Isaiah 65:1–9

Judgment and Salvation

65“I let myself be sought by those who did not ask;

I let myself be found by those who did not seek me.

I said, ‘Here I am; here I am!’ to a nation that did not call on my name;

²I spread out my hands all day to a stubborn people,

those who walk after their thoughts in the way that is not good,

³the people who provoke^a me to anger continually to my face,

slaughtering for sacrifices in the garden,

and making smoke offerings on bricks,

⁴who sit^b in graves

and spend the night in secret places,^c

who eat^d the flesh of swine

with^e a fragment^f of impurity in their vessels,

⁵who say,^g “Keep to yourself!^h

You must not come near me, for I am too holy for you!”

These are a smoke in my nostrils,ⁱ

a fire burning all day.

⁶Look! It is written before me: I will not be silent, but I will repay;

and I will repay in^j the fold of their garment

⁷your iniquities and the iniquities of your ancestors^k together, says Yahweh,

because they made smoke offerings on the mountains

and they taunted me on the hills,

I will measure their punishment from the beginning into the fold of their garment.”

⁸Thus says Yahweh: “Just as the new wine is found in the cluster, and they say ‘You must not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it,’ so I will do for the sake of my servants by^l not destroying everyone.^m

⁹And I will bring descendantsⁿ out from Jacob,

and a people from Judah to take possession of my mountain,

and my chosen ones shall inherit it,

and my servants shall settle there.