Isaiah 29–30

The Siege of Jerusalem

²⁹Woe to Ariel, Ariel,

the city where David encamped!

Add year to year;

let the festivals run their round.^*

²Yet I will oppress Ariel,

and there shall be moaning and lamentation,

and you^u shall be to me like an Ariel.^v*

³And like David^w I will encamp against you;

I will besiege you with towers

and raise siegeworks against you.^*

⁴Then deep from the earth you shall speak;

from low in the dust your words shall come;

your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost,

and your speech shall whisper out of the dust.^*

⁵But the multitude of your arrogant ones^x shall be like fine dust

and the multitude of tyrants like flying chaff.

And in an instant, suddenly,^*

⁶you will be visited by the Lord of hosts

with thunder and earthquake and great noise,

with whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a devouring fire.^*

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

all that fight against her and her stronghold and who distress her,

shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.^*

⁸Just as when a hungry person dreams of eating

and wakes up still hungry

or a thirsty person dreams of drinking

and wakes up faint, still thirsty,

so shall the multitude of all the nations be

that fight against Mount Zion.^*

⁹Be astounded and stunned;

blind yourselves and be blind!

Be drunk but not from wine;

stagger but not from strong drink!^*

¹⁰For the Lord has poured out upon you

a spirit of deep sleep;

he has closed your eyes (the prophets)

and covered your heads (the seers).^*

¹¹The vision of all this has become for you like the words of a sealed document. If it is given to those who can read with the command, “Read this,” they say, “We cannot, for it is sealed.”^{* 12}And if it is given to those who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” they say, “We cannot read.”

¹³The Lord said:

Because these people draw near with their mouths

and honor me with their lips,

while their hearts are far from me

and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote,^*

¹⁴so I will again do

amazing things with this people,

shocking and amazing.

The wisdom of their wise shall perish,

and the discernment of the discerning shall be hidden.^*

¹⁵Woe to those who hide a plan too deep for the Lord,

whose deeds are in the dark,

and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”^*

¹⁶You turn things upside down!

Shall the potter be regarded as the clay?

Shall the thing made say of its maker,

“He did not make me,”

or the thing formed say of the one who formed it,

“He has no understanding”?^*

Hope for the Future

¹⁷Shall not Lebanon in a very little while

become a fruitful field

and the fruitful field be regarded as a forest?^*

¹⁸On that day the deaf shall hear

the words of a scroll,

and freed from gloom and darkness

the eyes of the blind shall see.^*

¹⁹The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,

and the neediest people shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.^*

²⁰For the tyrant shall be no more,

and the scoffer shall cease to be;

all those alert to do evil shall be cut off—^*

²¹those who cause a person to lose a lawsuit,

who set a trap for the arbiter in the gate

and undermine justice for the one in the right.^*

²²Therefore thus says the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:

“No longer shall Jacob be ashamed;

no longer shall his face grow pale.^*

²³For when he sees his children,

the work of my hands, in his midst,

they will sanctify my name;

they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob

and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.^*

²⁴And those who err in spirit will come to understanding,

and those who grumble will accept instruction.”^*

The Futility of Reliance on Egypt

³⁰Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord,

who carry out a plan but not mine;

who make an alliance but against my will,

adding sin to sin;^*

²who set out to go down to Egypt

without asking for my counsel,

to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh

and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt.^*

³Therefore the protection of Pharaoh shall become your shame,

and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt your humiliation.^*

⁴For though his officials are at Zoan

and his envoys reach Hanes,^*

⁵everyone comes to shame

through a people that cannot profit them,

that brings neither help nor profit,

only shame and disgrace.^*

⁶An oracle concerning the animals of the Negeb.

Through a land of trouble and distress,

of lioness and roaring^y lion,

of viper and flying serpent,

they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys

and their treasures on the humps of camels

to a people that cannot profit them.^*

⁷For Egypt’s help is worthless and empty;

therefore I have called her,

“Rahab who sits still.”^z*

A Rebellious People

⁸Go now, write it before them on a tablet,

and inscribe it on a scroll,

so that it may be for the time to come

as a witness forever.^*

⁹For they are a rebellious people,

faithless children,

children who will not hear

the instruction of the Lord;^*

¹⁰who say to the seers, “Do not see,”

and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right;

speak to us smooth things;

prophesy illusions;^*

¹¹leave the way; turn aside from the path;

let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”^*

¹²Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel:

Because you reject this word

and put your trust in oppression and deceit

and rely on them,^*

¹³therefore this iniquity shall become for you

like a break in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse,

whose crash comes suddenly, in an instant;^*

¹⁴its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel

that is smashed so ruthlessly

that among its fragments not a sherd is found

for taking fire from the hearth

or dipping water out of the cistern.^*

¹⁵For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:

In returning and rest you shall be saved;

in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.

But you refused^{* 16}and said,

“No! We will flee upon horses”—

therefore you shall flee!

and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”—

therefore your pursuers shall be swift!^*

¹⁷A thousand shall flee at the threat of one;

at the threat of five you shall flee

until you are left

like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,

like a signal on a hill.^*

God’s Promise to Zion

¹⁸Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you;

therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you.

For the Lord is a God of justice;

blessed are all those who wait for him.^*

¹⁹O people in Zion, inhabitants of Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you.^{* 20}Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any longer, but your eyes shall see your Teacher.^{* 21}And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”^{* 22}Then you will defile your silver-covered idols and your gold-plated images. You will scatter them like impure things; you will say to them, “Away with you!”^*

²³He will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and grain, the produce of the ground, will be rich and plenteous. On that day your cattle will graze in broad pastures,^{* 24}and the oxen and donkeys that till the ground will eat silage that has been winnowed with shovel and fork. ²⁵On every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water—on a day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. ²⁶Moreover, the light of the 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 the Lord binds up the injuries of his people and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.^*

Judgment on Assyria

²⁷See, the name of the Lord comes from far away,

his anger burning and his burden heavy;^a

his lips are full of indignation,

and his tongue is like a devouring fire;^*

²⁸his breath is like an overflowing stream

that reaches up to the neck—

to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction

and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads them astray.^*

²⁹You shall have a song as in the night when a holy festival is kept and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.^{* 30}And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and tempest and hailstones.^{* 31}The Assyrian will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord when he strikes with his rod.^{* 32}And every stroke of the staff of punishment^b that the Lord lays upon him will be to the sound of timbrels and lyres with dancing;^c with brandished arm he will fight with him.^{* 33}For his burning place^d has long been prepared, also for the king;^e its pyre is made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.^*