Chronological

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 ^[a]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.^(A)

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 ^[b]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 ^[c]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.^(B)

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.^(C)

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.^(D)

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.^(E)

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.