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Alliance with Egypt Is Futile

31 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help
    and rely on horses,
who trust in chariots because they are many
    and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel
    or consult the Lord!
And yet he is wise and brings disaster,
    he does not call back his words,
but will arise against the house of the evildoers,
    and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.
The Egyptians are men, and not God;
    and their horses are flesh, and not spirit.
When the Lord stretches out his hand,
    the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall,
    and they will all perish together.

For thus the Lord said to me,
As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey,
    and when a band of shepherds is called forth against him
is not terrified by their shouting
    or daunted at their noise,
so the Lord of hosts will come down
    to fight upon Mount Zion and upon its hill.
Like birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts
    will protect Jerusalem;
he will protect and deliver it,
    he will spare and rescue it.

Turn to him from whom you[a] have deeply revolted, O people of Israel. For in that day every one shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.

“And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man;
    and a sword, not of man, shall devour him;
and he shall flee from the sword,
    and his young men shall be put to forced labor.
His rock shall pass away in terror,
    and his officers desert the standard in panic,”
says the Lord, whose fire is in Zion,
    and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

Government with Justice Predicted

32 Behold, a king will reign in righteousness,
    and princes will rule in justice.
Each will be like a hiding place from the wind,
    a covert from the tempest,
like streams of water in a dry place,
    like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.
Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed,
    and the ears of those who hear will hearken.
The mind of the rash will have good judgment,
    and the tongue of the stammerers will speak readily and distinctly.
The fool will no more be called noble,
    nor the knave said to be honorable.
For the fool speaks folly,
    and his mind plots iniquity:
to practice ungodliness,
    to utter error concerning the Lord,
to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied,
    and to deprive the thirsty of drink.
The knaveries of the knave are evil;
    he devises wicked devices
to ruin the poor with lying words,
    even when the plea of the needy is right.
But he who is noble devises noble things,
    and by noble things he stands.

Complacent Women Warned of Disaster

Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice;
    you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech.
10 In little more than a year
    you will shudder, you complacent women;
for the vintage will fail,
    the fruit harvest will not come.
11 Tremble, you women who are at ease,
    shudder, you complacent ones;
strip, and make yourselves bare,
    and gird sackcloth upon your loins.
12 Beat upon your breasts for the pleasant fields,
    for the fruitful vine,
13 for the soil of my people
    growing up in thorns and briers;
yea, for all the joyous houses
    in the joyful city.
14 For the palace will be forsaken,
    the populous city deserted;
the hill and the watchtower
    will become dens for ever,
a joy of wild asses,
    a pasture of flocks;
15 until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,
    and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
    and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.

The Peace of God’s Reign

16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
    and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
17 And the effect of righteousness will be peace,
    and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust for ever.
18 My people will abide in a peaceful habitation,
    in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.
19 And the forest will utterly go down,[b]
    and the city will be utterly laid low.
20 Happy are you who sow beside all waters,
    who let the feet of the ox and the ass range free.

A Prophecy of Deliverance from Foes

33 Woe to you, destroyer,
    who yourself have not been destroyed;
you treacherous one,
    with whom none has dealt treacherously!
When you have ceased to destroy,
    you will be destroyed;
and when you have made an end of dealing treacherously,
    you will be dealt with treacherously.

O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for thee.
    Be our arm every morning,
    our salvation in the time of trouble.
At the thunderous noise peoples flee,
    at the lifting up of thyself nations are scattered;
and spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers;
    as locusts leap, men leap upon it.

The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high;
    he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness;
and he will be the stability of your times,
    abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge;
    the fear of the Lord is his treasure.

Behold, the valiant ones[c] cry without;
    the envoys of peace weep bitterly.
The highways lie waste,
    the wayfaring man ceases.
Covenants are broken,
    witnesses[d] are despised,
    there is no regard for man.
The land mourns and languishes;
    Lebanon is confounded and withers away;
Sharon is like a desert;
    and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.

10 “Now I will arise,” says the Lord,
    “now I will lift myself up;
    now I will be exalted.
11 You conceive chaff, you bring forth stubble;
    your breath is a fire that will consume you.
12 And the peoples will be as if burned to lime,
    like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”

13 Hear, you who are far off, what I have done;
    and you who are near, acknowledge my might.
14 The sinners in Zion are afraid;
    trembling has seized the godless:
“Who among us can dwell with the devouring fire?
    Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”
15 He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly,
    who despises the gain of oppressions,
who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe,
    who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed
    and shuts his eyes from looking upon evil,
16 he will dwell on the heights;
    his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks;
    his bread will be given him, his water will be sure.

The Land of the Majestic King

17 Your eyes will see the king in his beauty;
    they will behold a land that stretches afar.
18 Your mind will muse on the terror:
    “Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed the tribute?
    Where is he who counted the towers?”
19 You will see no more the insolent people,
    the people of an obscure speech which you cannot comprehend,
    stammering in a tongue which you cannot understand.
20 Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts!
    Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
    a quiet habitation, an immovable tent,
whose stakes will never be plucked up,
    nor will any of its cords be broken.
21 But there the Lord in majesty will be for us
    a place of broad rivers and streams,
where no galley with oars can go,
    nor stately ship can pass.
22 For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our ruler,
    the Lord is our king; he will save us.

23 Your tackle hangs loose;
    it cannot hold the mast firm in its place,
    or keep the sail spread out.

Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided;
    even the lame will take the prey.
24 And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”;
    the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.

Judgment on the Nations

34 Draw near, O nations, to hear,
and hearken, O peoples!
Let the earth listen, and all that fills it;
    the world, and all that comes from it.
For the Lord is enraged against all the nations,
    and furious against all their host,
    he has doomed them, has given them over for slaughter.
Their slain shall be cast out,
    and the stench of their corpses shall rise;
    the mountains shall flow with their blood.
All the host of heaven shall rot away,
    and the skies roll up like a scroll.
All their host shall fall,
    as leaves fall from the vine,
    like leaves falling from the fig tree.

For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;
    behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom,
    upon the people I have doomed.
The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood,
    it is gorged with fat,
    with the blood of lambs and goats,
    with the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
    a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
Wild oxen shall fall with them,
    and young steers with the mighty bulls.
Their land shall be soaked with blood,
    and their soil made rich with fat.

For the Lord has a day of vengeance,
    a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
And the streams of Edom[e] shall be turned into pitch,
    and her soil into brimstone;
    her land shall become burning pitch.
10 Night and day it shall not be quenched;
    its smoke shall go up for ever.
From generation to generation it shall lie waste;
    none shall pass through it for ever and ever.
11 But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it,
    the owl and the raven shall dwell in it.
He shall stretch the line of confusion over it,
    and the plummet of chaos over[f] its nobles.
12 They shall name it No Kingdom There,
    and all its princes shall be nothing.

13 Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,
    nettles and thistles in its fortresses.
It shall be the haunt of jackals,
    an abode for ostriches.
14 And wild beasts shall meet with hyenas,
    the satyr shall cry to his fellow;
yea, there shall the night hag alight,
    and find for herself a resting place.

15 There shall the owl nest and lay
    and hatch and gather her young in her shadow;
yea, there shall the kites be gathered,
    each one with her mate.
16 Seek and read from the book of the Lord:
    Not one of these shall be missing;
    none shall be without her mate.
For the mouth of the Lord has commanded,
    and his Spirit has gathered them.
17 He has cast the lot for them,
    his hand has portioned it out to them with the line;
they shall possess it for ever,
    from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.

The Return of the Redeemed to Zion

35 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
    the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
    and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
    the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
    the majesty of our God.

Strengthen the weak hands,
    and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
    “Be strong, fear not!
Behold, your God
    will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God.
    He will come and save you.”

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
    and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap like a hart,
    and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
    and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
    and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,[g]
    the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

And a highway shall be there,
    and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not pass over it,[h]
    and fools shall not err therein.
No lion shall be there,
    nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
    but the redeemed shall walk there.
10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
    and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
    they shall obtain joy and gladness,
    and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 31:6 Heb they
  2. Isaiah 32:19 Cn: Heb And it will hail when the forest comes down
  3. Isaiah 33:7 The meaning of the Hebrew word is uncertain
  4. Isaiah 33:8 One ancient Ms: Heb cities
  5. Isaiah 34:9 Heb her streams
  6. Isaiah 34:11 Heb lacks over
  7. Isaiah 35:7 Cn: Heb in the haunt of jackals is her resting place
  8. Isaiah 35:8 Heb it and he is for them a wayfarer

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