Isaiah 30
New Living Translation
Judah’s Worthless Treaty with Egypt
30 “What sorrow awaits my rebellious children,”
says the Lord.
“You make plans that are contrary to mine.
You make alliances not directed by my Spirit,
thus piling up your sins.
2 For without consulting me,
you have gone down to Egypt for help.
You have put your trust in Pharaoh’s protection.
You have tried to hide in his shade.
3 But by trusting Pharaoh, you will be humiliated,
and by depending on him, you will be disgraced.
4 For though his power extends to Zoan
and his officials have arrived in Hanes,
5 all who trust in him will be ashamed.
He will not help you.
Instead, he will disgrace you.”
6 This message came to me concerning the animals in the Negev:
The caravan moves slowly
across the terrible desert to Egypt—
donkeys weighed down with riches
and camels loaded with treasure—
all to pay for Egypt’s protection.
They travel through the wilderness,
a place of lionesses and lions,
a place where vipers and poisonous snakes live.
All this, and Egypt will give you nothing in return.
7 Egypt’s promises are worthless!
Therefore, I call her Rahab—
the Harmless Dragon.[a]
A Warning for Rebellious Judah
8 Now go and write down these words.
Write them in a book.
They will stand until the end of time
as a witness
9 that these people are stubborn rebels
who refuse to pay attention to the Lord’s instructions.
10 They tell the seers,
“Stop seeing visions!”
They tell the prophets,
“Don’t tell us what is right.
Tell us nice things.
Tell us lies.
11 Forget all this gloom.
Get off your narrow path.
Stop telling us about your
‘Holy One of Israel.’”
12 This is the reply of the Holy One of Israel:
“Because you despise what I tell you
and trust instead in oppression and lies,
13 calamity will come upon you suddenly—
like a bulging wall that bursts and falls.
In an instant it will collapse
and come crashing down.
14 You will be smashed like a piece of pottery—
shattered so completely that
there won’t be a piece big enough
to carry coals from a fireplace
or a little water from the well.”
15 This is what the Sovereign Lord,
the Holy One of Israel, says:
“Only in returning to me
and resting in me will you be saved.
In quietness and confidence is your strength.
But you would have none of it.
16 You said, ‘No, we will get our help from Egypt.
They will give us swift horses for riding into battle.’
But the only swiftness you are going to see
is the swiftness of your enemies chasing you!
17 One of them will chase a thousand of you.
Five of them will make all of you flee.
You will be left like a lonely flagpole on a hill
or a tattered banner on a distant mountaintop.”
Blessings for the Lord’s People
18 So the Lord must wait for you to come to him
so he can show you his love and compassion.
For the Lord is a faithful God.
Blessed are those who wait for his help.
19 O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem,
you will weep no more.
He will be gracious if you ask for help.
He will surely respond to the sound of your cries.
20 Though the Lord gave you adversity for food
and suffering for drink,
he will still be with you to teach you.
You will see your teacher with your own eyes.
21 Your own ears will hear him.
Right behind you a voice will say,
“This is the way you should go,”
whether to the right or to the left.
22 Then you will destroy all your silver idols
and your precious gold images.
You will throw them out like filthy rags,
saying to them, “Good riddance!”
23 Then the Lord will bless you with rain at planting time. There will be wonderful harvests and plenty of pastureland for your livestock. 24 The oxen and donkeys that till the ground will eat good grain, its chaff blown away by the wind. 25 In that day, when your enemies are slaughtered and the towers fall, there will be streams of water flowing down every mountain and hill. 26 The moon will be as bright as the sun, and the sun will be seven times brighter—like the light of seven days in one! So it will be when the Lord begins to heal his people and cure the wounds he gave them.
27 Look! The Lord is coming from far away,
burning with anger,
surrounded by thick, rising smoke.
His lips are filled with fury;
his words consume like fire.
28 His hot breath pours out like a flood
up to the neck of his enemies.
He will sift out the proud nations for destruction.
He will bridle them and lead them away to ruin.
29 But the people of God will sing a song of joy,
like the songs at the holy festivals.
You will be filled with joy,
as when a flutist leads a group of pilgrims
to Jerusalem, the mountain of the Lord—
to the Rock of Israel.
30 And the Lord will make his majestic voice heard.
He will display the strength of his mighty arm.
It will descend with devouring flames,
with cloudbursts, thunderstorms, and huge hailstones.
31 At the Lord’s command, the Assyrians will be shattered.
He will strike them down with his royal scepter.
32 And as the Lord strikes them with his rod of punishment,[b]
his people will celebrate with tambourines and harps.
Lifting his mighty arm, he will fight the Assyrians.
33 Topheth—the place of burning—
has long been ready for the Assyrian king;
the pyre is piled high with wood.
The breath of the Lord, like fire from a volcano,
will set it ablaze.
Isaiah 30
Lexham English Bible
Warning against Alliance with Egypt
30 “Oh rebellious children!” declares[a] Yahweh,
“to make a plan, but[b] not from me,
and pour out a libation, but[c] not from my Spirit,
so as to add[d] sin to sin.
2 Who go to go down to Egypt,
but[e] they do not ask of my mouth,
to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh
and to take refuge in the shadow of Egypt.
3 And the protection of Pharaoh shall be shame to you,
and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt, humiliation.
4 For his officials are at Zoan,
and his envoys reach to Hanes.
5 Everyone will start to stink because of a people that cannot profit them,
not for help and not for profiting,
but for shame and also for disgrace.”
Oracle regarding the Negev
6 An oracle of the animals of the Negev:
Through a land of trouble and distress,
of lioness and lion,
among[f] them are snake and flying serpent;
they carry their wealth on the backs[g] of male donkeys
and their treasures on the humps[h] of camels,
to a people that cannot profit them.
7 For[i] Egyptians[j] help with vanity and emptiness,
therefore I have called this one “Rahab, they are sitting.”
8 Now go, write it on a tablet with them,
and inscribe it on a scroll,
that[k] it may be for the time to come,[l]
forever, forever.
9 For it is a people of rebellion, deceitful children,
children who are not willing to hear the instruction of Yahweh,
10 who say to those who do see, “You must not see!”
and to the seers, “You must not see truth for us;
speak smooth things to us,
see illusions,
11 turn aside from the way, turn aside from the path,
put an end to the holy one of Israel from our face.”
12 Therefore the holy one of Israel says this:
“Because you are rejecting this word
and you trust in oppression and cunning[m]
and you rely on it,
13 therefore this iniquity shall come for you like a breach about to fall,
bulging out on a high wall that breaks[n] suddenly, in an instant.
14 And he breaks it like a vessel of a potter[o] breaks,
that is crushed; he has no compassion,
and no potsherd is found among its fragments[p] to take fire[q] from the hearth,
or to skim[r] water from the cistern.”
15 For the Lord Yahweh, the holy one of Israel, said this:
“In returning and rest you shall be saved;
your strength shall be in quietness and in trust.”
But[s] you were not willing, 16 and you said,
“No! For we will flee on horses!”[t] Therefore you shall flee!
And, “We will ride on swift horses!”[u] Therefore your pursuers shall be swift!
17 One thousand because of[v] a threat of one,
because[w] of a threat of five you shall flee,
until you are left like a flagstaff on top[x] of a mountain,
and like a signal on a hill.
Yahweh Will Show Mercy
18 Therefore Yahweh waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he will rise up to show you mercy,
for Yahweh is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.
19 For people will live in Zion;
in Jerusalem, you will surely not weep.
Surely he will be gracious to you;
when he hears the sound of your cry, he will answer you.
20 And the Lord will give you the bread of distress
and the water of oppression,
but[y] your teachers will not hide themselves[z] any longer.
And your eyes shall see[aa] your teachers.
21 And your ears shall hear a word from behind you, saying,
“this is the way; walk in it,”
when you go to your right
and when you go to your left.
22 And you will defile the plating of your silver idols
and the covering of your gold image.
You will scatter them like contaminated things;[ab]
you will say to it, “Filth!”[ac]
23 And he will give rain for your seed with which you sow the ground,
and grain, the produce of the ground, and it will be rich and fertile.[ad]
On that day, your cattle will graze in broad pastures;[ae]
24 and the oxen and the donkeys that till[af] the ground will eat fodder, sorrel
that has been winnowed with shovel and pitchfork.
25 And there will be streams on every high mountain and elevated hill,
watercourses of water, on a day of great slaughter, when towers fall.
26 And the light of the full moon will be like the light of the sun,
and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days,
on the day when Yahweh binds up the breakage of his people,
and he heals the wound of his blow.
Judgment against Assyria
27 Look! The name of Yahweh comes from afar,
burning with his anger and heaviness of cloud.
His lips are full of indignation,
and his tongue is like a devouring fire.
28 And his breath is like an overflowing river;
it reaches up to the neck
to shake the nations with the sieve of worthlessness;
and a bridle that leads astray is on the jawbones of the peoples.
29 You shall have a song[ag] as in the night when a holy festival is kept,
and a gladness of heart like one who goes with the flute,
to go to the mountain of Yahweh, to the rock of Israel.
30 And Yahweh will cause the majesty of his voice to be heard,
and he will cause the descent of his arm to be seen,
in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire,
with a cloudburst and a rainstorm and stones[ah] of hail.
31 Indeed, Assyria will be shattered by the voice of Yahweh;
he strikes with the rod.
32 And every stroke of the staff of foundation[ai] that Yahweh lays will be on it with timbrels and lyres,
and he will fight against it[aj] with battles of brandishing.
33 For Topheth has been prepared from yesterday;
indeed, it is made ready for the king.
He makes its pile of wood deep and wide;
he makes fire and wood abundant.[ak]
The breath of Yahweh burns in it like a stream of sulfur.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 30:1 Literally “declaration of”
- Isaiah 30:1 Or “and”
- Isaiah 30:1 Or “and”
- Isaiah 30:1 Literally “for the sake of adding”
- Isaiah 30:2 Or “and”
- Isaiah 30:6 Literally “from”
- Isaiah 30:6 Literally “shoulder”
- Isaiah 30:6 Hebrew “hump”
- Isaiah 30:7 Or “And”
- Isaiah 30:7 Literally “Egypt”
- Isaiah 30:8 Or “and”
- Isaiah 30:8 Literally “for last day”
- Isaiah 30:12 Literally “going wrong”
- Isaiah 30:13 Literally “whose breaking comes”
- Isaiah 30:14 Literally “someone who forms”
- Isaiah 30:14 Hebrew “fragment”
- Isaiah 30:14 Literally “for the taking away of fire”
- Isaiah 30:14 Literally “for the skimming off of”
- Isaiah 30:15 Or “And”
- Isaiah 30:16 Hebrew “horse”
- Isaiah 30:16 Hebrew “horse”
- Isaiah 30:17 Literally “from the face of”
- Isaiah 30:17 Literally “from the face”
- Isaiah 30:17 Literally “head”
- Isaiah 30:20 Or “and”
- Isaiah 30:20 Hebrew “himself”
- Isaiah 30:20 Literally “be seeing”
- Isaiah 30:22 Hebrew “contaminated thing”
- Isaiah 30:22 Or “Get out!”
- Isaiah 30:23 Literally “fat”
- Isaiah 30:23 Hebrew “pasture”
- Isaiah 30:24 Or “tilling”
- Isaiah 30:29 Literally “There shall be a song for you”
- Isaiah 30:30 Hebrew “stone”
- Isaiah 30:32 Some translations emend this to “discipline”
- Isaiah 30:32 The reading tradition (Qere) has “them”
- Isaiah 30:33 Literally “numerous”
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