Isaiah 29–30

The Siege of Jerusalem

29Ah, Ariel, Ariel,

the city ^fwhere David encamped!

Add year to year;

let the feasts run their round.

²Yet I will distress Ariel,

and there shall be moaning and lamentation,

and she shall be to me like an Ariel.¹

^3gAnd I will encamp against you all around,

and will besiege you ^hwith towers

and I will raise siegeworks against you.

⁴ⁱAnd you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak,

and from the dust your speech will be bowed down;

your voice shall come from the ground like ^jthe voice of a ghost,

and from the dust your speech shall whisper.

⁵But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like ^ksmall dust,

and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff.

^lAnd in an instant, suddenly,

^6myou will be visited by the Lord of hosts

with thunder and with earthquake and great noise,

with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.

⁷And ⁿthe multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,

all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her,

shall be ^olike a dream, a vision of the night.

^8pAs when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating,

and awakes with his hunger not satisfied,

or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking,

and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched,

so shall the multitude of all the nations be

that fight against Mount Zion.

⁹Astonish yourselves² and be astonished;

blind yourselves and be blind!

Be drunk,³ but not with wine;

^rstagger,⁴ but not with strong drink!

^10sFor the Lord has poured out upon you

a spirit of deep sleep,

and has closed your eyes (the prophets),

and covered your heads (the seers).

¹¹And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is ^tsealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” ¹²And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.”

¹³And the Lord said:

“Because ^uthis people ^vdraw near with their mouth

and honor me with their lips,

while their hearts are far from me,

and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,

¹⁴therefore, behold, ^wI will again

do wonderful things with this people,

with wonder upon wonder;

and ^xthe wisdom of their wise men shall perish,

and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”

¹⁵Ah, ^yyou who hide deep from the Lord your counsel,

whose deeds are ^zin the dark,

and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”

^16aYou turn things upside down!

Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,

that the thing made should say of its maker,

“He did not make me”;

or the thing formed say of him who formed it,

“He has no understanding”?

¹⁷Is it not yet a very little while

^buntil Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,

and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?

¹⁸In that day ^cthe deaf shall hear

^dthe words of a book,

and out of their gloom and darkness

^ethe eyes of the blind shall see.

^19fThe meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,

and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.

²⁰For the ruthless shall come to nothing

and ^gthe scoffer cease,

and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off,

²¹who by a word make a man out to be an offender,

and ^hlay a snare for him who reproves in the gate,

and with an empty plea ⁱturn aside him who is in the right.

²²Therefore thus says the Lord, ^jwho redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:

“Jacob shall no more be ashamed,

no more shall his face grow pale.

²³For when he sees his children,

^kthe work of my hands, in his midst,

they will sanctify my name;

^lthey will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob

and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.

²⁴And those ^mwho go astray in spirit will come to understanding,

and those who murmur will accept instruction.”

Do Not Go Down to Egypt

30“Ah, ⁿstubborn children,” declares the Lord,

^o“who carry out a plan, but not mine,

and who make ^pan alliance,¹ but not of my Spirit,

that they may add sin to sin;

^2qwho set out to go down to Egypt,

without asking for my direction,

to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh

and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!

^3rTherefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame,

and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.

⁴For though his officials are at ^sZoan

and ^this envoys reach ^uHanes,

⁵everyone comes to shame

through ^va people that cannot profit them,

that brings neither help nor profit,

but shame and disgrace.”

⁶An ^woracle on ^xthe beasts of ^ythe Negeb.

Through a land of trouble and anguish,

from where come the lioness and the lion,

the adder and the ^zflying fiery serpent,

they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys,

and their treasures on the humps of camels,

to a people that cannot profit them.

⁷Egypt’s ^ahelp is worthless and empty;

therefore I have called her

^b“Rahab who sits still.”

A Rebellious People

⁸And now, go, ^cwrite it before them on a tablet

and inscribe it in a book,

that it may be for the time to come

as a witness forever.²

^9dFor they are a rebellious people,

lying children,

children unwilling to hear

the instruction of the Lord;

^10ewho say to ^fthe seers, “Do not see,”

and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right;

speak to us ^gsmooth things,

prophesy illusions,

¹¹leave the way, turn aside from the path,

let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”

¹²Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel,

“Because you despise this word

and trust in ^hoppression and perverseness

and rely on them,

¹³therefore this iniquity shall be to you

ⁱlike a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse,

whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;

¹⁴and its breaking is ^jlike that of a potter’s vessel

that is smashed so ruthlessly

that among its fragments not a shard is found

with which to take fire from the hearth,

or to dip up water out of the cistern.”

¹⁵For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,

“In ^kreturning³ and ^lrest you shall be saved;

in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

But you were unwilling, ¹⁶and you said,

“No! We will flee upon ^mhorses”;

therefore you shall flee away;

and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”;

therefore your pursuers shall be swift.

¹⁷ⁿA thousand shall flee at the threat of one;

at the threat of five you shall flee,

till you are left

like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,

like a signal on a hill.

The Lord Will Be Gracious

¹⁸Therefore the Lord ^owaits to be gracious to you,

and therefore he ^pexalts himself to show mercy to you.

For the Lord is a God of justice;

^qblessed are all those who wait for him.

¹⁹For a people shall dwell ^rin Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. ²⁰And though the Lord give you the ^sbread of adversity and the ^swater of affliction, ^tyet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. ^21uAnd your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is ^vthe way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. ²²Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. ^wYou will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”

^23xAnd he will give ^yrain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. ^zIn that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, ²⁴and ^athe oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. ²⁵And ^bon every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, ^cwhen the towers fall. ^26dMoreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when ^ethe Lord binds up ^fthe brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.

²⁷Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar,

burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke;⁴

his lips are full of fury,

and his tongue is like a devouring fire;

^28ghis breath is ^hlike an overflowing stream

that reaches up to the neck;

to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction,

and to place on the jaws of the peoples ⁱa bridle that leads astray.

²⁹You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, ^jas when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to ^kthe mountain of the Lord, to ^lthe Rock of Israel. ³⁰And the Lord ^mwill cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger ⁿand a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst ^oand storm and hailstones. ³¹The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord, ^pwhen he strikes with his rod. ³²And every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord lays on them ^qwill be to the sound of tambourines and lyres. ^rBattling with brandished arm, he will fight with them. ³³For ^sa burning place⁵ has long been prepared; indeed, for the king it is made ready, ^tits pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; ^uthe breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.