Beginning
28 Oh, it will be bad for you drunkards of Ephraim.
That once proud elegance of yours
Now droops and falls like a fading flower.
You leaders of the fertile valley are now drowning in your own wine.
Samaria overlooks the finest land in Israel. But these are the last days for this fading flower because God has selected Assyria as His agent of judgment.
2 Look well—the Eternal has called up one who is fierce and mighty.
Like a powerful hailstorm followed by destructive winds,
Like a storm that spawns devastating floods,
God’s agent will drive Ephraim down and smash him to earth.
3 Then the tarnished elegance of intoxicated Ephraim
will lie trampled in the dirt.
4 And the fading flower of its glorious beauty
that crowned Ephraim’s fertile valley
Will be snatched up and consumed as soon as someone sees it,
like the first ripened fig before summer.
5 In that day the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, will be a beautiful crown,
a glorious diadem, for His people who survive.
6 He will be a spirit of justice to those who sit in judgment
and a source of strength to those who battle at the gate.
7 Ah, what contrast to the drunken and bumbling priests and prophets
who can’t even see straight, whose minds are addled,
Whose steps wobble, whose visions mislead,
whose judgments waver, because of all their drinking.
8 There’s vomit on all of the tables,
filth all over the place.
9 The priests and prophets mock:
“Who is left for God to instruct in knowledge?
Who will listen and understand His message?
Maybe those infants just weaned off of milk,
those innocents just taken from the breast?
10 For here is how it goes: Command after command. Command on top of command.
Rule after rule. Rule on top of rule. A little here, A little there.”
11 For now that God’s people reject His message,
He will speak to them through the stammering lips
And foreign language of an invader.[a]
Eternal One: 12 This is the way: here is rest for the weary.
I am showing you rest.
But they wouldn’t listen to Him.[b]
13 And so the word of the Eternal One to them will be just as they said:
“Command after command. Command on top of command.
Rule after rule. Rule on top of rule. A little here, a little there.”
But they’ll go and fail. They’ll fall back, broken and trapped,
and be taken away by another people.
14 Let this be a warning, the Eternal’s word to you sarcastic jokesters,
you leaders in Jerusalem.
15 For you have made an audacious claim:
Leaders: We have made a pact with death; we’ve made a deal with the grave.
When the scourge of disease and doom comes our way, they won’t touch us.
Death and the grave will pass us by
for our fraud disguises us, and deception is our shield.
16 So the Lord, the Eternal, has this to say:
Eternal One: See here, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone—
a cornerstone, chosen and precious—for a firm foundation.
Whoever trusts in it will never be disgraced.[c]
17 Justice will be the line by which I lay out its floor plan,
and righteousness will be My leveling tool.
A hailstorm will pulverize and wash away the fraud and deception behind which people hide,
and floodwaters will overrun their hiding place.
18 Then your pact with death and the grave will be annulled.
When the scourge that you fear comes along,
It will find you and pummel you down.
19 Whenever it does come your way, it will grab you.
It could be anytime—morning, noon, or night.
To fathom its message will be sheer terror.
20 The bed is too short to stretch out and the blanket is too small
for you to hide in or pretend you are not here.
21 For the Eternal will stand as He did at Mount Perazim
and shake it all up as He did in Gibeon Valley,
To accomplish whatever it is that God wills to accomplish—
strange deeds indeed.
22 So don’t keep laughing it off,
or your chains will be made even stronger.
For I heard from the Lord, the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies,
that an absolute end has been determined for the whole earth.
23 Pay attention! Listen well;
take care to hear my words.
24 Does a farmer constantly plow and turn the soil to plant his seed?
No, of course not.
25 When he’s leveled and tilled the soil,
doesn’t he plant each seed according to its specifications?
He scatters the dill, sows the cummin, plants the wheat in rows,
puts barley and spelt where they grow best.
26 God instructs and directs the farmer
in how best to manage the land.
27 For dill isn’t threshed with a sledge,
and you don’t roll a cart over the cummin.
Dill is properly beaten free with one kind of stick,
and cummin with another.
28 Similarly, you have to grind grain to have flour for bread,
but you don’t grind it endlessly.
When the wheel on the cart and the horses go over the grain,
you must be careful not to crush it.
29 The Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies,
is the source of such wisdom.
His advice is wonderful.
For generation after generation of God’s people who have watched their country being attacked repeatedly and humbled by their enemies, Isaiah’s words must provide a great deal of comfort. Nothing could be more traumatic than to know that the temple to the one True God is under siege and finally destroyed. When Isaiah’s words are heard, many audiences must think of a restored temple in Jerusalem. God Himself is promising to lay the foundation for that restored temple, assuring that those who trust in His work will never have to rush around again to figure out how to save themselves from another invader. God’s foundation will hold firm, no matter what, so there is every reason to be confident.
Early Christians see in Isaiah’s message a promise of a new temple, a temple not made with hands. Simon, whom Jesus names “Rock” (Peter), refers to this prophecy when he writes of believers coming to Jesus to form a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:6). Jesus’ followers confess Him to be the stone that forms the foundation for God’s new temple. He is the cornerstone: though rejected by some, He is chosen and precious in God’s sight.
29 O Ariel, woe to you Ariel, our Jerusalem,
where David set up his camp to stay.
Go ahead, go on with your fruitless festivals,
your calendar of events, year in and year out.
2 In the meantime, I will trouble Ariel to the point of mourning and crying.
She will be for me a fiery hearth.
3 I will surround you, enclose you, cut you off.
I will isolate you from aid or reprieve;
I will attack the city walls with towers and siege works.
4 That will humble you so low, you’ll speak from the earth itself.
And when you do, your voice will issue from the very dust where you lie;
Your voice will rise from the ground like the voice of a ghost,
like a soft whisper from the earth.
5 But in an instant your ruthless enemies, who seem too many to count,
will become as fluttering dust, as wind-driven chaff.
They will be blown away in the snap of a finger.
6 For the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, will visit you
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
With raging wind and tempest and consuming fire.
7 And all those armies intent on destroying Ariel,
that great international coalition of Jerusalem’s enemies
Battering against the city of God, will disappear.
They’ll evaporate like a night’s dream in the light of day.
8 As when a starving person dreams of eating at a banquet and wakes hungry,
or a thirsty person drinking his fill in sleepy night visions
Finds himself still parched when the morning comes,
that’s how it will be for the horde attacking Mount Zion, His chosen place.
9 But it will take some time. Wait and wonder.
In the meantime, make yourselves unable to see or understand.
Make yourselves drunk and unsteady,
but not from wine or liquor.
10 For the Eternal One has poured you a cup of sleep—
deep, heavy sleep.
O prophets and seers, He has closed your eyes and covered your heads.
11-12 Everything God is disclosing to you will be like the words recorded in a book that is sealed. When it is given to one who is literate, he can’t read it because it is sealed. When it is given to one who is illiterate, he can’t read it because he doesn’t know how.
The prophet’s message seems inaccessible or unintelligible to many. For some, a few rituals are enough. But a relationship with God demands a complete commitment to something, Someone greater.
Eternal One: 13 These people think they can draw near to Me by saying the right things,
by honoring Me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from Me.
Their worship of Me consists of man-made traditions learned by rote;
it is a meaningless sham.[d]
14 Therefore, I will do something extraordinary with this people.
I will add wonder to wonders—
Shut down the wisdom of their wise
and hide what the discerning have figured out.
15 Oh, it’ll be bad for those of you who conceal your thoughts from the Eternal,
who do your deeds in the dark and say:
“Who sees us? Who knows what we are doing?”
Do they really think that God cannot know what they have hidden, so dark and deep? They are sure to be surprised.
16 My goodness, how you’ve turned things around!
You seem to think that the potter is equal to the clay;
Should the pot say about the potter, “He didn’t make me”?
Or does the thing formed say about the one who formed it,
“He doesn’t understand anything”?
17 Surely you know that in just a little while
the forests that clothe Lebanon will become rich fields
And the fields will be considered as valuable as the forests.
18 Then the deaf will hear the words read from a book,
and darkness and gloom will fall from the eyes of the blind.
19 A renewed sense of joy will come over the humble, thanks to the Eternal;
and joyous celebrations will break out among the poor, because of the Holy One of Israel.
20 For cruelty and mean-spiritedness will come to an end,
and those who laugh dismissively will be silenced.
All those who are determined to do evil will be cut down.
21 Those who level a false charge against an innocent person,
who twist an honest testimony and tell lies
in order to incriminate the innocent, will be stopped.
22 So the Eternal One, who rescued Abraham, says concerning Jacob:
Eternal One: The people of Jacob’s line will no longer be ashamed,
nor will they grow pale with embarrassment.
23 For when they lay eyes on their children, the work of My hands,
they will protect My name and keep it holy.
They will recognize that I am sacred, the Holy One of Jacob,
and stand in awe of Me, the God of Israel.
24 Whoever thought otherwise and wandered off will know the truth,
and whoever said otherwise and voiced criticism will quietly learn.
30 Eternal One: Oh, it will be so bad for you, My rebellious children,
who enact a plan but not as I would have you do,
Who form an alliance contrary to My Spirit,
compounding sin, one bad choice after another.
2 You look to Egypt for security and help without consulting Me.
You seem to think that Pharaoh is the answer,
That Egypt will protect you from harm.
3 But because you cling to the earthly power of great nations,
you will be disappointed and ashamed
In the very thing you grasped—Pharaoh and Egypt.
4 For even though Egypt’s princes and ambassadors are in the delta region,
in Zoan and Hanes,
5 They will be no help to you, no security or revenue for you.
You’ll be embarrassed that you ever thought they would be
And you will be shamed and disgraced for associating with them.
6 A message about the beasts of the Negev:
Nevertheless, the Judeans go down to Egypt,
Crossing through a land of trouble and anguish,
tracked by lionesses and lions, in danger of vipers and poisonous snakes,
All their precious valuables packed on the backs of donkeys and camels.
They look to a people who can offer them nothing.
7 Eternal One: Egypt’s help is no help at all.
Therefore I call Egypt “Rahab”—a storm that just sits there.
8 So, go on—write all this down on a tablet in their presence;
inscribe it on a scroll as a permanent record
So people will know about it forever.
9 After all, these people are rebellious and distrustful.
They won’t accept, don’t even pay attention
To what the Eternal has tried to tell them.
10 They say to those gifted with discernment and insight:
“Stop with your visions. We’ve had enough of them.”
They say to the prophets, “Tell us only what we’d like to hear;
save your truth-telling pessimism for someone else.
We want to hear flattery.
11 And for goodness’ sake, stop talking about the Holy One of Israel.
Get out of the gloomy rut you are in—
Your message is a bit stale—take a different path.”
12 But the Holy One of Israel says,
Eternal One: Because you refused to accept this truth, My word and purpose,
and trusted instead in deceit and manipulation, you will fall.
13 Your wrongdoing, your misplaced confidence and web of lies,
will be your undoing.
Like a breach in a wall that bulges out and suddenly gives way,
your façade will come crashing down in an instant.
14 Your destruction will be as complete
as when someone savagely smashes a piece of pottery.
There won’t be even a single piece big enough
to scoop an ember from the fire or skim a sip of water from a cistern.
15 Listen! The Lord, the Eternal, the Holy One of Israel says,
Eternal One: In returning and rest, you will be saved.
In quietness and trust you will find strength.
God invites His people to lean only on Him. If they will just stop their busyness and self-reliance, God will be able to take care of them.
But you refused. 16 You couldn’t sit still;
instead, you said, “No! We will ride out of here on horseback.
Fast horses will give us an edge in battle.”
But those who pursue you will be faster still.
17 When one person threatens, a thousand will panic and flee.
When five terrorize you, all will run pell-mell,
Until you are as conspicuous as a single flag standing high on a hill.
18 Meanwhile, the Eternal One yearns to give you grace and boundless compassion;
that’s why He waits.
For the Eternal is a God of justice.
Those inclined toward Him, waiting for His help, will find happiness.
19 Oh, people of Zion, citizens of Jerusalem, you will not cry anymore. God hears the sound of your weeping, and He will answer with grace. 20 Even though the Lord has fed you the bitter food of adversity and offered you the water of oppression, your great Teacher will reveal Himself to you; your eyes will see Him. 21 Your ears will hear sweet words behind you: “Go this way. There is your path; this is how you should go” whenever you must decide whether to turn to the right or the left. 22 Then you’ll get rid of all your worthless idols clad in silver and your despicable images plated with gold. You will destroy these idols and discard them as you do filthy rags, saying, “Get out of here.”
23 And then God will see to it that your efforts are fruitful—He’ll give you rain for your seedlings, bread from the earth, grain nourishing and plentiful. On that day your livestock will graze on acre after acre of green pastures. 24 Also if the oxen and donkeys that work that ground for you are well fed with good grain that is carefully winnowed with shovel and fork, then they will be content. 25 When the day arrives and your enemies are slaughtered and the towers come tumbling down, there will be rushing brooks of clear, sweet water running down every high mountain and steep hill. 26 When the time comes and the Eternal One binds up the brokenness of His people and heals what He had bruised, then the light of the moon will shine as brightly as the midday sun, and the sun will shine seven times brighter than normal, as if one day had seven days of sunlight.
27 See now, the name of the Eternal is echoing from far away.
God is coming with a fury inescapable to set things right again.
God is coming like fire and smoke;
His lips, indignation—His tongue, consuming fire.
28 God’s breath barrels down like hurricane rain,
rising right up to the neck to rattle the nations
And to subdue all peoples as a horse handler bridles a crazy mare for slaughter.
29 In your newfound freedom, you will sing as if it’s a festival night.
With lighthearted joy, you will dance your way toward Jerusalem,
To the Eternal’s mountain, the Rock Israel can trust.
30 Then the Eternal One will make unmistakable His absolute authority
when all hear His voice, and God’s power will be obvious
For all to see—God’s anger against the nations—that consuming fire
like a cloudburst, thunderstorm, and hailstorm all at once.
31 And Assyria
will cover its ears, terrified at the sound of God’s voice
When He comes to strike them with His punishing rod.
32 And every wave of the Eternal’s attacks against Assyria
will be accompanied by a song with tambourines and harps.
In battle after battle, He lifts his arm and fights against them.
33 After all, long ago, God prepared the place of vindication,
a funeral pyre for Assyria’s king laid deep and high,
A large stack of wood just waiting for God’s breath like brimstone to ignite it.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.