Isaiah 27:6-28:13

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

⁶ In days to come^[a] Jacob shall take root,
    Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots,
    and fill the whole world with fruit.

⁷ Has he struck them down as he struck down those who struck them?
    Or have they been killed as their killers were killed?
⁸ By expulsion,^[b] by exile you struggled against them;
    with his fierce blast he removed them in the day of the east wind.
⁹ Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be expiated,
    and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin:
when he makes all the stones of the altars
    like chalkstones crushed to pieces,
    no sacred poles^[c] or incense altars will remain standing.
¹⁰ For the fortified city is solitary,
    a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;
the calves graze there,
    there they lie down, and strip its branches.
¹¹ When its boughs are dry, they are broken;
    women come and make a fire of them.
For this is a people without understanding;
    therefore he that made them will not have compassion on them,
    he that formed them will show them no favor.

⁵ In that day the Lord of hosts will be a garland of glory,
    and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of his people;
⁶ and a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment,
    and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.

⁷ These also reel with wine
    and stagger with strong drink;
the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink,
    they are confused with wine,
    they stagger with strong drink;
they err in vision,
    they stumble in giving judgment.
⁸ All tables are covered with filthy vomit;
    no place is clean.

⁹ “Whom will he teach knowledge,
    and to whom will he explain the message?
Those who are weaned from milk,
    those taken from the breast?
¹⁰ For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
    line upon line, line upon line,
    here a little, there a little.”^[d]

¹¹ Truly, with stammering lip
    and with alien tongue
he will speak to this people,
¹²     to whom he has said,
“This is rest;
    give rest to the weary;
and this is repose”;
    yet they would not hear.
¹³ Therefore the word of the Lord will be to them,
    “Precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
    line upon line, line upon line,
    here a little, there a little;”^[e]
in order that they may go, and fall backward,
    and be broken, and snared, and taken.