Isaiah 4
The Message
4 That will be the day when seven women
will gang up on one man, saying,
“We’ll take care of ourselves,
get our own food and clothes.
Just give us a child. Make us pregnant
so we’ll have something to live for!”
God’s Branch
2-4 And that’s when God’s Branch will sprout green and lush. The produce of the country will give Israel’s survivors something to be proud of again. Oh, they’ll hold their heads high! Everyone left behind in Zion, all the discards and rejects in Jerusalem, will be reclassified as “holy”—alive and therefore precious. God will give Zion’s women a good bath. He’ll scrub the bloodstained city of its violence and brutality, purge the place with a firestorm of judgment.
5-6 Then God will bring back the ancient pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night and mark Mount Zion and everyone in it with his glorious presence, his immense, protective presence, shade from the burning sun and shelter from the driving rain.
Isaiah 4
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
4 Seven women shall take hold of one man on that day, saying,
“We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes;
just let us be called by your name;
take away our disgrace.”(A)
The Future Glory of the Survivors in Zion
2 On that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel.(B) 3 Whoever is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem,(C) 4 once the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning.(D) 5 Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over its places of assembly a cloud by day and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night. Indeed, over all the glory there will be a canopy.(E) 6 It will serve as a pavilion, a shade by day from the heat and a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.(F)
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.