Isaiah 10:5-19

Amplified Bible

⁵
Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger [against Israel],
The staff in whose hand is My indignation and fury [against Israel’s disobedience]!
⁶
I send Assyria against a godless nation
And commission it against the people of My wrath
To take the spoil and to seize the plunder,
And to trample them down like mud in the streets.
⁷
Yet it is not Assyria’s intention [to do My will],
Nor does it plan so in its heart,
But instead it is its purpose to destroy
And to cut off many nations.
⁸
For Assyria says, “Are not my princes all kings?
⁹
“Is not Calno [conquered] like Carchemish [on the Euphrates]?
Is not Hamath [subdued] like Arpad [her neighbor]?
Is not Samaria [in Israel] like Damascus [in Aram]?
¹⁰
“As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols,
Whose carved images were greater and more feared than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
¹¹
Shall I not do to Jerusalem and her images
Just as I have done to Samaria and her idols?” [declares Assyria].

¹²So when the Lord has completed all His work [of judgment] on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the fruit [the thoughts, the declarations, and the actions] of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the haughtiness of his pride.” ¹³For the Assyrian king has said,

“I have done this by the power of my [own] hand and by my wisdom,
For I have understanding and skill.
I have removed the boundaries of the peoples
And have plundered their treasures;
Like a bull I have brought down those who sat on thrones.
¹⁴
“My hand has found the wealth of the people like a nest,
And as one gathers eggs that are abandoned, so I have gathered all the earth;
And there was not one that flapped its wing, or that opened its beak and chirped.”

¹⁵
Is the axe able to lift itself over the one who chops with it?
Is the saw able to magnify itself over the one who wields it?
That would be like a club moving those who lift it,
Or like a staff raising him who is not [made of] wood [like itself]!
¹⁶
Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, will send a wasting disease among the stout warriors of Assyria;
And under his glory a fire will be kindled like a burning flame.
¹⁷
And the Light of Israel will become a fire and His Holy One a flame,
And it will ^[a]burn and devour Assyria’s thorns and briars in a single day.^(A)
¹⁸
The Lord will consume the glory of Assyria’s forest and of its fruitful garden, both soul and body,
And it will be as when a sick man wastes away.
¹⁹
And the remaining trees of Assyria’s forest will be so few in number
That a child could write them down.