Isaiah 17–23
Behold, Damascus is taken away cfrom being a city,
And it shall be a ruinous heap.
2 dThe cities of Aroer are forsaken:
They shall be for flocks,
Which eshall lie down, and efnone shall make them afraid.
3 gThe fortress also shall hcease from Ephraim,
And gthe kingdom from bDamascus, and the remnant of Syria:
They shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts.
4 And in that day it shall come to pass,
That gthe glory of Jacob shall be made thin,
And ithe fatness of his flesh shall wax lean.
5 And it shall be jas when the harvestman gathereth the corn,
And reapeth the ears with his arm;
And it shall be as he that gathereth ears in kthe valley of Rephaim.
6 lYet mngleaning grapes shall be left in it, mas the shaking of an olive tree,
oTwo or three berries in the top of pthe uppermost bough,
qFour or five in rthe outmost fruitful branches thereof,
Saith the Lord God of Israel.
7 At that day shall a man look to shis Maker,
And his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel.
8 And he shall not look to the altars, tthe work of his hands,
Neither shall respect that which his fingers have made,
Either uvthe groves, or the ||vimages.
9 In that day shall his strong cities be
As a forsaken wbough, and pan uppermost branch,
xWhich they left because of the children of Israel:
And there shall be desolation.
10 Because thou hast forgotten ythe God of thy salvation,
And hast not been mindful of zthe rock of thy strength,
Therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants,
And shalt set it with strange slips:
11 In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow,
And in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish:
But the harvest shall be ||a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
12 Woe to the ||multitude of many people,
Which bmake a noise like athe noise of the seas;
And to athe rushing of nations,
That make a rushing like athe rushing of ||cmighty waters!
13 aThe nations shall rush like athe rushing of many waters:
But God shall drebuke them, and they shall flee far off,
And shall be chased eas the chaff of the mountains before the wind,
And like ||fa rolling thing before gthe whirlwind.
14 And behold at eveningtide trouble;
And before the morning he is not.
hThis is the portion of them that spoil us,
And the lot of them that rob us.
18 *aWoe to the land shadowing bwith wings,
Which is beyond the rivers of cEthiopia:
2 dThat sendeth ambassadors by ethe sea,
Even in vessels of fbulrushes upon the waters, saying,
Go, ye gswift messengers,
To ha nation ||scattered and jpeeled,
hTo a people terrible kfrom their beginning hitherto;
||†hA nation meted out and trodden down,
||hWhose land the rivers have spoiled!
3 All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth,
See ye, when he nlifteth up an ensign on the mountains;
And when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye.
4 For so the Lord said unto me,
I will take my rest, and I will ||consider in omy dwelling place
Like a clear heat ||upon pherbs,
And like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.
5 For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect,
And qthe sour grape is ripening in qthe flower,
He shall both cut off the sprigs with rpruning hooks,
And take away and cut down sthe branches.
6 tThey shall be left together unto uthe fowls of the mountains,
And to the beasts of the earth:
And uthe fowls shall summer upon them,
And all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.
7 In that time vshall the present be brought unto the Lord of hosts
Of ha people ||scattered and peeled,
And from ha people terrible from their beginning hitherto;
hA nation meted out and trodden under foot,
hWhose land the rivers have spoiled,
To the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the mount Zion.
Behold, cthe Lord rideth upon a dswift cloud, and shall come into Egypt:
And dthe idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence,
And ethe heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.
2 And I will †set the Egyptians against the Egyptians:
And they shall fight every one against his brother, and fevery one against his neighbour;
City against city, and kingdom against kingdom.
3 And the spirit of Egypt †shall fail in the midst thereof;
And I will †destroy the counsel thereof:
And they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers,
And to gthem that have familiar spirits, and to gthe wizards.
4 And the Egyptians will I ||give over into the hand of ha cruel lord;
And ha fierce king shall rule over them,
Saith ithe Lord, the Lord of hosts.
5 And the waters shall jfail from kthe sea,
And lthe river mshall be wasted and dried up.
6 And they shall turn the rivers far away;
And nthe brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up:
The reeds and oflags shall pwither.
7 The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks,
And every thing sown by the brooks,
Shall wither, ppbe driven away, †and be no more.
8 qThe fishers also shall mourn,
And all they that cast rangle into the brooks shall lament,
And they that spread nets upon the waters sshall languish.
9 Moreover they that work in tfine flax,
And they that weave ||networks, shall be confounded.
10 And they shall be broken in the †purposes thereof,
All that make sluices and ponds †for fish.
11 Surely the princes of uZoan are fools,
The counsel of the wise counsellers of Pharaoh vis become brutish:
How say ye unto Pharaoh, vvI am the son of the wise,
wThe son of ancient kings?
12 xWhere are they? where are thy wise men?
And let them tell thee now,
And let them know what the Lord of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt.
13 The princes of uZoan are become fools,
xThe princes of yNoph are deceived;
They have also zseduced Egypt, even ||†they that are the stay of the tribes thereof.
14 The Lord hath mingled †a perverse spirit in the midst thereof:
And they have zcaused Egypt to err in every work thereof,
aAs a drunken man zstaggereth in his vomit.
15 Neither shall there be any work for Egypt,
Which bthe head or tail, bbranch or rush, may do.
16 cIn that day shall Egypt dbe like unto women:
And it shall be afraid and fear
Because of ethe shaking of the hand of the Lord of hosts,
eWhich he shaketh over it.
17 And the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt,
Every one that maketh mention thereof shall be afraid in himself,
Because of the counsel of the Lord of hosts,
Which he hath determined against it.
18 cIn that day shall ffive cities in the land of Egypt
gSpeak †the language of Canaan,
And swear to the Lord of hosts;
One shall be called, The city ||of idestruction.
19 cIn that day shall there be kan altar to the Lord lin the midst of the land of Egypt,
And ka pillar at the border thereof to the Lord.
20 And it shall be for a sign and mfor a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt:
For nthey shall cry unto the Lord because of the oppressors,
And he shall send them noa saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them.
21 And the Lord shall be known to Egypt,
And lthe Egyptians shall know the Lord cin that day,
And shall do sacrifice and poblation;
Yea, qthey shall vow a vow unto the Lord, and perform it.
22 And the Lord shall smite Egypt: rhe shall smite and heal it:
And they shall return even to the Lord, and she shall be intreated of them, and shall heal them.
23 cIn that day tshall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria,
And the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria,
And the Egyptians shall serve uwith the Assyrians.
24 cIn that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria,
Even a blessing in the midst of the land:
25 Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying,
Blessed be Egypt xmy people,
And Assyria ythe work of my hands,
And Israel zmine inheritance.
20 In the year that aTartan came unto bAshdod, (when cSargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it; 2 At the same time spake the Lord †by dIsaiah the son of Amoz, saying,
Go and loose ethe sackcloth from off thy loins,
And put off thy shoe from thy foot.
And he did so, walking fnaked and gbarefoot. 3 And the Lord said,
Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked fnaked and gbarefoot
hThree years for ia sign and wonder
Upon Egypt and upon jEthiopia;
4 So shall kthe king of Assyria lead away †the Egyptians prisoners, and the jlEthiopians captives,
Young and old, fnaked and gbarefoot,
Even mwith their buttocks uncovered,
To the †shame of Egypt.
5 And nthey shall be afraid and ashamed oof jEthiopia their expectation,
And pof Egypt their glory.
6 And the inhabitant of this ||isle shall say in that day,
Behold, such is our expectation,
Whither we flee for help
To be delivered from the king of Assyria:
And how shall we escape?
21The aburden of bthe desert of cthe sea.
As dwhirlwinds in the south pass through;
So eit cometh from the desert, from a terrible land.
2 A †grievous vision is declared unto me;
fgThe treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and fthe spoiler spoileth.
Go up, hO Elam: besiege, iO Media;
All the sighing thereof khave I made to cease.
3 Therefore lare my loins filled with pain:
mPangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travaileth:
I was nbowed down at the hearing of it;
I was dismayed at the seeing of it.
4 ||My heart panted, ofearfulness affrighted me:
pThe night of my qpleasure hath he †turned into fear unto me.
5 rPrepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink:
Arise, ye princes, and sanoint the shield.
6 For thus hath the Lord said unto me,
Go, set a watchman,
Let him declare what he seeth.
7 And he saw ta chariot with ua couple of horsemen,
A chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels;
And he hearkened vdiligently with much vheed:
8 And ||he cried, A lion:
My lord, wI stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime,
And wI am set in my ward ||whole nights:
9 And, behold, here cometh ta chariot of men, with ua couple of horsemen.
And he answered and said,
xBabylon is fallen, is fallen;
And yall the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.
10 O my zthreshing, and the †corn of amy floor:
That which I have heard of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
Have I declared unto you.
He calleth to me out of dSeir,
Watchman, what of the night?
Watchman, what of the night?