Isaiah 55-57

Common English Bible

Invitation to the feast

55 All of you who are thirsty, come to the water!
Whoever has no money, come, buy food and eat!
Without money, at no cost, buy wine and milk!
²Why spend money for what isn’t food,
    and your earnings for what doesn’t satisfy?
Listen carefully to me and eat what is good;
    enjoy the richest of feasts.
³Listen and come to me;
    listen, and you will live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
    my faithful loyalty to David.
⁴Look, I made him a witness to the peoples,
    a prince and commander of peoples.
⁵Look, you will call a nation you don’t know,
    a nation you don’t know will run to you
    because of the Lord your God,
    the holy one of Israel, who has glorified you.

⁶Seek the Lord when he can still be found;
    call him while he is yet near.
⁷Let the wicked abandon their ways
    and the sinful their schemes.
Let them return to the Lord so that he may have mercy on them,
    to our God, because he is generous with forgiveness.
⁸My plans aren’t your plans,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
⁹Just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways,
    and my plans than your plans.
¹⁰Just as the rain and the snow come down from the sky
        and don’t return there without watering the earth,
        making it conceive and yield plants
        and providing seed to the sower and food to the eater,
¹¹    so is my word that comes from my mouth;
        it does not return to me empty.
        Instead, it does what I want,
        and accomplishes what I intend.

¹²Yes, you will go out with celebration,
    and you will be brought back in peace.
Even the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you;
    all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
¹³In place of the thorn the cypress will grow;
    in place of the nettle the myrtle will grow.
This will attest to the Lord’s stature,
        an enduring reminder that won’t be removed.

Keepers of God’s Sabbath

56 The Lord says:
    Act justly and do what is righteous,
    because my salvation is coming soon,
    and my righteousness will be revealed.
²Happy is the one who does this,
    the person who holds it fast,
    who keeps the Sabbath, not making it impure,
    and avoids doing any evil.

³Don’t let the immigrant who has joined with the Lord say,
    “The Lord will exclude me from the people.”
    And don’t let the eunuch say,
        “I’m just a dry tree.”
⁴The Lord says:
    To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,
    choose what I desire,
    and remain loyal to my covenant.
⁵    In my temple and courts, I will give them
    a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.
    I will give to them an enduring name
    that won’t be removed.
⁶The immigrants who have joined me,^[a]
    serving me and loving my name,^[b] becoming my servants,^[c]
    everyone who keeps the Sabbath without making it impure,
    and those who hold fast to my covenant:
⁷    I will bring them to my holy mountain,
    and bring them joy in my house of prayer.
    I will accept their entirely burned offerings and sacrifices on my altar.
    My house will be known as a house of prayer for all peoples,
⁸        says the Lord God,
    who gathers Israel’s outcasts.
I will gather still others to those I have already gathered.

Neglectful leaders

⁹All you beasts of the field,
    come and eat, all you beasts of the forest!
¹⁰The lookouts are blind;
    they all lack sense.
They are all mute dogs that can’t bark,
    dreamers, loungers, loving to sleep.
¹¹But the dogs have monstrous appetites.
    They never have enough.
    They are shepherds who don’t understand.
All of them have turned to their own ways,
    every last one greedy for profit.
¹²“Come! I’ll get some wine!
    Let’s drink beer!
    Tomorrow will be like today, or even much better.”

57 The righteous person perishes,
    and no one takes it to heart.
Loyal people are gathered together,
    and no one understands that because of evil
    the righteous one passed away.
²They will find peace;
    those who walk in straight paths
    will find rest on their burial beds.

Accusations against idolators

³Come here, you children of sorcery,
    offspring of adultery and prostitution!
⁴Whom are you mocking?
    Against whom do you open your mouth wide
    and stick out your tongue?
Aren’t you children of rebellion, offspring of lies,
⁵    who console yourselves with idols under every green tree,
    who slaughter children in the valleys, under the rocky cliffs?
⁶You belong with the smooth talkers^[d] in the valley;
    they, they are your lot.
For them you poured out a drink offering,
    and presented a grain offering.
    Should I condone these things?
⁷On a very high mountain you made your bed.
    You went up there to offer a sacrifice.
⁸Behind the door and the doorpost
    you placed your symbols.
You abandoned me and lay down,
    making room in your bed
    and making deals for yourself with them.^[e]
You loved their bed;
    you saw their nakedness.
⁹You went down to Molech^[f] with oil,
    and you slathered on your ointments;
    you sent your messengers far away,
    sent them down to the underworld.^[g]
¹⁰Worn out by all your efforts,
    yet you wouldn’t say, “This is useless.”
You found new strength;
    therefore, you weren’t tired.
¹¹Whom did you dread and fear so that you lied,
    didn’t remember me or give me a thought?
Isn’t it because I was silent and closed my eyes
    that you stopped fearing me?
¹²I will bring evidence about your righteousness and your actions;
    they won’t help you.
¹³When you cry out,
    let those things you’ve gathered save you!
The wind will lift them all;
    one breath will take them away.
but those taking refuge in me will inherit the land and possess my holy mountain.

Peace for the remorseful

¹⁴It will be said: “Survey, survey; build a road!
    Remove barriers from my people’s road!”
¹⁵The one who is high and lifted up,
    who lives forever, whose name is holy, says:
I live on high, in holiness,
    and also with the crushed^[h] and the lowly,
    reviving the spirit of the lowly,
    reviving the heart of those who have been crushed.^[i]
¹⁶I won’t always accuse,
    nor will I be enraged forever.
    It is my own doing that their spirit is exhausted—
    I gave them breath!
¹⁷I was enraged about their illegal profits;
    I struck them; in rage I withdrew from them.
Yet they went on wandering wherever they wanted.
¹⁸    I have seen their ways, but I will heal them.
    I will guide them,
        and reward them with comfort.
And for those who mourn,
¹⁹    I will create reason for praise:^[j]
    utter prosperity to those far and near,
    and I will heal them, says the Lord.
²⁰But the wicked are like the churning sea that can’t keep still.
    They churn up from their waters muck and mud.
²¹    There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked.