Isaiah 1–5

1This is the vision Isaiah son of Amoz saw about what would happen to Judah and Jerusalem. Isaiah saw these things while Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah.

God’s Case Against His Children

²Heaven and earth, listen,

because the Lord is speaking:

“I raised my children and helped them grow up,

but they have turned against me.

³An ox knows its master,

and a donkey knows where its owner feeds it,

but the people of Israel do not know me;

my people do not understand.”

⁴How terrible! Israel is a nation of sin,

a people loaded down with guilt,

a group of children doing evil,

children who are full of evil.

They have left the Lord;

they hate God, the Holy One of Israel,

and have turned away from him as if he were a stranger.

⁵Why should you continue to be punished?

Why do you continue to turn against him?

Your whole head is hurt,

and your whole heart is sick.

⁶There is no healthy spot

from the bottom of your foot to the top of your head;

you are covered with wounds, hurts, and open sores

that are not cleaned and covered,

and no medicine takes away the pain.

⁷Your land is ruined;

your cities have been burned with fire.

While you watch,

your enemies are stealing everything from your land;

it is ruined like a country destroyed by enemies.

⁸Jerusalem is left alone

like an empty shelter in a vineyard,

like a hut left in a field of melons,

like a city surrounded by enemies.

⁹The Lord All-Powerful

allowed a few of our people to live.

Otherwise we would have been completely destroyed

like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

¹⁰Jerusalem, your rulers are like those of Sodom,

and your people are like those of Gomorrah.

Hear the word of the Lord;

listen to the teaching of our God!

¹¹The Lord says,

“I do not want all these sacrifices.

I have had enough of your burnt sacrifices

of male sheep and fat from fine animals.

I am not pleased

by the blood of bulls, lambs, and goats.

¹²You come to meet with me,

but who asked you to do

all this running in and out of my Temple’s rooms?

¹³Don’t continue bringing me worthless sacrifices!

I hate the incense you burn.

I can’t stand your New Moons, Sabbaths, and other feast days;

I can’t stand the evil you do in your holy meetings.

¹⁴I hate your New Moon feasts

and your other yearly feasts.

They have become a heavy weight on me,

and I am tired of carrying it.

¹⁵When you raise your arms to me in prayer,

I will refuse to look at you.

Even if you say many prayers,

I will not listen to you,

because your hands are full of blood.

¹⁶Wash yourselves and make yourselves clean.

Stop doing the evil things I see you do.

Stop doing wrong.

¹⁷Learn to do good.

Seek justice.

Punish those who hurt others.

Help the orphans.

Stand up for the rights of widows.”

¹⁸The Lord says,

“Come, let us talk about these things.

Though your sins are like scarlet,

they can be as white as snow.

Though your sins are deep red,

they can be white like wool.

¹⁹If you become willing and obey me,

you will eat good crops from the land.

²⁰But if you refuse to obey and if you turn against me,

you will be destroyed by your enemies’ swords.”

The Lord himself said these things.

Jerusalem Is Not Loyal to God

²¹The city of Jerusalem once followed the Lord,

but she is no longer loyal to him.

She used to be filled with fairness;

people there lived the way God wanted.

But now, murderers live there.

²²Jerusalem, you have become like the scum left when silver is purified;

you are like wine mixed with water.

²³Your rulers are rebels

and friends of thieves.

They all accept money for doing wrong,

and they are paid to cheat people.

They don’t seek justice for the orphans

or listen to the widows’ needs.

²⁴So the Lord God All-Powerful,

the Mighty One of Israel, says:

“You, my enemies, will not cause me any more trouble.

I will pay you back for what you did.

²⁵I will turn against you

and clean away all your wrongs as if with soap;

I will take all the worthless things out of you.

²⁶I will bring back judges as you had long ago;

your counselors will be like those you had in the beginning.

Then you will be called the City That Is Right with God,

the Loyal City.”

²⁷By doing what is fair,

Jerusalem will be free again.

By doing what is right,

her people who come back to the Lord will have freedom.

²⁸But sinners and those who turn against him will be destroyed;

those who have left the Lord will die.

²⁹“You will be ashamed,

because you have worshiped gods under the oak trees.

You will be disgraced,

because you have worshiped idols in your gardens.

³⁰You will be like an oak whose leaves are dying

or like a garden without water.

³¹Powerful people will be like small, dry pieces of wood,

and their works will be like sparks.

They will burn together,

and no one will be able to put out that fire.”

The Message About Jerusalem

2Isaiah son of Amoz saw this message about Judah and Jerusalem:

²In the last days

the mountain on which the Lord’s Temple stands

will become the most important of all mountains.

It will be raised above the hills,

and people from all nations will come streaming to it.

³Many nations will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the Temple of the God of Jacob.

Then God will teach us his ways,

and we will obey his teachings.”

His teachings will go out from Jerusalem;

the message of the Lord will go out from Jerusalem.

⁴He will settle arguments among the nations

and will make decisions for many nations.

Then they will make their swords into plows

and their spears into hooks for trimming trees.

Nations will no longer fight other nations,

nor will they train for war anymore.

⁵Come, family of Jacob,

and let us follow the way of the Lord.

A Terrible Day Is Coming

⁶Lord, you have left your people,

the family of Jacob,

because they have become filled with wrong ideas from people in the East.

They try to tell the future like the Philistines,

and they have completely accepted those foreign ideas.

⁷Their land has been filled with silver and gold;

there are a great many treasures there.

Their land has been filled with horses;

there are many chariots there.

⁸Their land is full of idols.

The people worship these idols they made with their own hands

and shaped with their own fingers.

⁹People will not be proud any longer

but will bow low with shame.

God, do not forgive them.

¹⁰Go into the caves of the cliffs;

dig holes and hide in the ground

from the anger of the Lord

and from his great power!

¹¹Proud people will be made humble,

and they will bow low with shame.

At that time only the Lord will still be praised.

¹²The Lord All-Powerful has a certain day planned

when he will punish the proud and those who brag,

and they will no longer be important.

¹³He will bring down the tall cedar trees from Lebanon

and the great oak trees of Bashan,

¹⁴all the tall mountains

and the high hills,

¹⁵every tall tower

and every high, strong wall,

¹⁶all the trading ships

and the beautiful ships.

¹⁷At that time proud people will be made humble,

and they will bow low with shame.

At that time only the Lord will be praised,

¹⁸but all the idols will be gone.

¹⁹People will run to caves in the rocky cliffs

and will dig holes and hide in the ground

from the anger of the Lord

and his great power,

when he stands to shake the earth.

²⁰At that time people will throw away

their gold and silver idols,

which they made for themselves to worship;

they will throw them away to the bats and moles.

²¹Then the people will hide in caves

and cracks in the rocks

from the anger of the Lord

and his great power,

when he stands to shake the earth.

²²You should stop trusting in people to save you,

because people are only human;

they aren’t able to help you.

God Will Punish Judah and Jerusalem

3Understand this:

The Lord God All-Powerful

will take away everything Judah and Jerusalem need—

all the food and water,

²the heroes and great soldiers,

the judges and prophets,

people who do magic and elders,

³the military leaders and government leaders,

the counselors, the skilled craftsmen, and those who try to tell the future.

⁴The Lord says, “I will cause young boys to be your leaders,

and foolish children will rule over you.

⁵People will be against each other; everyone will be against his neighbor.

Young people will not respect older people,

and common people will not respect important people.”

⁶At that time a man will grab one of his brothers

from his own family and say,

“You have a coat, so you will be our leader.

These ruins will be under your control.”

⁷But that brother will stand up and say,

“I cannot help you,

because I do not have food or clothes in my house.

You will not make me your leader.”

⁸This will happen because Jerusalem has stumbled,

and Judah has fallen.

The things they say and do are against the Lord;

they turn against him.

⁹The look on their faces shows they are guilty;

like the people of Sodom, they are proud of their sin.

They don’t care who sees it.

How terrible it will be for them,

because they have brought much trouble on themselves.

¹⁰Tell those who do what is right that things will go well for them,

because they will receive a reward for what they do.

¹¹But how terrible it will be for the wicked!

They will be punished for all the wrong they have done.

¹²Children treat my people cruelly,

and women rule over them.

My people, your guides lead you in the wrong way

and turn you away from what is right.

¹³The Lord takes his place in court

and stands to judge the people.

¹⁴The Lord presents his case

against the elders and other leaders of his people:

“You have burned the vineyard.

Your houses are full of what you took from the poor.

¹⁵What gives you the right to crush my people

and grind the faces of the poor into the dirt?”

The Lord God All-Powerful says this.

A Warning to Women of Jerusalem

¹⁶The Lord says,

“The women of Jerusalem are proud.

They walk around with their heads held high,

and they flirt with their eyes.

They take quick, short steps,

making noise with their ankle bracelets.”

¹⁷So the Lord will put sores on the heads of those women in Jerusalem,

and he will make them lose their hair.

¹⁸At that time the Lord will take away everything that makes them proud: their beautiful ankle bracelets, their headbands, their necklaces shaped like the moon,…