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17 Your eyes will see the king in his beauty;
    they will see a distant land.[a]
18 Your mind[b] will meditate on the terror:
    “Where is the one who counted?
Where is the one who weighed out?
    Where is the one who counted the towers?”
19 You will not see the insolent people,
    the people whose language is too obscure to understand,[c]
        whose stammering of tongue cannot be understood.[d]
20 Look on Zion, the city of our appointed festivals!
    Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
an undisturbed settlement,
    a tent that is not moved.[e]
No one will ever pull out its tent pegs,
    and none of its ropes will be torn in two.
21 Rather, there Yahweh will be mighty for us,
    a place of rivers and broad streams,[f]
a galley ship with[g] oars[h] cannot go in it,
    and a mighty ship cannot pass through it.
22 For Yahweh is our judge; Yahweh is our lawgiver.
    Yahweh is our king; he is the one who will save us.
23 Your riggings hang slack;
    they do not hold the base of their mast firm,
        they do not spread out the sail.
Then the prey of spoil in abundance will be divided;
    the lame will take plunder.
24 And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”;
    the people who live in it, their iniquity will be taken away.

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 33:17 Literally “land of distance”
  2. Isaiah 33:18 Literally “heart”
  3. Isaiah 33:19 Literally “obscure of lip than to hear”
  4. Isaiah 33:19 Literally “there is no understanding”
  5. Isaiah 33:20 Literally “not he is loaded”
  6. Isaiah 33:21 Literally “streams broad of hands”
  7. Isaiah 33:21 Or “of”
  8. Isaiah 33:21 Hebrew “oar”

17 “Your eyes will see the king in his elegance,
    and will view a land that stretches afar.
18 Your mind will ponder at that time of terror:
    ‘Where is the king’s accountant?
Where is the one who weighed the revenue?
    Where is the officer who supervises[a] the towers?’
19 No longer will you[b] see those arrogant people,
    those people with their obscure speech you cannot comprehend,
    stammering in a language you cannot understand.

20 “Look at Zion, city of our festivals![c]
    Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
        an undisturbed abode, an immovable tent;
its stakes will never be pulled up,
    nor will any of its ropes be broken.
21 But there the Lord in majesty will be for us
    our source[d] of broad rivers and streams,
where no galley with oars can go,
    where no stately ship can sail.
22 For the Lord is our judge,
    and the Lord is our lawgiver;
and the Lord is our king,
    and it is he who will save us.

23 “Your rigging hangs loose;
    it cannot reliably[e] hold the mast in its place,
        and the sail cannot spread out.[f]
Then an abundance of spoils will be divided —
    even the lame will carry off plunder.
24 And no one living there will say, ‘I am ill.’
    The people living there will have their sins forgiven.”

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 33:18 Lit. counts
  2. Isaiah 33:19 So 1QIsaa (pl.); MT (sing.)
  3. Isaiah 33:20 So 1QIsaa MTmss; MT reads our festival
  4. Isaiah 33:21 Lit. us a place
  5. Isaiah 33:23 So 1QIsaa; MT reads firmly
  6. Isaiah 33:23 So 1QIsaa; MT reads they cannot spread the sail