Isaiah 3-5

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

3 For behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, is taking away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff [every kind of prop], the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water,

² The mighty man and the man of war, the judge and the [professional] prophet, the one who foretells by divination and the old man,

³ The captain of fifty and the man of rank, the counselor and the expert craftsman and the skillful enchanter.

⁴ And I will make boys their princes, and with childishness shall they rule over them [with outrage instead of justice].

⁵ And the people shall be oppressed, each one by another, and each one by his neighbor; the child shall behave himself proudly and with insolence against the old man, and the lowborn against the honorable [person of rank].

⁶ When a man shall take hold of his brother in the house of his father, saying, You have a robe, you shall be our judge and ruler, and this heap of ruins shall be under your control—

⁷ In that day he will answer, saying, I will not be a healer and one who binds up; ^[a]I am not a physician. For in my house is neither bread nor clothing; you shall not make me judge and ruler of the people.

⁸ For Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is fallen, because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of His glory and defy His glorious presence.

⁹ Their respecting of persons and showing of partiality witnesses against them; they proclaim their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil [as a reward upon themselves].

¹⁰ Say to the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.

¹¹ Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with them, for what their hands have done shall be done to them.

¹² As for My people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O My people, your leaders cause you to err, and they confuse (destroy and swallow up) the course of your paths.

¹³ The Lord stands up to contend, and stands to judge the peoples and His people.

¹⁴ The Lord enters into judgment with the elders of His people and their princes: For [by your exactions and oppressions you have robbed the people and ruined the country] you have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

¹⁵ What do you mean by crushing My people and grinding the faces of the poor? says the Lord God of hosts.

¹⁶ Moreover, the Lord said, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks and with undisciplined (flirtatious and alluring) eyes, tripping along with mincing and affected gait, and making a tinkling noise with [the anklets on] their feet,

¹⁷ Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the heads of the daughters of Zion [making them bald], and the Lord will cause them to be [taken as captives and to suffer the indignity of being] stripped naked.

¹⁸ In that day the Lord will take away the finery of their tinkling anklets, the caps of network, the crescent head ornaments,

¹⁹ The pendants, the bracelets or chains, and the spangled face veils and scarfs,

²⁰ The headbands, the short ankle chains [attached from one foot to the other to insure a measured gait], the sashes, the perfume boxes, the amulets or charms [suspended from the ears or neck],

²¹ The signet rings and nose rings,

²² The festal robes, the cloaks, the stoles and shawls, and the handbags,

²³ The hand mirrors, the fine linen [undergarments], the turbans, and the [whole body-enveloping] veils.

²⁴ And it shall come to pass that instead of the sweet odor of spices there shall be the stench of rottenness; and instead of a girdle, a rope; and instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a rich robe, a girding of sackcloth; and searing [of captives by the scorching heat] instead of beauty.

²⁵ Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty men in battle.

²⁶ And [Jerusalem’s] gates shall lament and mourn [as those who wail for the dead]; and she, being ruined and desolate, shall sit upon the ground.

4 And in that day ^[b]seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread and provide our own apparel; only let us be called by your name to take away our reproach [of being unmarried].

² In that day the Branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be excellent and lovely to those of Israel who have escaped.^(A)

³ And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem and for ^[c]eternal life,^(B)

⁴ After the Lord has washed away the [moral] filth of the daughters of Zion [pride, vanity, haughtiness] and has purged the bloodstains of Jerusalem from the midst of it by the spirit and blast of judgment and by the spirit and blast of burning and sifting.

⁵ And the Lord will create over the whole site, over every dwelling place of Mount Zion and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory shall be a canopy (a defense of divine love and protection).

⁶ And there shall be a pavilion for shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge and a shelter from storm and from rain.

5 Let me [as God’s representative] sing of and for my greatly Beloved [God, the Son] a tender song of my Beloved concerning His vineyard [His chosen people]. My greatly Beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.^(C)

² And He dug and trenched the ground and gathered out the stones from it and planted it with the choicest vine and built a tower in the midst of it and hewed out a winepress in it. And He looked for it to bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

³ And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between Me and My vineyard [My people, says the Lord].

⁴ What more could have been done for My vineyard that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to bring forth grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

⁵ And now I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be eaten and burned up; and I will break down its wall, and it shall be trodden down [by enemies].

⁶ And I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned or cultivated, but there shall come up briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

⁷ For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant planting [the plant of His delight]. And He looked for justice, but behold, [He saw] oppression and bloodshed; [He looked] for righteousness (for uprightness and right standing with God), but behold, [He heard] a cry [of oppression and distress]!

⁸ Woe to those who join house to house [and by violently expelling the poorer occupants enclose large acreage] and join field to field until there is no place for others and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land!

⁹ In my [Isaiah’s] ears the Lord of hosts said, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and beautiful ones shall be without inhabitant.

¹⁰ For ten acres of vineyard shall yield only about eight gallons, and ten bushels of seed will produce but one bushel.

¹¹ Woe unto those who rise early in the morning, that they may pursue strong drink, who tarry late into the night till wine inflames them!

¹² They have lyre and harp, tambourine and flute and wine at their feasts, but they do not regard the deeds of the Lord, neither do they consider the operation of His hands [in mercy and in judgment].

¹³ Therefore My people go into captivity [to their enemies] without knowing it and because they have no knowledge [of God]. And their honorable men [their glory] are famished, and their common people are parched with thirst.

¹⁴ Therefore Sheol (the unseen state, the realm of the dead) has enlarged its appetite and opened its mouth without measure; and [Jerusalem’s] nobility and her multitude and her pomp and tumult and [the drunken reveler] who exults in her descend into it.

¹⁵ And the common man is bowed down, and the great man is brought low, and the eyes of the haughty are humbled.

¹⁶ But the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice, and God, the Holy One, shows Himself holy in righteousness and through righteous judgments.

¹⁷ Then shall the lambs feed [among the ruins] as in their own pasture, and [among] the desolate places of the [exiled] rich shall sojourners and aliens eat.

¹⁸ Woe to those who draw [calamity] with cords of iniquity and falsehood, who bring punishment to themselves with a cart rope of wickedness,

¹⁹ Who say, Let [the Holy One] make haste and speed His [prophesied] vengeance, that we may see it; and let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it!

²⁰ Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

²¹ Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent and shrewd in their own sight!

²² Woe to those who are mighty heroes at drinking wine and men of strength in mixing alcoholic drinks!—

²³ Who justify and acquit the guilty for a bribe, but take away the rights of the innocent and righteous from them!

²⁴ Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be like rottenness and their blossom shall go up like fine dust—because they have rejected and cast away the law and the teaching of the Lord of hosts and have not believed but have treated scornfully and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁵ Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against His people, and He has stretched forth His hand against them and has smitten them. And the mountains trembled, and their dead bodies were like dung and sweepings in the midst of the streets. For all this, His anger is not turned away, but His hand is still stretched out [in judgment].

²⁶ And He will lift up a signal to call together a hostile people from afar [to execute His judgment on Judea], and will hiss for them from the end of the earth [as bees are hissed from their hives], and behold, they shall come with speed, swiftly!

²⁷ None is weary or stumbles among them, none slumbers or sleeps; nor is the girdle of their loins loosed or the latchet (thong) of their shoes broken;

²⁸ Their arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses’ hoofs seem like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind.

²⁹ Their roaring is like that of a lioness, they roar like young lions; they growl and seize their prey and carry it safely away, and there is none to deliver it.

³⁰ And in that day they [the army from afar] shall roar against [the Jews] like the roaring of the sea. And if one looks to the land, behold, there is darkness and distress; and the light [itself] will be darkened by the clouds of it.