Isaiah 32:9-20

The Message

^9-14Take your stand, idle women!
    Listen to me!
Indulgent, idle women,
    listen closely to what I have to say.
In just a little over a year from now,
    you’ll be shaken out of your lazy lives.
The grape harvest will fail,
    and there’ll be no fruit on the trees.
Oh tremble, you idle women.
    Get serious, you pampered dolls!
Strip down and discard your silk fineries.
    Put on funeral clothes.
Shed honest tears for the lost harvest,
    the failed vintage.
Weep for my people’s gardens and farms
    that grow nothing but thistles and thornbushes.
Cry tears, real tears, for the happy homes no longer happy,
    the merry city no longer merry.
The royal palace is deserted,
    the bustling city quiet as a morgue,
The emptied parks and playgrounds
    taken over by wild animals,
    delighted with their new home.

^15-20Yes, weep and grieve until the Spirit is poured
    down on us from above
And the badlands desert grows crops
    and the fertile fields become forests.
Justice will move into the badlands desert.
    Right will build a home in the fertile field.
And where there’s Right, there’ll be Peace
    and the progeny of Right: quiet lives and endless trust.
My people will live in a peaceful neighborhood—
    in safe houses, in quiet gardens.
The forest of your pride will be clear-cut,
    the city showing off your power leveled.
But you will enjoy a fortunate life,
    planting well-watered fields and gardens,
    with your farm animals grazing freely.