Isaiah 62-66
English Standard Version
Zion's Coming Salvation
62 (A)For Zion's sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet,
(B)until her righteousness goes forth as brightness,
and her salvation as a burning torch.
2 (C)The nations shall see your righteousness,
and all the kings your glory,
(D)and you shall be called by a new name
that the mouth of the Lord will give.
3 You shall be (E)a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4 (F)You shall no more be termed (G)Forsaken,[a]
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate,[b]
(H)but you shall be called (I)My Delight Is in Her,[c]
and your land Married;[d]
for the Lord delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
5 For as a young man marries a young woman,
so (J)shall your sons marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so (K)shall your God rejoice over you.
6 On your walls, O Jerusalem,
I have set (L)watchmen;
all the day and all the night
they shall never be silent.
You who put the Lord in remembrance,
take no rest,
7 and give him no rest
until he establishes Jerusalem
and makes it (M)a praise in the earth.
8 The Lord has sworn (N)by his right hand
and by his mighty arm:
“I will not again give (O)your grain
to be food for your enemies,
(P)and foreigners shall not drink your wine
for which you have labored;
9 but (Q)those who garner it shall eat it
and praise the Lord,
and (R)those who gather it shall drink it
in the courts of my sanctuary.”[e]
10 Go through, go through the gates;
(S)prepare the way for the people;
(T)build up, build up the highway;
clear it of stones;
(U)lift up a signal over the peoples.
11 Behold, the Lord has proclaimed
to the end of the earth:
(V)Say to the daughter of Zion,
(W)“Behold, your salvation comes;
behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.”
12 (X)And they shall be called The Holy People,
The Redeemed of the Lord;
(Y)and you shall be called Sought Out,
A City Not Forsaken.
The Lord's Day of Vengeance
63 Who is this who comes from (Z)Edom,
in crimsoned garments from (AA)Bozrah,
he who is splendid in his apparel,
(AB)marching in the greatness of his strength?
“It is I, speaking in righteousness,
mighty to save.”
3 (AE)“I have trodden the winepress alone,
(AF)and from the peoples no one was with me;
I trod them in my anger
and trampled them in my wrath;
their lifeblood[f] spattered on my garments,
and stained all my apparel.
4 (AG)For the day of vengeance was in my heart,
and my year of redemption[g] had come.
5 I looked, but (AH)there was no one to help;
I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold;
so my own arm brought me salvation,
and my wrath upheld me.
6 I trampled down the peoples in my anger;
(AI)I made them drunk in my wrath,
and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”
The Lord's Mercy Remembered
7 I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord,
the praises of the Lord,
according to all that the Lord has granted us,
(AJ)and the great goodness to the house of Israel
that he has granted them according to his compassion,
according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
8 For he said, “Surely they are my people,
children who will not deal falsely.”
And he became their Savior.
9 (AK)In all their affliction he was afflicted,[h]
and the angel of his presence saved them;
(AL)in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;
(AM)he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
10 (AN)But they rebelled
(AO)and grieved his Holy Spirit;
therefore he turned to be their enemy,
and himself fought against them.
11 Then he remembered (AP)the days of old,
of Moses and his people.[i]
(AQ)Where is he who brought them up out of the sea
with the shepherds of his flock?
Where is he who put in the midst of them
his Holy Spirit,
12 who caused his glorious arm
to go at the right hand of Moses,
(AR)who divided the waters before them
(AS)to make for himself an everlasting name,
13 who led them through the depths?
Like a horse in the desert,
they did not stumble.
14 Like livestock that go down into the valley,
(AT)the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest.
So you led your people,
(AU)to make for yourself a glorious name.
Prayer for Mercy
15 (AV)Look down from heaven and see,
(AW)from your holy and beautiful[j] habitation.
Where are (AX)your zeal and your might?
The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion
are held back from me.
16 For (AY)you are our Father,
though Abraham does not know us,
and Israel does not acknowledge us;
you, O Lord, are our Father,
(AZ)our Redeemer from of old is your name.
17 O Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways
and (BA)harden our heart, so that we fear you not?
(BB)Return for the sake of your servants,
the tribes of your heritage.
18 (BC)Your holy people held possession for a little while;[k]
(BD)our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.
19 (BE)We have become like those over whom you have never ruled,
like those who are not called by your name.
64 (BF)Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,
(BG)that the mountains might quake at your presence—
2 [l] as when fire kindles brushwood
and the fire causes water to boil—
(BH)to make your name known to your adversaries,
and that the nations might tremble at your presence!
3 (BI)When you did awesome things that we did not look for,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
4 (BJ)From of old no one has heard
or perceived by the ear,
(BK)no eye has seen a God besides you,
who acts for those who wait for him.
5 You meet him who joyfully works righteousness,
those who remember you in your ways.
Behold, you were angry, and we sinned;
in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?[m]
6 (BL)We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
(BM)We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7 (BN)There is no one who calls upon your name,
who rouses himself to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have made us melt in[n] the hand of our iniquities.
8 (BO)But now, O Lord, you are our Father;
(BP)we are the clay, and you are our potter;
(BQ)we are all the work of your hand.
9 (BR)Be not so terribly angry, O Lord,
(BS)and remember not iniquity forever.
Behold, please look, we are all your people.
10 (BT)Your holy cities have become a wilderness;
Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation.
11 (BU)Our holy and beautiful[o] house,
where our fathers praised you,
has been burned by fire,
and all our pleasant places have become ruins.
12 (BV)Will you restrain yourself at these things, O Lord?
Will you keep silent, and afflict us so terribly?
Judgment and Salvation
65 (BW)I was ready to be sought by (BX)those who did not ask for me;
I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, “Here I am, here I am,”
to a nation that was not called by[p] my name.
2 (BY)I spread out my hands all the day
to a rebellious people,
who walk in a way that is not good,
following their own devices;
3 a people who provoke me
to my face continually,
(BZ)sacrificing in gardens
and making offerings on bricks;
4 who sit in tombs,
and spend the night in secret places;
(CA)who eat pig's flesh,
and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels;
5 who say, “Keep to yourself,
do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.”
(CB)These are a smoke in my nostrils,
a fire that burns all the day.
6 Behold, (CC)it is written before me:
(CD)“I will not keep silent, but I will repay;
(CE)I will indeed repay into their lap
7 both your iniquities (CF)and your fathers' iniquities together,
says the Lord;
(CG)because they made offerings on the mountains
(CH)and insulted me on the hills,
I will measure into their lap
payment for their former deeds.”[q]
8 Thus says the Lord:
(CI)“As the new wine is found in the cluster,
and they say, ‘Do not destroy it,
for there is a blessing in it,’
so I will do for my servants' sake,
(CJ)and not destroy them all.
9 (CK)I will bring forth offspring from Jacob,
and from Judah possessors of my mountains;
my chosen shall possess it,
and my servants shall dwell there.
10 (CL)Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks,
and (CM)the Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down,
for my people (CN)who have sought me.
11 But (CO)you who forsake the Lord,
who forget (CP)my holy mountain,
who (CQ)set a table for Fortune
and (CR)fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny,
12 I will destine you to the sword,
and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter,
(CS)because, when I called, you did not answer;
when I spoke, you did not listen,
(CT)but you did what was evil in my eyes
and chose what I did not delight in.”
13 Therefore thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, (CU)my servants shall eat,
but you shall be hungry;
behold, my servants shall drink,
but you shall be thirsty;
behold, my servants shall rejoice,
but you shall be put to shame;
14 behold, (CV)my servants shall sing for gladness of heart,
but you shall cry out for pain of heart
and shall wail for breaking of spirit.
15 You shall leave your name to (CW)my chosen (CX)for a curse,
and the Lord God will put you to death,
but his servants (CY)he will call by another name,
16 so that he who (CZ)blesses himself in the land
shall bless himself by (DA)the God of truth,
and he who takes an oath in the land
shall swear by (DB)the God of truth;
(DC)because the former troubles are forgotten
and are hidden from my eyes.
New Heavens and a New Earth
17 “For behold, (DD)I create new heavens
and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
or come into mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
in that which I create;
for behold, (DE)I create Jerusalem to be a joy,
and her people to be a gladness.
19 (DF)I will rejoice in Jerusalem
and be glad in my people;
(DG)no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping
and the cry of distress.
20 No more shall there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not fill out his days,
for (DH)the young man shall die a hundred years old,
and (DI)the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.
21 (DJ)They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 (DK)They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
(DL)for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy[r] the work of their hands.
23 (DM)They shall not labor in vain
(DN)or bear children for calamity,[s]
for (DO)they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord,
and their descendants with them.
24 (DP)Before they call I will answer;
(DQ)while they are yet speaking I will hear.
25 (DR)The wolf and the lamb shall graze together;
the lion shall eat straw like the ox,
and (DS)dust shall be the serpent's food.
(DT)They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain,”
says the Lord.
The Humble and Contrite in Spirit
66 (DU)Thus says the Lord:
(DV)“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
2 (DW)All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things came to be,
declares the Lord.
(DX)But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word.
3 (DY)“He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man;
he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog's neck;
he who presents a grain offering, like one who offers (DZ)pig's blood;
he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like one who blesses an idol.
(EA)These have chosen their own ways,
and their soul delights in their abominations;
4 (EB)I also will choose harsh treatment for them
and bring (EC)their fears upon them,
(ED)because when I called, no one answered,
when I spoke, they did not listen;
(EE)but they did what was evil in my eyes
and chose that in which I did not delight.”
5 Hear the word of the Lord,
you who tremble at his word:
“Your brothers who hate you
and cast you out for my name's sake
have said, (EF)‘Let the Lord be glorified,
that we may see your joy’;
but it is they who shall be put to shame.
6 “The sound of an uproar from the city!
A sound from the temple!
The sound of the Lord,
(EG)rendering recompense to his enemies!
Rejoice with Jerusalem
7 (EH)“Before she was in labor
she gave birth;
before her pain came upon her
she delivered a son.
8 Who has heard such a thing?
Who has seen such things?
Shall a land be born in one day?
Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment?
For (EI)as soon as Zion was in labor
she brought forth her children.
9 Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?”
says the Lord;
“shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?”
says your God.
10 (EJ)“Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her,
all you who love her;
rejoice with her in joy,
all you who mourn over her;
11 that you may nurse and be satisfied
from her consoling breast;
that you may drink deeply with delight
from her glorious abundance.”[t]
12 For thus says the Lord:
(EK)“Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river,
and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream;
and (EL)you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip,
and bounced upon her knees.
13 As one whom his mother comforts,
so (EM)I will comfort you;
you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
14 You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice;
(EN)your bones shall flourish like the grass;
and (EO)the hand of the Lord shall be known to his servants,
and he shall show his indignation against his enemies.
Final Judgment and Glory of the Lord
15 “For behold, (EP)the Lord will come in fire,
and (EQ)his chariots like the whirlwind,
to render his anger in fury,
and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For (ER)by fire (ES)will the Lord enter into judgment,
and by his sword, with all flesh;
and those slain by the Lord shall be many.
17 (ET)“Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one in the midst, (EU)eating pig's flesh and the abomination and mice, shall come to an end together, declares the Lord.
18 “For I know[u] their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming[v] (EV)to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory, 19 and I will set a sign among them. And from them (EW)I will send survivors to the nations, to (EX)Tarshish, (EY)Pul, and (EZ)Lud, who draw the bow, to (FA)Tubal and (FB)Javan, (FC)to the coastlands far away, (FD)that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations. 20 (FE)And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations (FF)as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. 21 (FG)And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord.
22 “For as (FH)the new heavens and the new earth
that I make
shall remain before me, says the Lord,
so (FI)shall your offspring and your name remain.
23 (FJ)From new moon to new moon,
and from Sabbath to Sabbath,
all flesh shall come to worship before me,
declares the Lord.
24 “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For (FK)their worm shall not die, (FL)their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”
Footnotes
- Isaiah 62:4 Hebrew Azubah
- Isaiah 62:4 Hebrew Shemamah
- Isaiah 62:4 Hebrew Hephzibah
- Isaiah 62:4 Hebrew Beulah
- Isaiah 62:9 Or in my holy courts
- Isaiah 63:3 Or their juice; also verse 6
- Isaiah 63:4 Or the year of my redeemed
- Isaiah 63:9 Or he did not afflict
- Isaiah 63:11 Or Then his people remembered the days of old, of Moses
- Isaiah 63:15 Or holy and glorious
- Isaiah 63:18 Or They have dispossessed your holy people for a little while
- Isaiah 64:2 Ch 64:1 in Hebrew
- Isaiah 64:5 Or in your ways is continuance, that we might be saved
- Isaiah 64:7 Masoretic Text; Septuagint, Syriac, Targum have delivered us into
- Isaiah 64:11 Or holy and glorious
- Isaiah 65:1 Or that did not call upon
- Isaiah 65:7 Or I will first measure their payment into their lap
- Isaiah 65:22 Hebrew shall wear out
- Isaiah 65:23 Or for sudden terror
- Isaiah 66:11 Or breast
- Isaiah 66:18 Septuagint, Syriac; Hebrew lacks know
- Isaiah 66:18 Hebrew and it is coming
2 Kings 21
English Standard Version
Manasseh Reigns in Judah
21 (A)Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hephzibah. 2 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, (B)according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. 3 For he rebuilt the high places (C)that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made (D)an Asherah, (E)as Ahab king of Israel had done, (F)and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. 4 (G)And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, (H)“In Jerusalem will I put my name.” 5 And he built altars (I)for all the host of heaven in (J)the two courts of the house of the Lord. 6 (K)And he burned his son as an offering[a] and (L)used fortune-telling and (M)omens and dealt (N)with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. 7 And the carved image of (O)Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, (P)and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever. 8 (Q)And I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander anymore out of the land that I gave to their fathers, if only they will be careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the Law that my servant Moses commanded them.” 9 But they did not listen, and Manasseh led them astray to do more evil than the nations had done whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel.
Manasseh's Idolatry Denounced
10 And the Lord said by his servants the prophets, 11 (R)“Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these abominations and has done things (S)more evil than all that the Amorites did, who were before him, (T)and has made Judah also to sin (U)with his idols, 12 therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster[b] that the ears of everyone who hears of it (V)will tingle. 13 (W)And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plumb line of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. 14 And I will forsake the remnant of my heritage and give them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies, 15 because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.”
16 (X)Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides the sin (Y)that he made Judah to sin so that they did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
17 (Z)Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh and all that he did, and the sin that he committed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 18 (AA)And Manasseh slept with his fathers and was buried in the garden of his house, (AB)in the garden of Uzza, and Amon his son reigned in his place.
Amon Reigns in Judah
19 Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Meshullemeth the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. 20 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, (AC)as Manasseh his father had done. 21 He walked in all the way in which his father walked and served (AD)the idols that his father served and worshiped them. 22 (AE)He abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord. 23 And the servants of Amon conspired against him and put the king to death in his house. 24 But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon, and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place. 25 Now the rest of the acts of Amon that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 26 And he was buried in his tomb (AF)in the garden of Uzza, and Josiah his son reigned in his place.
Footnotes
- 2 Kings 21:6 Hebrew made his son pass through the fire
- 2 Kings 21:12 Or evil
Jeremiah 1
English Standard Version
1 The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one (A)of the priests who were in (B)Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, 2 to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of (C)Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in (D)the thirteenth year of his reign. 3 It came also in the days of (E)Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and (F)until the end of the eleventh year of (G)Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, (H)until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.
The Call of Jeremiah
4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
5 (I)“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born (J)I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet (K)to the nations.”
6 Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, (L)I do not know how to speak, (M)for I am only a youth.” 7 But the Lord said to me,
“Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’;
for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,
and (N)whatever I command you, you shall speak.
8 (O)Do not be afraid of them,
(P)for I am with you to deliver you,
declares the Lord.”
9 (Q)Then the Lord put out his hand and (R)touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me,
“Behold, I have put (S)my words in your mouth.
10 See, I have set you this day (T)over nations and over kingdoms,
(U)to pluck up and to break down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.”
11 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, (V)“Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see an almond[a] branch.” 12 Then the Lord said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.”
13 The word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see (W)a boiling pot, facing away (X)from the north.” 14 Then the Lord said to me, (Y)“Out of the north disaster[b] shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land. 15 For behold, (Z)I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, declares the Lord, (AA)and they shall come, and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls all around and against all the cities of Judah. 16 And (AB)I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil (AC)in forsaking me. (AD)They have made offerings to other gods and (AE)worshiped the works of their own hands. 17 But you, (AF)dress yourself for work;[c] arise, and (AG)say to them everything that I command you. (AH)Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. 18 And I, behold, I make you this day (AI)a fortified city, (AJ)an iron pillar, and (AK)bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land. 19 (AL)They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for (AM)I am with you, declares the Lord, to deliver you.”
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 1:11 Almond sounds like the Hebrew for watching (compare verse 12)
- Jeremiah 1:14 The Hebrew word can mean evil, harm, or disaster, depending on the context; so throughout Jeremiah
- Jeremiah 1:17 Hebrew gird up your loins
The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025.
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