Beginning
The Egyptians are No Help
31 Ah! Those who go down to Egypt for help!
They rely on horses
and trust in chariots because they are many,
and in horsemen because they are very numerous,
and they do not look to the holy one of Israel,
and they do not consult Yahweh.
2 And indeed, he is wise, and he brings disaster,
and he does not remove his words,
and he will rise against the house of evildoers
and against the help of workers of iniquity.
3 And the Egyptians are human and not God,
and their horses are flesh and not spirit.
And Yahweh stretches out his hand,
and the helper will stumble,
and the one being helped will fall,
and together all of them will come to an end.[a]
4 For Yahweh said this to me:
“As which a lion growls
and a young lion over its prey
when a full group[b] of shepherds is called against him,
it is not terrified by their voice,
and to their noise it does not respond,
so Yahweh of hosts will come down to fight upon Mount Zion
and upon its hill.
5 Like birds flying overhead, so Yahweh of hosts will protect Jerusalem;
he will protect and deliver it;
he will pass over and rescue it.
6 Turn back to the one against whom the sons of Israel have made deep rebellion.
7 For on that day, each one will reject his idols of silver
and his idols of gold which your hands have made in sin for you.
8 And Assyria shall fall by a sword not of a man,
and a sword not of a human shall devour him;
and he shall flee from the sword,
and his young men shall be put to forced labor.
9 And his rock will pass over because of terror,
and his officers will be terrified because of the flag,”
declares[c] Yahweh,
who has a fire in Zion
and has a furnace in Jerusalem.
The Kingdom of Righteousness
32 See, a king will rule according to righteousness,
and princes will rule according to justice.
2 And each one will be like a hiding place from the wind
and a covering from the rainstorm,
like streams of water in a dry region,
like the shade of a large rock in a weary land.
3 And the eyes of those who see will not gaze,[d]
and the ears of those who hear will listen.
4 And the minds[e] of the rash will understand knowledge,[f]
and the tongues[g] of stammerers will hasten to speak clearly.
5 A fool will no longer be called noble,
and a scoundrel will not be said to be eminent.
6 For a fool speaks folly,
and his mind[h] does iniquity:
to behave wickedly,[i]
and to speak error concerning Yahweh,
to leave the throat of the hungry empty,
and he deprives the thirsty of drink.
7 And a scoundrel, his weapons are evil;
he plans evil devices
to ruin the poor with words of deception
even[j] when the speech of the needy is right.
8 But[k] the nobleman plans noble things,
and he stands upon noble things.
Against the Carefree Women
9 Women who are at ease, rise up; hear my voice!
Carefree daughters, listen to my word!
10 In a year[l] you will tremble, carefree ones,
for the vintage will come to an end;
the harvest will not come.
11 Tremble, you who are at ease;
tremble, carefree ones;
strip, and strip yourself,
and gird yourself on your loins,[m]
12 mourning over breasts,
over fields of delight,
over the fruitful vine,
13 over the soil of my people.
It goes up in thorns[n] and briers,[o]
indeed over all of the houses of joy in the jubilant city.
14 For the palace will be forsaken,
the crowded city[p] deserted;
the hill and the watchtower will become[q] a cave forever,
the joy of wild asses, a pasture for[r] flocks.
15 Until a spirit is poured out on us from on high,
and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field is reckoned as the forest.
16 Then[s] justice will dwell in the wilderness,
and righteousness will live in the fruitful field.
17 And the work of righteousness will be peace,
and the work of righteousness, quietness and security forever.
18 And my people will dwell in a settlement of peace
and in a dwelling place of security
and in undisturbed resting places.
19 And it hails when the forest comes down,[t]
and the city will become low in humiliation.
20 Happy are you who sow by all waters,
who let the foot of the ox and the donkey go free.
Yahweh’s Judgment and Help
33 Ah, destroyer, and yourself not destroyed!
And treacherous one, and no one has dealt treacherously with him![u]
When you cease[v] destroying, you will be destroyed.
When you stop dealing treacherously, one will deal treacherously with you.
2 Yahweh, be gracious to us, we wait for you.
Be our[w] arm in the mornings,
indeed our salvation in the time of trouble.
3 At the sound of tumult, peoples fled;
because of your exaltation, nations scattered.
4 And your spoil is gathered,
as the gathering of the locust,
as a swarm of locusts storming on it.
5 Yahweh is exalted, for he dwells on high;
he filled Zion with justice and righteousness,
6 and he will be the security of your times,
an abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.
The fear of Yahweh is his treasure.
7 Look! Their heroes cry out in the street;
the messengers of peace weep bitterly.
8 Highways are deserted;
the traveler on the road ceases.
One breaks a treaty,
he rejects the cities,[x]
he does not hold man in high regard.
9 The land mourns; it languishes.
Lebanon feels abashed; it withers.
Sharon is like the desert,
and Bashan and Carmel are losing their leaves.[y]
10 “Now I will arise,” says Yahweh.
“Now I will lift myself up proudly;
now I will raise myself.
11 You conceive dry grass, you bring forth stubble;
your breath is a fire; it will consume you.
12 And the peoples will be burning to lime—
they are burned like thorns that have been cut down in the fire.
13 You who are far away, hear what I have done;
and you who are near, know my might!”
14 Sinners are afraid in Zion;
trembling has seized the godless:
“Who of us can live[z] with devouring fire?
Who of us can live[aa] with everlasting consuming hearths?”
15 He who walks in righteousness
and speaks uprightness,
who rejects the gain of extortion,
who refuses[ab] a bribe,
who stops up his ears[ac] from hearing bloodshed[ad]
and shuts his eyes from seeing evil.
16 That one will live on the heights;
the fortresses of rocks will be his refuge.
His food will be given;
his waters[ae] will endure.
17 Your eyes will see the king in his beauty;
they will see a distant land.[af]
18 Your mind[ag] 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,[ah]
whose stammering of tongue cannot be understood.[ai]
20 Look on Zion, the city of our appointed festivals!
Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
an undisturbed settlement,
a tent that is not moved.[aj]
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,[ak]
a galley ship with[al] oars[am] 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.
Judgment on the Nations
34 Come near, nations, to hear;
and peoples, listen attentively!
Let the earth hear, and that which fills it;
the world and all its offspring.
2 For the anger of Yahweh is against all the nations,
and his wrath is against all their armies;
he has put them under a ban,
he has given them up for slaughter.
3 And their slain shall be cast out;
as for[an] their corpses, their stench shall go up.
And the mountains shall melt with[ao] their blood,
4 and all the host of heaven shall rot.
And the skies shall roll up like a scroll,
and all their host shall wither
like the withering of a leaf from a vine,
or[ap] like the withering from a fig tree.
5 When my sword is drenched in the heavens,
look! It will descend upon Edom,
and upon the people of my ban, for judgment.
6 Yahweh has a sword;[aq]
it is full of blood.
It is covered with[ar] fat,
with[as] the blood of lambs and goats,
with[at] the fat of the kidneys of rams,
for Yahweh has a sacrifice[au] in Bozrah
and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 And wild oxen shall go down with them,
and steers with strong bulls.
And their land shall be drenched with[av] blood,
and their soil shall be fattened with[aw] fat.
8 For Yahweh has a day of vengeance,[ax]
a year of retribution for the strife of Zion.
9 And its streams shall be changed to pitch and its soil to sulfur,
and its land shall become like burning pitch.
10 Night and day it shall not be quenched;
its smoke shall go up forever.
From generation to generation it shall be in ruins;
forever and ever there will be no one who passes through her.
11 But[ay] the large bird and the hedgehog shall take possession of it,
and the owl and the raven shall live in it.
And he shall stretch the measuring line of confusion out over it,
and the plumb line of emptiness.
12 Its nobles—but no kingdom is there—shall call,
and all its princes shall be nothing.
13 And thorns shall go up her citadel fortress,
weeds[az] and thistle plants[ba] in her fortresses;
and it shall be the settlement of jackals,
green grass for the daughters of an ostrich.
14 And desert creatures shall meet with hyenas,
and a goat-demon shall call to his neighbor;
surely there Lilith[bb] shall repose,
and she shall find a resting place for herself.
15 There the owl shall nest and lay
and hatch and care for her chicks in her shadow;
surely there the birds of prey shall be gathered,
each one with her mate.
16 Seek from the book of Yahweh and read;[bc]
none of these shall be missing;
none shall miss her mate.
For my[bd] mouth is the one that[be] has commanded,
and his spirit is the one that[bf] has gathered them.
17 And he is the one that[bg] has cast the lot for them,
and his hand has apportioned it to them with the measuring line;
they shall take possession of it forever,
they shall live in it from generation to generation.[bh]
The Ransomed Return to Zion
35 Wilderness and dry land shall be glad,[bi]
and desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus.
2 It shall blossom abundantly,
and it shall rejoice indeed with rejoicing and exulting.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
They are the ones who[bj] shall see the glory of Yahweh,
the majesty of our God.
3 Strengthen the weak hands
and make the staggering knees firm.
4 Say to those who are hasty of heart,
“Be strong; you must not fear!
Look! your God will come with vengeance,
with divine retribution.[bk]
He is the one who[bl] will come and save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf shall be opened.
6 Then the lame shall leap like the deer,
and the tongue of the dumb shall sing for joy,
for waters shall break forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
7 And the parched ground shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water.
Her resting place is in a settlement of jackals;
the grass shall become like reeds[bm] and rushes.[bn]
8 And a highway shall be there, and a way,
and it shall be called the way of holiness.
The unclean shall not travel through it,
but[bo] it is for them, he who walks on the way;
and fools shall not wander about.
9 No lion shall be there,
and no ferocious wild beast shall go up it.
It shall not be found there,
but[bp] the redeemed shall walk there.
10 And the ransomed of Yahweh shall return,
and they shall come to Zion with rejoicing.
And everlasting joy shall be on their head;
joy and gladness shall overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee.
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