Chronological

1 The vision [seen by spiritual perception] of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah [the kingdom] and Jerusalem [its capital] in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

² Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: I have nourished and brought up sons and have made them great and exalted, but they have rebelled against Me and broken away from Me.

³ The ox [instinctively] knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib, but Israel does not know or recognize Me [as Lord], My people do not consider or understand.

⁴ Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised and shown contempt and provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they have become utterly estranged (alienated).

⁵ Why should you be stricken and punished any more [since it brings no correction]? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint (feeble, sick, and nauseated).

⁶ From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness or health in [the nation’s body]—but wounds and bruises and fresh and bleeding stripes; they have not been pressed out and closed up or bound up or softened with oil. [No one has troubled to seek a remedy.]

⁷ [Because of your detestable disobedience] your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land—strangers devour it in your very presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by aliens.

⁸ And the Daughter of Zion [Jerusalem] is left like a [deserted] booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, like a besieged city [spared, but in the midst of desolation].

⁹ Except the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant [of survivors], we should have been like Sodom, and we should have been like Gomorrah.^(A)

¹⁰ Hear [O Jerusalem] the word of the Lord, you rulers or judges of [another] Sodom! Give ear to the law and the teaching of our God, you people of [another] Gomorrah!

¹¹ To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me [unless they are the offering of the heart]? says the Lord. I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts [without obedience]; and I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of he-goats [without righteousness].

¹² When you come to appear before Me, who requires of you that your [unholy feet] trample My courts?

¹³ Bring no more offerings of vanity (emptiness, falsity, vainglory, and futility); [your hollow offering of] incense is an abomination to Me; the New Moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure—[it is] iniquity and profanation, even the solemn meeting.

¹⁴ Your New Moon festivals and your [hypocritical] appointed feasts My soul hates. They are an oppressive burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them.

¹⁵ And when you spread forth your hands [in prayer, imploring help], I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood!

¹⁶ Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes! Cease to do evil,

¹⁷ Learn to do right! Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.

¹⁸ Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.

¹⁹ If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;

²⁰ But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

²¹ How the faithful city has become an [idolatrous] harlot, she who was full of justice! Uprightness and right standing with God [once] lodged in her—but now murderers.

²² Your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water.

²³ Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves; everyone loves bribes and runs after compensation and rewards. They judge not for the fatherless nor defend them, neither does the cause of the widow come to them [for they delay or turn a deaf ear].

²⁴ Therefore says the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will appease Myself on My adversaries and avenge Myself on My enemies.

²⁵ And I will bring My hand again upon you and thoroughly purge away your dross [as with lye] and take away all your tin or alloy.

²⁶ And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning; afterward you shall be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City.

²⁷ Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her [returned] converts with righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God).

²⁸ But the crushing and destruction of rebels and sinners shall be together, and they who forsake the Lord shall be consumed.

²⁹ For you will be ashamed [of the folly and degradation] of the oak or terebinth trees in which you found [idolatrous] pleasure, and you will blush with shame for the [idolatrous worship which you practice in the passion-inflaming] gardens which you have chosen.

³⁰ For you shall be like an oak or terebinth whose leaf withers, and like a garden that has no water.

³¹ And the strong shall become like tow and become tinder, and his work like a spark, and they shall both burn together, with none to quench them.

2 The word which Isaiah son of Amoz saw [revealed] concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

² It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be [firmly] established as the highest of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it.

³ And many people shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us His ways and that we may walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

⁴ And He shall judge between the nations and shall decide [disputes] for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.^(B)

⁵ O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.

⁶ Surely [Lord] You have rejected and forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled [with customs] from the east and with soothsayers [who foretell] like the Philistines; also they strike hands and make pledges and agreements with the children of aliens.^(C)

⁷ Their land also is full of silver and gold; neither is there any end to their treasures. Their land is also full of horses; neither is there any end to their chariots.^(D)

⁸ Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, what their own fingers have made.

⁹ And the common man is bowed down [before idols], also the great man is brought low and humbles himself—therefore forgive them not [O Lord].

¹⁰ Enter into the rock and hide yourself in the dust from before the terror of the Lord and from the glory of His majesty.

¹¹ The proud looks of man shall be brought low, and the haughtiness of men shall be humbled; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

¹² For there shall be a day of the Lord of hosts against all who are proud and haughty and against all who are lifted up—and they shall be brought low—^(E)

¹³ [The wrath of God will begin by coming down] against all the cedars of Lebanon [west of the Jordan] that are high and lifted up, and against all the oaks of Bashan [east of the Jordan],

¹⁴ And [after that] against all the high mountains and all the hills that are lifted up,

¹⁵ And against every high tower and every fenced wall,

¹⁶ And against all the ships of Tarshish and all the picturesque and desirable imagery [designed for mere ornament and luxury].

¹⁷ Then the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

¹⁸ And the idols shall utterly pass away (be abolished).

¹⁹ Then shall [the stricken, deprived of all in which they had trusted] go into the caves of the rocks and into the holes of the earth from before the terror and dread of the Lord and from before the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake mightily and terribly the earth.^(F)

²⁰ In that day men shall cast away to the moles and to the bats their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship,

²¹ To go into the caverns of the rocks and into the clefts of the ragged rocks from before the terror and dread of the Lord and from before the glory of His majesty, when He rises to shake mightily and terribly the earth.

²² Cease to trust in [weak, frail, and dying] man, whose breath is in his nostrils [for so short a time]; in what sense can he be counted as having intrinsic worth?

3 For behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, is taking away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff [every kind of prop], the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water,

² The mighty man and the man of war, the judge and the [professional] prophet, the one who foretells by divination and the old man,

³ The captain of fifty and the man of rank, the counselor and the expert craftsman and the skillful enchanter.

⁴ And I will make boys their princes, and with childishness shall they rule over them [with outrage instead of justice].

⁵ And the people shall be oppressed, each one by another, and each one by his neighbor; the child shall behave himself proudly and with insolence against the old man, and the lowborn against the honorable [person of rank].

⁶ When a man shall take hold of his brother in the house of his father, saying, You have a robe, you shall be our judge and ruler, and this heap of ruins shall be under your control—

⁷ In that day he will answer, saying, I will not be a healer and one who binds up; ^[a]I am not a physician. For in my house is neither bread nor clothing; you shall not make me judge and ruler of the people.

⁸ For Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is fallen, because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of His glory and defy His glorious presence.

⁹ Their respecting of persons and showing of partiality witnesses against them; they proclaim their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil [as a reward upon themselves].

¹⁰ Say to the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.

¹¹ Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with them, for what their hands have done shall be done to them.

¹² As for My people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O My people, your leaders cause you to err, and they confuse (destroy and swallow up) the course of your paths.

¹³ The Lord stands up to contend, and stands to judge the peoples and His people.

¹⁴ The Lord enters into judgment with the elders of His people and their princes: For [by your exactions and oppressions you have robbed the people and ruined the country] you have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

¹⁵ What do you mean by crushing My people and grinding the faces of the poor? says the Lord God of hosts.

¹⁶ Moreover, the Lord said, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks and with undisciplined (flirtatious and alluring) eyes, tripping along with mincing and affected gait, and making a tinkling noise with [the anklets on] their feet,

¹⁷ Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the heads of the daughters of Zion [making them bald], and the Lord will cause them to be [taken as captives and to suffer the indignity of being] stripped naked.

¹⁸ In that day the Lord will take away the finery of their tinkling anklets, the caps of network, the crescent head ornaments,

¹⁹ The pendants, the bracelets or chains, and the spangled face veils and scarfs,

²⁰ The headbands, the short ankle chains [attached from one foot to the other to insure a measured gait], the sashes, the perfume boxes, the amulets or charms [suspended from the ears or neck],

²¹ The signet rings and nose rings,

²² The festal robes, the cloaks, the stoles and shawls, and the handbags,

²³ The hand mirrors, the fine linen [undergarments], the turbans, and the [whole body-enveloping] veils.

²⁴ And it shall come to pass that instead of the sweet odor of spices there shall be the stench of rottenness; and instead of a girdle, a rope; and instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a rich robe, a girding of sackcloth; and searing [of captives by the scorching heat] instead of beauty.

²⁵ Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty men in battle.

²⁶ And [Jerusalem’s] gates shall lament and mourn [as those who wail for the dead]; and she, being ruined and desolate, shall sit upon the ground.

4 And in that day ^[b]seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread and provide our own apparel; only let us be called by your name to take away our reproach [of being unmarried].

² In that day the Branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be excellent and lovely to those of Israel who have escaped.^(G)

³ And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem and for ^[c]eternal life,^(H)

⁴ After the Lord has washed away the [moral] filth of the daughters of Zion [pride, vanity, haughtiness] and has purged the bloodstains of Jerusalem from the midst of it by the spirit and blast of judgment and by the spirit and blast of burning and sifting.

⁵ And the Lord will create over the whole site, over every dwelling place of Mount Zion and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory shall be a canopy (a defense of divine love and protection).

⁶ And there shall be a pavilion for shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge and a shelter from storm and from rain.