Isaiah 29–30

Chapter 29

A Message about Jerusalem

¹“What sorrow awaits Ariel, the City of David.

Year after year you celebrate your feasts.

²Yet I will bring disaster upon you,

and there will be much weeping and sorrow.

For Jerusalem will become what her name Ariel means—

an altar covered with blood.

³I will be your enemy,

surrounding Jerusalem and attacking its walls.

I will build siege towers

and destroy it.

⁴Then deep from the earth you will speak;

from low in the dust your words will come.

Your voice will whisper from the ground

like a ghost conjured up from the grave.

⁵“But suddenly, your ruthless enemies will be crushed

like the finest of dust.

Your many attackers will be driven away

like chaff before the wind.

Suddenly, in an instant,

⁶I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, will act for you

with thunder and earthquake and great noise,

with whirlwind and storm and consuming fire.

⁷All the nations fighting against Jerusalem

will vanish like a dream!

Those who are attacking her walls

will vanish like a vision in the night.

⁸A hungry person dreams of eating

but wakes up still hungry.

A thirsty person dreams of drinking

but is still faint from thirst when morning comes.

So it will be with your enemies,

with those who attack Mount Zion.”

⁹Are you amazed and incredulous?

Don’t you believe it?

Then go ahead and be blind.

You are stupid, but not from wine!

You stagger, but not from liquor!

¹⁰For the Lord has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep.

He has closed the eyes of your prophets and visionaries.

¹¹All the future events in this vision are like a sealed book to them. When you give it to those who can read, they will say, “We can’t read it because it is sealed.” ¹²When you give it to those who cannot read, they will say, “We don’t know how to read.”

¹³And so the Lord says,

“These people say they are mine.

They honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

And their worship of me

is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.

¹⁴Because of this, I will once again astound these hypocrites

with amazing wonders.

The wisdom of the wise will pass away,

and the intelligence of the intelligent will disappear.”

¹⁵What sorrow awaits those who try to hide their plans from the Lord,

who do their evil deeds in the dark!

“The Lord can’t see us,” they say.

“He doesn’t know what’s going on!”

¹⁶How foolish can you be?

He is the Potter, and he is certainly greater than you, the clay!

Should the created thing say of the one who made it,

“He didn’t make me”?

Does a jar ever say,

“The potter who made me is stupid”?

¹⁷Soon—and it will not be very long—

the forests of Lebanon will become a fertile field,

and the fertile field will yield bountiful crops.

¹⁸In that day the deaf will hear words read from a book,

and the blind will see through the gloom and darkness.

¹⁹The humble will be filled with fresh joy from the Lord.

The poor will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

²⁰The scoffer will be gone,

the arrogant will disappear,

and those who plot evil will be killed.

²¹Those who convict the innocent

by their false testimony will disappear.

A similar fate awaits those who use trickery to pervert justice

and who tell lies to destroy the innocent.

²²That is why the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, says to the people of Israel,

“My people will no longer be ashamed

or turn pale with fear.

²³For when they see their many children

and all the blessings I have given them,

they will recognize the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob.

They will stand in awe of the God of Israel.

²⁴Then the wayward will gain understanding,

and complainers will accept instruction.

Chapter 30

Judah’s Worthless Treaty with Egypt

¹“What sorrow awaits my rebellious children,”

says the Lord.

“You make plans that are contrary to mine.

You make alliances not directed by my Spirit,

thus piling up your sins.

²For without consulting me,

you have gone down to Egypt for help.

You have put your trust in Pharaoh’s protection.

You have tried to hide in his shade.

³But by trusting Pharaoh, you will be humiliated,

and by depending on him, you will be disgraced.

⁴For though his power extends to Zoan

and his officials have arrived in Hanes,

⁵all who trust in him will be ashamed.

He will not help you.

Instead, he will disgrace you.”

⁶This message came to me concerning the animals in the Negev:

The caravan moves slowly

across the terrible desert to Egypt—

donkeys weighed down with riches

and camels loaded with treasure—

all to pay for Egypt’s protection.

They travel through the wilderness,

a place of lionesses and lions,

a place where vipers and poisonous snakes live.

All this, and Egypt will give you nothing in return.

⁷Egypt’s promises are worthless!

Therefore, I call her Rahab—

the Harmless Dragon.

A Warning for Rebellious Judah

⁸Now go and write down these words.

Write them in a book.

They will stand until the end of time

as a witness

⁹that these people are stubborn rebels

who refuse to pay attention to the Lord’s instructions.

¹⁰They tell the seers,

“Stop seeing visions!”

They tell the prophets,

“Don’t tell us what is right.

Tell us nice things.

Tell us lies.

¹¹Forget all this gloom.

Get off your narrow path.

Stop telling us about your

‘Holy One of Israel.’ ”

¹²This is the reply of the Holy One of Israel:

“Because you despise what I tell you

and trust instead in oppression and lies,

¹³calamity will come upon you suddenly—

like a bulging wall that bursts and falls.

In an instant it will collapse

and come crashing down.

¹⁴You will be smashed like a piece of pottery—

shattered so completely that

there won’t be a piece big enough

to carry coals from a fireplace

or a little water from the well.”

¹⁵This is what the Sovereign Lord,

the Holy One of Israel, says:

“Only in returning to me

and resting in me will you be saved.

In quietness and confidence is your strength.

But you would have none of it.

¹⁶You said, ‘No, we will get our help from Egypt.

They will give us swift horses for riding into battle.’

But the only swiftness you are going to see

is the swiftness of your enemies chasing you!

¹⁷One of them will chase a thousand of you.

Five of them will make all of you flee.

You will be left like a lonely flagpole on a hill

or a tattered banner on a distant mountaintop.”

Blessings for the Lord’s People

¹⁸So the Lord must wait for you to come to him

so he can show you his love and compassion.

For the Lord is a faithful God.

Blessed are those who wait for his help.

¹⁹O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem,

you will weep no more.

He will be gracious if you ask for help.

He will surely respond to the sound of your cries.

²⁰Though the Lord gave you adversity for food

and suffering for drink,

he will still be with you to teach you.

You will see your teacher with your own eyes.

²¹Your own ears will hear him.

Right behind you a voice will say,

“This is the way you should go,”

whether to the right or to the left.

²²Then you will destroy all your silver idols

and your precious gold images.

You will throw them out like filthy rags,

saying to them, “Good riddance!”

²³Then the Lord will bless you with rain at planting time. There will be wonderful harvests and plenty of pastureland for your livestock. ²⁴The oxen and donkeys that till the ground will eat good grain, its chaff blown away by the wind. ²⁵In that day, when your enemies are slaughtered and the towers fall, there will be streams of water flowing down every mountain and hill. ²⁶The moon will be as bright as the sun, and the sun will be seven times brighter—like the light of seven days in one! So it will be when the Lord begins to heal his people and cure the wounds he gave them.

²⁷Look! The Lord is coming from far away,

burning with anger,

surrounded by thick, rising smoke.

His lips are filled with fury;

his words consume like fire.

²⁸His hot breath pours out like a flood

up to the neck of his enemies.

He will sift out the proud nations for destruction.

He will bridle them and lead them away to ruin.

²⁹But the people of God will sing a song of joy,

like the songs at the holy festivals.

You will be filled with joy,

as when a flutist leads a group of pilgrims

to Jerusalem, the mountain of the Lord—

to the Rock of Israel.

³⁰And the Lord will make his majestic voice heard.

He will display the strength of his mighty arm.

It will descend with devouring flames,

with cloudbursts, thunderstorms, and huge hailstones.

³¹At the Lord’s command, the Assyrians will be shattered.

He will strike them down with his royal scepter.

³²And as the Lord strikes them with his rod of punishment,

his people will celebrate with tambourines and harps.

Lifting his mighty arm, he will fight the Assyrians.

³³Topheth—the place of burning—

has long been ready for the Assyrian king;

the pyre is piled high with wood.

The breath of the Lord, like fire from a volcano,

will set it ablaze.