When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts?

“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

Your rulers are rebels, partners with thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them.

Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord.

I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.”

Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding; those of high rank will die of hunger and the common people will be parched with thirst.

to those who say, “Let God hurry; let him hasten his work so we may see it. The plan of the Holy One of Israel— let it approach, let it come into view, so we may know it.”

He lifts up a banner for the distant nations, he whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Here they come, swiftly and speedily!

Isaiah’s Commission

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple.

They will all come and settle in the steep ravines and in the crevices in the rocks, on all the thornbushes and at all the water holes.

What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?

‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ he says.

The splendor of his forests and fertile fields it will completely destroy, as when a sick person wastes away.

The Branch From Jesse

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

Songs of Praise

In that day you will say: “I will praise you, Lord. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me.

I have commanded those I prepared for battle; I have summoned my warriors to carry out my wrath— those who rejoice in my triumph.

They come from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens— the Lord and the weapons of his wrath— to destroy the whole country.

Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.

See, the day of the Lord is coming —a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger— to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.

Their bows will strike down the young men; they will have no mercy on infants, nor will they look with compassion on children.

The Lord will have compassion on Jacob; once again he will choose Israel and will settle them in their own land. Foreigners will join them and unite with the descendants of Jacob.

you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended!

Even the junipers and the cedars of Lebanon gloat over you and say, “Now that you have been laid low, no one comes to cut us down.”

The realm of the dead below is all astir to meet you at your coming; it rouses the spirits of the departed to greet you— all those who were leaders in the world; it makes them rise from their thrones— all those who were kings over the nations.