Isaiah 26:9-28:17

English Standard Version

¹⁶ O Lord, ^(K)in distress they sought you;
    they poured out a whispered prayer
    when your discipline was upon them.
^17 (L)Like a pregnant woman
    who writhes and cries out in her pangs
    when she is near to giving birth,
so were we because of you, O Lord;
^{18     (M)}we were pregnant, we writhed,
    but we have given birth to wind.
We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,
    and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
^19 (N)Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.
    You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For ^(O)your dew is a dew of light,
    and the earth will give birth to the dead.

²⁰ Come, my people, enter your chambers,
    and shut your doors behind you;
hide yourselves ^(P)for a little while
    until the fury has passed by.
^21 (Q)For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place
    to punish the inhabitants of ^(R)the earth for their iniquity,
and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,
    and will no more cover its slain.

² In that day,
^(W)“A pleasant vineyard,^{[a] (X)}sing of it!
³     I, the Lord, am its keeper;
    every moment I water it.
    Lest anyone punish it,
I keep it night and day;
⁴     I have no wrath.
^(Y)Would that I had thorns and briers to battle!
    I would march against them,
    I would burn them up together.
⁵ Or let them lay hold of my protection,
    let them make peace with me,
    let them make peace with me.”

^6 (Z)In days to come^[b] Jacob shall take root,
    Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots
    and fill the whole world with fruit.

^7 (AA)Has he struck them ^(AB)as he struck those who struck them?
    Or have they been slain ^(AC)as their slayers were slain?
^8 (AD)Measure by measure,^[c] by exile you contended with them;
    ^(AE)he removed them with his fierce breath^[d] in the day of the east wind.
⁹ Therefore by this ^(AF)the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for,
    and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin:^[e]
(AG)when he makes all the stones of the altars
    like chalkstones crushed to pieces,
    no ^(AH)Asherim or incense altars will remain standing.
^10 (AI)For the fortified city is solitary,
    a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;
there the calf grazes;
    there it lies down and strips its branches.
¹¹ When its boughs are dry, they are broken;
    women come and make a fire of them.
^(AJ)For this is a people without discernment;
    therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them;
    he who formed them will show them no favor.

^5 (AU)In that day the Lord of hosts will be a crown of glory,^[h]
    and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of his people,
⁶ and ^(AV)a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment,
    and ^(AW)strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.

^7 (AX)These also reel with wine
    and ^(AY)stagger with strong drink;
the priest and ^(AZ)the prophet reel with strong drink,
    they are swallowed by^[i] wine,
    they stagger with strong drink,
they reel in vision,
    they stumble in giving judgment.
⁸ For all tables are full of filthy vomit,
    with no space left.

^9 (BA)“To whom will he teach knowledge,
    and to whom will he explain the message?
Those who are weaned from the milk,
    those taken from the breast?
¹⁰ For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
    line upon line, line upon line,
    here a little, there a little.”

^11 (BB)For by people of strange lips
    and with a foreign tongue
the Lord will speak to this people,
¹²     to whom he has said,
^(BC)“This is rest;
    give rest to the weary;
and this is repose”;
    yet they would not hear.
¹³ And the word of the Lord will be to them
precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
    line upon line, line upon line,
    here a little, there a little,
^(BD)that they may go, and fall backward,
    and be broken, and snared, and taken.