Isaiah 29–30

Woe to Jerusalem

29Ah! Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped!

Add year to year,

let festivals recur.

²Yet^a I will inflict Ariel,

and there shall be mourning and lamentation,

and it shall be to me like an altar hearth.^b

³And I will encamp in a circle^c against you,

and I will lay siege to you with towers^d

and I will raise up siegeworks against you.

⁴Then^e you shall be low;

you shall speak from the earth,

and your words^f will be low, from dust.

And your voice will be from the earth, like a ghost,

and your word will whisper from the dust.

⁵But^g the multitude of your strangers shall be like fine dust,

and the multitude of tyrants like chaff that passes by.

And it will happen in an instant, suddenly.

⁶You will be punished by Yahweh of hosts

with thunder and earthquake and great sound,

storm wind and tempest and the flame of a devouring fire.

⁷And the multitude of all the nations who fight against Ariel,

all those who fight against her and her stronghold,

and those who inflict her shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.

⁸And it shall be as when the hungry person dreams—look, he is eating!

And he wakes up and his inner self is empty.

Or^h as when the thirsty person dreams—look, he is drinking!

And he wakes up and look, he is faint,

and his inner self is longing for water.

So shall be the multitude of all the nations who fight against Mount Zion.

⁹Be astonished and be amazed!

Blind yourselves and be blinded!

They are drunk butⁱ not from wine;

they stagger but^j not from strong drink.

¹⁰For Yahweh has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep,

and he has shut your eyes, the prophets,

and he has covered your heads, the seers.

¹¹And the vision of all this has become for you like the words of a sealed document. When they give it to one who knows the^k document, saying, “Read^l this now!” He says, “I am not able, for it is sealed.” ¹²And if the document is given to one who does not know how to read,^m saying, “Readⁿ this now!” he says, “I do not know how to read.”^o

¹³And the Lord said,

“Because this people draw near with its mouth,

and with its lips it honors me,

and its heart is far from me,

and their fear of me is a commandment of men that has been taught,

¹⁴therefore look, I am again doing something spectacular

and a spectacle with this spectacular people.

And the wisdom of its wise men shall perish,

and the discernment of its discerning ones shall keep itself hidden.”

¹⁵Ah! Those who make a plan deep, to hide it from Yahweh,

and their deeds are^p in a dark place.

And they say, “Who sees us?

And who knows us?”

¹⁶Your perversity!

As if a potter^q shall be regarded as the clay!

That the product of its maker says,

“He did not make me,”

and the thing made into shape says of its potter,^r

“He has no understanding.”

Blessing after Punishment

¹⁷In a very little while^s shall not Lebanon change into a fruitful land,

and the fruitful land be regarded as a forest?

¹⁸And on that day, the deaf shall hear the words of a scroll,

and the eyes of the blind shall see out of gloom and darkness.

¹⁹And the meek have joy after joy^t in Yahweh,

and the needy of the people shall rejoice in the holy one of Israel.

²⁰For the tyrant shall be no more,

and the scoffer shall come to an end.

And all those lying in wait for evil shall be cut off;

²¹those who mislead a person into sin with a word

and set a trap for the arbitrator^u in the gate

and guide away the righteous by emptiness.

²²Therefore Yahweh, who redeemed Abraham, says this to the house of Jacob:

“Jacob will no longer be ashamed,

and his face will no longer grow pale.

²³For when he sees his children,

the work of my hands, in his midst,

they will treat my name as holy,

and they will treat the holy one of Jacob as holy,

and they will stand in awe of the God of Israel.

²⁴And those who err in spirit will acquire^v understanding,

and those who grumble will learn instruction.

Warning against Alliance with Egypt

30“Oh rebellious children!” declares^a Yahweh,

“to make a plan, but^b not from me,

and pour out a libation, but^c not from my Spirit,

so as to add^d sin to sin.

²Who go to go down to Egypt,

but^e they do not ask of my mouth,

to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh

and to take refuge in the shadow of Egypt.

³And the protection of Pharaoh shall be shame to you,

and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt, humiliation.

⁴For his officials are at Zoan,

and his envoys reach to Hanes.

⁵Everyone will start to stink because of a people that cannot profit them,

not for help and not for profiting,

but for shame and also for disgrace.”

Oracle regarding the Negev

⁶An oracle of the animals of the Negev:

Through a land of trouble and distress,

of lioness and lion,

among^f them are snake and flying serpent;

they carry their wealth on the backs^g of male donkeys

and their treasures on the humps^h of camels,

to a people that cannot profit them.

⁷Forⁱ Egyptians^j help with vanity and emptiness,

therefore I have called this one “Rahab, they are sitting.”

⁸Now go, write it on a tablet with them,

and inscribe it on a scroll,

that^k it may be for the time to come,^l

forever, forever.

⁹For it is a people of rebellion, deceitful children,

children who are not willing to hear the instruction of Yahweh,

¹⁰who say to those who do see, “You must not see!”

and to the seers, “You must not see truth for us;

speak smooth things to us,

see illusions,

¹¹turn aside from the way, turn aside from the path,

put an end to the holy one of Israel from our face.”

¹²Therefore the holy one of Israel says this:

“Because you are rejecting this word

and you trust in oppression and cunning^m

and you rely on it,

¹³therefore this iniquity shall come for you like a breach about to fall,

bulging out on a high wall that breaksⁿ suddenly, in an instant.

¹⁴And he breaks it like a vessel of a potter^o breaks,

that is crushed; he has no compassion,

and no potsherd is found among its fragments^p to take fire^q from the hearth,

or to skim^r water from the cistern.”

¹⁵For the Lord Yahweh, the holy one of Israel, said this:

“In returning and rest you shall be saved;

your strength shall be in quietness and in trust.”

But^s you were not willing, ¹⁶and you said,

“No! For we will flee on horses!”^t Therefore you shall flee!

And, “We will ride on swift horses!”^u Therefore your pursuers shall be swift!

¹⁷One thousand because of^v a threat of one,

because^w of a threat of five you shall flee,

until you are left like a flagstaff on top^x of a mountain,

and like a signal on a hill.

Yahweh Will Show Mercy

¹⁸Therefore Yahweh waits to be gracious to you,

and therefore he will rise up to show you mercy,

for Yahweh is a God of justice;

blessed are all those who wait for him.

¹⁹For people will live in Zion;

in Jerusalem, you will surely not weep.

Surely he will be gracious to you;

when he hears the sound of your cry, he will answer you.

²⁰And the Lord will give you the bread of distress

and the water of oppression,

but^y your teachers will not hide themselves^z any longer.

And your eyes shall see^a your teachers.

²¹And your ears shall hear a word from behind you, saying,

“this is the way; walk in it,”

when you go to your right

and when you go to your left.

²²And you will defile the plating of your silver idols

and the covering of your gold image.

You will scatter them like contaminated things;^b

you will say to it, “Filth!”^c

²³And he will give rain for your seed with which you sow the ground,

and grain, the produce of the ground, and it will be rich and fertile.^d

On that day, your cattle will graze in broad pastures;^e

²⁴and the oxen and the donkeys that till^f the ground will eat fodder, sorrel

that has been winnowed with shovel and pitchfork.

²⁵And there will be streams on every high mountain and elevated hill,

watercourses of water, on a day of great slaughter, when towers fall.

²⁶And the light of the full moon will be like the light of the sun,

and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days,

on the day when Yahweh binds up the breakage of his people,

and he heals the wound of his blow.

Judgment against Assyria

²⁷Look! The name of Yahweh comes from afar,

burning with his anger and heaviness of cloud.

His lips are full of indignation,

and his tongue is like a devouring fire.

²⁸And his breath is like an overflowing river;

it reaches up to the neck

to shake the nations with the sieve of worthlessness;

and a bridle that leads astray is on the jawbones of the peoples.

²⁹You shall have a song^g as in the night when a holy festival is kept,

and a gladness of heart like one who goes with the flute,

to go to the mountain of Yahweh, to the rock of Israel.

³⁰And Yahweh will cause the majesty of his voice to be heard,

and he will cause the descent of his arm to be seen,

in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire,

with a cloudburst and a rainstorm and stones^h of hail.

³¹Indeed, Assyria will be shattered by the voice of Yahweh;

he strikes with the rod.

³²And every stroke of the staff of foundationⁱ that Yahweh lays will be on it with timbrels and lyres,

and he will fight against it^j with battles of brandishing.

³³For Topheth has been prepared from yesterday;

indeed, it is made ready for the king.

He makes its pile of wood deep and wide;

he makes fire and wood abundant.^k

The breath of Yahweh burns in it like a stream of sulfur.