

Chapter 48

¹Hear ye this, house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of Jehovah, and make mention of the God of Israel, not in truth, nor in righteousness. ²For they are named after the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel: Jehovah of hosts is his name. ³I have declared the former things long ago; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I caused them to be heard: I wrought suddenly, and they came to pass. ⁴Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass, ⁵so I have long ago declared them to thee; before they came to pass I caused thee to hear them; lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, or my molten image hath commanded them. ⁶Thou heardest, see all this; —and ye, will not ye declare it? I have caused thee to hear new things from this time, and things hidden, and that thou knewest not: ⁷they are created now, and not long ago; and before this day thou hast not heard them, lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them. ⁸Yea, thou heardest not, yea, thou knewest not, yea, from of old thine ear was not opened; for I knew that thou wouldest ever deal treacherously, and thou wast called a transgressor from the womb.

⁹For my name’s sake I will defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain as to thee, that I cut thee not off. ¹⁰Behold, I have refined thee, but not as silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. ¹¹For mine own sake, for mine own sake, will I do it; for how should my name be profaned? and I will not give my glory unto another. ¹²Hearken unto me, Jacob, and thou Israel, my called. I am HE; I, the first, and I, the last. ¹³Yea, my hand hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spread abroad the heavens: I call unto them, they stand up together. ¹⁴All ye, gather yourselves together, and hear: which among them hath declared these things? He whom Jehovah hath loved shall execute his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans. ¹⁵I, even I, have spoken; yea, I have called him; I have brought him, and his way shall be prosperous.

¹⁶Come near unto me, hear ye this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I; and now the Lord Jehovah hath sent me, and his Spirit. ¹⁷Thus saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am Jehovah thy God, who teacheth thee for thy profit, who leadeth thee in the way that thou shouldest go. ¹⁸Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! Then would thy peace have been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea; ¹⁹and thy seed would have been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof: their name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me. ²⁰Go ye forth from Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing; declare, cause this to be heard, utter it to the end of the earth; say ye, Jehovah hath redeemed his servant Jacob. ²¹And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts; he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them; yea, he clave the rock, and the waters gushed out. ²²There is no peace, saith Jehovah, unto the wicked.

Chapter 49

¹Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye peoples from afar. Jehovah hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. ²And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword, he hath concealed me under the shadow of his hand, and he hath made me a polished shaft: in his quiver hath he hidden me. ³And he said unto me, Thou art my servant, Israel, in whom I will glorify myself. ⁴—And I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in vain; nevertheless my judgment is with Jehovah, and my work with my God. ⁵And now, saith Jehovah, that formed me from the womb to be his servant, that I should bring Jacob again to him; (though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorified in the eyes of Jehovah, and my God shall be my strength;) ⁶—and he saith, It is a small thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel; I have even given thee for a light of the nations, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

⁷Thus saith Jehovah, the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to the servant of rulers: Kings shall see and arise, princes, and they shall worship, because of Jehovah who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who hath chosen thee. ⁸Thus saith Jehovah: In a time of acceptance have I answered thee, and in the day of salvation have I helped thee; and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the land, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages; ⁹saying to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pasture shall be on all bare hills. ¹⁰They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor sun smite them; for he that hath mercy on them will lead them, and by the springs of water will he guide them. ¹¹And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be raised up. ¹²Behold, these shall come from afar; and behold, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.

¹³Shout, ye heavens; and be joyful, thou earth; and break forth into singing, ye mountains: for Jehovah hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted ones. ¹⁴But Zion said, Jehovah hath forsaken me, and the Lord hath forgotten me. ¹⁵Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Even these forget, but I will not forget thee. ¹⁶Lo, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. ¹⁷Thy sons shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that laid thee waste shall go forth from thee.

¹⁸Lift up thine eyes round about and behold: they all gather themselves together, they come to thee. As I live, saith Jehovah, thou shalt indeed clothe thee with them all as with an ornament, and bind them on as a bride doth. ¹⁹For in thy waste and thy desolate places, and thy destroyed land, thou shalt even now be too straitened by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. ²⁰The children of thy bereavement shall yet say in thine ears, The place is too narrow for me: make room for me, that I may dwell. ²¹And thou shalt say in thy heart, Who hath borne me these, seeing I had lost my children and was desolate, an exile, and driven about? and who hath brought up these? behold, I was left alone; these, where were they? ²²Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and set up my banner to the peoples; and they shall bring thy sons in their bosom, and thy daughters shall be carried upon the shoulder. ²³And kings shall be thy nursing-fathers, and their princesses thy nursing-mothers: they shall bow down to thee with the face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet. And thou shalt know that I am Jehovah; for they shall not be ashamed who wait on me.

²⁴Shall the prey be taken from the mighty? and shall he that is rightfully captive be delivered? ²⁵For thus saith Jehovah: Even the captive of the mighty…