Bible in 90 Days
Woe to the City of David
29 Woe to Ariel, to Ariel,
the city where David lived!
Add year to year,
observe your feasts on schedule.
2 Yet I will distress Ariel,
and she shall be a city of lamenting and sorrow,
and she shall be as an Ariel to me.
3 I will encamp against you all around,
and will lay siege against you with a mound,
and I will raise forts against you.
4 You shall be brought down, and shall speak from the ground,
and from the dust where you are prostrate your speech shall come;
your voice shall also be as that of a ghost from the ground;
and your speech shall whisper from the dust.
5 Moreover the multitude of your enemies shall become like fine dust,
and the multitude of the ruthless ones as chaff which blows away;
and it shall happen in an instant, suddenly.
6 You shall be punished from the Lord of Hosts
with thunder and earthquake and loud noise,
with storm and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
7 The multitude of all the nations who fight against Ariel,
even all who fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her,
shall be as a dream
of a night vision.
8 It shall even be as when a hungry man dreams, and he eats;
but when he awakens, his hunger is not satisfied;
or as when a thirsty man dreams, and he is drinking;
but when he awakens, he is faint, and his thirst is not quenched;
so shall the multitude of all the nations be
who fight against Mount Zion.
9 Be delayed and wait,
blind yourselves and be blind.
They are drunk, but not with wine.
They stagger, but not with strong drink.
10 For the Lord has poured out on you the spirit of deep sleep
and has closed your eyes, the prophets;
and He has covered your heads, the seers.
11 The whole vision will be to you as the words of a book that is sealed, which when they deliver it to one who is learned, saying, “Read this, please,” he shall say, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” 12 Then the book shall be delivered to him who is not learned, saying, “Read this, please.” And he shall say, “I cannot read.”
13 Therefore, the Lord said:
Because this people draw near with their mouths
and honor Me with their lips,
but have removed their hearts far from Me,
and their fear toward Me
is tradition by the precept of men,
14 therefore I will once again do a marvelous work among this people,
even a marvelous work and a wonder;
for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.
15 Woe to those who deeply
hide their counsel from the Lord
and whose works are done in the dark, and they say,
“Who sees us?” and “Who knows us?”
16 Surely you turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be esteemed as the potter’s clay?
Shall what is made say to its maker,
“He did not make me”?
Or shall the thing formed say to him who formed it,
“He has no understanding”?
17 Is it not yet a very little while before Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field shall be counted as a forest?
18 And on that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book,
and the eyes of the blind shall see
out of obscurity and darkness.
19 The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord,
and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the ruthless shall come to nothing,
and the scorner will be consumed,
and all who are intent on doing iniquity shall be cut off—
21 those who cause a man to be indicted by a word,
and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate,
and turn aside the righteous with meaningless arguments.
22 Therefore thus says the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:
Jacob shall not now be ashamed,
nor shall his face now turn pale;
23 but when he sees his children,
the work of My hands, in his midst,
they shall sanctify My name
and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob,
and fear the God of Israel.
24 Those also who err in spirit shall know the truth,
and those who murmured shall accept instruction.
The Warning of Judah
30 Woe to the rebellious children,
says the Lord,
who take counsel, but not from Me,
and make an alliance, but not of My Spirit,
in order to add sin to sin;
2 they walk down to Egypt
and have not asked from My mouth,
to strengthen themselves in the safety of Pharaoh
and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!
3 Therefore the safety of Pharaoh shall be your shame
and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your humiliation.
4 For their princes were at Zoan,
and their ambassadors came to Hanes.
5 They all will be ashamed
of a people who cannot profit them,
who are not a help or profit,
but a shame and also a reproach.
6 The burden of the beasts of the Negev.
Through a land of trouble and anguish,
from which comes the lioness and lion,
the viper and fiery flying serpent,
they will carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys,
and their treasures on the humps of camels,
to a people who shall not profit them.
7 For the Egyptians shall help in vain and to no purpose.
Therefore, I have called her,
“Rahab who has been exterminated.”
8 Now go, write it before them on a tablet,
and note it in a book,
that it may serve in the time to come
as a witness forever;
9 for this is a rebellious people, lying children,
children who refuse to listen to the law of the Lord;
10 they say to the seers,
“You must not see visions,”
and to the prophets,
“You must not prophesy to us right things;
speak to us pleasant things,
prophesy illusions.
11 Get out of the way,
turn aside from the path,
let us hear no more
about the Holy One of Israel.”
12 Therefore, thus says the Holy One of Israel:
Because you despise this word
and trust in oppression and perverseness,
and rely on them,
13 therefore this iniquity shall be to you
as a breach ready to fall, swelling up in a high wall,
whose collapse comes suddenly, in an instant.
14 He shall break it as the breaking of the potter’s vessel
that is broken in pieces;
He shall not spare so that there shall not be found in the breaking of it a shard
to take fire from the hearth
or with which to take water out of a cistern.
15 For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:
In returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.
Yet you were not willing,
16 and you said, “No, for we will flee on horses”;
therefore you shall flee.
“And we will ride on swift horses”;
therefore those who pursue you shall be swift.
17 One thousand shall flee
at the threat of one man;
at the threat of five
you shall flee
until you are left
as a flag on the top of a mountain
and as a banner on a hill.
God’s Promise to Zion
18 Therefore, the Lord longs to be gracious to you,
and therefore, He waits on high to have mercy on you;
for the Lord is a God of justice;
how blessed are all who long for Him.
19 O people in Zion, inhabitants in Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry. When He hears it, He will answer you. 20 Though the Lord has given you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet He, your Teacher, will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. 21 Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left. 22 You shall defile also your graven images overlaid with silver, and your molded images ornamented with gold. You shall scatter them as an impure thing, and say to them, “Be gone!”
23 Then He shall give you rain for the seed which you shall sow in the ground and bread of the increase of the earth. And it shall be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle shall feed in large pastures. 24 The oxen likewise and the young donkeys that work the ground shall eat cured fodder, which has been winnowed with the shovel and fork. 25 There shall be on every high mountain and on every high hill rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord binds up the breach of His people and heals the wound from His blow.
Judgment on Assyria
27 See, the name of the Lord comes from afar,
burning with His anger, and its burden is heavy;
His lips are full of indignation,
and His tongue as a devouring fire.
28 And His breath is as an overflowing stream
which reaches to the middle of the neck,
to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity;
and there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people,
causing them to err.
29 You shall have songs,
as in the night when a festival is kept,
and gladness of heart,
as when one goes with a flute
to come into the mountain of the Lord,
to the Mighty One of Israel.
30 The Lord shall cause His glorious voice to be heard,
and shall show the descending of His arm
with the indignation of His anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire,
with scattering, and cloudburst, and hailstones.
31 For through the voice of the Lord the Assyrian shall be beaten down
when He strikes with a rod.
32 And every blow of the rod of punishment
which the Lord shall lay on him
shall be with tambourines and harps;
and in battles, brandishing weapons, He will fight them.
33 For Topheth has been long prepared,
indeed, for the king it has been prepared.
He has made it deep and large,
a pile of fire with much wood;
the breath of the Lord,
like a stream of brimstone,
kindles it.
Woe to Those Who Trust Egypt
31 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
and rely on horses,
and trust in chariots because they are many,
and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but they do not look to the Holy One of Israel
nor seek the Lord!
2 Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster
and will not call back His words,
but will arise against the house of the evildoers
and against the help of those who work iniquity.
3 Now the Egyptians are men and not God;
and their horses flesh and not spirit.
When the Lord shall stretch out His hand,
both he who helps shall fall
and he who is helped shall fall down,
and they all shall fail together.
4 For thus the Lord has spoken to me:
Like the lion, and the young lion,
roars over his prey,
against which a multitude of shepherds
is called out against him,
he will not be afraid of their voice,
nor disturbed at their noise,
so shall the Lord of Hosts come down
to fight for Mount Zion, and for its hill.
5 Like flying birds,
so the Lord of Hosts will defend Jerusalem.
He will defend and deliver it;
He will pass over and preserve it.
6 Turn to Him whom you have deeply betrayed, O sons of Israel. 7 For in that day every man shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold which your own hands have made for you as a sin.
8 “Then the Assyrian shall fall by the sword that is not of man,
and the sword not of man shall devour him.
So he shall not escape the sword,
and his young men shall become forced laborers.
9 He shall cross over to his stronghold for fear,
and his princes shall be afraid of the banner,”
says the Lord,
whose fire is in Zion,
and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.
The Kingdom of Righteousness
32 See, a king shall reign in righteousness,
and princes shall rule justly.
2 A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind,
and a shelter from the tempest,
as rivers of water in a dry place,
as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
3 The eyes of those who see shall not be blinded,
and the ears of those who hear shall listen.
4 The heart also of the hasty shall understand knowledge,
and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.
5 The vile person shall no more be called noble,
nor the rogue be spoken of as generous;
6 for the vile person will speak nonsense,
and his heart will work iniquity:
to practice hypocrisy
and to utter error against the Lord,
to keep the hungry unsatisfied
and to withhold drink from the thirsty.
7 The instruments also of the rogue are evil;
he devises wicked schemes
to destroy the poor with lying words,
even when the needy speaks right.
8 But the noble devises noble things,
and by noble things he stands.
The Women of Jerusalem
9 Rise up, you women who are at ease,
hear my voice;
you careless daughters,
give ear to my speech.
10 Within a year and a few days
you shall be troubled, you careless daughters;
for the vintage is ended
and the fruit gathering shall not come.
11 Tremble, you women who are at ease;
be troubled, you careless daughters;
strip, undress,
and put sackcloth on your waist.
12 Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields,
for the fruitful vine,
13 for the land of my people
in which thorns and briers shall come up,
yes, for all the joyful houses
and for the jubilant city;
14 because the palaces have been forsaken,
the populated city is forsaken.
The forts and towers shall be caves forever,
a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks,
15 until the Spirit is poured on us from on high,
and the wilderness is a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field is counted as a forest.
The Peace of God’s Reign
16 Then justice shall dwell in the wilderness,
and righteousness will abide in the fruitful field.
17 The work of righteousness shall be peace,
and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever.
18 My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation
and in secure dwellings
and in quiet resting places;
19 and it shall hail when the forest comes down,
and the city shall be utterly laid low.
20 How blessed are you
who sow beside all waters,
who send out freely the ox and the donkey.
A Prophecy of Deliverance
33 Woe to you, O destroyer,
though you were not destroyed,
and he who is treacherous,
though others did not deal treacherously with you!
When you cease destroying,
you shall be destroyed;
and when you finish dealing treacherously,
others shall deal treacherously with you.
2 O Lord, be gracious to us;
we have waited for You.
Be our strength every morning,
our salvation also in the time of trouble.
3 At the noise of the tumult, the people flee;
at the lifting up of Yourself, the nations scatter;
4 your spoil is gathered like the caterpillar gathers;
as locusts rush about, men rush about on it.
5 The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high;
He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.
6 He shall be the stability of your times,
a wealth of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge;
the fear of the Lord is His treasure.
7 Listen! Their valiant ones cry in the streets;
the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.
8 The highways lie waste,
the wayfaring man ceases.
He has broken the covenant,
he has despised the cities,
he has no regard for man.
9 The earth mourns and languishes;
Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down.
Sharon is like a wilderness,
and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits.
Impending Judgment on Israel
10 “Now I will rise,” says the Lord,
“now I will be exalted,
now I will be lifted up.
11 You have conceived chaff,
you shall bring forth stubble;
My breath, as fire, shall devour you.
12 The people shall be burned to lime,
as thorns cut up are burned in the fire.”
13 Hear what I have done, you who are far away;
and you who are near, acknowledge My might.
14 The sinners in Zion are afraid;
fearfulness has seized the hypocrites:
“Who among us can live with the continual fire?
Who among us can live with everlasting burning?”
15 He who walks righteously
and speaks uprightly,
he who rejects unjust gain
and shakes his hands from holding bribes,
who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed,
and shuts his eyes from seeing evil:
16 He shall dwell on high;
his place of defense shall be the impregnable rock;
his bread shall be given him,
his waters shall be sure.
The Land of the Majestic King
17 Your eyes shall see the King in His beauty;
they shall see the land that is very far away.
18 Your heart shall meditate on terror:
“Where is he who counts?
Where is he who weighs?
Where is he who counts the towers?”
19 You shall not see a fierce people any more,
a people of unintelligible speech which no one comprehends,
of a stammering tongue which no one understands.
20 Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts;
your eyes shall see Jerusalem,
a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down;
not one of its stakes shall ever be removed,
nor shall any of its cords be broken.
21 But there the glorious Lord will be to us
a place of broad rivers and streams
on which no boat with oars shall go
and on which no gallant ship shall pass,
22 for the Lord is our judge,
the Lord is our lawgiver,
the Lord is our king;
He will save us.
23 Your tackle hangs loose;
it cannot hold the base of its mast securely,
nor spread out the sail.
Then the prey of an abundant spoil shall be divided;
the lame shall take the prey.
24 The inhabitant shall not say, “I am sick”;
the people who dwell there shall be forgiven their iniquity.
Judgment on the Nations
34 Come near, O nations, to hear;
and listen, O peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all that is in it,
the world, and all that comes from it.
2 For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations
and His fury upon all their armies;
He has utterly destroyed them,
He has delivered them to the slaughter.
3 Their slain also shall be cast out,
and their corpses shall emit their stench,
and the mountains shall be drenched with their blood.
4 All the host of heaven shall be dissolved,
and the heavens shall be rolled together as a book;
and all their host shall fall down
as the leaf falls from the vine,
and as a falling fig from the fig tree.
5 For My sword is filled in heaven;
see, it shall come down for judgment on Edom,
and on the people whom I have devoted to destruction.
6 The sword of the Lord is filled with blood,
it is made full with fatness,
and with the blood of lambs and goats,
with the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 The wild oxen shall also fall with them,
and the young bulls with the mighty bulls;
so their land shall be soaked with blood,
and their dust become greasy with fat.
8 For it is the day of the vengeance of the Lord,
and the year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
9 Its streams shall be turned into pitch,
and its dust into brimstone,
and its land shall become burning pitch.
10 It shall not be quenched night or day;
its smoke shall go up forever.
From generation to generation it shall lie waste;
no one shall pass through it forever and ever.
11 But the cormorant and the hedgehog shall possess it,
the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it.
And He shall stretch out on it
the line of desolation,
and the plumb line of emptiness.
12 They shall call its nobles to the kingdom, but no one shall be there,
and all her princes shall be nothing.
13 Thorns shall come up in her palaces,
nettles and brambles in the fortresses;
and it shall be a habitation of jackals
and a home for owls.
14 The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wolves,
and the wild goat shall cry to its kind;
the screech owl also shall rest there
and find for herself a place of rest.
15 There shall the tree snake make its nest and lay eggs,
and it shall hatch and gather them under its protection;
yes, there shall the vultures also be gathered,
every one with its kind.
16 Seek from the book of the Lord, and read.
Not one of these shall be missing,
not one shall lack its mate.
For His mouth has commanded,
and His Spirit has gathered them.
17 He has cast the lot for them,
and His hand has divided it to them by line.
They shall possess it forever,
from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.
The Future Glory of Zion
35 The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad,
and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose;
2 it shall blossom abundantly
and rejoice even with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
the excellency of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the Lord
and the excellency of our God.
3 Strengthen the weak hands,
and support the feeble knees.
4 Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
“Be strong, fear not.
Your God will come
with vengeance,
even God with a recompense;
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 the lame man shall leap as a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
For in the wilderness waters shall break out
and streams in the desert.
7 The parched ground shall become a pool,
and the thirsty land springs of water;
in the habitation of jackals where each lay,
there shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
8 A highway shall be there, a roadway,
and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.
The unclean shall not pass on it,
but it shall be for the wayfaring men,
and fools shall not wander on it.
9 No lion shall be there,
nor any ravenous beast shall go up on it;
these shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk there,
10 and the ransomed of the Lord shall return
and come to Zion with songs
and everlasting joy upon their heads.
They shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Sennacherib Invades Judah(A)
36 Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. 2 The king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh[a] from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field. 3 Then Eliakim came to him, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder.
4 The Rabshakeh said to them:
“Say now to Hezekiah: Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What confidence is this that you have? 5 I say, Your counsel and strength for war are only empty words. Now on whom do you rely that you rebel against me? 6 You rely on the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him. 7 But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?
8 “Now therefore, come make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. 9 How then will you turn away one captain of the least of my master’s servants and rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 10 Have I now come up without the approval of the Lord 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, “Speak now to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. And do not speak to us in Hebrew in the ears of the people who are on the wall.”
12 But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words? Has he not sent me to the men who sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”
13 Then the Rabshakeh stood and cried out with a loud voice in Hebrew, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. 14 Thus says the king, ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you; 15 nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us. This city shall 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 of his vine and every one of his fig tree, and drink every one the waters of his own cistern, 17 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
18 “ ‘Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The Lord will deliver us. Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? 19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And when have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? 20 Who are they among all the gods of these lands that have delivered their land out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’ ”
21 But they held their peace, and answered him not a word, for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.”
22 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.
Isaiah Foretells Deliverance(B)
37 And it came to pass when King Hezekiah heard it that he tore his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. 2 He sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. 3 They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy. For children have come to birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. 4 Perhaps the Lord your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to reproach the living God, and will reprove the words which the Lord your God has heard. Therefore, lift up a prayer for the remnant that is left.”
5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. 7 Listen! I will put a spirit in him so that he shall 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 warring against Libnah. For he had heard that the king had left Lachish.
9 He heard them say concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “He has come out to make war with you.” And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10 “Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, ‘Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ 11 Certainly you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them. So shall you be delivered? 12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, even Gozan and Harran and Rezeph and the sons of Eden who were in Tel Assar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the kings of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?”
The Prayer of Hezekiah(C)
14 And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. 15 Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying, 16 “O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, who dwells above the cherubim, You are the God, even 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 reproach the living God.
18 “Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their countries, 19 and have cast their gods 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, O Lord our God, save us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, Lord, are God.”
The Fall of Sennacherib(D)
21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Because you have prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 this is the word which the Lord has spoken against him:
The virgin daughter of Zion
has despised you and mocked you;
the daughter of Jerusalem
has shaken her head at you.
23 Whom have you reproached and blasphemed?
And against whom have you raised your voice,
and lifted up your eyes haughtily?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
24 Through your servants
you have reproached the Lord
and have said,
‘With my many chariots
I have come up to the heights of the mountains,
to the remotest parts of Lebanon;
and I cut down its tall cedars,
and its choice fir trees;
and I will go to its highest peak,
its thickest forest.
25 I have dug wells
and drunk water,
and with the sole of my feet
I have dried up all the rivers of Egypt.’
26 “Have you not heard?
Long ago I have done it,
from ancient times I have formed it.
Now I have brought it to pass,
that you should turn fortified cities
into ruinous heaps.
27 Therefore, their inhabitants were short of strength;
they were dismayed and humiliated;
they were as the grass of the field
and as the green herb,
as the grass on the housetops
is scorched before it is grown up.
28 “But I know your abode,
and your going out and your coming in,
and your rage against Me.
29 Because your rage against Me
and your tumult have come up into My ears,
therefore I will put My hook in your nose,
and My bridle in your lips,
and I will turn you back
on the way by which you came.
30 “This shall be a sign to you:
You shall eat this year what grows of itself,
and the second year what springs from the same,
and in the third year sow and reap
and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.
31 The surviving remnant of the house of Judah
shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
32 For from Jerusalem shall go out a remnant,
and those who escape out of Mount Zion.
The zeal of the Lord of Hosts
shall do this.
33 “Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria:
He shall not come into this city,
nor shoot an arrow there,
nor come before it with shields,
nor build a siege ramp against it.
34 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return,
and 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 Then the angel of the Lord went out and struck one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When others woke up early in the morning, these were all dead bodies. 37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived in Nineveh.
38 It came to pass as he was worshipping in the house of Nisrok, his god, that Adrammelek and Sharezer, his sons, struck him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.
Hezekiah’s Illness(E)
38 In those days Hezekiah was mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live.”
2 Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the Lord, 3 and said, “Remember now, O Lord, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4 Then the word of the Lord came 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. Surely I will add to your days fifteen years. 6 I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city.
7 “This shall be a sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing that He has spoken: 8 I will cause the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down with the sun on the sundial of Ahaz, to go back ten steps.” So the sun’s shadow returned ten steps on the sundial by which it had gone down.
9 This is the writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery:
10 I said: In the middle of my days,
I shall go to the gates of Sheol;
I am to be deprived of the rest of my years.
11 I said, I shall not see the Lord,
even the Lord, in the land of the living;
I shall see man no more
with the inhabitants of the world.
12 My dwelling is pulled up
and removed from me as a shepherd’s tent;
I rolled up my life like a weaver.
He cuts me off from the loom;
from day even to night You make an end of me.
13 I composed my soul until morning,
like a lion, so He breaks all my bones;
from day even to night You make an end of me.
14 Like a crane or a swallow, so I twitter;
I mourn as a dove;
my eyes look wistfully upward.
O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.
15 What shall I say?
For He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it.
I shall wander about all my years
in the bitterness of my soul.
16 O Lord, by these things men live,
and in all these things is the life of my spirit;
O restore me to health
and make me live!
17 Surely it was for my own peace
that I had great bitterness;
but You have kept my soul
from the pit of corruption,
for You have cast all my sins
behind Your back.
18 For Sheol cannot thank You,
death cannot praise You;
those who go down into the pit
cannot hope for Your faithfulness.
19 It is the living who give thanks to You,
as I do this day;
a father explains to his sons
about Your faithfulness.
20 The Lord shall surely save me;
therefore, we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments
all the days of our lives
in the house of the Lord.
21 For Isaiah had said, “Let them take a cake of figs and lay it on the boil, and he shall recover.”
22 Hezekiah also had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?”
Envoys From Babylon(F)
39 At that time Marduk-Baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he had heard that he had been sick and had recovered. 2 Hezekiah was glad and showed them the house of his precious things: the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and his whole armory, 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 Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say, and from where did they come to you?”
And Hezekiah said, “They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon.”
4 Then he said, “What have they seen in your house?”
And Hezekiah answered, “All that is in my house they have seen. There is nothing among my treasures that I have not shown them.”
5 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of Hosts. 6 The days are surely coming when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. 7 And some of your sons who descend from you, whom you shall father, shall be taken away. And they shall become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
8 Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.” For he said, “For there shall be peace and truth in my days.”
Comfort for God’s People
40 Comfort, O comfort, My people,
says your God.
2 Speak kindly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare has ended,
that her iniquity has been pardoned,
that she has received of the hand of the Lord
double for all her sins.
3 The voice of him who cries out,
“Prepare the way of the Lord
in the wilderness,
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.
4 Let every valley be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low,
and let the rough ground become a plain,
and the rough places a plain;
5 then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”
6 The voice said, “Cry out.”
And he said, “What shall I cry out?”
All flesh is grass,
and all its loveliness is as the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades
because the Spirit of the Lord blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God shall stand forever.
9 O Zion, bearer of good news,
get yourself up onto a high mountain;
O Jerusalem, bearer of good news,
lift up your voice with strength,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
10 See, the Lord God will come with a strong hand,
and His arm shall rule for Him;
see, His reward is with Him,
and His recompense before Him.
11 He shall feed His flock like a shepherd;
He shall gather the lambs with His arm,
and carry them in His bosom,
and shall gently lead those that are with young.
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
and meted out heaven with the span,
and calculated the dust of the earth by the 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?
14 With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him,
and taught Him in the path of justice,
and taught Him knowledge,
and showed to Him the way of understanding?
15 Certainly the nations are as a drop in a bucket,
and are counted as the small dust of the balance;
He takes up the coastlands as a very little thing.
16 Lebanon is not sufficient to burn,
nor the beasts sufficient as a burnt offering.
17 All nations before Him are as nothing,
and they are counted by Him as less than nothing
and meaningless.
18 To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare to Him?
19 The workman melts a graven image,
and the goldsmith spreads it over with gold,
and casts silver chains.
20 He who is too impoverished for such an offering
chooses a tree that will not rot;
he seeks for himself a skillful workman
to prepare a graven image that shall not totter.
21 Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told to you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is He who sits upon the circle of the earth,
and the inhabitants are as grasshoppers,
who stretches out the heavens as a curtain,
and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in.
23 He brings the princes to nothing;
He makes the judges of the earth meaningless.
24 Scarcely shall they be planted;
scarcely shall they be sown;
scarcely shall their tree take root in the earth,
when He will also blow on them,
and they will wither,
and the whirlwind will take them away as 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 things,
who brings out their host by number;
He calls them all by name,
by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power;
not one of them is missing.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and assert, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my justice escapes the notice of my God”?
28 Have you not known?
Have you not heard,
that the everlasting God, the Lord,
the Creator of the ends of the earth,
does not faint, nor is He weary?
His understanding is inscrutable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and to those who have no might He increases strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
and the young men shall utterly fall,
31 but those who wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings as eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
and they shall walk and not faint.
The Lord Helps Israel
41 Keep silent before Me, O islands,
and let the peoples renew their strength.
Let them come near, then let them speak;
let us come near together to judgment.
2 Who raised up the righteous man from the east,
called him to His foot,
gave the nations before him,
and made him rule over kings?
He makes them as the dust with his sword,
and as driven stubble with his bow.
3 He pursued them, and passed safely,
by paths his feet have not traveled.
4 Who has performed and done this,
calling the generations from the beginning?
I, the Lord, am the first,
and with the last. I am He.
5 The coastlands saw it and feared,
the ends of the earth were afraid;
they drew near and came.
6 Every one helped his neighbor,
and every one said to his brother, “Be of good courage.”
7 So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith,
and he who smooths metal with the hammer
encourages him who strikes the anvil,
saying, “It is ready for the soldering”;
and he fastened it with nails so that it should not totter.
8 But you, Israel, are My servant,
Jacob whom I have chosen,
the seed of Abraham, My friend.
9 You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth,
and called from its remotest parts,
and said to you, “You are My servant;
I have chosen you and have not rejected you.”
10 Do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
yes, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.
11 Certainly all those who were incensed against you
shall be ashamed and humiliated;
they shall be as nothing,
and those who strive with you shall perish.
12 You shall seek them
and shall not find them, even those who contended with you.
Those who war against you
shall be as nothing, as a thing of nonexistence.
13 For I, the Lord your God,
will hold your right hand,
saying to you, “Do not fear;
I will help you.”
14 Do not fear, you worm Jacob,
and you men of Israel.
I will help you, says the Lord
and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
15 See, I will make you a new sharp threshing instrument
with double edges;
you shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small,
and shall make the hills as chaff.
16 You shall fan them, and the wind shall carry them away,
and the whirlwind shall scatter them;
and you shall rejoice in the Lord,
and shall glory in the Holy One of Israel.
17 When the poor and needy seek water,
and there is none,
and their tongues fail for thirst,
I, the Lord, will hear them,
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
18 I will open rivers in high places,
and fountains in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.