Bible in 90 Days

29 Woe to Ariel [Jerusalem], to Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add yet another year; let the feasts run their round [but only one year more].

² Then will I distress Ariel; and there shall be mourning and lamentation, yet she shall be to Me like an Ariel [an altar hearth, a hearth of burning, the altar of God].

³ And I will encamp against you round about; and I will hem you in with siege works and I will set up fortifications against you.

⁴ And you shall be laid low [Jerusalem], speaking from beneath the ground, and your speech shall come humbly from the dust. And your voice shall be like that of a ghost [produced by a medium] coming from the earth, and your speech shall whisper and squeak as it chatters from the dust.

⁵ But the multitude of your [enemy] strangers that assail you shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the ruthless and terrible ones like chaff that blows away. And in an instant, suddenly,

⁶ You shall be visited and delivered by the Lord of hosts with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a devouring fire.

⁷ And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel [Jerusalem], even all that fight against her and her stronghold and that distress her, shall be as a dream, a vision of the night.

⁸ It shall be as when a hungry man dreams that he is eating, but he wakens with his craving not satisfied; or as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking, but he wakens and is faint, and his thirst is not quenched. So shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion.

⁹ Stop and wonder [at this prophecy, if you choose, whether you understand it or not; soon you will witness the actual event] and be confounded [reluctantly]! Blind yourselves [now, if you choose; take your pleasure] and then be blinded [at the actual occurrence]. They are drunk, but not from wine; they stagger, but not from strong drink [but from spiritual stupor].

¹⁰ For the Lord has poured out on you the spirit of deep sleep. And He has closed your eyes, the prophets; and your heads, the seers, He has covered and muffled.

¹¹ And the vision of all this has become for you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, Read this, I pray you, he says, I cannot, for it is sealed.

¹² And when the book is given to him who is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray you, he says, I cannot read.

¹³ And the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips but remove their hearts and minds far from Me, and their fear and reverence for Me are a commandment of men that is learned by repetition [without any thought as to the meaning],

¹⁴ Therefore, behold! I will again do marvelous things with this people, marvelous and astonishing things; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their discerning men will vanish or be hidden.

¹⁵ Woe to those who [seek to] hide deep from the Lord their counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, Who sees us? Who knows us?

¹⁶ [Oh, your perversity!] You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be considered of no more account than the clay? Shall the thing that is made say of its maker, He did not make me; or the thing that is formed say of him who formed it, He has no understanding?

¹⁷ Is it not yet a very little while until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field and the fruitful field esteemed as a forest?

¹⁸ And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and out of obscurity and gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.

¹⁹ The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice and exult in the Holy One of Israel.

²⁰ For the terrible one [the Assyrian enemy] shall come to nought, and the scoffer shall cease, and all those who watch for iniquity [as an occasion for accusation] shall be cut off—

²¹ Those who make a man an offender and bring condemnation upon him with a word, and lay a trap for him who upholds justice at the city gate, and thrust aside the innocent and truly righteous with an empty plea.

²² Therefore thus says the Lord, Who redeemed Abraham [out of Ur and idolatry], concerning the house of Jacob: Jacob shall not then be ashamed; not then shall his face become pale [with fear and disappointment because of his children’s degeneracy].

²³ For when he sees his children [walking in the way of piety and virtue], the work of My hands in his midst, they will revere My name; they will revere the Holy One of Jacob and reverently fear the God of Israel.

²⁴ Those who err in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur [discontentedly] will accept instruction.

30 Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord, who take counsel and carry out a plan, but not Mine, and who make a league and pour out a drink offering, but not of My Spirit, thus adding sin to sin;

² Who set out to go down into Egypt, and have not asked Me—to flee to the stronghold of Pharaoh and to strengthen themselves in his strength and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!

³ Therefore shall the strength and protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt be to your humiliation and confusion.

⁴ For though [Pharaoh’s] officials are at Zoan and his ambassadors arrive at Hanes [in Egypt],

⁵ Yet will all be ashamed because of a people [the Egyptians] who cannot profit them, who are not a help or benefit, but a shame and disgrace.

⁶ A mournful, inspired prediction (a burden to be lifted up) concerning the beasts of the South (the Negeb): Oh, the heavy burden, the load of treasures going to Egypt! Through a land of trouble and anguish, in which are lioness and lion, viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures upon the humps of camels, to a people that will not and cannot profit them.

⁷ For Egypt’s help is worthless and toward no purpose. Therefore I have called her Rahab Who Sits Still.

⁸ Now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be as a witness for the time to come forevermore.

⁹ For this is a rebellious people, faithless and lying sons, children who will not hear the law and instruction of the Lord;

¹⁰ Who [virtually] say to the seers [by their conduct], See not! and to the prophets, Prophesy not to us what is right! Speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceitful illusions.

¹¹ Get out of the true way, turn aside out of the path, cease holding up before us the Holy One of Israel.

¹² Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel: Because you despise and spurn this [My] word and trust in cunning and oppression, in crookedness and perverseness, and rely on them,

¹³ Therefore this iniquity and guilt will be to you like a broken section of a high wall, bulging out and ready [at some distant day] to fall, whose crash will [then] come suddenly and swiftly, in an instant.

¹⁴ And he shall break it as a potter’s vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing so that there cannot be found among its pieces one large enough to carry coals of fire from the hearth or to dip water out of the cistern.

¹⁵ For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning [to Me] and resting [in Me] you shall be saved; in quietness and in [trusting] confidence shall be your strength. But you would not,

¹⁶ And you said, No! We will speed [our own course] on horses! Therefore you will speed [in flight from your enemies]! You said, We will ride upon swift steeds [doing our own way]! Therefore will they who pursue you be swift, [so swift that]

¹⁷ One thousand of you will flee at the threat of one of them; at the threat of five you will flee till you are left like a beacon or a flagpole on the top of a mountain, and like a signal on a hill.

¹⁸ And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]!^(A)

¹⁹ O people who dwell in Zion at Jerusalem, you will weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you.

²⁰ And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide Himself any more, but your eyes will constantly behold your Teacher.

²¹ And your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way; walk in it, when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left.

²² Then you will defile your carved images overlaid with silver and your molten images plated with gold; you will cast them away as a filthy bloodstained cloth, and you will say to them, Be gone!

²³ Then will He give you rain for the seed with which you sow the soil, and bread grain from the produce of the ground, and it will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will feed in large pastures.

²⁴ The oxen likewise and the young donkeys that till the ground will eat savory and salted fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and with fork.

²⁵ And upon every high mountain and upon every high hill there will be brooks and streams of water in the day of the great slaughter [the day of the Lord], when the towers fall [and all His enemies are destroyed].

²⁶ Moreover, the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days [concentrated in one], in the day that the Lord binds up the hurt of His people, and heals their wound [inflicted by Him because of their sins].

²⁷ Behold, the ^[a]Name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with His anger, and in thick, rising smoke. His lips are full of indignation, and His tongue is like a consuming fire.

²⁸ And His breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches even to the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction; and a bridle that causes them to err will be in the jaws of the people.

²⁹ You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart as when one marches in procession with a flute to go to the temple on the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.

³⁰ And the Lord shall cause His glorious voice to be heard and the descending blow of His arm to be seen, coming down with indignant anger and with the flame of a devouring fire, amid crashing blast and cloudburst, tempest, and hailstones.

³¹ At the voice of the Lord the Assyrians will be stricken with dismay and terror, when He smites them with His rod.

³² And every passing stroke of the staff of punishment and doom which the Lord lays upon them shall be to the sound of [Israel’s] timbrels and lyres, when in battle He attacks [Assyria] with swinging and menacing arms.

³³ For Topheth [a place of burning and abomination] has already been laid out and long ago prepared; yes, for the [Assyrian] king and [the god] Molech it has been made ready, its pyre made deep and large, with fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, kindles it.^(B)

31 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses and trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they look not to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek and consult the Lord!

² And yet He is wise and brings calamity and does not retract His words; He will arise against the house (the whole race) of evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.

³ Now the Egyptians are men and not God, and their horses are flesh and not spirit; and when the Lord stretches out His hand, both [Egypt] who helps will stumble, and [Judah] who is helped will fall, and they will all perish and be consumed together.

⁴ For the Lord has said to me, As the lion or the young lion growls over his prey—and though a large band of shepherds is called out against him, he will not be terrified at their voice or daunted at their noise—so the Lord of hosts will come down to fight upon Mount Zion and upon its hills.

⁵ Like birds hovering, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; He will protect and deliver it, He will pass over and spare and preserve it.

⁶ Return, O children of Israel, to Him against Whom you have so deeply plunged into revolt.

⁷ For in that day every man of you will cast away [in contempt and disgust] his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your own hands have sinfully made for you.

⁸ Then the Assyrian shall fall by a sword not of man; and a sword, not of men [but of God], shall devour him. And he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be subjected to forced labor.

⁹ [In his flight] he shall pass beyond his rock [refuge and stronghold] because of terror; even his officers shall desert the standard in fear and panic, says the Lord, Whose fire is in Zion and Whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

32 Behold, a ^[b]King will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule with justice.

² And each one of them shall be like a hiding place from the wind and a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land [to those who turn to them].

³ Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed or dimmed, and the ears of those who hear will listen.

⁴ And the mind of the rash will understand knowledge and have good judgment, and the tongue of the stammerers will speak readily and plainly.

⁵ The fool (the unbeliever and the ungodly) will no more be called noble, nor the crafty and greedy [for gain] said to be bountiful and princely.

⁶ For the fool speaks folly and his mind plans iniquity: practicing profane ungodliness and speaking error concerning the Lord, leaving the craving of the hungry unsatisfied and causing the drink of the thirsty to fail.

⁷ The instruments and methods of the fraudulent and greedy [for gain] are evil; he devises wicked devices to ruin the poor and the lowly with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is just and right.

⁸ But the noble, openhearted, and liberal man devises noble things; and he stands for what is noble, openhearted, and generous.

⁹ Rise up, you women who are at ease! Hear my [Isaiah’s] voice, you confident and careless daughters! Listen to what I am saying!

¹⁰ In little more than a year you will be shaken with anxiety, you careless and complacent women; for the vintage will fail, and the ingathering will not come.

¹¹ Tremble, you women who are at ease! Shudder with fear, you complacent ones! Strip yourselves bare and gird sackcloth upon your loins [in grief]!

¹² They shall beat upon their breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,

¹³ For the land of my people growing over with thorns and briers—yes, for all the houses of joy in the joyous city.

¹⁴ For the palace shall be forsaken, the populous city shall be deserted; the hill and the watchtower shall become dens [for wild animals] endlessly, a joy for wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks,

¹⁵ Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is valued as a forest.^(C)

¹⁶ Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness (moral and spiritual rectitude in every area and relation) will abide in the fruitful field.

¹⁷ And the effect of righteousness will be peace [internal and external], and the result of righteousness will be quietness and confident trust forever.

¹⁸ My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, in safe dwellings, and in quiet resting-places.

¹⁹ But it [the wrath of the Lord] shall hail, coming down overpoweringly on the forest [the army of the Assyrians], and the capital ^[c]city shall be utterly humbled and laid prostrate.

²⁰ Happy and fortunate are you who cast your seed upon all waters [when the river overflows its banks; for the seed will sink into the mud and when the waters subside, the plant will spring up; you will find it after many days and reap an abundant harvest], you who safely send forth the ox and the donkey [to range freely].

33 Woe to you, O destroyer, you who were not yourself destroyed, who deal treacherously though they [your victims] did not deal treacherously with you! When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed; and when you have stopped dealing treacherously, they will deal treacherously with you.

² O Lord, be gracious to us; we have waited [expectantly] for You. Be the arm [of Your servants—their strength and defense] every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble.

³ At the noise of the tumult [caused by Your voice at which the enemy is overthrown], the peoples flee; at the lifting up of Yourself, nations are scattered.

⁴ And the spoil [of the Assyrians] is gathered [by the inhabitants of Jerusalem] as the caterpillar gathers; as locusts leap and run to and fro, so [the Jews spoil the Assyrians’ forsaken camp as they] leap upon it.

⁵ The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high; He will fill Zion with justice and righteousness (moral and spiritual rectitude in every area and relation).

⁶ And there shall be stability in your times, an abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the reverent fear and worship of the Lord is your treasure and His.

⁷ Behold, their valiant ones cry without; the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.

⁸ The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceases. The enemy has broken the covenant, he has despised the cities and ^[d]the witnesses, he regards no man.

⁹ The land mourns and languishes, Lebanon is confounded and [its luxuriant verdure] withers away; Sharon [a fertile pasture region south of Mount Carmel] is like a desert, and Bashan [a broad, fertile plateau east of the Jordan River] and [Mount] Carmel shake off their leaves.

¹⁰ Now will I arise, says the Lord. Now will I lift up Myself; now will I be exalted.

¹¹ You conceive chaff, you bring forth stubble; your breath is a fire that consumes you.

¹² And the people will be burned as if to lime, like thorns cut down that are burned in the fire.

¹³ Hear, you who are far off [says the Lord], what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge My might!

¹⁴ The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling seizes the godless ones. [They cry] Who among us can dwell with that devouring fire? Who among us can dwell with those everlasting burnings?

¹⁵ He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises gain from fraud and from oppression, who shakes his hand free from the taking of bribes, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes to avoid looking upon evil.

¹⁶ [Such a man] will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; water for him will be sure.

¹⁷ Your eyes will see the King in His beauty; [your eyes] will behold a land of wide distances that stretches afar.

¹⁸ Your mind will meditate on the terror: [asking] Where is he who counted? Where is he who weighed the tribute? Where is he who counted the towers?

¹⁹ You will see no more the fierce and insolent people, a people of a speech too deep and obscure to be comprehended, of a strange and stammering tongue that you cannot understand.

²⁰ Look upon Zion, the city of our set feasts and solemnities! Your eyes shall see Jerusalem, a quiet habitation, a tent that shall not be taken down; not one of its stakes shall ever be pulled up, neither shall any of its cords be broken.

²¹ But there the Lord will be for us in majesty and splendor a place of broad rivers and streams, where no oar-propelled boat can go, and no mighty and stately ship can pass.

²² For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will save us.^(D)

²³ Your hoisting ropes hang loose; they cannot strengthen and hold firm the foot of their mast or keep the sail spread out. Then will prey and spoil in abundance be divided; even the lame will take the prey.

²⁴ And no inhabitant [of Zion] will say, I am sick; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity and guilt.

34 Come near, you nations, to hear; and hearken, you peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that is in it; the world, and all things that come forth from it.

² For the Lord is indignant against all nations, and His wrath is against all their host. He has utterly doomed them, He has given them over to slaughter.

³ Their slain also shall be cast out, and the stench of their dead bodies shall rise, and the mountains shall flow with their blood.

⁴ All the host of the heavens shall be dissolved and crumble away, and the skies shall be rolled together like a scroll; and all their host [the stars and the planets] shall drop like a faded leaf from the vine, and like a withered fig from the fig tree.^(E)

⁵ Because My sword has been bathed and equipped in heaven, behold, it shall come down upon Edom [the descendants of Esau], upon the people whom I have doomed for judgment.^(F)

⁶ The sword of the Lord is filled with blood [of sacrifices], it is gorged and greased with fatness—with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah [capital of Edom] and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

⁷ And the wild oxen shall fall with them, and the [young] bullocks with the [old and mighty] bulls; and their land shall be drunk and soaked with blood, and their dust made rich with fatness.

⁸ For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense, for the cause of Zion.

⁹ And the streams [of Edom] will be turned into pitch and its dust into brimstone, and its land will become burning pitch.

¹⁰ [The burning of Edom] shall not be quenched night or day; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.^(G)

¹¹ But the pelican and the porcupine will possess it; the owl and the bittern and the raven will dwell in it. And He will stretch over it [Edom] the measuring line of confusion and the plummet stones of chaos [over its nobles].

¹² They shall call its nobles to proclaim the kingdom, but nothing shall be there, and all its princes shall be no more.

¹³ And thorns shall come up in its palaces and strongholds, nettles and brambles in its fortresses; and it shall be a habitation for jackals, an abode for ostriches.

¹⁴ And the wild beasts of the desert will meet here with howling creatures [wolves and hyenas] and the [shaggy] wild goat will call to his fellow; the night monster will settle there and find a place of rest.

¹⁵ There shall the arrow snake make her nest and lay her eggs and hatch them and gather her young under her shade; there shall the kites be gathered [also to breed] every one with its mate.

¹⁶ Seek out of the book of the Lord and read: not one of these [details of prophecy] shall fail, none shall want and lack her mate [in fulfillment]. For the mouth [of the Lord] has commanded, and His Spirit has gathered them.

¹⁷ And He has cast the lot for them, and His hand has portioned [Edom] to [the wild beasts] by measuring line. They shall possess it forever; from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.

35 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the rose and the autumn crocus.

² It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the excellency of [Mount] Carmel and [the plain] of Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty and splendor and excellency of our God.

³ Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble and tottering knees.^(H)

⁴ Say to those who are of a fearful and hasty heart, Be strong, fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance; with the recompense of God He will come and save you.

⁵ Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.

⁶ Then shall the lame man leap like a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.^(I)

⁷ And the burning sand and the mirage shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lay resting, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

⁸ And a highway shall be there, and a way; and it shall be called the Holy Way. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for the redeemed; the wayfaring men, yes, the simple ones and fools, shall not err in it and lose their way.

⁹ No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk on it.

¹⁰ And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

36 Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.^(J)

² And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh [the military official] from Lachish [the Judean fortress commanding the road from Egypt] to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem with a great army. And he stood by the canal of the Upper Pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field.

³ Then came out to meet him Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the [royal] household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recording historian.

⁴ And the Rabshakeh said to them, Say to Hezekiah, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What reason for confidence is this in which you trust?

⁵ Do you suppose that mere words of the lips can pass for warlike counsel and strength? Now in whom do you trust and on whom do you rely, that you rebel against me?^(K)

⁶ Behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised and broken reed, Egypt, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust and rely on him.

⁷ But if you say to me, We trust in and rely on the Lord our God—is it not He Whose high places and Whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, You shall worship before this altar?^(L)

⁸ Now therefore, I pray you, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria and give him pledges, and I will give you two thousand horses—if you are able on your part to put riders on them.

⁹ How then can you repulse the attack of a single captain of the least of my master’s servants, when you put your reliance on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

¹⁰ Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have now come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.

¹¹ Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, We pray you, speak to your servants in the Aramaic or Syrian language, for we understand it; and do not speak to us in the language of the Jews in the hearing of the people on the wall.

¹² But the Rabshakeh said, Has my master sent me to speak these words only to your master and to you? Has he not sent me to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?

¹³ Then the Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the language of the Jews: Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!

¹⁴ Thus says the king: Let not Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you.

¹⁵ Nor let Hezekiah make you trust in and rely on the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

¹⁶ Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me; and eat every one from his own vine and every one from his own fig tree and drink every one the water of his own cistern,

¹⁷ Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

¹⁸ Beware lest Hezekiah persuade and mislead you by saying, The Lord will deliver us. Has any one of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

¹⁹ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad [in Syria]? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim [a place from which the Assyrians brought colonists to inhabit evacuated Samaria]? And have [the gods] delivered Samaria [capital of the ten northern tribes of Israel] out of my hand?

²⁰ Who among all the gods of these lands has delivered his land out of my hand, that [you should think that] the Lord can deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

²¹ But they kept still and answered him not a word, for the king’s [Hezekiah’s] command was, Do not answer him.

²² Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recording historian came to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh [the Assyrian military official].

37 And when King Hezekiah heard it, he rent his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord.^(M)

² And he sent Eliakim, who was over the [royal] household, and Shebna the secretary, and the older priests, clothed with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

³ And they said to him, Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of trouble and distress and of rebuke and of disgrace; for children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth.

⁴ It may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his master, has sent to mock, reproach, insult, and defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant [of His people] that is left.

⁵ So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

⁶ And Isaiah said to them, You shall say to your master, Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled and blasphemed Me.

⁷ Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.

⁸ So the Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah [a fortified city of Judah]; for he had heard that the king had departed from Lachish.

⁹ And [Sennacherib king of Assyria] heard concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, He has come forth to make war with you. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

¹⁰ Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah: Let not your God in Whom you trust deceive you by saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

¹¹ Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, destroying them utterly. And shall you be delivered?

¹² Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my predecessors have destroyed, as ^[e]Gozan, Haran [of Mesopotamia], Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?

¹³ Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad [of northern Syria], and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?

¹⁴ And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. And Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord.^(N)

¹⁵ And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord:

¹⁶ O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, Who [in symbol] are enthroned above the cherubim [of the ark in the temple], You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

¹⁷ Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib which he has sent to mock, reproach, insult, and defy the living God.

¹⁸ It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands

¹⁹ And have cast the gods of those peoples into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them.

²⁰ Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know (understand and realize) that You are the Lord, even You only.

²¹ Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria,^(O)

²² This is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning him: The Virgin Daughter of Zion has despised you and laughed you to scorn; the Daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head behind you.

²³ Whom have you mocked and reviled [insulted and blasphemed]? And against Whom have you raised your voice and haughtily lifted your eyes? Against the Holy One of Israel!

²⁴ By your servants you have mocked, reproached, insulted, and defied the Lord, and you have said, With my many chariots I have gone up to the height of the mountains, to the inner recesses of Lebanon. I cut down its tallest cedars and its choicest cypress trees; I came to its remotest height, its most luxuriant and dense forest;

²⁵ I dug wells and drank foreign waters, and with the sole of my feet I have dried up all the rivers [the Nile streams] of Egypt.

²⁶ [But, says the God of Israel] have you not heard that I purposed to do it long ago, that I planned it in ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that you [king of Assyria] should [be My instrument to] lay waste fortified cities, making them ruinous heaps.

²⁷ Therefore their inhabitants had little power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were like the grass of the field and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops and like a field of grain blasted before it is grown or is in stalk.

²⁸ But I [the Lord] know your sitting down and your going out and your coming in and your raging against Me.

²⁹ Because your raging against Me and your arrogance and careless ease have come to My ears, therefore will I put My hook in your nose and My bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way you came.

³⁰ And [now, Hezekiah, says the Lord] this shall be the sign [of these things] to you: you shall eat this year what grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from the same. And in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.

³¹ And the remnant that has survived of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.

³² For out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant, and a band that survives out of Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

³³ Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow here or come before it with shield or cast up a siege mound against it.

³⁴ By the way that he came, by the same way he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, says the Lord.

³⁵ For I will defend this city to save it, for My own sake and for the sake of My servant David.

³⁶ And the ^[f]Angel of the Lord went forth, and ^[g]slew 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when [the living] arose early in the morning, behold, all these were dead bodies.^(P)

³⁷ So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned and dwelt at Nineveh.

³⁸ And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons killed him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Armenia or Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.

38 In those days King Hezekiah of Judah became ill and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him and said, Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.^(Q)

² Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord

³ And said, Remember [earnestly] now, O Lord, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in faithfulness and in truth, with a whole heart [absolutely devoted to You], and have done what is good in Your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴ Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying,

⁵ Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will ^[h]add to your life fifteen years.

⁶ And I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city [Jerusalem].

⁷ And this will be the sign to you from the Lord that the Lord will do this thing that He has spoken:

⁸ Behold, I will turn the shadow [denoting the time of day] on the steps or degrees, which has gone down on the steps or sundial of Ahaz, backward ten steps or degrees. And the sunlight turned back ten steps on the steps on which it had gone down.

⁹ This is the writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:

¹⁰ I said, In the noontide and tranquillity of my days I must depart; I am to pass through the gates of Sheol (the place of the dead), deprived of the remainder of my years.

¹¹ I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living; I shall behold man no more among the inhabitants of the world.

¹² My [fleshly] dwelling is plucked up and is removed from me like a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up my life as a weaver [rolls up the finished web]; [the Lord] cuts me free from the loom; from day to night You bring me to an end.

¹³ I thought and quieted myself until morning. Like a lion He breaks all my bones; from day to night You bring me to an end.

¹⁴ Like a twittering swallow or a crane, so do I chirp and chatter; I moan like a dove. My eyes are weary and dim with looking upward. O Lord, I am oppressed; take my side and be my security [as of a debtor being sent to prison].

¹⁵ But what can I say? For He has both spoken to me and He Himself has done it. I must go softly [as in solemn procession] all my years and my sleep has fled because of the bitterness of my soul.

¹⁶ O Lord, by these things men live; and in all these is the life of my spirit. O give me back my health and make me live!

¹⁷ Behold, it was for my peace that I had intense bitterness; but You have loved back my life from the pit of corruption and nothingness, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.

¹⁸ For Sheol (the place of the dead) cannot confess and reach out the hand to You, death cannot praise and rejoice in You; they who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness [to Your promises; their probation is at an end, their destiny is sealed].

¹⁹ The living, the living—they shall thank and praise You, as I do this day; the father shall make known to the children Your faithfulness and Your truth.

²⁰ The Lord is ready to save (deliver) me; therefore we will sing my songs with [my] stringed instruments all the days of our lives in the house of the Lord.

²¹ Now Isaiah had said, Let them take a cake of figs and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, that he may recover.

²² Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?

39 At that time Merodach-baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent [messengers with] letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he had heard that he had been sick and had recovered.^(R)

² And Hezekiah was glad and welcomed them and showed them the house of his spices and precious things—the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious ointment, all the house of his armor and his jewels, and all that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his house nor in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them.

³ Then came Isaiah the prophet to King Hezekiah and said to him, What did these men say? From where did they come to you? And Hezekiah said, They came to me from a far country, even from Babylon.

⁴ Then Isaiah said, What have they seen in your house? And Hezekiah answered, They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shown them.

⁵ Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord of hosts:

⁶ Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and that which your predecessors have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord.

⁷ And some of your own sons who are born to you shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.

⁸ Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good. And he added, For there will be peace and faithfulness [to His promises to us] in my days.

40 Comfort, comfort My people, says your God.

² Speak tenderly to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry to her that her time of service and her warfare are ended, that [her punishment is accepted and] her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received [punishment] from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

³ A voice of one who cries: Prepare in the wilderness the way of the Lord [clear away the obstacles]; make straight and smooth in the desert a highway for our God!^(S)

⁴ Every valley shall be lifted and filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked and uneven shall be made straight and level, and the rough places a plain.

⁵ And the glory (majesty and splendor) of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.^(T)

⁶ A voice says, Cry [prophesy]! And I said, What shall I cry? [The voice answered, Proclaim:] All flesh is as frail as grass, and all that makes it attractive [its kindness, its goodwill, its mercy from God, its glory and comeliness, however good] is transitory, like the flower of the field.

⁷ The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely [all] the people are like grass.

⁸ The ^[i]grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.^(U)

⁹ O you who bring good tidings to Zion, get up to the high mountain. O you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God!^(V)

¹⁰ Behold, the Lord God will come with might, and His arm will rule for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him.^(W)

¹¹ He will feed His flock like a shepherd: He will gather the lambs in His arm, He will carry them in His bosom and will gently lead those that have their young.

¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, marked off the heavens with a [nine-inch] span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?

¹³ Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has taught Him?^(X)

¹⁴ With whom did He take counsel, that instruction might be given Him? Who taught Him the path of justice and taught Him knowledge and showed Him the way of understanding?

¹⁵ Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are counted as small dust on the scales; behold, He takes up the isles like a very little thing.

¹⁶ And all Lebanon’s [forests] cannot supply sufficient fuel, nor all its wild beasts furnish victims enough to burn sacrifices [worthy of the Lord].

¹⁷ All the nations are as nothing before Him; they are regarded by Him as less than nothing and emptiness (waste, futility, and worthlessness).

¹⁸ To whom then will you liken God? Or with what likeness will you compare Him?^(Y)

¹⁹ The graven image! A workman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts silver chains for it.

²⁰ He who is so impoverished that he has no offering or oblation or rich gift to give [to his god is constrained to make a wooden offering, an idol; so he] chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to carve and set up an image that will not totter or deteriorate.

²¹ [You worshipers of idols, you are without excuse.] Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? [These things ought to convince you of God’s omnipotence and of the folly of bowing to idols.] Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?^(Z)

²² It is God Who sits above the circle (the horizon) of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; it is He Who stretches out the heavens like [gauze] curtains and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in,

²³ Who brings dignitaries to nothing, Who makes the judges and rulers of the earth as chaos (emptiness, falsity, and futility).

²⁴ Yes, these men are scarcely planted, scarcely are they sown, scarcely does their stock take root in the earth, when [the Lord] blows upon them and they wither, and the whirlwind or tempest takes them away like stubble.

²⁵ To whom then will you liken Me, that I should be equal to him? says the Holy One.

²⁶ Lift up your eyes on high and see! Who has created these? He Who brings out their host by number and calls them all by name; through the greatness of His might and because He is strong in power, not one is missing or lacks anything.

²⁷ Why, O Jacob, do you say, and declare, O Israel, My way and my lot are hidden from the Lord, and my right is passed over without regard from my God?

²⁸ Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint or grow weary; there is no searching of His understanding.

²⁹ He gives power to the faint and weary, and to him who has no might He increases strength [causing it to multiply and making it to abound].^(AA)

³⁰ Even youths shall faint and be weary, and [selected] young men shall feebly stumble and fall exhausted;

³¹ But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired.^(AB)

41 Listen in silence before Me, O islands and regions bordering on the sea! And let the people gather and renew their strength [for the argument; let them offer their strongest arguments]! Let them come near, then let them speak; let us come near together for judgment [and decide the point at issue between us concerning the enemy advancing from the east].

² Who has roused up one [Cyrus] from the east, whom He calls in righteousness to His service and whom victory meets at every step? He [the Lord] subdues nations before him and makes him ruler over kings. He turns them to dust with the sword [of Cyrus], and to driven straw and chaff with his bow.^(AC)

³ He [Cyrus] pursues them and passes safely and unhindered, even by a way his feet had not trod and so swiftly that his feet do not touch the ground.

⁴ Who has prepared and done this, calling forth and guiding the destinies of the generations [of the nations] from the beginning? I, the Lord—the first [existing before history began] and with the last [an ever-present, unchanging God]—I am He.

⁵ The islands and coastlands have seen and fear; the ends of the earth tremble. They draw near and come;

⁶ They help every one his neighbor and say to his brother [in his tiresome idol making], Be of good courage!

⁷ So the carpenter encourages the goldsmith, and he who smooths [the metal] with the hammer [encourages] him who smites the anvil, saying of the soldering, That is good! And he fastens it with nails so that it cannot be moved.

⁸ But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham My friend,^(AD)

⁹ You whom I [the Lord] have taken from the ends of the earth and have called from the corners of it, and said to you, You are My servant—I have chosen you and not cast you off [even though you are exiled].

¹⁰ Fear not [there is nothing to fear], for I am with you; do not look around you in terror and be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen and harden you to difficulties, yes, I will help you; yes, I will hold you up and retain you with My [victorious] right hand of rightness and justice.^(AE)

¹¹ Behold, all they who are enraged and inflamed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; they who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish.

¹² You shall seek those who contend with you but shall not find them; they who war against you shall be as nothing, as nothing at all.

¹³ For I the Lord your God hold your right hand; I am the Lord, Who says to you, Fear not; I will help you!

¹⁴ Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I will help you, says the Lord; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵ Behold, I will make you to be a new, sharp, threshing instrument which has teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and beat them small, and shall make the hills like chaff.

¹⁶ You shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the tempest or whirlwind shall scatter them. And you shall rejoice in the Lord, you shall glory in the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁷ The poor and needy are seeking water when there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

¹⁸ I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.