Isaiah 30

Isaiah 29 Isaiah 31

Isaiah 30New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

The Futility of Reliance on Egypt

30 Oh, rebellious children, says the Lord,
who carry out a plan, but not mine;
who make an alliance, but against my will,
    adding sin to sin;
²who set out to go down to Egypt
    without asking for my counsel,
to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh,
    and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt;
³Therefore the protection of Pharaoh shall become your shame,
    and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt your humiliation.
⁴For though his officials are at Zoan
    and his envoys reach Hanes,
⁵everyone comes to shame
    through a people that cannot profit them,
that brings neither help nor profit,
    but shame and disgrace.

⁶An oracle concerning the animals of the Negeb.

Through a land of trouble and distress,
    of lioness and roaring^[a] lion,
    of viper and flying serpent,
they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys,
    and their treasures on the humps of camels,
    to a people that cannot profit them.
⁷For Egypt’s help is worthless and empty,
    therefore I have called her,
    “Rahab who sits still.”^[b]

A Rebellious People

⁸Go now, write it before them on a tablet,
    and inscribe it in a book,
so that it may be for the time to come
    as a witness forever.
⁹For they are a rebellious people,
    faithless children,
children who will not hear
    the instruction of the Lord;
¹⁰who say to the seers, “Do not see”;
    and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right;
speak to us smooth things,
    prophesy illusions,
¹¹leave the way, turn aside from the path,
    let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
¹²Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel:
Because you reject this word,
    and put your trust in oppression and deceit,
    and rely on them;
¹³therefore this iniquity shall become for you
    like a break in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse,
    whose crash comes suddenly, in an instant;
¹⁴its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel
    that is smashed so ruthlessly
that among its fragments not a sherd is found
    for taking fire from the hearth,
    or dipping water out of the cistern.

¹⁵For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:
In returning and rest you shall be saved;
    in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.
But you refused ¹⁶and said,
“No! We will flee upon horses”—
    therefore you shall flee!
and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”—
    therefore your pursuers shall be swift!
¹⁷A thousand shall flee at the threat of one,
    at the threat of five you shall flee,
until you are left
    like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
    like a signal on a hill.

God’s Promise to Zion

¹⁸Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you;
therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.

¹⁹Truly, O people in Zion, inhabitants of Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you. ²⁰Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. ²¹And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” ²²Then you will defile your silver-covered idols and your gold-plated images. You will scatter them like filthy rags; you will say to them, “Away with you!”

²³He will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and grain, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. On that day your cattle will graze in broad pastures; ²⁴and the oxen and donkeys that till the ground will eat silage, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. ²⁵On every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water—on a day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. ²⁶Moreover the light of the 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 the Lord binds up the injuries of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.

Judgment on Assyria

²⁷See, the name of the Lord comes from far away,
    burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke;^[c]
his lips are full of indignation,
    and his tongue is like a devouring fire;
²⁸his breath is like an overflowing stream
    that reaches up to the neck—
to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction,
    and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads them astray.

²⁹You shall have a song as in the night when a holy festival is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. ³⁰And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and tempest and hailstones. ³¹The Assyrian will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord, when he strikes with his rod. ³²And every stroke of the staff of punishment that the Lord lays upon him will be to the sound of timbrels and lyres; battling with brandished arm he will fight with him. ³³For his burning place^[d] has long been prepared; truly it is made ready for the king,^[e] its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.

Footnotes:

Isaiah 30:6 Cn: Heb from them
Isaiah 30:7 Meaning of Heb uncertain
Isaiah 30:27 Meaning of Heb uncertain
Isaiah 30:33 Or Topheth
Isaiah 30:33 Or Molech

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.