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Rebellious Judah

Hear, heavens,
    and listen, earth,
        for Yahweh has spoken:
“I reared children
    and I brought them up,
        but they rebelled against me.
An ox knows its owner
    and a donkey the manger of its master.
Israel does not know;
    my people do not understand.
Ah, sinful nation,
    a people heavy with iniquity,
offspring of evildoers,
    children who deal corruptly.
They have forsaken Yahweh;
    they have despised the holy one of Israel.
        They are estranged and gone backward.
Why do you want to be beaten again?
    You continue in rebellion.
The whole of the head is sick,
    and the whole of the heart is faint.
From the sole of the foot and up to the head
    there is no health in it;
bruise and sore and bleeding wound have not been cleansed,
    and they have not been bound up
    and not softened with the oil.
Your country is desolate,
    your cities are burned with fire;
As for your land, aliens are devouring it in your presence,
    and it is desolate, like devastation by foreigners.
And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard,
    like a shelter in a cucumber field,
    like a city that is besieged.[a]
If Yahweh of hosts had not left us survivors,[b]
    we would have been as few as Sodom,
    we would have become like Gomorrah.

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 1:8 Or “preserved”
  2. Isaiah 1:9 Hebrew “survivor”

A Message for Rebellious Judah

Listen, O heavens! Pay attention, earth!
    This is what the Lord says:
“The children I raised and cared for
    have rebelled against me.
Even an ox knows its owner,
    and a donkey recognizes its master’s care—
but Israel doesn’t know its master.
    My people don’t recognize my care for them.”
Oh, what a sinful nation they are—
    loaded down with a burden of guilt.
They are evil people,
    corrupt children who have rejected the Lord.
They have despised the Holy One of Israel
    and turned their backs on him.

Why do you continue to invite punishment?
    Must you rebel forever?
Your head is injured,
    and your heart is sick.
You are battered from head to foot—
    covered with bruises, welts, and infected wounds—
    without any soothing ointments or bandages.
Your country lies in ruins,
    and your towns are burned.
Foreigners plunder your fields before your eyes
    and destroy everything they see.
Beautiful Jerusalem[a] stands abandoned
    like a watchman’s shelter in a vineyard,
like a lean-to in a cucumber field after the harvest,
    like a helpless city under siege.
If the Lord of Heaven’s Armies
    had not spared a few of us,[b]
we would have been wiped out like Sodom,
    destroyed like Gomorrah.

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Footnotes

  1. 1:8 Hebrew The daughter of Zion.
  2. 1:9 Greek version reads a few of our children. Compare Rom 9:29.