Old/New Testament

¹ Come down and sit in the dust,
    O virgin daughter of Babylon.
Sit on the ground without a throne,
    O daughter of the Chaldeans.
Never again will you be called
    tender and delicate.^[a]
2 Take the millstone and grind meal;
    remove your veil,
strip off your skirt, bare your legs,
    and wade through the rivers.
³ Your nakedness will be exposed
    and your shame will be seen.
I will take vengeance,
    and I will show clemency to no one.
⁴ Thus says our redeemer,
    the Holy One of Israel,
    whose name is the Lord of hosts.
⁵ Sit in silence and conceal yourself in darkness,
    O daughter of the Chaldeans.
For never again will you be called
    the mistress of kingdoms.
⁶ Because I was angry with my people
    I profaned my inheritance
    and gave them over into your power.
You showed them no mercy,
    and you laid a very heavy yoke on the aged.
⁷ You said, “I will be a queen forever.”
    Thus you did not reflect carefully on your actions
    or give any consideration to their outcome.
⁸ Now listen to this, you voluptuous woman,
    as you sit securely on your throne,
thinking to yourself,
    “I am the only one who matters.
I will never be a widow
    or experience the loss of children.”
⁹ However, both of these things will befall you,
    suddenly, in a single day;
both the loss of children and widowhood
    will come upon you in full measure
despite all your sorceries
    and all your potent spells.
¹⁰ You felt secure in your wickedness
    as you thought, “No one can see me.”
But your wisdom and your knowledge
    led you astray,
and you said to yourself,
    “I am the only one who matters.”
¹¹ As a result, evil will come upon you,
    and you will not know how to conjure it away,
disaster will befall you
    that you will not be able to avert;
complete ruin which you did not foresee
    will suddenly afflict you.
^12 [b]But continue to persist in your spells
    and your many sorceries
in which you have placed your confidence
    throughout your life.
Perhaps you can succeed with them;
    perhaps you can inspire terror.
¹³ You have exhausted yourself with consultations
    ever since your youth.
Let the astrologers now come forth to save you,
    those who seek the future in the stars
and who predict at each new moon
    what will befall you next.
¹⁴ But they are like stubble;
    the fire consumes them.
They cannot even deliver themselves
    from the heat of the flames.
These flames are not meant to sit beside;
    these glowing embers are not meant for keeping warm.
¹⁵ Of absolutely no use to you are your astrologers
    upon whom you have depended from your youth.
Each of them follows his own path;
    not one of them can save you.

¹ Hear this, O house of Jacob,
    you who are called by the name of Israel,
    and who came forth from the stock of Judah,
who swear by the name of the Lord
    and invoke the God of Israel
    but not with righteousness or good faith,
² even though you call yourselves citizens of the holy city
    and rely on the God of Israel
    whose name is the Lord of hosts.
³ Things that happened in the past
    I foretold long before they occurred.
These predictions issued forth from my mouth,
    and I made them known to you;
    then suddenly I acted and they came to pass.
⁴ Because I know full well that you are obstinate,
    with your neck an iron sinew
    and your forehead firm as bronze,
⁵ I foretold these events to you long ago
    and declared them to you before they happened
so that you could not assert, “My idols did them;
    my carved statue and my molten image ordained them.”
⁶ You have heard what I said; now consider it
    and admit the truth of what I have stated.
From now on I will reveal new things,
    hidden things of which you have not been aware.
⁷ They have just been brought into existence, and not long ago;
    before today you have never heard of them,
    so that you cannot claim to have already known them.
⁸ You neither heard nor knew;
    knowledge of them never reached your ears before now.
For I knew how treacherous you are
    and that from your birth you were rebellious.
⁹ For the sake of my name I will restrain my anger;
    for the sake of my honor I will be patient with you
    lest I should be tempted to destroy you.
¹⁰ See, I have tested you,
    but not in the manner that silver is tested;
    I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
¹¹ For my sake, for my own sake, I do this,
    for why should my name be profaned?
    I will not yield my glory to another.
¹² Listen to me, O Jacob,
    and Israel, whom I have called.
I am he; I am the first
    and I am the last.
¹³ My hand laid the foundations of the earth,
    and my right hand spread out the heavens;
when I summon them,
    they all present themselves immediately.
¹⁴ Assemble, all of you, and listen!
    Who among the idols has revealed what will happen—
that he whom I love^[c] will do my will
    against Babylon and the Chaldeans?
¹⁵ I myself have spoken and summoned him;
    I have brought him,
    and his mission will succeed.
¹⁶ Draw near to me and hear this:
    From the very beginning
    I have not spoken in secret.
From the time it came to be, I have been there.
    Now the Lord God has sent me and his Spirit.
¹⁷ Thus says the Lord God,
    your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
I am the Lord, your God
    who teaches you what is for your own good
    and who leads you in the way you should go.
¹⁸ If only you had listened to my commandments,
    your prosperity would have been like a river
    and your success like the waves of the sea.
¹⁹ Your descendants would have been as numerous as the sand
    and your offspring like its countless grains.
Their name would never be erased
    or blotted out from my sight.
²⁰ Go forth from Babylon! Flee from Chaldea!
    Proclaim this with shouts of joy
    and make it known.
Send the message to the ends of the earth and say,
    “The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.”
²¹ Those whom he led through desert lands
    never endured thirst.
He caused water to flow from the rock for them;
    he split open the rock and waters streamed forth.
²² Thus says the Lord:
    There is no peace for the wicked.

¹ Listen to me, O coastlands.
    Pay attention, you distant peoples.
The Lord called me before I was born;
    while I was still in my mother’s womb
    he gave me my name.
² He made my tongue like a sharp sword
    and hid me in the shadow of his hand.
He formed me into a polished arrow,
    and he concealed me in his quiver.
³ He said to me, “You are my servant,
    Israel, through whom I will manifest my glory.”
⁴ I formerly believed that I had labored in vain
    and had exhausted my strength for nothing
    and for no discernible purpose.
⁵ Yet now the Lord has spoken;
    he formed me in the womb to be his servant
so that I could bring back Jacob to him
    and enable Israel to be gathered to him.
For I am honored in the sight of the Lord,
    and my God is the source of my strength.
⁶ It is not enough for you to be my servant, he says,
    to raise up the tribes of Jacob
    and to bring back the survivors of Israel.
I will make you a light to the nations
    so that my salvation may reach
    to the ends of the earth.
⁷ Thus says the Lord,
    the redeemer, the Holy One of Israel,
to the one who is despised
    and whom the people abhor,
    the slave of tyrants:
Kings will rise up when they see you,
    and princes will prostrate themselves in homage,
because of the Lord who is faithful,
    the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you.

^{8     [e]}Thus says the Lord:
    In a time of my favor I have answered you;
    on the day of salvation I have helped you.
I have formed you and have destined you
    to be a covenant to the people,
to restore the land
    and to allot the desolate heritages,
⁹ to say to the prisoners, “Come out,”
    and to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
They will find sustenance along the way,
    and any bare height will serve as their pasture.
¹⁰ They will not hunger or thirst,
    and neither scorching wind nor sun will weaken them,
for he who pities them will lead them,
    and he will guide them beside springs of water.
¹¹ I will blaze a path through all my mountains,
    and my roads will be level.
¹² Behold, some will come from far away,
    others from the north and the west,
    and still others from the land of Syene.^[f]
13 Sing for joy, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth;
    break forth into song, O mountains.
For the Lord has comforted his people,
    and he will show mercy to his afflicted ones.
¹⁴ But Zion cried out, “The Lord has forsaken me;
    my Lord has forgotten me.”
¹⁵ Can a woman forget the infant at her breast;
    or feel no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget,
    I will never forget you.
¹⁶ Behold, I have inscribed your name
    on the palms of my hands;
    your walls are continually before my eyes.
¹⁷ Those who rebuild you do so far more swiftly
    than those who destroyed you.
¹⁸ Lift up your eyes and look around you;
    they are all gathering to come to you.
As I live, says the Lord,
    you will put all of them on like jewels;
    you will adorn yourself with them like a bride.
¹⁹ You had lived in a desolate wasteland,
    amid devastated ruins.
Now the land is too tiny for its inhabitants,
    while those who destroyed you will be far away.
²⁰ The children born during your bereavement
    will say in your hearing,
“This place is too cramped for me;
    make room for me to live in.”
²¹ Then you will say to yourself,
    “Who bore these children for me?
I was bereaved and barren,
    I was exiled and repudiated;
    who has reared them?
I was left all alone;
    where then have these come from?”
²² Thus says the Lord God:
    Behold, I will beckon to the nations
    and raise my signal to the peoples.
Then they will bring your sons in their arms,
    and they will carry your daughters on their shoulders.
²³ Kings will be your foster-fathers,
    and their princesses will serve as your nursing mothers.
They will bow down to you
    with their faces to the ground
    and lick the dust from your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord;
    those who hope in me will not be disappointed.
²⁴ Can spoil be taken from a warrior,
    or can the tyrant’s captives be set free?
²⁵ Thus says the Lord:
    Even a warrior’s captives can be rescued,
    and booty can be retrieved from a tyrant.
I myself will contend with those who oppose you,
    and I will deliver your children.
²⁶ I will force your oppressors to eat their own flesh,
    and they will become drunk on their own blood
    as if with wine.
Then all mankind will know
    that I, the Lord, am your Savior
    and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.