Isaiah 01-40

Good News Translation

1 ^(A)This book contains the messages about Judah and Jerusalem which God revealed to Isaiah son of Amoz during the time when Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah.

God Reprimands His People

² The Lord said, “Earth and sky, listen to what I am saying! The children I brought up have rebelled against me. ³ Cattle know who owns them, and donkeys know where their master feeds them. But that is more than my people Israel know. They don't understand at all.”

⁴ You are doomed, you sinful nation, you corrupt and evil people! Your sins drag you down! You have rejected the Lord, the holy God of Israel, and have turned your backs on him. ⁵ Why do you keep on rebelling? Do you want to be punished even more? Israel, your head is already covered with wounds, and your heart and mind are sick. ⁶ From head to foot there is not a healthy spot on your body. You are covered with bruises and sores and open wounds. Your wounds have not been cleaned or bandaged. No medicine has been put on them.

⁷ Your country has been devastated, and your cities have been burned to the ground. While you look on, foreigners take over your land and bring everything to ruin. ⁸ Jerusalem alone is left, a city under siege—as defenseless as a guard's hut in a vineyard or a shed in a cucumber field. ^9 (B)If the Lord Almighty had not let some of the people survive, Jerusalem would have been totally destroyed, just as Sodom and Gomorrah were.

¹⁰ Jerusalem, your rulers and your people are like those of Sodom and Gomorrah. Listen to what the Lord is saying to you. Pay attention to what our God is teaching you. ^11 (C)He says, “Do you think I want all these sacrifices you keep offering to me? I have had more than enough of the sheep you burn as sacrifices and of the fat of your fine animals. I am tired of the blood of bulls and sheep and goats. ¹² Who asked you to bring me all this when you come to worship me? Who asked you to do all this tramping around in my Temple? ¹³ It's useless to bring your offerings. I am disgusted with the smell of the incense you burn. I cannot stand your New Moon Festivals, your Sabbaths, and your religious gatherings; they are all corrupted by your sins. ¹⁴ I hate your New Moon Festivals and holy days; they are a burden that I am tired of bearing.

¹⁵ “When you lift your hands in prayer, I will not look at you. No matter how much you pray, I will not listen, for your hands are covered with blood. ¹⁶ Wash yourselves clean. Stop all this evil that I see you doing. Yes, stop doing evil ¹⁷ and learn to do right. See that justice is done—help those who are oppressed, give orphans their rights, and defend widows.”

¹⁸ The Lord says, “Now, let's settle the matter. You are stained red with sin, but I will wash you as clean as snow.^[a] Although your stains are deep red, you will be as white as wool.^{[b] 19} If you will only obey me, you will eat the good things the land produces. ²⁰ But if you defy me, you are doomed to die. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

The Sinful City

²¹ The city that once was faithful is behaving like a whore! At one time it was filled with righteous people, but now only murderers remain. ²² Jerusalem, you were once like silver, but now you are worthless; you were like good wine, but now you are only water. ²³ Your leaders are rebels and friends of thieves; they are always accepting gifts and bribes. They never defend orphans in court or listen when widows present their case.

²⁴ So now, listen to what the Lord Almighty, Israel's powerful God, is saying: “I will take revenge on you, my enemies, and you will cause me no more trouble. ²⁵ I will take action against you. I will purify you the way metal is refined, and will remove all your impurity. ²⁶ I will give you rulers and advisers like those you had long ago. Then Jerusalem will be called the righteous, faithful city.”

²⁷ Because the Lord is righteous, he will save Jerusalem and everyone there who repents. ²⁸ But he will crush everyone who sins and rebels against him; he will kill everyone who forsakes him.

²⁹ You will be sorry that you ever worshiped trees and planted sacred gardens.^{[c] 30} You will wither like a dying oak, like a garden that no one waters. ³¹ Just as straw is set on fire by a spark, so powerful people will be destroyed by their own evil deeds, and no one will be able to stop the destruction.

Everlasting Peace^(D)

2 Here is the message which God gave to Isaiah son of Amoz about Judah and Jerusalem:

⁵ Now, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light which the Lord gives us!

Arrogance Will Be Destroyed

⁶ O God, you have forsaken your people, the descendants of Jacob! The land is full of magic practices from the East and from Philistia.^[e] The people follow foreign customs. ⁷ Their land is full of silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures. Their land is full of horses, and there is no end to their chariots. ⁸ Their land is full of idols, and they worship objects that they have made with their own hands.

⁹ Everyone will be humiliated and disgraced. Do not forgive them, Lord!

^10 (F)They will hide in caves in the rocky hills or dig holes in the ground to try to escape from the Lord's anger and to hide from his power and glory! ¹¹ A day is coming when human pride will be ended and human arrogance destroyed. Then the Lord alone will be exalted. ¹² On that day the Lord Almighty will humble everyone who is powerful, everyone who is proud and conceited. ¹³ He will destroy the tall cedars of Lebanon and all the oaks in the land of Bashan. ¹⁴ He will level the high mountains and hills, ¹⁵ every high tower, and the walls of every fortress. ¹⁶ He will sink even the largest and most beautiful ships. ^17-18 Human pride will be ended, and human arrogance will be destroyed. Idols will completely disappear, and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.

¹⁹ People will hide in caves in the rocky hills or dig holes in the ground to try to escape from the Lord's anger and to hide from his power and glory, when he comes to shake the earth. ²⁰ When that day comes, they will throw away the gold and silver idols they have made, and abandon them to the moles and the bats. ²¹ When the Lord comes to shake the earth, people will hide in holes and caves in the rocky hills to try to escape from his anger and to hide from his power and glory.

²² Put no more confidence in mortals. What are they worth?

Chaos in Jerusalem

3 Now the Lord, the Almighty Lord, is about to take away from Jerusalem and Judah everything and everyone that the people depend on. He is going to take away their food and their water, ² their heroes and their soldiers, their judges and their prophets, their fortunetellers and their statesmen, ³ their military and civilian leaders, their politicians and everyone who uses magic to control events. ⁴ The Lord will let the people be governed by immature boys. ⁵ Everyone will take advantage of everyone else. Young people will not respect their elders, and worthless people will not respect their superiors.

⁶ A time will come when the members of a clan will choose one of their number and say to him, “You at least have something to wear, so be our leader in this time of trouble.”

⁷ But he will answer, “Not me! I can't help you. I don't have any food or clothes either. Don't make me your leader!”

⁸ Yes, Jerusalem is doomed! Judah is collapsing! Everything they say and do is against the Lord; they openly insult God himself. ⁹ Their prejudices will be held against them. They sin as openly as the people of Sodom did. They are doomed, and they have brought it on themselves.

¹⁰ The righteous will be happy,^[f] and things will go well for them. They will get to enjoy what they have worked for. ¹¹ But evil people are doomed; what they have done to others will now be done to them.

¹² Moneylenders oppress my people, and their creditors cheat them.

My people, your leaders are misleading you, so that you do not know which way to turn.

The Lord Judges His People

¹³ The Lord is ready to state his case; he is ready to judge his people.^{[g] 14} The Lord is bringing the elders and leaders of his people to judgment. He makes this accusation: “You have plundered vineyards, and your houses are full of what you have taken from the poor. ¹⁵ You have no right to crush my people and take advantage of the poor. I, the Sovereign Lord Almighty, have spoken.”

A Warning to the Women of Jerusalem

¹⁶ The Lord said, “Look how proud the women of Jerusalem are! They walk along with their noses in the air. They are always flirting. They take dainty little steps, and the bracelets on their ankles jingle. ¹⁷ But I will punish them—I will shave their heads and leave them bald.”

¹⁸ A day is coming when the Lord will take away from the women of Jerusalem everything they are so proud of—the ornaments they wear on their ankles, on their heads, on their necks, ¹⁹ and on their wrists. He will take away their veils ²⁰ and their hats; the magic charms they wear on their arms and at their waists; ²¹ the rings they wear on their fingers and in their noses; ²² all their fine robes, gowns, cloaks, and purses; ²³ their revealing garments, their linen handkerchiefs, and the scarves and long veils they wear on their heads.

²⁴ Instead of using perfumes, they will stink; instead of fine belts, they will wear coarse ropes; instead of having beautiful hair, they will be bald; instead of fine clothes, they will be dressed in rags; their beauty will be turned to shame!

²⁵ The men of the city, yes, even the strongest men, will be killed in war. ²⁶ The city gates will mourn and cry, and the city itself will be like a woman sitting on the ground, stripped naked.

4 When that time comes, seven women will grab hold of one man and say, “We can feed and clothe ourselves, but please let us say you are our husband, so that we won't have to endure the shame of being unmarried.”

Jerusalem Will Be Restored

² The time is coming when the Lord will make every plant and tree in the land grow large and beautiful. All the people of Israel who survive will take delight and pride in the crops that the land produces. ³ Everyone who is left in Jerusalem, whom God has chosen for survival, will be called holy. ⁴ By his power the Lord will judge and purify the nation and wash away the guilt of Jerusalem and the blood that has been shed there. ^5 (G)Then over Mount Zion and over all who are gathered there, the Lord will send a cloud in the daytime and smoke and a bright flame at night. God's glory will cover and protect the whole city. ⁶ His glory will shade the city from the heat of the day and make it a place of safety, sheltered from the rain and storm.

The Song of the Vineyard

³ So now my friend says, “You people who live in Jerusalem and Judah, judge between my vineyard and me. ⁴ Is there anything I failed to do for it? Then why did it produce sour grapes and not the good grapes I expected?

⁵ “Here is what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge around it, break down the wall that protects it, and let wild animals eat it and trample it down. ⁶ I will let it be overgrown with weeds. I will not trim the vines or hoe the ground; instead, I will let briers and thorns cover it. I will even forbid the clouds to let rain fall on it.”

The Evil That People Do

⁸ You are doomed! You buy more houses and fields to add to those you already have. Soon there will be no place for anyone else to live, and you alone will live in the land. ⁹ I have heard the Lord Almighty say, “All these big, fine houses will be empty ruins. ¹⁰ The grapevines growing on five acres of land will yield only five gallons of wine. Ten bushels of seed will produce only one bushel of grain.”

^11 (I)You are doomed! You get up early in the morning to start drinking, and you spend long evenings getting drunk. ¹² At your feasts you have harps and tambourines and flutes—and wine. But you don't understand what the Lord is doing, ¹³ and so you will be carried away as prisoners. Your leaders will starve to death, and the common people will die of thirst. ¹⁴ The world of the dead is hungry for them, and it opens its mouth wide. It gulps down the nobles of Jerusalem along with the noisy crowd of common people.

¹⁵ Everyone will be disgraced, and all who are proud will be humbled. ¹⁶ But the Lord Almighty shows his greatness by doing what is right, and he reveals his holiness by judging his people. ¹⁷ In the ruins of the cities lambs will eat grass and young goats will find pasture.^[h]

¹⁸ You are doomed! You are unable to break free from your sins. ¹⁹ You say, “Let the Lord hurry up and do what he says he will, so that we can see it. Let Israel's holy God carry out his plans; let's see what he has in mind.”

²⁰ You are doomed! You call evil good and call good evil. You turn darkness into light and light into darkness. You make what is bitter sweet, and what is sweet you make bitter.

²¹ You are doomed! You think you are wise, so very clever.

²² You are doomed! Heroes of the wine bottle! Brave and fearless when it comes to mixing drinks! ²³ But for just a bribe you let the guilty go free, and you keep the innocent from getting justice. ²⁴ So now, just as straw and dry grass shrivel and burn in the fire, your roots will rot and your blossoms will dry up and blow away, because you have rejected what the Lord Almighty, Israel's holy God, has taught us. ²⁵ The Lord is angry with his people and has stretched out his hand to punish them. The mountains will shake, and the bodies of those who die will be left in the streets like rubbish. Yet even then the Lord's anger will not be ended, but his hand will still be stretched out to punish.

²⁶ The Lord gives a signal to call for a distant nation.^[i] He whistles for them to come from the ends of the earth. And here they come, swiftly, quickly! ²⁷ None of them grow tired; none of them stumble. They never doze or sleep. Not a belt is loose; not a sandal strap is broken. ²⁸ Their arrows are sharp, and their bows are ready to shoot. Their horses' hoofs are as hard as flint, and their chariot wheels turn like a whirlwind. ²⁹ The soldiers roar like lions that have killed an animal and are carrying it off where no one can take it away from them.

³⁰ When that day comes, they will roar over Israel as loudly as the sea. Look at this country! Darkness and distress! The light is swallowed by darkness.

God Calls Isaiah to Be a Prophet

6 ^(J)In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on his throne, high and exalted, and his robe filled the whole Temple. ² Around him flaming creatures were standing, each of which had six wings. Each creature covered its face with two wings, and its body with two, and used the other two for flying. ^3 (K)They were calling out to each other:

^4 (L)The sound of their voices made the foundation of the Temple shake, and the Temple itself became filled with smoke.

⁵ I said, “There is no hope for me! I am doomed because every word that passes my lips is sinful, and I live among a people whose every word is sinful. And yet, with my own eyes I have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

⁶ Then one of the creatures flew down to me, carrying a burning coal that he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. ⁷ He touched my lips with the burning coal and said, “This has touched your lips, and now your guilt is gone, and your sins are forgiven.”

⁸ Then I heard the Lord say, “Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?”

I answered, “I will go! Send me!”

^9 (M)So he told me to go and give the people this message: “No matter how much you listen, you will not understand. No matter how much you look, you will not know what is happening.” ¹⁰ Then he said to me, “Make the minds of these people dull, their ears deaf, and their eyes blind, so that they cannot see or hear or understand. If they did, they might turn to me and be healed.”

¹¹ I asked, “How long will it be like this, Lord?”

He answered, “Until the cities are ruined and empty—until the houses are uninhabited—until the land itself is a desolate wasteland. ¹² I will send the people far away and make the whole land desolate. ¹³ Even if one person out of ten remains in the land, he too will be destroyed; he will be like the stump of an oak tree that has been cut down.”

(The stump represents a new beginning for God's people.)

A Message for King Ahaz

7 ^(N)When King Ahaz, the son of Jotham and grandson of Uzziah, ruled Judah, war broke out. Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, attacked Jerusalem, but were unable to capture it.

² When word reached the king of Judah that the armies of Syria were already in the territory of Israel, he and all his people were so terrified that they trembled like trees shaking in the wind.

³ The Lord said to Isaiah, “Take your son Shear Jashub,^[j] and go to meet King Ahaz. You will find him on the road where the cloth makers work, at the end of the ditch that brings water from the upper pool. ⁴ Tell him to keep alert, to stay calm, and not to be frightened or disturbed. The anger of King Rezin and his Syrians and of King Pekah is no more dangerous than the smoke from two smoldering sticks of wood. ⁵ Syria, together with Israel and its king, has made a plot. ⁶ They intend to invade Judah, terrify the people into joining their side, and then put Tabeel's son on the throne.

⁷ “But I, the Lord, declare that this will never happen. ⁸ Why? Because Syria is no stronger than Damascus, its capital city, and Damascus is no stronger than King Rezin. As for Israel, within sixty-five years it will be too shattered to survive as a nation. ⁹ Israel is no stronger than Samaria, its capital city, and Samaria is no stronger than King Pekah.

“If your faith is not enduring, you will not endure.”

The Sign of Immanuel

¹⁰ The Lord sent another message to Ahaz: ¹¹ “Ask the Lord your God to give you a sign. It can be from deep in the world of the dead or from high up in heaven.”

¹² Ahaz answered, “I will not ask for a sign. I refuse to put the Lord to the test.”

¹³ To that Isaiah replied, “Listen, now, descendants of King David. It's bad enough for you to wear out the patience of people—do you have to wear out God's patience too? ^14 (O)Well then, the Lord himself will give you a sign: a young woman^[k] who is pregnant will have a son and will name him ‘Immanuel.’^{[l] 15} By the time he is old enough to make his own decisions, people will be drinking milk and eating honey.^{[m] 16} Even before that time comes, the lands of those two kings who terrify you will be deserted.

¹⁷ “The Lord is going to bring on you, on your people, and on the whole royal family, days of trouble worse than any that have come since the kingdom of Israel separated from Judah—he is going to bring the king of Assyria.

¹⁸ “When that time comes, the Lord will whistle as a signal for the Egyptians to come like flies from the farthest branches of the Nile, and for the Assyrians to come from their land like bees. ¹⁹ They will swarm in the rugged valleys and in the caves in the rocks, and they will cover every thorn bush and every pasture.

²⁰ “When that time comes, the Lord will hire a barber from across the Euphrates—the emperor of Assyria!—and he will shave off your beards and the hair on your heads and your bodies.

²¹ “When that time comes, even if a farmer has been able to save only one young cow and two goats, ²² they will give so much milk that he will have all he needs. Yes, the few survivors left in the land will have milk and honey to eat.

²³ “When that time comes, the fine vineyards, each with a thousand vines and each worth a thousand pieces of silver, will be overgrown with thorn bushes and briers. ²⁴ People will go hunting there with bows and arrows. Yes, the whole country will be full of briers and thorn bushes. ²⁵ All the hills where crops were once planted will be so overgrown with thorns that no one will go there. It will be a place where cattle and sheep graze.”

Isaiah's Son as a Sign to the People

8 The Lord said to me, “Take a large piece of writing material and write on it in large letters:^[n] ‘Quick Loot, Fast Plunder.’ ² Get two reliable men, the priest Uriah and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah, to serve as witnesses.”

³ Some time later my wife became pregnant. When our son was born, the Lord said to me, “Name him ‘Quick-Loot-Fast-Plunder.’ ⁴ Before the boy is old enough to say ‘Mamma’ and ‘Daddy,’ all the wealth of Damascus and all the loot of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”

The Emperor of Assyria Is Coming

⁵ The Lord spoke to me again. ⁶ He said, “Because these people have rejected the quiet waters of Shiloah Brook^[o] and tremble^[p] before King Rezin and King Pekah, ⁷ I, the Lord, will bring the emperor of Assyria and all his forces to attack Judah. They will advance like the flood waters of the Euphrates River, overflowing all its banks. ⁸ They will sweep through Judah in a flood, rising shoulder high and covering everything.”

God is with us! His outspread wings protect the land.^[q]

⁹ Gather together in fear, you nations! Listen, you distant parts of the earth. Get ready to fight, but be afraid! Yes, get ready, but be afraid! ¹⁰ Make your plans! But they will never succeed. Talk all you want to! But it is all useless, because God is with us.

The Lord Warns the Prophet

¹¹ With his great power the Lord warned me not to follow the road which the people were following. He said, ^12 (P)“Do not join in the schemes of the people and do not be afraid of the things that they fear. ¹³ Remember that I, the Lord Almighty, am holy; I am the one you must fear. ^14 (Q)Because of my awesome holiness I am like a stone that people stumble over; I am like a trap that will catch the people of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel and the people of Jerusalem. ¹⁵ Many will stumble; they will fall and be crushed. They will be caught in a trap.”

Warning against Consulting the Dead

¹⁶ You, my disciples, are to guard and preserve the messages that God has given me. ^17 (R)The Lord has hidden himself from his people, but I trust him and place my hope in him.

^18 (S)Here I am with the children the Lord has given me. The Lord Almighty, whose throne is on Mount Zion, has sent us as living messages to the people of Israel.

¹⁹ But people will tell you to ask for messages from fortunetellers and mediums, who chirp and mutter. They will say, “After all, people should ask for messages from the spirits and consult the dead on behalf of the living.”

²⁰ You are to answer them, “Listen to what the Lord is teaching you! Don't listen to mediums—what they tell you cannot keep trouble away.”^[r]

A Time of Trouble

²¹ The people will wander through the land, discouraged and hungry. In their hunger and their anger they will curse their king and their God. They may look up to the sky ²² or stare at the ground, but they will see nothing but trouble and darkness, terrifying darkness into which they are being driven.

9 ^(T)There will be no way for them to escape from this time of trouble.

The Future King

The land of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali was once disgraced, but the future will bring honor to this region, from the Mediterranean eastward to the land on the other side of the Jordan, and even to Galilee itself, where the foreigners live.

The Lord Will Punish Israel

⁸ The Lord has pronounced judgment on the kingdom of Israel, on the descendants of Jacob. ⁹ All the people of Israel, everyone who lives in the city of Samaria, will know that he has done this. Now they are proud and arrogant. They say, ¹⁰ “The brick buildings have fallen down, but we will replace them with stone buildings. The beams of sycamore wood have been cut down, but we will replace them with the finest cedar.”

¹¹ The Lord has stirred up their enemies^[u] to attack them. ¹² Syria on the east and Philistia on the west have opened their mouths to devour Israel. Yet even so the Lord's anger is not ended; his hand is still stretched out to punish.

¹³ The people of Israel have not repented; even though the Lord Almighty has punished them, they have not returned to him. ¹⁴ In a single day the Lord will punish Israel's leaders and its people; he will cut them off, head and tail. ¹⁵ The old and honorable men are the head—and the tail is the prophets whose teachings are lies! ¹⁶ Those who lead these people have misled them and totally confused them. ¹⁷ And so the Lord will not let any of the young men escape, and he will not show pity on any of the widows and orphans, because all the people are godless and wicked and everything they say is evil. Yet even so the Lord's anger will not be ended, but his hand will still be stretched out to punish.

¹⁸ The wickedness of the people burns like a fire that destroys thorn bushes and thistles. It burns like a forest fire that sends up columns of smoke. ¹⁹ Because the Lord Almighty is angry, his punishment burns like a fire throughout the land and destroys the people, and it is each of us for ourselves. ²⁰ Everywhere in the country people snatch and eat any bit of food they can find, but their hunger is never satisfied. They even eat their own children! ²¹ The people of Manasseh and the people of Ephraim attack each other, and together they attack Judah. Yet even so the Lord's anger is not ended; his hand is still stretched out to punish.

10 You are doomed! You make unjust laws that oppress my people. ² That is how you keep the poor from having their rights and from getting justice. That is how you take the property that belongs to widows and orphans. ³ What will you do when God punishes you? What will you do when he brings disaster on you from a distant country? Where will you run to find help? Where will you hide your wealth? ⁴ You will be killed in battle or dragged off as prisoners. Yet even so the Lord's anger will not be ended; his hand will still be stretched out to punish.

The Emperor of Assyria as the Instrument of God

^5 (W)The Lord said, “Assyria! I use Assyria like a club to punish those with whom I am angry. ⁶ I sent Assyria to attack a godless nation, people who have made me angry. I sent them to loot and steal and trample the people like dirt in the streets.”

⁷ But the Assyrian emperor has his own violent plans in mind. He is determined to destroy many nations. ⁸ He boasts, “Every one of my commanders is a king! ⁹ I conquered the cities of Calno and Carchemish, the cities of Hamath and Arpad. I conquered Samaria and Damascus. ¹⁰ I reached out to punish those kingdoms that worship idols, idols more numerous than those of Jerusalem and Samaria. ¹¹ I have destroyed Samaria and all its idols, and I will do the same to Jerusalem and the images that are worshiped there.”

¹² But the Lord says, “When I finish what I am doing on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I will punish the emperor of Assyria for all his boasting and all his pride.”

¹³ The emperor of Assyria boasts, “I have done it all myself. I am strong and wise and clever. I wiped out the boundaries between nations and took the supplies they had stored. Like a bull I have trampled the people who live there. ¹⁴ The nations of the world were like a bird's nest, and I gathered their wealth as easily as gathering eggs. Not a wing fluttered to scare me off; no beak opened to scream at me!”

¹⁵ But the Lord says, “Can an ax claim to be greater than the one who uses it? Is a saw more important than the one who saws with it? A club doesn't lift up a person; a person lifts up a club.”

¹⁶ The Lord Almighty is going to send disease to punish those who are now well-fed. In their bodies there will be a fire that burns and burns. ¹⁷ God, the light of Israel, will become a fire. Israel's holy God will become a flame, which in a single day will burn up everything, even the thorns and thistles. ¹⁸ The rich forests and farmlands will be totally destroyed, in the same way that a fatal sickness destroys someone. ¹⁹ There will be so few trees left that even a child will be able to count them.

A Few Will Come Back

²⁰ A time is coming when the people of Israel who have survived will not rely any more on the nation that almost destroyed them. They will truly put their trust in the Lord, Israel's holy God. ²¹ A few of the people of Israel will come back to their mighty God. ^22 (X)Even though now there are as many people of Israel as there are grains of sand by the sea, only a few will come back. Destruction is in store for the people, and it is fully deserved. ²³ Yes, throughout the whole country the Sovereign Lord Almighty will bring destruction, as he said he would.

The Lord Will Punish Assyria

²⁴ The Sovereign Lord Almighty says to his people who live in Zion, “Do not be afraid of the Assyrians, even though they oppress you as the Egyptians used to do. ²⁵ In only a little while I will finish punishing you, and then I will destroy them. ²⁶ I, the Lord Almighty, will beat them with my whip as I did the people of Midian at Oreb Rock. I will punish Assyria as I punished Egypt. ²⁷ When that time comes, I will free you from the power of Assyria, and their yoke will no longer be a burden on your shoulders.”^[v]

The Invader Attacks

²⁸ The enemy army has captured the city of Ai!^[w] They have passed through Migron! They left their supplies at Michmash! ²⁹ They have crossed the pass and are spending the night at Geba! The people in the town of Ramah are terrified, and the people in King Saul's hometown of Gibeah have run away. ³⁰ Shout, people of Gallim! Listen, people of Laishah! Answer, people of Anathoth! ³¹ The people of Madmenah and Gebim are running for their lives. ³² Today the enemy are in the town of Nob, and there they are shaking their fists at Mount Zion, at the city of Jerusalem.

³³ The Lord Almighty will bring them crashing down like branches cut off a tree. The proudest and highest of them will be cut down and humiliated. ³⁴ The Lord will cut them down as trees in the heart of the forest are cut down with an ax, as even the finest trees of Lebanon fall!

The Peaceful Kingdom

11 ^(Y)The royal line of David is like a tree that has been cut down; but just as new branches sprout from a stump, so a new king will arise from among David's descendants.

The Exiled People Will Return

^10 (AD)A day is coming when the new king from the royal line of David will be a symbol to the nations. They will gather in his royal city and give him honor. ¹¹ When that day comes, the Lord will once again use his power and bring back home those of his people who are left in Assyria and Egypt, in the lands of Pathros, Ethiopia,^[y] Elam, Babylonia, and Hamath, and in the coastlands and on the islands of the sea. ¹² The Lord will raise a signal flag to show the nations that he is gathering together again the scattered people of Israel and Judah and bringing them back from the four corners of the earth. ¹³ The kingdom of Israel will not be jealous of Judah any more, and Judah will not be the enemy of Israel. ¹⁴ Together they will attack the Philistines on the west and plunder the people who live to the east. They will conquer the people of Edom and Moab, and the people of Ammon will obey them. ^15 (AE)The Lord will dry up the Gulf of Suez, and he will bring a hot wind to dry up the Euphrates, leaving only seven tiny streams, so that anyone can walk across. ¹⁶ There will be a highway out of Assyria for those of his people Israel who have survived there, just as there was for their ancestors when they left Egypt.

Hymn of Thanksgiving

12 A day is coming when people will sing,

⁴ A day is coming when people will sing,

God Will Punish Babylon

13 ^(AG)This is a message about Babylon, which Isaiah son of Amoz received from God.

² On the top of a barren hill raise the battle flag! Shout to the soldiers and raise your arm as the signal for them to attack the gates of the proud city. ³ The Lord has called out his proud and confident soldiers to fight a holy war and punish those he is angry with.

⁴ Listen to the noise on the mountains—the sound of a great crowd of people, the sound of nations and kingdoms gathering. The Lord of Armies is preparing his troops for battle. ⁵ They are coming from far-off countries at the ends of the earth. In his anger the Lord is coming to devastate the whole country.

^6 (AH)Howl in pain! The day of the Lord is near, the day when the Almighty brings destruction. ⁷ Everyone's hands will hang limp, and everyone's courage will fail. ⁸ They will all be terrified and overcome with pain, like the pain of a woman in labor. They will look at each other in fear, and their faces will burn with shame. ⁹ The day of the Lord is coming—that cruel day of his fierce anger and fury. The earth will be made a wilderness, and every sinner will be destroyed. ^10 (AI)Every star and every constellation will stop shining, the sun will be dark when it rises, and the moon will give no light.

¹¹ The Lord says, “I will bring disaster on the earth and punish all wicked people for their sins. I will humble everyone who is proud and punish everyone who is arrogant and cruel. ¹² Those who survive will be scarcer than gold. ¹³ I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place on that day when I, the Lord Almighty, show my anger.

¹⁴ “The foreigners living in Babylon will run away to their homelands, scattering like deer escaping from hunters, like sheep without a shepherd. ¹⁵ Anyone who is caught will be stabbed to death. ¹⁶ While they look on helplessly, their babies will be battered to death, their houses will be looted, and their wives will be raped.”

¹⁷ The Lord says, “I am stirring up the Medes^[z] to attack Babylon. They care nothing for silver and are not tempted by gold. ¹⁸ With their bows and arrows they will kill the young men. They will show no mercy to babies and take no pity on children. ^19 (AJ)Babylonia is the most beautiful kingdom of all; it is the pride of its people. But I, the Lord, will overthrow Babylon as I did Sodom and Gomorrah! ²⁰ No one will ever live there again. No wandering Arab will ever pitch a tent there, and no shepherd will ever pasture a flock there. ^21 (AK)It will be a place where desert animals live and where owls build their nests. Ostriches will live there, and wild goats will prance through the ruins. ²² The towers and palaces will echo with the cries of hyenas and jackals. Babylon's time has come! Her days are almost over.”

The Return from Exile

14 The Lord will once again be merciful to his people Israel and choose them as his own. He will let them live in their own land again, and foreigners will come and live there with them. ² Many nations will help the people of Israel return to the land which the Lord gave them, and there the nations will serve Israel as slaves. Those who once captured Israel will now be captured by Israel, and the people of Israel will rule over those who once oppressed them.

The King of Babylon in the World of the Dead

³ The Lord will give the people of Israel relief from their pain and suffering and from the hard work they were forced to do. ⁴ When he does this, they are to mock the king of Babylon and say:

“The cruel king has fallen! He will never oppress anyone again! ⁵ The Lord has ended the power of the evil rulers ⁶ who angrily oppressed the peoples and never stopped persecuting the nations they had conquered. ⁷ Now at last the whole world enjoys rest and peace, and everyone sings for joy. ⁸ The cypress trees and the cedars of Lebanon rejoice over the fallen king, because there is no one to cut them down, now that he is gone!

⁹ “The world of the dead is getting ready to welcome the king of Babylon. The ghosts of those who were powerful on earth are stirring about. The ghosts of kings are rising from their thrones. ¹⁰ They all call out to him, ‘Now you are as weak as we are! You are one of us! ¹¹ You used to be honored with the music of harps, but now here you are in the world of the dead. You lie on a bed of maggots and are covered with a blanket of worms.’”

^12 (AL)King of Babylon, bright morning star, you have fallen from heaven! In the past you conquered nations, but now you have been thrown to the ground. ^13 (AM)You were determined to climb up to heaven and to place your throne above the highest stars. You thought you would sit like a king on that mountain in the north where the gods assemble. ¹⁴ You said you would climb to the tops of the clouds and be like the Almighty. ¹⁵ But instead, you have been brought down to the deepest part of the world of the dead.

¹⁶ The dead will stare and gape at you. They will ask, “Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble? ¹⁷ Is this the man who destroyed cities and turned the world into a desert? Is this the man who never freed his prisoners or let them go home?”

¹⁸ All the kings of the earth lie in their magnificent tombs, ¹⁹ but you have no tomb, and your corpse is thrown out to rot. It is covered by the bodies of soldiers killed in battle, thrown with them into a rocky pit, and trampled down. ²⁰ Because you ruined your country and killed your own people, you will not be buried like other kings. None of your evil family will survive. ²¹ Let the slaughter begin! The sons of this king will die because of their ancestors' sins. None of them will ever rule the earth or cover it with cities.

God Will Destroy Babylon

²² The Lord Almighty says, “I will attack Babylon and bring it to ruin. I will leave nothing—no children, no survivors at all. I, the Lord, have spoken. ²³ I will turn Babylon into a marsh, and owls will live there. I will sweep Babylon with a broom that will sweep everything away. I, the Lord Almighty, have spoken.”

God Will Destroy the Assyrians

^24 (AN)The Lord Almighty has sworn an oath: “What I have planned will happen. What I have determined to do will be done. ²⁵ I will destroy the Assyrians in my land of Israel and trample them on my mountains. I will free my people from the Assyrian yoke and from the burdens they have had to bear. ²⁶ This is my plan for the world, and my arm is stretched out to punish the nations.” ²⁷ The Lord Almighty is determined to do this; he has stretched out his arm to punish, and no one can stop him.

God Will Destroy the Philistines

^28 (AO)This is a message that was proclaimed in the year that King Ahaz died.

^29 (AP)People of Philistia, the rod that beat you is broken, but you have no reason to be glad. When one snake dies, a worse one comes in its place. A snake's egg hatches a flying dragon. ³⁰ The Lord will be a shepherd to the poor of his people and will let them live in safety. But he will send a terrible famine on you Philistines, and it will not leave any of you alive.

³¹ Howl and cry for help, all you Philistine cities! Be terrified, all of you! A cloud of dust is coming from the north—it is an army with no cowards in its ranks.

³² How shall we answer the messengers that come to us from Philistia? We will tell them that the Lord has established Zion and that his suffering people will find safety there.

God Will Destroy Moab

15 ^(AQ)This is a message about Moab.

The cities of Ar and Kir are destroyed in a single night, and silence covers the land of Moab. ² The people of Dibon^[aa] climb the hill to weep at the shrine. The people of Moab wail in grief over the cities of Nebo and Medeba; they have shaved their heads and their beards in grief. ³ The people in the streets are dressed in sackcloth; in the city squares and on the rooftops people mourn and cry. ⁴ The people of Heshbon and Elealeh cry out, and their cry can be heard as far away as Jahaz. Even the soldiers tremble; their courage is gone. ⁵ My heart cries out for Moab! The people have fled to the town of Zoar, and to Eglath Shelishiyah. Some climb the road to Luhith, weeping as they go; some escape to Horonaim, grieving loudly. ⁶ Nimrim Brook is dry, the grass beside it has withered, and nothing green is left. ⁷ The people go across the Valley of Willows, trying to escape with all their possessions. ⁸ Everywhere at Moab's borders the sound of crying is heard. It is heard at the towns of Eglaim and Beerelim. ⁹ At the town of Dibon the river is red with blood, and God has something even worse in store for the people there. Yes, there will be a bloody slaughter of everyone left in Moab.

Moab's Hopeless Situation

16 From the city of Sela in the desert the people of Moab send a lamb as a present to the one who rules in Jerusalem. ² They wait on the banks of the Arnon River and move aimlessly back and forth, like birds driven from their nest.

³ They say to the people of Judah, “Tell us what to do. Protect us like a tree that casts a cool shadow in the heat of noon, and let us rest in your shade. We are refugees; hide us where no one can find us. ⁴ Let us stay in your land. Protect us from those who want to destroy us.”

(Oppression and destruction will end, and those who are devastating the country will be gone. ⁵ Then one of David's descendants will be king, and he will rule the people with faithfulness and love. He will be quick to do what is right, and he will see that justice is done.)

⁶ The people of Judah say, “We have heard how proud the people of Moab are. We know that they are arrogant and conceited, but their boasts are empty.”

⁷ The people of Moab will weep because of the troubles they suffer. They will all weep when they remember the fine food they used to eat in the city of Kir Heres. They will be driven to despair. ⁸ The farms near Heshbon and the vineyards of Sibmah are destroyed—those vineyards whose wine used to make the rulers of the nations drunk. At one time the vines spread as far as the city of Jazer, and eastward into the desert, and westward to the other side of the Dead Sea. ⁹ Now I weep for Sibmah's vines as I weep for Jazer. My tears fall for Heshbon and Elealeh, because there is no harvest to make the people glad. ¹⁰ No one is happy now in the fertile fields. No one shouts or sings in the vineyards. No one tramples grapes to make wine; the shouts of joy are ended.^{[ab] 11} I groan with sadness for Moab, with grief for Kir Heres. ¹² The people of Moab wear themselves out going to their mountain shrines and to their temples to pray, but it will do them no good.

¹³ That is the message the Lord gave earlier about Moab. ¹⁴ And now the Lord says, “In exactly three years Moab's great wealth will disappear. Of its many people, only a few will survive, and they will be weak.”

God Will Punish Syria and Israel

17 ^(AR)The Lord said, “Damascus will not be a city any longer; it will be only a pile of ruins. ² The cities of Syria will be deserted forever.^[ac] They will be a pasture for sheep and cattle, and no one will drive them away. ³ Israel will be defenseless, and Damascus will lose its independence. Those Syrians who survive will be in disgrace like the people of Israel. I, the Lord Almighty, have spoken.”

⁴ The Lord said, “A day is coming when Israel's greatness will come to an end, and its wealth will be replaced by poverty. ⁵ Israel will be like a field where the grain has been cut and harvested, as desolate as a field in Rephaim Valley when it has been picked bare. ⁶ Only a few people will survive, and Israel will be like an olive tree from which all the olives have been picked except two or three at the very top, or a few that are left on the lower branches. I, the Lord God of Israel, have spoken.”

⁷ When that day comes, people will turn for help to their Creator, the holy God of Israel. ⁸ They will no longer rely on the altars they made with their own hands, or trust in their own handiwork—symbols of the goddess Asherah and altars for burning incense.

⁹ When that day comes, well-defended cities will be deserted and left in ruins like the cities that the Hivites and the Amorites^[ad] abandoned as they fled from the people of Israel.

¹⁰ Israel, you have forgotten the God who rescues you and protects you like a mighty rock. Instead, you plant sacred gardens^[ae] in order to worship a foreign god. ¹¹ But even if they sprouted and blossomed the very morning you planted them, there would still be no harvest. There would be only trouble and incurable pain.

Enemy Nations Are Defeated

¹² Powerful nations are in commotion with a sound like the roar of the sea, like the crashing of huge waves. ¹³ The nations advance like rushing waves, but God reprimands them and they retreat, driven away like dust on a mountainside, like straw in a whirlwind. ¹⁴ At evening they cause terror, but by morning they are gone. That is the fate of everyone who plunders our land.

God Will Punish Ethiopia

18 ^(AS)Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia^[af] there is a land where the sound of wings is heard. ² From that land ambassadors come down the Nile in boats made of reeds. Go back home, swift messengers! Take a message back to your land divided by rivers, to your strong and powerful nation, to your tall and smooth-skinned people, who are feared all over the world.

³ Listen, everyone who lives on earth! Look for a signal flag to be raised on the mountaintops! Listen for the blowing of the bugle! ⁴ The Lord said to me, “I will look down from heaven as quietly as the dew forms in the warm nights of harvest time, as serenely as the sun shines in the heat of the day. ⁵ Before the grapes are gathered, when the blossoms have all fallen and the grapes are ripening, the enemy will destroy the Ethiopians^[ag] as easily as a knife cuts branches from a vine. ⁶ The corpses of their soldiers will be left exposed to the birds and the wild animals. In summer the birds will feed on them, and in winter, the animals.”

⁷ A time is coming when the Lord Almighty will receive offerings from this land divided by rivers, this strong and powerful nation, this tall and smooth-skinned people, who are feared all over the world. They will come to Mount Zion, where the Lord Almighty is worshiped.

God Will Punish Egypt

19 ^(AT)This is a message about Egypt.

The Lord is coming to Egypt, riding swiftly on a cloud. The Egyptian idols tremble before him, and the people of Egypt lose their courage. ² The Lord says, “I will stir up civil war in Egypt and turn brother against brother and neighbor against neighbor. Rival cities will fight each other, and rival kings will struggle for power. ³ I am going to frustrate the plans of the Egyptians and destroy their morale. They will ask their idols to help them, and they will go and consult mediums and ask the spirits of the dead for advice. ⁴ I will hand the Egyptians over to a tyrant, to a cruel king who will rule them. I, the Lord Almighty, have spoken.”

⁵ The water will be low in the Nile, and the river will gradually dry up. ⁶ The channels of the river will stink as they slowly go dry. Reeds and rushes will wither, ⁷ and all the crops planted along the banks of the Nile will dry up and be blown away. ⁸ Everyone who earns a living by fishing in the Nile will groan and cry; their hooks and their nets will be useless. ⁹ Those who make linen cloth will be in despair; ¹⁰ weavers and skilled workers will be broken and depressed.

¹¹ The leaders of the city of Zoan are fools! Egypt's wisest people give stupid advice! How do they dare to tell the king that they are successors to the ancient scholars and kings? ¹² King of Egypt, where are those clever advisers of yours? Perhaps they can tell you what plans the Lord Almighty has for Egypt. ¹³ The leaders of Zoan and Memphis are fools. They were supposed to lead the nation, but they have misled it. ¹⁴ The Lord has made them give confusing advice. As a result, Egypt does everything wrong and staggers like a drunk slipping on his own vomit. ¹⁵ No one in Egypt, rich or poor, important or unknown, can offer help.

Egypt Will Worship the Lord

¹⁶ A time is coming when the people of Egypt will be as timid as women. They will tremble in terror when they see that the Lord Almighty has stretched out his hand to punish them. ¹⁷ The people of Egypt will be terrified of Judah every time they are reminded of the fate that the Lord Almighty has prepared for them.

¹⁸ When that time comes, the Hebrew language will be spoken in five Egyptian cities. The people there will take their oaths in the name of the Lord Almighty. One of the cities will be called, “City of the Sun.”

¹⁹ When that time comes, there will be an altar to the Lord in the land of Egypt and a stone pillar dedicated to him at the Egyptian border. ²⁰ They will be symbols of the Lord Almighty's presence in Egypt. When the people there are oppressed and call out to the Lord for help, he will send someone to rescue them. ²¹ The Lord will reveal himself to the Egyptian people, and then they will acknowledge and worship him, and bring him sacrifices and offerings. They will make solemn promises to him and do what they promise. ²² The Lord will punish the Egyptians, but then he will heal them. They will turn to him, and he will hear their prayers and heal them.

²³ When that time comes, there will be a highway between Egypt and Assyria. The people of these two countries will travel back and forth between them, and the two nations will worship together. ²⁴ When that time comes, Israel will rank with Egypt and Assyria, and these three nations will be a blessing to all the world. ²⁵ The Lord Almighty will bless them and say, “I will bless you, Egypt, my people; you, Assyria, whom I created; and you, Israel, my chosen people.”

The Sign of the Naked Prophet

20 Under the orders of Emperor Sargon of Assyria, the commander-in-chief of the Assyrian army attacked the Philistine city of Ashdod. ² Three years earlier the Lord had told Isaiah son of Amoz to take off his sandals and the sackcloth he was wearing. He obeyed and went around naked and barefoot. ³ When Ashdod was captured, the Lord said, “My servant Isaiah has been going around naked and barefoot for three years. This is a sign of what will happen to Egypt and Ethiopia.^{[ah] 4} The emperor of Assyria will lead away naked the prisoners he captures from those two countries. Young and old, they will walk barefoot and naked, with their buttocks exposed, bringing shame on Egypt. ⁵ Those who have put their trust in Ethiopia^[ai] and have boasted about Egypt will be disillusioned, their hopes shattered. ⁶ When that time comes, the people who live along the coast of Philistia will say, ‘Look at what has happened to the people we relied on to protect us from the emperor of Assyria! How will we ever survive?’”

A Vision of the Fall of Babylon

21 This is a message about Babylonia.

Like a whirlwind sweeping across the desert, disaster will come from a terrifying land. ² I have seen a vision of cruel events, a vision of betrayal and destruction.

Army of Elam, attack! Army of Media, lay siege to the cities! God will put an end to the suffering which Babylon has caused.

³ What I saw and heard in the vision has filled me with terror and pain, pain like that of a woman in labor. ⁴ My head is spinning, and I am trembling with fear. I had been longing for evening to come, but it has brought me nothing but terror.

⁵ In the vision a banquet is ready; rugs are spread for the guests to sit on. They are eating and drinking. Suddenly the command rings out: “Officers! Prepare your shields!”

⁶ Then the Lord said to me, “Go and post a sentry, and tell him to report what he sees. ⁷ If he sees riders coming on horseback, two by two, and riders on donkeys and camels, he is to observe them carefully.”

⁸ The sentry calls out, “Sir, I have been standing guard at my post day and night.”

^9 (AU)Suddenly, here they come! Riders on horseback, two by two. The sentry gives the news, “Babylon has fallen! All the idols they worshiped lie shattered on the ground.”

¹⁰ My people Israel, you have been threshed like wheat, but now I have announced to you the good news that I have heard from the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel.

A Message about Edom

¹¹ This is a message about Edom.

Someone calls to me from Edom, “Sentry, how soon will the night be over? Tell me how soon it will end.”

¹² I answer, “Morning is coming, but night will come again. If you want to ask again, come back and ask.”

A Message about Arabia

¹³ This is a message about Arabia.

People of Dedan, you whose caravans camp in the barren country of Arabia, ¹⁴ give water to the thirsty people who come to you. You people of the land of Tema, give food to the refugees. ¹⁵ People are fleeing to escape from swords that are ready to kill them, from bows that are ready to shoot, from all the dangers of war.

¹⁶ Then the Lord said to me, “In exactly one year the greatness of the tribes of Kedar will be at an end. ¹⁷ The archers are the bravest warriors of Kedar, but few of them will be left. I, the Lord God of Israel, have spoken.”

A Message about Jerusalem

22 This is a message about the Valley of Vision.

What is happening? Why are all the people of the city celebrating on the roofs of the houses? ² The whole city is in an uproar, filled with noise and excitement.

Your people who died in this war did not die fighting. ³ All your leaders ran away and were captured before they shot a single arrow. ⁴ Now leave me alone to weep bitterly over all those of my people who have died. Don't try to comfort me. ⁵ This is a time of panic, defeat, and confusion in the Valley of Vision, and the Sovereign Lord Almighty has sent it on us. The walls of our city have been battered down, and cries for help have echoed among the hills.

⁶ The soldiers from the land of Elam came riding on horseback, armed with bows and arrows. Soldiers from the land of Kir had their shields ready. ⁷ The fertile valleys of Judah were filled with chariots; soldiers on horseback stood in front of Jerusalem's gates. ⁸ All of Judah's defenses crumbled.

When that happened, you brought weapons out of the arsenal. ^9-10 You found the places where the walls of Jerusalem needed repair. You inspected all the houses in Jerusalem and tore some of them down to get stones to repair the city walls. In order to store water, ¹¹ you built a reservoir inside the city to hold the water flowing down from the old pool. But you paid no attention to God, who planned all this long ago and who caused it to happen.

¹² The Sovereign Lord Almighty was calling you then to weep and mourn, to shave your heads and wear sackcloth. ^13 (AV)Instead, you laughed and celebrated. You killed sheep and cattle to eat, and you drank wine. You said, “We might as well eat and drink! Tomorrow we'll be dead.”

¹⁴ The Sovereign Lord Almighty himself spoke to me and said, “This evil will never be forgiven them as long as they live. I, the Sovereign Lord Almighty, have spoken.”

A Warning to Shebna

¹⁵ The Sovereign Lord Almighty told me to go to Shebna, the manager of the royal household, and say to him, ¹⁶ “Who do you think you are? What right do you have to carve a tomb for yourself out of the rocky hillside? ¹⁷ You may be important, but the Lord will pick you up and throw you away. ¹⁸ He will pick you up like a ball and throw you into a much larger country. You will die there beside the chariots you were so proud of. You are a disgrace to your master's household. ¹⁹ The Lord will remove you from office and bring you down from your high position.”

²⁰ The Lord said to Shebna, “When that happens, I will send for my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah. ²¹ I will put your official robe and belt on him and give him all the authority you have had. He will be like a father to the people of Jerusalem and Judah. ^22 (AW)I will give him complete authority under the king, the descendant of David. He will have the keys of office; what he opens, no one will shut, and what he shuts, no one will open. ²³ I will fasten him firmly in place like a peg, and he will be a source of honor to his whole family.

²⁴ “But all his relatives and dependents will become a burden to him. They will hang on him like pots and bowls hanging from a peg! ²⁵ When that happens, the peg that was firmly fastened will pull loose and fall. And that will be the end of everything that was hanging on it.” The Lord has spoken.

A Message about Phoenicia

23 ^(AX)This is a message about Tyre.

Howl with grief, you sailors out on the ocean! Your home port of Tyre has been destroyed; its houses and its harbor are in ruins. As your ships return from Cyprus, you learn the news. ² Wail, you merchants of Sidon! You sent agents ³ across the sea to buy and sell the grain that grew in Egypt and to do business with all the nations.

⁴ City of Sidon, you are disgraced! The sea and the great ocean depths disown you and say, “I never had any children. I never raised sons or daughters.”

⁵ Even the Egyptians will be shocked and dismayed when they learn that Tyre has been destroyed.

⁶ Howl with grief, you people of Phoenicia! Try to escape to Spain! ⁷ Can this be the joyful city of Tyre, founded so long ago? Is this the city that sent settlers across the sea to establish colonies? ⁸ Who was it that planned to bring all this on Tyre, that imperial city, whose merchant princes were the most honored men on earth? ⁹ The Lord Almighty planned it. He planned it in order to put an end to their pride in what they had done and to humiliate their honored ones.

¹⁰ Go and farm the land, you people in the colonies in Spain! There is no one to protect you any more.^{[aj] 11} The Lord has stretched out his hand over the sea and overthrown kingdoms. He has commanded that the Phoenician centers of commerce be destroyed. ¹² City of Sidon, your happiness has ended, and your people are oppressed. Even if they escape to Cyprus, they will still not be safe.

¹³ (It was the Babylonians, not the Assyrians, who let the wild animals overrun Tyre. It was the Babylonians who put up siege towers, tore down the fortifications of Tyre, and left the city in ruins.^[ak])

¹⁴ Howl with grief, you sailors out on the ocean! The city you relied on has been destroyed.

¹⁵ A time is coming when Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the lifetime of a king. When those years are over, Tyre will be like the prostitute in the song:

¹⁷ When the seventy years are over, the Lord will let Tyre go back to her old trade, and she will hire herself out to all the kingdoms of the world. ¹⁸ The money she earns by commerce will be dedicated to the Lord. She will not store it away, but those who worship the Lord will use her money to buy the food and the clothing they need.

The Lord Will Punish the Earth

24 The Lord is going to devastate the earth and leave it desolate. He will twist the earth's surface and scatter its people. ² Everyone will meet the same fate—the priests and the people, slaves and masters, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, rich and poor. ³ The earth will lie shattered and ruined. The Lord has spoken and it will be done.

⁴ The earth dries up and withers; the whole world grows weak; both earth and sky decay. ⁵ The people have defiled the earth by breaking God's laws and by violating the covenant he made to last forever. ⁶ So God has pronounced a curse on the earth. Its people are paying for what they have done. Fewer and fewer remain alive. ⁷ The grapevines wither, and wine is becoming scarce. Everyone who was once happy is now sad, ⁸ and the joyful music of their harps and drums has ceased. ⁹ There is no more happy singing over wine; no one enjoys its taste any more. ¹⁰ In the city everything is in chaos, and people lock themselves in their houses for safety. ¹¹ People shout in the streets because there is no more wine. Happiness is gone forever; it has been banished from the land. ¹² The city is in ruins, and its gates have been broken down. ¹³ This is what will happen in every nation all over the world. It will be like the end of harvest, when the olives have been beaten off every tree and the last grapes picked from the vines.

¹⁴ Those who survive will sing for joy. Those in the West will tell how great the Lord is, ¹⁵ and those in the East will praise him. The people who live along the sea will praise the Lord, the God of Israel. ¹⁶ From the most distant parts of the world we will hear songs in praise of Israel, the righteous nation.

But there is no hope for me! I am wasting away! Traitors continue to betray, and their treachery grows worse and worse. ¹⁷ Listen to me, everyone! There are terrors, pits, and traps waiting for you. ¹⁸ Anyone who tries to escape from the terror will fall in a pit, and anyone who escapes from the pit will be caught in a trap. Torrents of rain will pour from the sky, and earth's foundations will shake. ¹⁹ The earth will crack and shatter and split open. ²⁰ The earth itself will stagger like a drunk, sway like a hut in a storm. The world is weighed down by its sins; it will collapse and never rise again.

²¹ A time is coming when the Lord will punish the powers above and the rulers of the earth. ²² God will crowd kings together like prisoners in a pit. He will shut them in prison until the time of their punishment comes. ²³ The moon will grow dark, and the sun will no longer shine, for the Lord Almighty will be king. He will rule in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, and the leaders of the people will see his glory.

A Hymn of Praise

God Prepares a Banquet

⁶ Here on Mount Zion the Lord Almighty will prepare a banquet for all the nations of the world—a banquet of the richest food and the finest wine. ⁷ Here he will suddenly remove the cloud of sorrow that has been hanging over all the nations. ^8 (AY)The Sovereign Lord will destroy death forever! He will wipe away the tears from everyone's eyes and take away the disgrace his people have suffered throughout the world. The Lord himself has spoken.

⁹ When it happens, everyone will say, “He is our God! We have put our trust in him, and he has rescued us. He is the Lord! We have put our trust in him, and now we are happy and joyful because he has saved us.”

God Will Punish Moab

^10 (AZ)The Lord will protect Mount Zion, but the people of Moab will be trampled down the way straw is trampled in manure. ¹¹ They will reach out their hands as if they were trying to swim, but God will humiliate them, and their hands will sink helplessly. ¹² He will destroy the fortresses of Moab with their high walls and bring them tumbling down into the dust.

God Will Give His People Victory

26 A day is coming when the people will sing this song in the land of Judah:

Judgment and Restoration

²⁰ Go into your houses, my people, and shut the door behind you. Hide yourselves for a little while until God's anger is over. ²¹ The Lord is coming from his heavenly dwelling place to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The murders that were secretly committed on the earth will be revealed, and the ground will no longer hide those who have been killed.

27 ^(BB)On that day the Lord will use his powerful and deadly sword to punish Leviathan, that wriggling, twisting dragon, and to kill the monster^[ap] that lives in the sea.

² On that day the Lord will say of his pleasant vineyard, ³ “I watch over it and water it continually. I guard it night and day so that no one will harm it. ⁴ I am no longer angry with the vineyard. If there were thorns and briers to fight against, I would burn them up completely. ⁵ But if the enemies of my people want my protection, let them make peace with me. Yes, let them make peace with me.”

⁶ In the days to come the people of Israel, the descendants of Jacob, will take root like a tree, and they will blossom and bud. The earth will be covered with the fruit they produce.

⁷ Israel has not been punished by the Lord as severely as its enemies nor lost as many people. ⁸ The Lord punished his people by sending them into exile. He took them away with a cruel wind from the east.^{[aq] 9} But Israel's sins will be forgiven only when the stones of pagan altars are ground up like chalk, and no more incense altars or symbols of the goddess Asherah are left.

¹⁰ The fortified city lies in ruins. It is deserted like an empty wilderness. It has become a pasture for cattle, where they can rest and graze. ¹¹ The branches of the trees are withered and broken, and women gather them for firewood. Because the people have understood nothing, God their Creator will not pity them or show them any mercy.

¹² On that day, from the Euphrates to the Egyptian border, the Lord will gather his people one by one, as threshing separates the wheat from the chaff.

¹³ When that day comes, a trumpet will be blown to call back from Assyria and Egypt all the Israelites who are in exile there. They will come and worship the Lord in Jerusalem, on his sacred hill.^[ar]

A Warning to the Northern Kingdom

28 The kingdom of Israel is doomed! Its glory is fading like the crowns of flowers on the heads of its drunken leaders. Their proud heads are well perfumed, but there they lie, dead drunk. ² The Lord has someone strong and powerful ready to attack them, someone who will come like a hailstorm, like a torrent of rain, like a rushing, overpowering flood, and will overwhelm the land. ³ The pride of those drunken leaders will be trampled underfoot. ⁴ The fading glory of those proud leaders will disappear like the first figs of the season, picked and eaten as soon as they are ripe.

⁵ A day is coming when the Lord Almighty will be like a glorious crown of flowers for his people who survive. ⁶ He will give a sense of justice to those who serve as judges, and courage to those who defend the city gates from attack.

Isaiah and the Drunken Prophets of Judah

⁷ Even the prophets and the priests are so drunk that they stagger. They have drunk so much wine and liquor that they stumble in confusion. The prophets are too drunk to understand the visions that God sends, and the priests are too drunk to decide the cases that are brought to them. ⁸ The tables where they sit are all covered with vomit, and not a clean spot is left.

⁹ They complain about me. They say, “Who does that man think he's teaching? Who needs his message? It's only good for babies that have just stopped nursing! ¹⁰ He is trying to teach us letter by letter, line by line, lesson by lesson.”

^11 (BC)If you won't listen to me, then God will use foreigners speaking some strange-sounding language to teach you a lesson. ¹² He offered rest and comfort to all of you, but you refused to listen to him. ¹³ That is why the Lord is going to teach you letter by letter, line by line, lesson by lesson. Then you will stumble with every step you take. You will be wounded, trapped, and taken prisoner.

A Cornerstone for Zion

¹⁴ Now you arrogant leaders who rule here in Jerusalem over this people, listen to what the Lord is saying. ^15 (BD)You boast that you have made a treaty with death and reached an agreement with the world of the dead. You are certain that disaster will spare you when it comes, because you depend on lies and deceit to keep you safe. ^16 (BE)This, now, is what the Sovereign Lord says: “I am placing in Zion a foundation that is firm and strong. In it I am putting a solid cornerstone on which are written the words, ‘Faith that is firm is also patient.’ ¹⁷ Justice will be the measuring line for the foundation, and honesty will be its plumb line.”

Hailstorms will sweep away all the lies you depend on, and floods will destroy your security. ¹⁸ The treaty you have made with death will be abolished, and your agreement with the world of the dead will be canceled. When disaster sweeps down, you will be overcome. ¹⁹ It will strike you again and again, morning after morning. You will have to bear it day and night. Each new message from God will bring new terror! ²⁰ You will be like the person in the proverb, who tries to sleep in a bed too short to stretch out on, with a blanket too narrow to wrap himself in. ^21 (BF)The Lord will fight as he did at Mount Perazim and in the valley of Gibeon, in order to do what he intends to do—strange as his actions may seem. He will complete his work, his mysterious work.

²² Don't laugh at the warning I am giving you! If you do, it will be even harder for you to escape. I have heard the Lord Almighty's decision to destroy the whole country.

God's Wisdom

²³ Listen to what I am saying; pay attention to what I am telling you. ²⁴ Farmers don't constantly plow their fields and keep getting them ready for planting. ²⁵ Once they have prepared the soil, they plant the seeds of herbs such as dill and cumin. They plant rows of wheat and barley,^[as] and at the edges of their fields they plant other grain. ²⁶ They know how to do their work, because God has taught them. ²⁷ They never use a heavy club to beat out dill seeds or cumin seeds; instead they use light sticks of the proper size. ²⁸ They do not ruin the wheat by threshing it endlessly, and they know how to thresh it by driving a cart over it without bruising the grains. ²⁹ All this wisdom comes from the Lord Almighty. The plans God makes are wise, and they always succeed.

The Fate of Jerusalem

29 God's altar, Jerusalem itself, is doomed! The city where David camped is doomed! Let another year or two come and go, with its feasts and festivals, ² and then God will bring disaster on the city that is called “God's altar.” There will be weeping and wailing, and the whole city will be like an altar covered with blood. ³ God will attack the city, surround it, and besiege it. ⁴ Jerusalem will be like a ghost struggling to speak from under the ground, a muffled voice coming from the dust.

⁵ Jerusalem, all the foreigners who attack you will be blown away like dust, and their terrifying armies will fly away like straw. Suddenly and unexpectedly ⁶ the Lord Almighty will rescue you with violent thunderstorms and earthquakes. He will send windstorms and raging fire; ⁷ then all the armies of the nations attacking the city of God's altar, all their weapons and equipment—everything—will vanish like a dream, like something imagined in the night. ⁸ All the nations that assemble to attack Jerusalem will be like a starving person who dreams he is eating and wakes up hungry, or like someone dying of thirst who dreams he is drinking and wakes with a dry throat.

Disregarded Warnings

⁹ Go ahead and be stupid! Go ahead and be blind! Get drunk without any wine! Stagger without drinking a drop! ^10 (BG)The Lord has made you drowsy, ready to fall into a deep sleep. The prophets should be the eyes of the people, but God has blindfolded them. ¹¹ The meaning of every prophetic vision will be hidden from you; it will be like a sealed scroll. If you take it to someone who knows how to read and ask him to read it to you, he will say he can't because it is sealed. ¹² If you give it to someone who can't read and ask him to read it to you, he will answer that he doesn't know how.

^13 (BH)The Lord said, “These people claim to worship me, but their words are meaningless, and their hearts are somewhere else. Their religion is nothing but human rules and traditions, which they have simply memorized. ^14 (BI)So I will startle them with one unexpected blow after another. Those who are wise will turn out to be fools, and all their cleverness will be useless.”

Hope for the Future

¹⁵ Those who try to hide their plans from the Lord are doomed! They carry out their schemes in secret and think no one will see them or know what they are doing. ^16 (BJ)They turn everything upside down. Which is more important, the potter or the clay? Can something you have made say, “You didn't make me”? Or can it say, “You don't know what you are doing”?

¹⁷ As the saying goes, before long the dense forest will become farmland, and the farmland will go back to forest.

¹⁸ When that day comes, the deaf will be able to hear a book being read aloud, and the blind, who have been living in darkness, will open their eyes and see. ¹⁹ Poor and humble people will once again find the happiness which the Lord, the holy God of Israel, gives. ²⁰ It will be the end of those who oppress others and show contempt for God. Every sinner will be destroyed. ²¹ God will destroy those who slander others, those who prevent the punishment of criminals, and those who tell lies to keep honest people from getting justice.

²² So now the Lord, the God of Israel, who rescued Abraham from trouble, says, “My people, you will not be disgraced any longer, and your faces will no longer be pale with shame. ²³ When you see the children that I will give you, then you will acknowledge that I am the holy God of Israel. You will honor me and stand in awe of me. ²⁴ Foolish people will learn to understand, and those who are always grumbling will be glad to be taught.”

A Useless Treaty with Egypt

30 The Lord has spoken: “Those who rule Judah are doomed because they rebel against me. They follow plans that I did not make, and sign treaties against my will, piling one sin on another. ² They go to Egypt for help without asking for my advice. They want Egypt to protect them, so they put their trust in Egypt's king. ³ But the king will be powerless to help them, and Egypt's protection will end in disaster. ⁴ Although their ambassadors have already arrived at the Egyptian cities of Zoan and Hanes, ⁵ the people of Judah will regret that they ever trusted that unreliable nation, a nation that fails them when they expect help.”

⁶ This is God's message about the animals of the southern desert: “The ambassadors travel through dangerous country, where lions live and where there are poisonous snakes and flying dragons. They load their donkeys and camels with expensive gifts for a nation that cannot give them any help. ⁷ The help that Egypt gives is useless. So I have nicknamed Egypt, ‘The Harmless Dragon.’”

The Disobedient People

⁸ God told me to write down in a book what the people are like, so that there would be a permanent record of how evil they are. ⁹ They are always rebelling against God, always lying, always refusing to listen to the Lord's teachings. ¹⁰ They tell the prophets to keep quiet. They say, “Don't talk to us about what's right. Tell us what we want to hear. Let us keep our illusions. ¹¹ Get out of our way and stop blocking our path. We don't want to hear about your holy God of Israel.”

¹² But this is what the holy God of Israel says: “You ignore what I tell you and rely on violence and deceit. ¹³ You are guilty. You are like a high wall with a crack running down it; suddenly you will collapse. ¹⁴ You will be shattered like a clay pot, so badly broken that there is no piece big enough to pick up hot coals with or to dip water from a cistern.”

¹⁵ The Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says to the people, “Come back and quietly trust in me. Then you will be strong and secure.” But you refuse to do it. ¹⁶ Instead, you plan to escape from your enemies by riding fast horses. And you are right—escape is what you will have to do! You think your horses are fast enough, but those who pursue you will be faster! ¹⁷ A thousand of you will run away when you see one enemy soldier, and five soldiers will be enough to make you all run away. Nothing will be left of your army except a lonely flagpole on the top of a hill. ¹⁸ And yet the Lord is waiting to be merciful to you. He is ready to take pity on you because he always does what is right. Happy are those who put their trust in the Lord.

God Will Bless His People

¹⁹ You people who live in Jerusalem will not weep any more. The Lord is compassionate, and when you cry to him for help, he will answer you. ²⁰ The Lord will make you go through hard times, but he himself will be there to teach you, and you will not have to search for him any more. ²¹ If you wander off the road to the right or the left, you will hear his voice behind you saying, “Here is the road. Follow it.” ²² You will take your idols plated with silver and your idols covered with gold, and will throw them away like filth, shouting, “Out of my sight!” ²³ Whenever you plant your crops, the Lord will send rain to make them grow and will give you a rich harvest, and your livestock will have plenty of pasture. ²⁴ The oxen and donkeys that plow your fields will eat the finest and best fodder. ²⁵ On the day when the forts of your enemies are captured and their people are killed, streams of water will flow from every mountain and every hill. ²⁶ The moon will be as bright as the sun, and the sun will be seven times brighter than usual, like the light of seven days in one. This will all happen when the Lord bandages and heals the wounds he has given his people.

God Will Punish Assyria

²⁷ The Lord's power and glory can be seen in the distance. Fire and smoke show his anger. He speaks, and his words burn like fire. ²⁸ He sends the wind in front of him like a flood that carries everything away. It sweeps nations to destruction and puts an end to their evil plans. ²⁹ But you, God's people, will be happy and sing as you do on the night of a sacred festival. You will be as happy as those who walk to the music of flutes on their way to the Temple of the Lord, the defender of Israel.

³⁰ The Lord will let everyone hear his majestic voice and feel the force of his anger. There will be flames, cloudbursts, hailstones, and torrents of rain. ³¹ The Assyrians will be terrified when they hear the Lord's voice and feel the force of his punishment. ³² As the Lord strikes them again and again, his people will keep time with the music of drums and harps. God himself will fight against the Assyrians. ³³ Long ago a place was prepared where a huge fire will burn the emperor of Assyria. It is deep and wide, and piled high with wood. The Lord will breathe out a stream of flame to set it on fire.

God Will Protect Jerusalem

31 Those who go to Egypt for help are doomed! They are relying on Egypt's vast military strength—horses, chariots, and soldiers. But they do not rely on the Lord, the holy God of Israel, or ask him for help. ² He knows what he is doing! He sends disaster. He carries out his threats to punish evil people and those who protect them. ³ The Egyptians are not gods—they are only human. Their horses are not supernatural. When the Lord acts, the strong nation will crumble, and the weak nation it helped will fall. Both of them will be destroyed.

⁴ The Lord said to me, “No matter how shepherds yell and shout, they can't scare away a lion from an animal that it has killed; in the same way, there is nothing that can keep me, the Lord Almighty, from protecting Mount Zion. ⁵ Just as a bird hovers over its nest to protect its young, so I, the Lord Almighty, will protect Jerusalem and defend it.”

⁶ God said, “People of Israel, you have sinned against me and opposed me. But now, come back to me! ⁷ A time is coming when all of you will throw away the sinful idols you made out of silver and gold. ⁸ Assyria will be destroyed in war, but not by human power. The Assyrians will run from battle, and their young men will be made slaves. ⁹ Their emperor will run away in terror, and the officers will be so frightened that they will abandon their battle flags.” The Lord has spoken—the Lord who is worshiped in Jerusalem and whose fire burns there for sacrifices.

A King with Integrity

32 Some day there will be a king who rules with integrity, and national leaders who govern with justice. ² Each of them will be like a shelter from the wind and a place to hide from storms. They will be like streams flowing in a desert, like the shadow of a giant rock in a barren land. ³ Their eyes and ears will be open to the needs of the people. ⁴ They will not be impatient any longer, but they will act with understanding and will say what they mean. ⁵ No one will think that a fool is honorable or say that a scoundrel is honest. ⁶ A fool speaks foolishly and thinks up evil things to do. What he does and what he says are an insult to the Lord, and he never feeds the hungry or gives thirsty people anything to drink. ⁷ A stupid person is evil and does evil things; he plots to ruin the poor with lies and to keep them from getting their rights. ⁸ But an honorable person acts honestly and stands firm for what is right.

Judgment and Restoration

⁹ You women who live an easy life, free from worries, listen to what I am saying. ¹⁰ You may be satisfied now, but this time next year you will be in despair because there will be no grapes for you to gather. ¹¹ You have been living an easy life, free from worries; but now, tremble with fear! Strip off your clothes and tie rags around your waist. ¹² Beat your breasts in grief because the fertile fields and the vineyards have been destroyed, ¹³ and thorn bushes and briers are growing on my people's land. Weep for all the houses where people were happy and for the city that was full of life. ¹⁴ Even the palace will be abandoned and the capital city totally deserted. Homes and the forts that guarded them will be in ruins forever. Wild donkeys will roam there, and sheep will find pasture there.

¹⁵ But once more God will send us his spirit. The wasteland will become fertile, and fields will produce rich crops. ¹⁶ Everywhere in the land righteousness and justice will be done. ¹⁷ Because everyone will do what is right, there will be peace and security forever. ¹⁸ God's people will be free from worries, and their homes peaceful and safe. ¹⁹ (But hail will fall on the forests, and the city will be torn down.) ²⁰ How happy everyone will be with plenty of water for the crops and safe pasture everywhere for the donkeys and cattle.

A Prayer for Help

33 Our enemies are doomed! They have robbed and betrayed, although no one has robbed them or betrayed them. But their time to rob and betray will end, and they themselves will become victims of robbery and treachery.

² Lord, have mercy on us. We have put our hope in you. Protect us day by day and save us in times of trouble. ³ When you fight for us, nations run away from the noise of battle. ⁴ Their belongings are pounced upon and taken as loot.

⁵ How great the Lord is! He rules over everything. He will fill Jerusalem with justice and integrity ⁶ and give stability to the nation. He always protects his people and gives them wisdom and knowledge. Their greatest treasure is their reverence for the Lord.

⁷ The brave are calling for help. The ambassadors who tried to bring about peace are crying bitterly. ⁸ The highways are so dangerous that no one travels on them. Treaties are broken and agreements are violated. No one is respected any more. ⁹ The land lies idle and deserted. The forests of Lebanon have withered, the fertile valley of Sharon is like a desert, and in Bashan and on Mount Carmel the leaves are falling from the trees.

The Lord Warns His Enemies

¹⁰ The Lord says to the nations, “Now I will act. I will show how powerful I am. ¹¹ You make worthless plans and everything you do is useless. My spirit is like a fire that will destroy you.^{[at] 12} You will crumble like rocks burned to make lime, like thorns burned to ashes. ¹³ Let everyone near and far hear what I have done and acknowledge my power.”

¹⁴ The sinful people of Zion are trembling with fright. They say, “God's judgment is like a fire that burns forever. Can any of us survive a fire like that?” ¹⁵ You can survive if you say and do what is right. Don't use your power to cheat the poor and don't accept bribes. Don't join with those who plan to commit murder or to do other evil things. ¹⁶ Then you will be safe; you will be as secure as if in a strong fortress. You will have food to eat and water to drink.

The Glorious Future

¹⁷ Once again you will see a king ruling in splendor over a land that stretches in all directions. ¹⁸ Your old fears of foreign tax collectors and spies will be only a memory. ¹⁹ You will no longer see any arrogant foreigners who speak a language that you can't understand. ²⁰ Look at Zion, the city where we celebrate our religious festivals. Look at Jerusalem! What a safe place it will be to live in! It will be like a tent that is never moved, whose pegs are never pulled up and whose ropes never break. ²¹ The Lord will show us his glory. We will live beside broad rivers and streams, but hostile ships will not sail on them.^{[au] 22-23} All the rigging on those ships is useless; the sails cannot be spread! We will seize all the wealth of enemy armies, and there will be so much that even the lame can get a share. The Lord himself will be our king; he will rule over us and protect us. ²⁴ No one who lives in our land will ever again complain of being sick, and all sins will be forgiven.

God Will Punish His Enemies

34 Come, people of all nations! Gather around and listen. Let the whole earth and everyone living on it come here and listen. ² The Lord is angry with all the nations and all their armies. He has condemned them to destruction. ³ Their corpses will not be buried, but will lie there rotting and stinking; and the mountains will be red with blood. ^4 (BK)The sun, moon, and stars will crumble to dust. The sky will disappear like a scroll being rolled up, and the stars will fall like leaves dropping from a vine or a fig tree.

^5 (BL)The Lord has prepared his sword in heaven, and now it will strike Edom, those people whom he has condemned to destruction. ⁶ His sword will be covered with their blood and fat, like the blood and fat of lambs and goats that are sacrificed. The Lord will offer this sacrifice in the city of Bozrah; he will make this a great slaughter in the land of Edom. ⁷ The people will fall like wild oxen and young bulls, and the earth will be red with blood and covered with fat. ⁸ This is the time when the Lord will rescue Zion and take vengeance on her enemies.

⁹ The rivers of Edom will turn into tar, and the soil will turn into sulfur. The whole country will burn like tar. ^10 (BM)It will burn day and night, and smoke will rise from it forever. The land will lie waste age after age, and no one will ever travel through it again. ¹¹ Owls and ravens will take over the land. The Lord will make it a barren waste again, as it was before the creation. ¹² There will be no king to rule the country, and the leaders will all be gone.^{[av] 13} Thorns and thistles will grow up in all the palaces and walled towns, and jackals and owls will live in them. ¹⁴ Wild animals will roam there, and demons will call to each other. The night monster^[aw] will come there looking for a place to rest. ¹⁵ Owls will build their nests, lay eggs, hatch their young, and care for them there. Vultures will gather there, one after another.

¹⁶ Search in the Lord's book of living creatures and read what it says. Not one of these creatures will be missing, and not one will be without its mate. The Lord has commanded it to be so; he himself will bring them together. ¹⁷ It is the Lord who will divide the land among them and give each of them a share. They will live in the land age after age, and it will belong to them forever.

The Road of Holiness

The Assyrians Threaten Jerusalem^(BP)

36 In the fourteenth year that Hezekiah was king of Judah, Sennacherib, the emperor of Assyria, attacked the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. ² Then he ordered his chief official to go from Lachish to Jerusalem with a large military force to demand that King Hezekiah surrender. The official occupied the road where the cloth makers work, by the ditch that brings water from the upper pool. ³ Three Judeans came out to meet him: the official in charge of the palace, Eliakim son of Hilkiah; the court secretary, Shebna; and the official in charge of the records, Joah son of Asaph. ⁴ The Assyrian official told them that the emperor wanted to know what made King Hezekiah so confident. ⁵ He demanded, “Do you think that words can take the place of military skill and might? Who do you think will help you rebel against Assyria? ^6 (BQ)You are expecting Egypt to help you, but that would be like using a reed as a walking stick—it would break and would jab your hand. That is what the king of Egypt is like when anyone relies on him.”

⁷ The Assyrian official went on, “Or will you tell me that you are relying on the Lord your God? It was the Lord's shrines and altars that Hezekiah destroyed when he told the people of Judah and Jerusalem to worship at one altar only. ⁸ I will make a bargain with you in the name of the emperor. I will give you two thousand horses if you can find that many riders. ⁹ You are no match for even the lowest ranking Assyrian official, and yet you expect the Egyptians to send you chariots and horsemen. ¹⁰ Do you think I have attacked your country and destroyed it without the Lord's help? The Lord himself told me to attack it and destroy it.”

¹¹ Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah told the official, “Speak Aramaic to us. We understand it. Don't speak Hebrew; all the people on the wall are listening.”

¹² He replied, “Do you think you and the king are the only ones the emperor sent me to say all these things to? No, I am also talking to the people who are sitting on the wall, who will have to eat their excrement and drink their urine, just as you will.”

¹³ Then the official stood up and shouted in Hebrew, “Listen to what the emperor of Assyria is telling you. ¹⁴ He warns you not to let Hezekiah deceive you. Hezekiah can't save you. ¹⁵ And don't let him persuade you to rely on the Lord. Don't think that the Lord will save you and that he will stop our Assyrian army from capturing your city. ¹⁶ Don't listen to Hezekiah! The emperor of Assyria commands you to come out of the city and surrender. You will all be allowed to eat grapes from your own vines and figs from your own trees, and to drink water from your own wells— ¹⁷ until the emperor resettles you in a country much like your own, where there are vineyards to give wine and there is grain for making bread. ¹⁸ Don't let Hezekiah fool you into thinking that the Lord will rescue you. Did the gods of any other nations save their countries from the emperor of Assyria? ¹⁹ Where are they now, the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Did anyone save Samaria? ²⁰ When did any of the gods of all these countries ever save their country from our emperor? Then what makes you think the Lord can save Jerusalem?”

²¹ The people kept quiet, just as King Hezekiah had told them to; they did not say a word. ²² Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah tore their clothes in grief and went and reported to the king what the Assyrian official had said.

The King Asks Isaiah's Advice^(BR)

37 As soon as King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes in grief, put on sackcloth, and went to the Temple of the Lord. ² He sent Eliakim, the official in charge of the palace, Shebna, the court secretary, and the senior priests to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. They also were wearing sackcloth. ³ This is the message which he told them to give to Isaiah: “Today is a day of suffering; we are being punished and are in disgrace. We are like a woman who is ready to give birth, but is too weak to do it. ⁴ The Assyrian emperor has sent his chief official to insult the living God. May the Lord your God hear these insults and punish those who spoke them. So pray to God for those of our people who survive.”

⁵ When Isaiah received King Hezekiah's message, ⁶ he sent back this answer: “The Lord tells you not to let the Assyrians frighten you by their claims that he cannot save you. ⁷ The Lord will cause the emperor to hear a rumor that will make him go back to his own country, and the Lord will have him killed there.”

The Assyrians Send Another Threat^(BS)

⁸ The Assyrian official learned that the emperor had left Lachish and was fighting against the nearby city of Libnah; so he went there to consult him. ⁹ Word reached the Assyrians that the Egyptian army, led by King Tirhakah of Ethiopia,^[ay] was coming to attack them. When the emperor heard this, he sent a letter to King Hezekiah ¹⁰ of Judah to tell him: “The god you are trusting in has told you that you will not fall into my hands, but don't let that deceive you. ¹¹ You have heard what an Assyrian emperor does to any country he decides to destroy. Do you think that you can escape? ¹² My ancestors destroyed the cities of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and killed the people of Betheden who lived in Telassar, and none of their gods could save them. ¹³ Where are the kings of the cities of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?”

¹⁴ King Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went to the Temple, placed the letter there in the presence of the Lord, ¹⁵ and prayed, ^16 (BT)“Almighty Lord, God of Israel, seated above the winged creatures, you alone are God, ruling all the kingdoms of the world. You created the earth and the sky. ¹⁷ Now, Lord, hear us and look at what is happening to us. Listen to all the things that Sennacherib is saying to insult you, the living God. ¹⁸ We all know, Lord, that the emperors of Assyria have destroyed many nations, made their lands desolate, ¹⁹ and burned up their gods—which were no gods at all, only images of wood and stone made by human hands. ²⁰ Now, Lord our God, rescue us from the Assyrians, so that all the nations of the world will know that you alone are God.”

Isaiah's Message to the King^(BU)

²¹ Then Isaiah sent a message telling King Hezekiah that in answer to the king's prayer ²² the Lord had said, “The city of Jerusalem laughs at you, Sennacherib, and makes fun of you. ²³ Whom do you think you have been insulting and ridiculing? You have been disrespectful to me, the holy God of Israel. ²⁴ You sent your servants to boast to me that with all your chariots you had conquered the highest mountains of Lebanon. You boasted that there you cut down the tallest cedars and the finest cypress trees, and that you reached the deepest parts of the forests. ²⁵ You boasted that you dug wells and drank water in foreign lands, and that the feet of your soldiers tramped the Nile River dry.

²⁶ “Have you never heard that I planned all this long ago? And now I have carried it out. I gave you the power to turn fortified cities into piles of rubble. ²⁷ The people who lived there were powerless; they were frightened and stunned. They were like grass in a field or weeds growing on a roof when the hot east wind blasts them.^[az]

²⁸ “But I know everything about you, what you do and where you go. I know how you rage against me. ²⁹ I have received the report of that rage and that pride of yours, and now I will put a hook through your nose and a bit in your mouth and will take you back by the same road you came.”

³⁰ Then Isaiah said to King Hezekiah, “Here is a sign of what will happen. This year and next you will have only wild grain to eat, but the following year you will be able to plant grain and harvest it, and plant vines and eat grapes. ³¹ Those in Judah who survive will flourish like plants that send roots deep into the ground and produce fruit. ³² There will be people in Jerusalem and on Mount Zion who will survive, because the Lord Almighty is determined to make this happen.

³³ “And this is what the Lord has said about the Assyrian emperor: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot a single arrow against it. No soldiers with shields will come near the city, and no siege mounds will be built around it. ³⁴ He will go back by the same road he came, without entering this city. I, the Lord, have spoken. ³⁵ I will defend this city and protect it, for the sake of my own honor and because of the promise I made to my servant David.’”

³⁶ An angel of the Lord went to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 soldiers. At dawn the next day there they lay, all dead! ³⁷ Then the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib withdrew and returned to Nineveh. ³⁸ One day when he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, two of his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, killed him with their swords and then escaped to the land of Ararat. Another of his sons, Esarhaddon, succeeded him as emperor.

King Hezekiah's Illness and Recovery^(BV)

38 About this time King Hezekiah became sick and almost died. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to see him and said to him, “The Lord tells you that you are to put everything in order because you will not recover. Get ready to die.”

² Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed: ³ “Remember, Lord, that I have served you faithfully and loyally, and that I have always tried to do what you wanted me to.” And he began to cry bitterly.

⁴ Then the Lord commanded Isaiah ⁵ to go back to Hezekiah and say to him, “I, the Lord, the God of your ancestor David, have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will let you live fifteen years longer. ⁶ I will rescue you and this city of Jerusalem from the emperor of Assyria, and I will continue to protect the city.”

²¹ Isaiah told the king to put a paste made of figs on his boil, and he would get well. ²² Then King Hezekiah asked, “What is the sign to prove that I will be able to go to the Temple?”^[ba]

⁷ Isaiah replied, “The Lord will give you a sign to prove that he will keep his promise. ⁸ On the stairway built by King Ahaz, the Lord will make the shadow go back ten steps.” And the shadow moved back ten steps.^[bb]

⁹ After Hezekiah recovered from his illness, he wrote this song of praise:

Messengers from Babylonia^(BX)

39 About that same time the king of Babylonia, Merodach Baladan, son of Baladan, heard that King Hezekiah had been sick, so he sent him a letter and a present. ² Hezekiah welcomed the messengers and showed them his wealth—his silver and gold, his spices and perfumes, and all his military equipment. There was nothing in his storerooms or anywhere in his kingdom that he did not show them. ³ Then the prophet Isaiah went to King Hezekiah and asked, “Where did these messengers come from and what did they say to you?”

Hezekiah answered, “They came from a very distant country, from Babylonia.”

⁴ “What did they see in the palace?”

“They saw everything. There is nothing in the storerooms that I didn't show them.”

⁵ Isaiah then told the king, “The Lord Almighty says that ⁶ a time is coming when everything in your palace, everything that your ancestors have stored up to this day, will be carried off to Babylonia. Nothing will be left. ^7 (BY)Some of your own direct descendants will be taken away and made eunuchs to serve in the palace of the king of Babylonia.”

⁸ King Hezekiah understood this to mean that there would be peace and security during his lifetime, so he replied, “The message you have given me from the Lord is good.”

Words of Hope

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