Isaiah 5:15-30

Complete Jewish Bible

¹⁸ Woe to those who begin by pulling
at transgression with a thread,
but end by dragging sin along
as if with a cart rope.
¹⁹ They say, “We want God to speed up his work,
to hurry it along, so we can see it!
We want the Holy One of Isra’el’s plan
to come true right now, so we can be sure of it!”

²⁰ Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who change darkness into light
and light into darkness,
who change bitter into sweet
and sweet into bitter!

²¹ Woe to those seeing themselves as wise,
esteeming themselves as clever.

²² Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine,
men whose power goes to mixing strong drinks,
²³ who acquit the guilty for bribes
but deny justice to the righteous!
²⁴ Therefore, as fire licks up the stubble,
and the chaff is consumed in the flame;
so their root will rot,
and their flowers scatter like dust;
because they have rejected the Torah
of Adonai-Tzva’ot,
they have despised the word
of the Holy One of Isra’el.
²⁵ This is why Adonai’s anger blazed up against his people,
why he stretched out his hand against them and struck them
[so hard that] the hills shook,
and corpses lay like trash in the streets.

Even after all this, his anger remains,
his upraised hand still threatens.

²⁶ He will give a signal to faraway nations,
he will whistle for them to come
from the ends of the earth;
and here they come, so fast! —
²⁷ none of them tired or stumbling,
none of them sleeping or drowsy,
none with a loose belt,
none with a broken sandal-strap.
²⁸ Their arrows are sharp,
all their bows are strung,
their horses’ hoofs are like flint,
and their [chariot] wheels like a whirlwind.
²⁹ They will roar like lions —
yes, roaring like young lions,
they growl and seize the prey
and carry it off, with no one to rescue.
³⁰ On that day they will growl at them,
like the sea when it growls —
and when one looks toward land,
one sees darkness closing in;
the light is dissipated
in the obscuring overcast.