Isaiah 28:7-13
Evangelical Heritage Version
The Drunken Prophets and Priests
7 They stagger into error because of wine,
and they stumble off the way because of beer.
The priests and prophets stagger with beer,
and they are dizzy from wine.
They stumble from beer.
They stagger when they see visions.
They reel when they render judgment.
8 All their tables are covered with vomit.
There is not a spot without filth.
9 They[a] say:
Who is he trying to teach?
Who needs his instruction?
A baby who has just been weaned from milk?
An infant just taken from the breast?
10 They say:
Law by law, law by law,
rule by rule, rule by rule,[b]
a little here, a little there.
11 So the Lord will speak to this people
with barbarous lips and in a foreign tongue.
12 He said to them,
“This is the resting place.
Let the weary rest.
This is the place to be refreshed,”
but they would not listen.
13 That is why to them the word of the Lord will be:
Law by law, law by law,
rule by rule, rule by rule,[c]
a little here, a little there.
As a result they will try to walk,
but they will fall backwards.
They will be hurt, trapped, and taken.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 28:9 That is, the drunken priests and prophets who mock Isaiah
- Isaiah 28:10 The Hebrew text reads sav lasav sav lasav kav lakav kav lakav. It is possible that these are meaningless sounds imitating a baby’s babble and mocking the prophet’s words and rejecting God’s laws.
- Isaiah 28:13 The Hebrew is the same as in verse 10, but now the Lord uses the words of the mockers as a warning about the foreign speech of the invading Assyrians.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.