Isaiah 30
The Voice
30 Eternal One: Oh, it will be so bad for you, My rebellious children,
who enact a plan but not as I would have you do,
Who form an alliance contrary to My Spirit,
compounding sin, one bad choice after another.
2 You look to Egypt for security and help without consulting Me.
You seem to think that Pharaoh is the answer,
That Egypt will protect you from harm.
3 But because you cling to the earthly power of great nations,
you will be disappointed and ashamed
In the very thing you grasped—Pharaoh and Egypt.
4 For even though Egypt’s princes and ambassadors are in the delta region,
in Zoan and Hanes,
5 They will be no help to you, no security or revenue for you.
You’ll be embarrassed that you ever thought they would be
And you will be shamed and disgraced for associating with them.
6 A message about the beasts of the Negev:
Nevertheless, the Judeans go down to Egypt,
Crossing through a land of trouble and anguish,
tracked by lionesses and lions, in danger of vipers and poisonous snakes,
All their precious valuables packed on the backs of donkeys and camels.
They look to a people who can offer them nothing.
7 Eternal One: Egypt’s help is no help at all.
Therefore I call Egypt “Rahab”—a storm that just sits there.
8 So, go on—write all this down on a tablet in their presence;
inscribe it on a scroll as a permanent record
So people will know about it forever.
9 After all, these people are rebellious and distrustful.
They won’t accept, don’t even pay attention
To what the Eternal has tried to tell them.
10 They say to those gifted with discernment and insight:
“Stop with your visions. We’ve had enough of them.”
They say to the prophets, “Tell us only what we’d like to hear;
save your truth-telling pessimism for someone else.
We want to hear flattery.
11 And for goodness’ sake, stop talking about the Holy One of Israel.
Get out of the gloomy rut you are in—
Your message is a bit stale—take a different path.”
12 But the Holy One of Israel says,
Eternal One: Because you refused to accept this truth, My word and purpose,
and trusted instead in deceit and manipulation, you will fall.
13 Your wrongdoing, your misplaced confidence and web of lies,
will be your undoing.
Like a breach in a wall that bulges out and suddenly gives way,
your façade will come crashing down in an instant.
14 Your destruction will be as complete
as when someone savagely smashes a piece of pottery.
There won’t be even a single piece big enough
to scoop an ember from the fire or skim a sip of water from a cistern.
15 Listen! The Lord, the Eternal, the Holy One of Israel says,
Eternal One: In returning and rest, you will be saved.
In quietness and trust you will find strength.
God invites His people to lean only on Him. If they will just stop their busyness and self-reliance, God will be able to take care of them.
But you refused. 16 You couldn’t sit still;
instead, you said, “No! We will ride out of here on horseback.
Fast horses will give us an edge in battle.”
But those who pursue you will be faster still.
17 When one person threatens, a thousand will panic and flee.
When five terrorize you, all will run pell-mell,
Until you are as conspicuous as a single flag standing high on a hill.
18 Meanwhile, the Eternal One yearns to give you grace and boundless compassion;
that’s why He waits.
For the Eternal is a God of justice.
Those inclined toward Him, waiting for His help, will find happiness.
19 Oh, people of Zion, citizens of Jerusalem, you will not cry anymore. God hears the sound of your weeping, and He will answer with grace. 20 Even though the Lord has fed you the bitter food of adversity and offered you the water of oppression, your great Teacher will reveal Himself to you; your eyes will see Him. 21 Your ears will hear sweet words behind you: “Go this way. There is your path; this is how you should go” whenever you must decide whether to turn to the right or the left. 22 Then you’ll get rid of all your worthless idols clad in silver and your despicable images plated with gold. You will destroy these idols and discard them as you do filthy rags, saying, “Get out of here.”
23 And then God will see to it that your efforts are fruitful—He’ll give you rain for your seedlings, bread from the earth, grain nourishing and plentiful. On that day your livestock will graze on acre after acre of green pastures. 24 Also if the oxen and donkeys that work that ground for you are well fed with good grain that is carefully winnowed with shovel and fork, then they will be content. 25 When the day arrives and your enemies are slaughtered and the towers come tumbling down, there will be rushing brooks of clear, sweet water running down every high mountain and steep hill. 26 When the time comes and the Eternal One binds up the brokenness of His people and heals what He had bruised, then the light of the moon will shine as brightly as the midday sun, and the sun will shine seven times brighter than normal, as if one day had seven days of sunlight.
27 See now, the name of the Eternal is echoing from far away.
God is coming with a fury inescapable to set things right again.
God is coming like fire and smoke;
His lips, indignation—His tongue, consuming fire.
28 God’s breath barrels down like hurricane rain,
rising right up to the neck to rattle the nations
And to subdue all peoples as a horse handler bridles a crazy mare for slaughter.
29 In your newfound freedom, you will sing as if it’s a festival night.
With lighthearted joy, you will dance your way toward Jerusalem,
To the Eternal’s mountain, the Rock Israel can trust.
30 Then the Eternal One will make unmistakable His absolute authority
when all hear His voice, and God’s power will be obvious
For all to see—God’s anger against the nations—that consuming fire
like a cloudburst, thunderstorm, and hailstorm all at once.
31 And Assyria
will cover its ears, terrified at the sound of God’s voice
When He comes to strike them with His punishing rod.
32 And every wave of the Eternal’s attacks against Assyria
will be accompanied by a song with tambourines and harps.
In battle after battle, He lifts his arm and fights against them.
33 After all, long ago, God prepared the place of vindication,
a funeral pyre for Assyria’s king laid deep and high,
A large stack of wood just waiting for God’s breath like brimstone to ignite it.
Isaiah 30
King James Version
30 Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin:
2 That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!
3 Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion.
4 For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes.
5 They were all ashamed of a people that could not profit them, nor be an help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.
6 The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.
7 For the Egyptians shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this, Their strength is to sit still.
8 Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:
9 That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord:
10 Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:
11 Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.
12 Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon:
13 Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.
14 And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters' vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit.
15 For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.
16 But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.
17 One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill.
18 And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.
19 For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee.
20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers:
21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
22 Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence.
23 Then shall he give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal; and bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be fat and plenteous: in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures.
24 The oxen likewise and the young asses that ear the ground shall eat clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan.
25 And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.
27 Behold, the name of the Lord cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire:
28 And his breath, as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity: and there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing them to err.
29 Ye shall have a song, as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe to come into the mountain of the Lord, to the mighty One of Israel.
30 And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall shew the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones.
31 For through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down, which smote with a rod.
32 And in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which the Lord shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps: and in battles of shaking will he fight with it.
33 For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.