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Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 14: Isaiah, Part II, tr. by John King, [1847-50], at sacred-texts.com
1 The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
2 Hear, O heavens,
And hearken, O earth,
For thus the Lord speaketh:
I have nourished and brought up children;
Yet they have acted wickedly towards me. 347
3 The ox knoweth his owner,
And the ass his masters crib;
Israel doth not know;
My people doth not understand.
4 O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity,
Seed of evil-doers, degenerate children!
They have forsaken Jehovah,
They have despised 348
the Holy One of Israel,
They are estranged backwards.
5 Why should I strike you any more?
Ye will add faithlessness.
The whole head is sickness,
And the whole heart is faintness.
6 From the sole of the foot even to the head
There is no soundness in it;
A wound, a swelling, And a purifying sore;
And they have not been plastered, nor bound up,
Nor softened with ointment.
7 Your country is desolation;
Your cities are burnt with fire;
Your land do strangers devour in your presence,
It is reduced to solitude, like the destruction of foreigners.
8 And the daughter of Zion shall be left,
As a cottage in a vineyard,
As a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,
As a city laid waste.
9 Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant,
We should have been as Sodom,
And like Gomorrah.
10 Hear the word of the Lord, ye princes of Sodom!
Give ear to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah!
Of what value to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
Saith the Lord.
11 I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams,
And of the fat of fed beasts;
And in the blood of oxen, or of sheep, or of he-goats,
I delight not.
12 When you come that you may appear before my face,
Who hath required this at your hand?
Even to tread my courts.
13 Do not continue to bring an offering of vanity.
Incense is an abomination to me.
The new-moon, And the sabbath, And the yearly assemblies,
I cannot endure,
(It is a vain thing,)
Nor the assembly.
14 Your new-moons And your yearly festivals
My soul hateth;
They have been a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
15 When ye spread forth your hands,
I will hide mine eyes from you.
Even though you multiply prayer,
I will not hear.
Your hands are full of blood.
16 Wash you, make you clean;
Take away the wickedness of your practices from before mine eyes;
Cease to do evil;
17 Learn to do well:
Seek judgment, restore 349
the oppressed;
Plead for the orphan, defend the widow.
18 Come now, and let us reason together,
Hath the Lord said:
If your sins be as scarlet,
They shall be white as snow;
If they be red like purple,
They shall be as wool.
19 If ye shall be willing and shall hearken,
Ye shall eat the good of the land.
20 But if ye shall refuse and rebel,
Ye shall be consumed by the sword;
For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
21 How is the faithful city become a harlot!
She was full of judgment,
And righteousness lodged by night 350
in her;
But now murderers.
22 Thy silver is become dross,
And thy wine is mixed with water.
23 Thy princes are rebellious,
And are companions of thieves;
Every one loveth a gift,
And seeketh eagerly for rewards.
They judge not the cause of the fatherless,
Nor doth the cause of the widow come to them.
24 Therefore saith the Lord, 351
Jehovah of hosts,
The mighty One of Israel;
Alas! I will take consolation on mine adversaries,
I will be avenged of mine enemies.
25 I will turn my hand upon thee;
I will purely purge away thy dross,
And I will take away all thy tin.
26 And I will restore thy judges as at the first,
And thy counsellors as at the beginning.
Then shall it be said of thee,
The city of righteousness,
The faithful city.
27 Zion shall be redeemed with judgment,
And they who shall be brought back to her with righteousness.
28 And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together,
And they who have revolted from the Lord shall be consumed.
29 Yea, they shall be ashamed
Of the trees which ye have desired,
And they shall be covered with disgrace
By the groves which ye have chosen.
30 Ye shall surely be as a tree whose leaf fadeth,
And as a grove that hath no water.
31 And your strong man 352
shall be as tow,
And the maker of it as a spark;
And they shall both be burnt,
And there shall be none to quench them.
1 The word which Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah And Jerusalem.
2 And it shall come to pass in the last of the days,
That the mountain of the house of Jehovah
Shall be established on the top of the mountains,
And shall be exalted above the hills;
And all nations shall flow to it.
3 And many peoples shall come, and shall say,
Come, and we shall go up
To the mountain of Jehovah,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
And he will teach us in his ways,
And we shall walk in his paths;
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 And he will judge among the nations,
And will rebuke many peoples:
And they shall beat their swords into spades,
And their spears into pruning-hooks;
And nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they practise war any more.
5 O house of Jacob, come ye,
And we shall walk in the light of the Lord.
6 Verily thou hast forsaken thy people, the house of Jacob;
Because they are filled with the east 353
And with soothsayers, like the Philistines;
And they have delighted in the children of foreigners.
7 Their land is full of silver and gold,
And there is no end to their treasures.
Their land is also full of horses,
And there is no end to their chariots.
8 Their land is also full of idols,
And they have bowed down
Before the work of their own hands,
Before that which their fingers have made.
9 And the man of low degree boweth down,
And the man of rank humbleth himself;
Therefore do not thou forgive them. 354
10 Enter into the rock,
Hide thee in the dust,
From before the fear of the Lord
And the glory of his majesty.
11 The loftiness of the eyes of men shall be humbled,
And the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down;
And Jehovah alone shall be exalted in that day.
12 For the day of Jehovah of hosts shall be
On every one that is proud and lofty,
And on all that is lifted up,
And it shall be brought low.
13 Even on all the cedars of Lebanon high and lifted up,
On all the oaks of Bashan,
14 And on all the lofty mountains,
And on all the high hills,
15 And on every lofty tower,
And on every fortified wall;
16 On all the ships of Tarshish,
And on delightful pictures.
17 And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down,
And the haughtiness of men shall be humbled;
And Jehovah alone shall be exalted on that day.
18 And he will utterly abolish the idols.
19 And they shall enter into caverns of the rocks,
And into clefts of the earth,
From the presence of the terror of Jehovah,
And from the glory of his majesty,
When he shall arise to shake the earth.
20 In that day shall a man cast away
His idols of silver,
And his idols of gold,
Which they made for him to worship,
Into the cavern of the moles and of the bats;
21 And they shall enter into the clefts of the rocks,
And into the tops of the ragged rocks,
From before the fear of the Lord,
And from the glory of his majesty,
When he shall arise to shake the earth.
22 Cease then from man,
Whose breath is in his nostrils;
For in what respect 355
is he valued?
1 For, behold, the Governor, Jehovah of hosts,
Will take away from Jerusalem and Judah
The stay and the strength;
The whole stay of bread;
The whole stay of water;
2 The strong man and the man of war,
The judge and the prophet,
And the diviner and the elder;
3 The captain of fifty, and the man of rank,
The senator, and the skilful artificer, and the eloquent. 356
4 And I will appoint boys to be their rulers,
And babes shall rule over them.
5 The people shall violently oppress each other,
A man his neighbour;
The youth shall behave insolently towards the old man,
The despicable towards the honourable.
6 When every man shall take hold of his brother
Of the family of his father, saying,
Thou hast raiment;
Be thou our ruler;
Let this ruin be under thy hand;
7 He shall swear in that day, saying,
I will not be a healer;
For in my house is neither bread nor raiment;
Therefore make me not a ruler of the people.
8 Verily Jerusalem is ruined,
And Judah is fallen;
Because their tongue And their practices are against Jehovah,
To provoke the eyes of his glory.
9 The proof of their countenance answereth in them; 357
They have declared their sin, as Sodom,
And have not hid it.
Wo to their soul!
For they have brought evil on them.
10 Say ye to the righteous man,
It shall be well;
For they shall eat the fruit of their hands.
11 Wo to the wicked man!
It shall be ill;
For according to the works of his hands
Shall it be rewarded to him.
12 Of my people children are oppressors,
And women rule over them.
O my people!
They who govern thee lead thee astray,
And pervert the way of thy paths.
13 Jehovah standeth to plead,
And standeth up to judge the people.
14 Jehovah will enter into judgment
With the elders of his people,
And with their rulers;
And ye have destroyed the vineyard,
And the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
15 What mean ye that ye crush my people,
And grind the faces of the poor?
Saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts.
16 Jehovah also saith,
Because the daughters of Zion are haughty,
And walk with stretched-forth neck,
And with wandering eyes,
And walk and mince as they go,
And make a tinkling with their feet.
17 Therefore will the Lord make bald
The crown of the head of the daughters of Zion,
And the Lord will expose their shame.
18 In that day will the Lord take away
Ornaments that tinkled, or were made of net-work, or like a half-moon,
19 Perfumes, bracelets, and head-hands;
20 Bonnets, ornaments of the legs,
Chaplets, neck-amulets, and ear-rings;
22 Changeable dresses, mantles,
Upper garments, and hair-ties,
23 Mirrors and fine linens,
Hoods and veils.
24 And instead of a sweet odour there shall be rottenness,
And instead of a girdle, a rent,
And instead of curled locks, baldness;
Instead of a belt, a girdle of sackcloth,
Instead of beauty, burning.
25 Thy men shall fall by the sword,
And thy might in the battle.
26 Her gates shall lament and mourn,
And she, desolate, shall sit on the ground.
1 In that day, therefore, shall seven women
Take hold of one man, saying,
We will eat our own bread,
We will wear our own raiment;
Only let thy name be called on us, 358
And take thou away our reproach.
2 In that day shall the branch of Jehovah
Be for beauty and glory,
And the fruit of the earth
Be for excellence and comeliness,
To the escaped of Israel.
3 And it shall come to pass
That he who shall be left in Zion,
And shall remain in Jerusalem,
Shall be called holy,
And all shall be enrolled
Among the living 359
at Jerusalem.
4 When the Lord shall have washed away
The filth of the daughter of Zion,
And shall have cleansed the blood of Jerusalem
From the midst of her,
Both by the Spirit of judgment,
And by the Spirit of burning.
5 And Jehovah will create
On every dwelling-place of Mount Zion,
And on all her assemblies,
A cloud and darkness by day,
And the brightness of a flaming fire by night;
For on all the glory shall be a defence.
6 And a covering shall be by day
For a shadow from the heat, and for refuge,
And for a covert from storm and from rain.
1 Come, I will sing for my beloved
A song of my beloved to his vineyard.
My beloved had a vineyard
On a hill, the son of oil.
2 He fenced it, and gathered out the stones,
And planted it as a choice vine;
He reared a tower in the midst of it,
And built a wine-press in it:
He therefore hoped that it would yield grapes,
And it yieldeth wild grapes.
3 Now then, O inhabitant of Jerusalem,
And man of Judah,
Judge ye between me and my vineyard.
4 What more ought to have been done to my vineyard,
Which I have not done to it?
How did I look that it should yield grapes,
And yet it hath yielded wild grapes?
5 And now come, I will shew to you
What I will do to my vineyard.
I will take away its hedge, that it may become pasture;
I will break down its wall, that it may be trodden down.
6 I will lay it waste;
It shall not be pruned nor digged;
And the brier and thorn shall grow up.
Yea, I will command the clouds
That they do not rain on it.
7 Verily the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel,
And the men of Judah his pleasant plant.
Hence he looked for judgment, and behold oppression;
For righteousness, and behold a cry.
8 Wo to them that join house to house,
And add field to field,
Till there be no place;
That you may be placed alone
In the midst of the earth.
9 This is in the ears of Jehovah of hosts,
If many houses be not laid desolate,
Great and fair, without inhabitant.
10 Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall produce one bath,
And the seed of a homer shall yield an ephah.
11 Wo to them that rise early
To follow drunkenness,
And who prolong the time till night,
While wine inflameth them.
12 And the harp, the lyre, the tabret, and the pipe, and wine
Are in their entertainments;
But they do not regard the work of Jehovah,
Nor consider the operation of his hands.
13 Therefore my people are gone into captivity,
Because they have no knowledge;
And their glory are men famished,
And their multitude are dried up with thirst.
14 Therefore hell hath enlarged his soul,
And opened his mouth without measure;
And his glory and his multitude hath descended,
And his wealth, and he that rejoiced in her.
15 And the man of low degree shall be bowed down,
And the man of rank shall be humbled;
Yea, the eyes of the haughty shall be humbled.
16 And Jehovah of hosts shall be exalted in judgment,
And God, who is holy, shall be sanctified in righteousness.
17 And the lambs shall feed after their manner,
And the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat.
18 Wo to them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity,
And sin as with cart-ropes.
19 Who say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work,
That we may see it;
Let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come,
That we may know it.
20 Wo to them that call evil good,
And good evil;
That put darkness for light,
And light for darkness;
That turn bitter into sweet,
And sweet into bitter.
21 Wo to them that are wise in their own eyes,
And are prudent in their own sight.
22 Wo to them that are powerful to drink wine,
And powerful men to mingle strong drink;
23 Who justify the wicked for reward,
And take away the righteousness of the righteous from him.
24 Therefore, as the tongue of fire devoureth the stubble,
And the chaff is consumed by the flame;
So their root shall be as rottenness,
And their blossom shall pass away as dust;
Because they have cast away the law of Jehovah of hosts,
And have loathed the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25 Therefore the anger of Jehovah
Hath been kindled against his people,
And, stretching forth his hand against them,
He hath smitten them;
And the mountains trembled,
And their torn carcass was thrown into the midst of the streets;
And for all these things his anger hath not been turned away,
But his hand is stretched out still.
26 And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from afar;
He will hiss to the nation from the end of the earth;
And lo, it will come speedy and swift.
27 None shall be weary nor stumble among them;
None shall slumber nor sleep;
None shall have the girdle of their loins loosed,
Nor shall the latchet of their shoes be broken.
28 Their arrows will be sharp,
And all their bows bent.
The hoofs of their horses shall be counted as flint,
And their wheels as a whirlwind.
29 Their roaring shall be like that of a lion;
They shall roar like young lions;
They shall gnash and seize the prey;
They shall carry away the spoils,
And none shall deliver.
30 He shall roar against them in that day, as the roaring of the sea;
Then shall he look to the earth,
And behold! the darkness of tribulation;
And the light shall be darkened in the heavens.
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up, and his remotest parts filled the temple.
2 And seraphim stood above it;
Each had six wings;
With two they covered their face,
With two they covered their feet,
And with two did they fly.
3 And one cried to another, saying,
Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts;
The whole earth is full of his glory.
4 And the posts of the doors were moved by the voice of him that cried,
And the house was filled with smoke.
5 Then I said,
Wo to me, for I am undone; 360
Because I am a man of polluted lips,
And I dwell amidst a people having polluted lips;
And yet mine eyes have seen the king, Jehovah of hosts.
6 And one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal, snatched with a fork from the altar.
7 And laying it on my mouth, he said,
Lo, this hath touched thy lips,
And thy sin shall be expiated.
8 Afterwards I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send? And who shall go for us? Then I said, Here am I, send me.
9 Then he said,
Go and tell this people:
Hearing hear, and do not understand;
Seeing see, and do not know.
10 Harden the heart of this people,
And make heavy their ears,
And close up their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And their heart understand,
And when they have been converted, they be healed.
11 And I said, how long, O Lord. And he said,
Till the houses be laid waste without inhabitant,
And the houses be emptied of men,
And the land be reduced to solitude;
12 Till God have removed men far away,
And till there be great desolation in the midst of the land:
13 Till a tenth shall return,
And be destroyed like a teil and an oak,
Whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves;
So in it shall the substance be the holy seed.
1 It came to pass, in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up against Jerusalem, to besiege it, but could not overcome it.
2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is allied with Ephraim; and his heart was moved, as when the trees of the forest are moved by the wind.
3 Then said Jehovah to Isaiah, Go out to meet Ahaz, thou and Shearjashub, thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, at the road of the fullers field.
4 And thou shalt say to him:
Take heed, and be quiet;
Fear not, and let not thy heart be soft,
For the two tails of those smoking firebrands,
For the fierceness of the anger of Rezin the Syrian,
And of the son of Remaliah.
5 Because the Syrian hath taken wicked counsel against thee
With Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, saying:
6 Let us go up against Judah, and harass it,
And let us open it for us;
And let us appoint a king in the midst of it,
The son of Tabeal.
7 Thus hath the Lord Jehovah said,
It shall not stand, and shall not be,
8 For the head of Syria is Damascus,
And the head of Damascus is Rezin;
And within sixty-five years shall be broken
Ephraim, that it be not a people.
9 Yet the head of Ephraim is Samaria,
And the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.
If ye do not believe,
Surely ye shall not stand.
10 And Jehovah added to speak to Ahaz, saying:
11 Ask thee a sign from Jehovah thy God,
By asking in the deep,
Or in the height above.
12 And Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord.
13 And he said,
Hear now, O house of David!
Is it a small thing for you to weary men,
If ye do not also weary my God?
14 Therefore will the Lord himself give you a sign:
Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
And shall call his name Immanuel.
15 Butter and honey shall he eat,
Till he know to refuse the evil,
And to choose the good.
16 And before the child shall know
To refuse the evil and choose the good,
Forsaken shall be the land which thou hatest
By both her kings.
17 Jehovah will bring upon thee,
And on thy people, and on thy fathers house,
Days which have not come
Since the day of the revolt of Ephraim from Judah,
The king of Assyria.
18 It shall be in that day, Jehovah shall hiss
For the fly, which is in the extremity of the rivers of Egypt,
And for the bee which is in the land of Assyria.
19 And they shall all of them come and rest
In the desolate valleys, and in the caverns of the rocks,
And on all thorns, and on all bushes.
20 In that day shall Jehovah shave with a hired razor,
By those who are beyond the river, by the king of Assyria,
The head and the hair of the feet;
And shall also take away the beard.
21 And it shall be in that day, that a man shall nourish
A young cow and two sheep.
22 And it shall come to pass,
That, on account of the abundance of milk which they shall yield,
He shall eat butter.
Yea, butter and honey shall every one eat
That shall be left in the midst of the land.
23 It shall also be in that day,
That, wherever there are a thousand vines,
They shall be sold for a thousand pieces of silver,
On account of thorns and briers.
24 With arrows and bow shall they come thither,
Because thorns and briers shall be throughout all the land.
25 And on all the mountains which are dug with the hoe
Thither shall not come the dread of thorns and briers;
But they shall be laid out for pasture to the cattle,
And shall be trodden by the flocks.
1 And Jehovah said to me: Take thee a large roll, and write in it with an ordinary pen: 361 Make speed to spoil, hasten to the prey.
2 And I took unto me faithful witnesses, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.
3 And I approached the prophetess, who conceived and bare a son. And Jehovah spake to me:
Call his name,
Make speed to spoil,
Hasten to the prey.
4 Verily before the child shall know
To cry, My father and my mother,
The riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria
Shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.
5 Moreover, Jehovah spoke unto me, saying again:
6 Because this people hath refused
The waters of Shiloah, which flow softly,
And hath rejoiced in Rezin and the son of Remaliah:
7 Therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth upon them
The waters of the river, rapid and strong,
The king of Assyria and all his force;
And he shall come up over all his channels,
And shall pass over all his banks.
8 And, crossing over into Judah,
He shall overflow and pass over;
He shall reach even to the neck;
And the stretching out of his wings shall fill
The breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.
9 Associate yourselves, ye peoples,
And ye shall be broken in pieces;
Give ear, all ye that are from a distant land.
Gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces;
Gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces.
10 Take counsel together, and it shall be disannulled;
Decree a decree, and it shall not stand;
For God is with us. 362
11 For thus did Jehovah speak to me, as if seizing 363
my hand,
And taught me not to go in the way of this people, saying,
12 Say ye not, A confederacy,
In all things in which this people saith, A confederacy;
And fear not their fear,
Nor be ye afraid.
13 Sanctify Jehovah of hosts himself;
And let him be your fear,
And let him be your dread.
14 Then shall he be for a sanctuary;
A stone of stumbling and rock of destruction
To the two houses of Israel;
A net and a snare
To the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 And many among them shall stumble, and fall,
And shall be bruised, snared, and taken.
16 Bind up the testimony;
Seal the law among my disciples.
17 Therefore will I wait for Jehovah,
Who hideth his face from the house of Jacob,
And I will look for him.
18 Behold I, and the children whom Jehovah hath given me,
Are for signs and wonders in Israel,
From Jehovah of hosts,
Who dwelleth in Mount Zion.
19 And if they shall say to you,
Inquire at soothsayers and diviners,
Who whisper and mutter;
Should not a people ask counsel of their God?
From the living to the dead?
20 To the law and to the testimony:
If they have not spoken according to this word,
It is because there is no light in them.
21 Then shall they pass through this land distressed and hungry,
And it shall happen that, when they are hungry, they shall fret,
And shall curse their king and their God, looking upward.
22 And when they shall look to the earth,
Lo, trouble and darkness, dimness and distress,
And they shall be driven to gloominess.
1 Yet the darkness shall not be,
According to the affliction which happened to her,
When they first lightly afflicted
The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali;
Nor when they afterwards did more grievously afflict
By the way of the sea beyond Jordan,
In Galilee of the nations.
2 The people walking in darkness
Hath seen a great light.
They who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death,
Light hath shined on them.
3 By multiplying the nation thou hast not increased the joy;
They have rejoiced before thee according to the joy of harvest,
As men shout in dividing the spoils.
4 For his burdensome yoke,
And the staff of his shoulder,
The sceptre of his oppressor
Hast thou broken, as in the day of Midian.
5 Although every battle of the warrior is made
With noise and rolling of the vesture in blood,
This shall be for burning,
For fuel of fire.
6 For to us a child is born;
To us a son is given;
And the government hath been laid upon his shoulder;
And his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor,
The mighty God, The Father of the age, The Prince of Peace.
7 To the increase of the government and to peace,
There shall be no end;
On the throne of David and on his kingdom,
To order and establish it
In judgment and justice,
Henceforth, even for ever.
The zeal of Jehovah of hosts will do this.
8 The Lord sent a word against Jacob,
And it hath fallen on Israel.
9 And all the people shall know,
Ephraim, and the inhabitants of Samaria,
Who say in the pride and haughtiness of their heart,
10 The bricks are fallen down, and we will build with hewn stones;
The sycamores are cut down, and we will substitute cedars.
11 But Jehovah will strengthen the enemies of Rezin against him,
And will aid his adversaries.
12 Syria before, and the Philistines behind;
And they shall devour Israel with open mouth.
And for all this his anger is not turned away,
But his hand is stretched out still.
13 But the people have not turned to him that smote them,
And have not sought Jehovah of hosts.
14 Therefore will Jehovah cut off from Israel
The head and the tail,
The branch and the reed,
In one day.
15 The elder and the honourable, he is the head;
And the prophet who teacheth falsehood, he is the tail.
16 For the governors of this people are seducers,
And they who are guided by them are destroyed.
17 Therefore the Lord will not rejoice over their young men,
And will not have compassion on the orphans and widows;
For all are hypocrites and evil-doers,
And every mouth speaketh villany.
For all this his anger is not turned away,
But his hand is stretched out still.
18 For wickedness burneth as the fire;
It shall devour the briers and thorns;
Afterwards it shall kindle into the thickets of the forest,
And the smoke of that which ascendeth shall go up.
19 Through the wrath of Jehovah of hosts
Shall the land be darkened,
And the people shall be as the fuel of fire:
No man shall spare his brother.
20 Every one shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry;
He shall eat on the left hand, and shall not be satisfied;
Every one shall devour the flesh of his own arm:
21 Manasseh, Ephraim;
And Ephraim, Manasseh;
They together shall be against Judah.
And yet for all this his anger is not turned away,
But his hand is stretched out still.
1 Wo to them that decree unrighteous decrees,
And who prescribing prescribe injustice:
2 To keep back the poor from judgment,
And to take away the right from the poor of my people,
To defraud the widows,
And to plunder the orphans.
3 And what will ye do in the day of visitation?
And when the desolation shall come from afar,
To whom will ye flee for aid?
And where will ye deposit 364
your glory?
4 Unless 365
they shall stumble among the vanquished,
And shall fall down among the slain.
For all this his anger shall not be turned away,
And his hand is stretched out still.
5 O Assyrian! the rod of mine anger!
And the very staff in their hand is my wrath.
6 Against a hypocritical nation will I send him,
And against the people of my indignation will I command him,
To seize the prey,
To carry off the spoils,
And to tread him down as the mire of the streets.
7 Yet will he not so intend,
Nor will his heart think so;
For it will be in his heart to destroy,
And to cut off nations not a few.
8 For he saith, Are not my princes also kings?
9 Is not Calno as Carchemish?
Is not Hamath as Arpad?
Is not Samaria as Damascus?
10 As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols,
For their graven images excelled Jerusalem and Samaria.
11 As I have done to Samaria and her idols,
Shall I not do so to Jerusalem and her idols?
12 But it shall come to pass,
When the Lord shall have performed his whole work
In mount Zion and Jerusalem,
I will punish the fruit of the haughtiness of the heart of the king of Assyria,
And the glory of the loftiness of his eyes.
13 For he saith, By the strength of my hand have I done it;
And by my wisdom; for I am sagacious;
And therefore have I removed the boundaries of the peoples,
And have plundered their treasures,
And have brought down the inhabitants, like a mighty man.
14 And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the peoples;
And as eggs which have been left are gathered,
So have also I gathered the whole earth;
And there was none that moved the wing,
Or opened the mouth, or chirped.
15 Shall the axe boast against him that heweth with it?
Shall the saw magnify itself against him that moveth it?
Like the rising up of a rod against him that raiseth it,
Like the risings up of a staff, as if it were not wood.
16 Therefore will the Governor, Jehovah of hosts, send
Against his fat ones leanness,
And under his glory will kindle
A burning, like the burning of a fire.
17 And the light of Israel shall become a fire,
And his Holy One shall become a flame;
And it shall burn and devour
His briers and thorns in one day.
18 The glory of his forest and of his fruitful field,
From the soul even to the flesh, will he consume;
And it shall be as the fainting of a standard-bearer.
19 And the remains of the wood of his forest
Shall become a number,
Such that a child may count them.
20 It shall be in that day,
The remnant of Israel,
And they that are left of the house of Jacob,
Shall not add to rely on him that smote them;
For they shall rely on Jehovah,
The Holy One of Israel, in truth.
21 The remnant shall return, the remnant of Jacob,
To the mighty God.
22 For if thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea,
A remnant of it shall return.
The consumption decreed overfloweth righteousness. 366
23 For a consumption and consummation
Doth the Lord Jehovah of hosts make
In the midst of all the land.
24 Therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts:
O my people, the inhabitants of Zion,
Fear not the Assyrian.
He will smite thee with a rod,
And will lift up his staff against thee,
After the pattern of Egypt.
25 But yet a little while,
And my rage and indignation
Shall be discharged in their destruction.
26 And Jehovah of hosts will stir up a scourge against him,
According to the slaughter of Midian on the rock Oreb;
And his rod shall be on the sea,
And he will lift it up after the pattern of Egypt.
27 And it shall come to pass in that day,
That his burden shall be removed from thy shoulder,
And his yoke from thy neck;
And the yoke shall be destroyed
From the face of the anointing.
28 He is come to Aiath; he hath passed to Migron;
At Michmash he will lay up thy baggage.
29 They have crossed the ford; they have lodged by night at Geba;
Ramah is terrified; Gibeah of Saul hath fled.
30 Neigh with thy voice, O daughter of Gallim!
Cause it to be heard at Laish, O poor Anathoth.
31 Madmenah is removed;
The inhabitants of Gebim have gathered themselves.
32 Yet a day, when he shall remain at Nob,
He will lift up his hand
Against the mount of the daughter of Zion,
The hill of Jerusalem.
33 Behold! The Lord Jehovah of hosts
Will cut off the branch with terror; 367
And the lofty of stature shall be cut down,
And the haughty shall be brought low.
34 And he will cut down the thickets of the forest with iron,
And Lebanon shall fall violently.
1 But a branch shall spring from the stock of Jesse,
And a sprout from his roots shall yield fruit.
2 And the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him,
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and strength,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah;
3 And will make him sagacious in the fear of Jehovah;
Not according to the sight of his eyes shall he judge,
Nor according to the hearing of his ears shall he reprove.
4 For in righteousness he shall judge the poor,
And in equity shall he reprove for the meek of the earth;
And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth,
And with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
5 And righteousness shall be the belt of his loins,
And faithfulness the belt of his reins.
6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
The calf, and the lion, and the fatling together;
And a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall feed;
Their young ones shall lie down together;
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 And the child shall play on the hole of the asp,
And on the dell of the basilisk shall the weaned child lay his hand.
9 They shall not hurt, nor do injury,
In all the mountain of my holiness;
For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah,
As with waters that cover the sea.
10 And it shall be in that day, The root of Jesse,
Which shall stand for an ensign of the peoples,
Shall be sought by the nations;
And his rest shall be glory.
11 And it shall be in that day,
The Lord will again apply his hand,
To recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left,
From Assyria, and from Egypt, from Parthia,
From Arabia, from Ethiopia, from Persia,
From Chaldea, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
12 And he shall lift up an ensign to the nations,
And shall gather the outcasts of Israel,
And shall gather the dispersed of Judah,
From the four corners of the earth.
13 And the envy of Ephraim shall depart,
And the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off.
Ephraim shall not envy Judah,
And Judah shall not vex Ephraim.
14 But they shall fly on the shoulders of the Philistines to the west;
They shall plunder together the children of the east;
Edom and Moab shall be the stretching out of their hands,
And the children of Ammon shall be their obedience.
15 And Jehovah shall utterly destroy
The tongue of the Egyptian sea;
And he shall lift up his hand on the river
By the might of his wind;
And he shall smite it in the seven streams,
And shall make them to be shod with shoes.
16 And there shall be a path for the remnant of his people,
Which shall be left from Assyria,
As there was to Israel,
In the day when he came up out of the land of Egypt.
1 And in that day thou shalt say:
I will sing to thee, O Jehovah;
Though thou wast angry with me,
Thine anger is turned away, and thou hast comforted me.
2 Behold! God is my salvation;
I will trust, and not be afraid;
For God Jehovah is my strength and song;
And he hath become 368
my salvation.
3 Ye shall draw waters with joy
From the fountains of the Saviour. 369
4 And in that day shall ye say:
Sing to Jehovah; call upon his name;
Make known his works among the peoples;
Proclaim that his name is exalted.
5 Sing to Jehovah;
For he hath done glorious things;
And this hath been made known throughout all the earth.
6 Shout and sing,
O inhabitress of Zion!
For great in the midst of thee,
Is the Holy One of Israel.
1 The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw.
2 On a lofty mountain lift up a banner;
Raise the voice to them; shake the hand;
That they may enter into the gates of the nobles.
3 I have commanded my sanctified ones;
And for mine anger have I also called my mighty ones,
Who rejoice in my glory.
4 The noise of a multitude in the mountains,
As of a great people;
The noise of the sound of kingdoms,
Of nations gathered together;
Jehovah of hosts mustereth the host of the battle.
5 Coming from a distant land,
From the end of heaven,
Jehovah and the vessels of his anger,
To destroy the whole land.
6 Howl ye, for the day of Jehovah is at hand;
As destruction from the Strong One 370
shall it come.
7 Therefore shall all hands be weakened,
And every heart of man shall melt.
8 And they shall be afraid;
Pangs And sorrows shall take hold of them;
They shall be in pain like a woman in labour;
Every one shall be amazed at his neighbour;
Their faces shall be faces of flames.
9 Behold! the day of Jehovah shall come cruel;
Even indignation and the burning of anger,
To lay the land desolate,
And to destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 Therefore the stars of heaven, and the constellations,
Shall not give their light;
The sun shall be darkened in his going forth,
And the moon shall not give forth her brightness.
11 And I will visit upon the world wickedness,
And upon the wicked their iniquity;
And I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease,
And I will lay low the loftiness of tyrants.
12 I will make a mortal more precious than fine gold,
And a man than the weight of the gold of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will shake the heavens,
And the earth shall be moved out of its place,
In the indignation of Jehovah of hosts,
And in the day of the fierceness of his anger.
14 And it shall be as a chased roe,
And a sheep which no man taketh up;
Every one shall look to his own people,
And every one shall flee to his own land.
15 Every one that is found shall be pierced through,
And every one that is joined to them shall fall by the sword.
16 Their infants shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes;
Their houses shall be plundered,
And their wives shall be ravished.
17 Behold! I raise up against you the Medes,
Who shall not think of silver,
And shall not desire even gold.
18 And with their bows shall they dash in pieces the children;
They shall not pity the fruit of the womb,
Nor shall their eye spare children.
19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,
And the ornament of the brightness of the Chaldeans,
Shall be like God’s overthrowing of Sodom And Gomorrah.
20 Never shall it be inhabited any more,
Nor shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation;
Nor shall the Arabian pitch his tent there,
Nor shall the shepherds make their flocks to lie down there.
21 But the Ziim shall lie down there;
And their houses shall be full of Ohim;
There shall the daughters of the ostrich dwell,
And there shall the satyrs dance.
22 And Iim shall cry in their splendid houses,
And dragons in their delightful palaces;
And her time is near at hand,
And her days shall not be prolonged.
1 Jehovah will now pity Jacob,
And will yet choose Israel,
And will cause them to rest in their own land;
And the stranger shall be joined to them;
They shall be allied to the house of Jacob.
2 And the peoples shall take them,
And shall bring them to their own place,
And in the land of Jehovah shall the house of Israel
Possess them for servants and for handmaids;
And they shall take them whose captives they were,
And shall rule over their oppressors.
3 And it shall be in the day,
When Jehovah shall have given thee rest
From thy labour,
And from thy trembling,
And from the hard bondage which had been laid on thee.
4 Then against the king of Babylon
Shalt thou take up this proverb, and shalt say,
How hath the oppressor ceased!
How hath the city covetous of gold ceased!
5 Jehovah hath broken the staff of the wicked,
The sceptre of the rulers,
6 Which smote the nations in anger,
With an incurable wound;
Which ruled over the nations with anger;
If any one suffered persecution,
He did not hinder it.
7 The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet;
They have sung praise.
8 Yea, the fir-trees rejoice over thee,
And the cedars of Lebanon:
Since thou art laid down,
No feller hath come up against us.
9 Hell from beneath is moved on account of thee;
To meet thy coming
He hath stirred up the dead for thee,
And hath made to rise from their thrones
All the leaders of the earth,
All the kings of the nations.
10 All shall speak, and say to thee:
Art thou also become weak as we?
And art thou become like to us?
11 In the grave is laid thy splendour,
And the noise of thine instruments of music;
The worm is spread under thee,
And reptiles cover thee.
12 How art thou fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the dawn!
How art thou thrown down to the earth,
That didst cast the lot upon the nations! 371
13 But thou saidst in thy heart,
I will ascend to heaven;
In high places near the stars of God
Will I place my throne,
And will sit on the mountain of the testimony,
On the sides of the north.
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
And will be like the Most High.
15 But thou art brought down to the grave,
To the sides of the pit.
16 They that see thee shall bend forward,
And shall view thee attentively.
Is this the man that made the earth to tremble?
That shook the kingdoms?
17 That made the world as a wilderness;
That destroyed its cities?
That opened not the house to his prisoners?
18 All the kings of the nations, all of them,
Lie in glory, each in his own house.
19 But thou art cast out of thy grave,
As an abominable branch,
As the garments of the slain
Who were killed with the sword,
Who go down to the pit;
As a carcase trodden under foot.
20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial;
Because thou hast laid waste thy land,
Thou hast slain thy people;
The seed of wicked men shall not be continually remembered.
21 Prepare slaughter for his children,
For the iniquity of their fathers;
That they may not rise, and possess the land,
And fill the face of the world with cities.
22 For I will rise up against them, saith Jehovah of hosts,
And the name and the remnant,
The son and the grandson,
Will I cut off, saith Jehovah.
23 And I will make it to be a possession of the hedgehog,
And pools of water;
And I will sweep it with a besom, emptying it,
Saith Jehovah of hosts.
24 Jehovah of hosts hath sworn, saying,
If it hath not been as I thought,
And if it shall not stand as I purposed,
25 That in my land I will crush the Assyrian,
And on my mountains will tread him under foot;
And that his yoke shall depart from them,
And his burden be removed from their shoulder.
26 This is the purpose which is purposed on the whole earth;
And this hand is stretched out on all the nations.
27 For Jehovah of hosts hath decreed, and who shall disannul it?
His hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
28 In the year in which Ahaz the king died, was this burden.
29 Rejoice not, thou whole Palestina,
Because the rod of him that smote thee is broken;
For from the root of the adder shall spring a cockatrice,
And his fruit shall be a fiery serpent.
30 And the first-born of the poor shall feed,
And the needy shall lie down in safety;
And I will cause thy root to die with famine,
And he shall slay thy remnant.
31 Howl, O gate! cry, O city!
Thou whole Palestina art dissolved;
For smoke cometh from the north;
And no one shall be alone in his appointed day.
32 And what shall be answered to the messengers of the nations?
That Jehovah hath founded Zion,
And the poor of his people shall have confidence in her.
1 The burden of Moab.
Because in the night Ar of Moab
Is laid waste, and brought to silence;
Surely in the night Kir of Moab
Is laid waste, and brought to silence.
2 He shall go up into the house, and to the high places of Dibon, to weep;
Over Nebo, and over Medeba, shall Moab howl.
On all his heads shall be baldness,
And every beard shall be shaved.
3 In his cross-roads shall they be girded with sackcloth;
On his roofs, and in his streets,
Shall every one howl, and go down to weep.
4 Heshbon and Elealeh shall cry aloud;
As far as Jahaz shall their voice be heard;
Therefore shall the armed men of Moab howl;
The soul of each man shall howl to itself.
5 My heart shall cry aloud for Moab;
Her fugitives to Zoar, a heifer of three years old;
By the going up of Luhith shall they go up with weeping,
By the way of Horonaim shall they raise the cry of sorrow.
6 The waters of Nimrim are cut off;
The grass is withered,
The herbage hath failed,
No verdure is left.
7 Therefore what every one hath left, and his riches,
They shall carry to the brook of the willows. 372
8 The cry hath gone round the borders of Moab;
Even to Eglaim is his howling.
And even to Beer-Elim is his howling.
9 Because the waters of Dimon shall be full of blood;
For I will lay additions upon Dimon,
Lions to them that are escaped of Moab,
And to the remnant of the land.
1 Send ye the lamb to the governor of the land,
From the rock of the desert
To the mountain of the daughter of Zion.
2 And it shall be as a bird let loose, wandering from its nest,
So shall the daughters of Moab be at the fords of Arnon.
3 Assemble a council; execute judgment;
Make thy shadow as the night in the midst of noon-day;
Hide the banished;
Betray not the fugitive.
4 Let mine outcasts dwell with thee.
Moab, be thou a place of concealment
From the face of the destroyer;
For the extortioner hath ceased;
The destroyer hath failed;
He that trod us under foot hath been consumed out of the land.
5 And in mercy shall the throne be prepared;
And he shall sit upon it in steadfastness,
To judge in the tabernacle of David,
And to seek judgment,
And to hasten righteousness.
6 We have heard of the pride of Ahab, (he is very proud,)
His pride, his haughtiness, and his insolence; 373
But his lies shall not be successful.
7 Therefore shall Moab howl to Moab, all shall howl,
On account of the foundations of Kirhareseth;
You will groan, being only smitten.
8 For the vines of Heshbon are cut down,
The vine of Sibmah.
The lords of the nations have trodden down her choicest roots, 374
Which reached even to Jazer,
Which wandered even to the wilderness;
Her noble plants have been thrown down,
Which crossed the sea.
9 Therefore will I bewail with the weeping of Jazer the vine of Sibmah;
I will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh!
Because on thy summer fruits, and on thy harvest,
A shouting shall break forth. 375
10 Joy and rejoicing have been taken away from the fruitful field;
In the vineyards shall there be no rejoicing nor shouting.
The treader shall not tread wine in the presses;
I have made the shouting to cease.
11 Therefore my bowels shall sound like a harp for Moab,
And my inward parts for Kirharesh.
12 And it shall be, when it shall be seen
That Moab hath been wearied on the high places,
Then shall he come to the sanctuary to pray,
And shall not profit by it.
13 This is the word which Jehovah uttered concerning Moab since that time.
14 Now, I say, Jehovah hath spoken, saying —
Three years, as the years of a hireling;
And the glory of Moab,
With all her multitude, however great,
Shall be turned into disgrace;
And her remnant shall be few, small, and feeble.
1 The burden of Damascus.
Behold, Damascus is taken away, that it be not a city;
For it shall be a heap of ruins.
2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken;
They shall be changed into sheepfolds;
They shall lie down,
And there shall be none to terrify them.
3 And the fortress shall cease from Ephraim,
And the kingdom from Damascus;
And the remnant of Syria shall be
As the glory of the children of Israel,
Saith Jehovah of hosts.
4 And it shall be in that day,
The glory of Jacob shall be diminished,
And the fatness of his flesh shall become lean.
5 And it shall be as he who gathereth the harvest of the corn,
Who reapeth the ears with his arm,
Like as one gleaneth grapes in the valley of Rephaim.
6 And in thee shall be left a gleaning, as the shaking of an olive-tree;
There two or three berries remain on the top of the highest branch,
Four or five on the spreading branches of its fruit,
Saith Jehovah, the God of Israel.
7 In that day shall a man look to his Maker,
And his eyes shall be fixed on the Holy One of Israel.
8 And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his own hands.
Nor view the things which his fingers have made,
Nor the groves,
Nor the graven images.
9 In that day the cities of his strength shall be
As the forsaking of a thicket and of a branch,
In like manner as they left before the children of Israel;
And there shall be desolation.
10 Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation,
And hast not been mindful of the God of thy strength;
Therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants,
And thou shalt ingraft a foreign shoot.
11 In the day of thy plantation shalt thou make it to grow,
And in the morning thou shalt make thy seed to sprout;
But in the day of enjoying shall the harvest fail,
And the grief shall be desperate.
12 Alas! the multitude of many peoples;
Like the sound of many peoples shall they sound,
And like the noise of nations;
Like the noise of mighty waters shall they rush.
13 Like the noise of mighty waters
Shall the peoples make a noise,
And he will rebuke them,
And will drive them far away;
They shall be chased
As the chaff of the mountains before the wind,
And as a rolling thing before the whirlwind.
14 In the evening time, behold! trouble:
Ere it be morning, it shall not at all be.
This is the portion of them that tread us down,
And the lot of them that plunder us.
1 Alas! the land shadowing with wings,
Which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia.
2 Sending ambassadors by the sea,
In ships of reeds on the waters.
Go, ye swift messengers,
To a nation scattered and plundered,
To a people terrible from that time and till now,
To a nation trodden down on every side,
Whose land the rivers have plundered.
3 All ye inhabitants of the world,
And dwellers on the earth,
When he shall set up a standard on the mountains, you shall see it;
When he shall sound a trumpet, you shall hear it.
4 Thus also hath Jehovah said to me,
I will rest, and will look in my tabernacle,
As the heat that drieth up the rain,
And as a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.
5 For when the harvest shall be at hand,
The bud shall be perfect,
And the ripening fruit shall go out of the flower;
Then will he prune the twigs with pruning-hooks,
And cut down and take away the branches.
6 They shall be left together to the fowls of the mountains,
And to the beasts of the earth.
The fowls shall spend the summer upon them,
And all the beasts of the earth shall spend the winter upon them.
7 At that time shall a present be brought to Jehovah of hosts,
A people torn and plundered,
And from a people terrible from the beginning hitherto;
From a nation trodden down on every side,
Whose land the rivers have plundered,
To the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts,
To Mount Zion.
1 The burden of Egypt.
Behold, Jehovah rideth on a swift cloud,
And will come into Egypt;
And the idols of Egypt shall be moved before his face,
And the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of her.
2 And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians;
Then shall they fight every one against his brother,
Every one against his neighbour;
City against city,
And kingdom against kingdom.
3 And the spoil of Egypt shall be emptied in the midst of her,
And I will destroy her counsel,
Even though they seek to the idols, to the magicians,
To the soothsayers, to the diviners.
4 And I will deliver the Egyptians, into the hand of a cruel master,
And a powerful king shall rule over them,
Saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts.
5 Then shall the waters fail from the sea,
And the flood shall be wasted and dried up.
6 The rivers shall be turned aside;
The brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up;
The reed and the flag shall wither.
7 The herbs at the brook, and on the mouth of the brook,
And all the seed of the river,
Shall wither, and be driven away, that it may be no more.
8 And the fishers shall mourn,
And all who cast a hook into the brook shall lament;
They who spread a net on the face of the waters shall anguish.
9 They who work in the finest flax shall blush,
And they who weave perforated 376
meshes.
10 For their nets shall be broken,
And all that make a net shall be sad in their heart.
11 Surely the princes of Zoan are fools;
The counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is foolish.
How say ye to Pharaoh,
I am the son of the wise,
And the son of ancient kings?
12 Where are now thy wise men?
That they may declare to thee,
Or that they may even know,
What Jehovah of hosts hath decreed concerning Egypt.
13 The princes of Zoan are become infatuated,
The princes of Noph are deceived;
Egypt hath been led astray
By a corner of her tribes.
14 Jehovah hath mingled a spirit of perverseness in the midst of her;
And they have misled Egypt in all her work,
As a drunken man staggereth in his vomit.
15 Neither shall Egypt have any work to do,
The head or the tail,
The branch or the rush.
16 In that day shall Egypt be like women;
For it shall shudder and tremble,
From before the shaking of the hand of Jehovah of hosts,
Which he shall shake over it.
17 And to the Egyptians shall the land of Judah be a terror.
Every one that shall mention it
Shall tremble on account of her,
Because of the purpose of Jehovah of hosts,
Which he hath decreed concerning her.
18 In that day shall there be five cities in the land of Egypt,
Speaking with the lip of Canaan,
And swearing by Jehovah of hosts.
One shall be called, The city of desolation.
19 In that day shall there be
An altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt,
And a statue to Jehovah near its border.
20 And it shall be for a sign and for a witness
To Jehovah of hosts, in the land of Egypt;
For they shall cry to Jehovah because of the oppressors,
And he will send to them a saviour,
And a ruler, that he may deliver them.
21 And Jehovah shall be known by the Egyptians;
The Egyptians shall know Jehovah in that day,
And shall make sacrifice and oblation,
And shall vow vows to Jehovah, and perform them.
22 Therefore will the Lord smite Egypt,
Smiting and healing;
For they shall be turned to Jehovah,
And he will be entreated by them,
And will heal them.
23 In that day shall there be a way from Egypt into Assyria;
The Assyrians shall go into Egypt,
And the Egyptians into Assyria;
And the Egyptians shall serve the Assyrians. 377
24 In that day shall Israel be,
With Egypt and with Assyria,
The third blessing in the midst of the land.
25 For Jehovah of hosts will bless him, saying,
Blessed be the Egyptian, my people,
And the Assyrian, the work of my hands,
And Israel, my inheritance.
1 In the year that Tartan came to Ashdod, (when Sargon, the king of Assyria, sent him,) and attacked Ashdod, and took it.
2 At that time Jehovah spoke by the hand of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saying,
Go and loose the sackcloth from thy loins,
And put off thy shoe from thy foot.
3 And he did so, walking naked and barefooted. And Jehovah said:
As my servant Isaiah for three years
Hath walked naked and barefooted,
A sign and a wonder
Concerning Egypt and concerning Ethiopia;
4 So will the king of Assyria lead away the captivity of Egypt,
And the removal of Ethiopia,
Of the young and of the old,
Naked and barefooted,
And with their hinder parts uncovered,
To the disgrace of Egypt.
5 And they shall be afraid and ashamed
Of Ethiopia their expectation,
And of Egypt their glory. 378
6 And in that day shall the inhabitant of this island say,
Behold! what is become of our expectation,
To which we fled for aid,
That we might be delivered from the face of the king of Assyria;
And how shall we escape?
1 The burden of the desert of the sea.
As storms that pass from a southerly direction,
It will come from the wilderness,
From a terrible land.
2 A harsh vision hath been declared to me,
The transgressor to the transgressor,
And the plunderer to the plunderer.
Go up, O Persian! Besiege, O Mede!
All his groaning have I made to cease.
3 Therefore are my loins filled with pain;
Pangs have seized me, as the pangs of a woman in labour;
I am bowed down at hearing,
And am dismayed at seeing.
4 My heart is shaken;
Terror hath overwhelmed me;
The night of my pleasures
He hath changed to terror.
5 Prepare the table;
Watch in the watch-tower;
Eat, drink;
Arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield.
6 For thus hath the Lord said to me:
Go, appoint a watchman,
That he may declare what he seeth.
7 And he saw a chariot of a couple of horsemen,
A chariot of an ass, and a chariot of a camel;
Next, he looked attentively,
And watched eagerly.
8 Then he cried, A lion.
On my watch-tower, my lord, I continually stand by day,
And in my ward am I stationed whole nights.
9 And behold, here cometh a chariot of a man,
A couple of horsemen.
And he spake, and said,
Babylon is fallen, is fallen!
And all the graven images of her gods
Hath he broken to the ground.
10 O my thrashing, and the corn of my floor!
I have related to you what I have heard
From Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel.
11 The burden of Dumah.
He calleth to me out of Seir:
Watchman, what of the night?
Watchman, what of the night?
12 The watchman said:
The morning cometh, afterwards the night.
If ye will inquire, inquire ye.
Return, come.
13 The burden in Arabia.
In the forest in Arabia shall ye lodge,
In the ways of Dedanim.
14 To meet the thirsty bring waters,
O inhabitants of the land of Tema!
Relieve the fugitive with thy bread.
15 For they flee from the face of the swords,
From the face of the drawn sword,
From the face of the bent bow,
From the face of the grievousness of war.
16 For thus hath the Lord said to me:
Yet a year, according to the years of a hireling,
Then shall all the glory of Kedar fail;
17 And then shall be diminished the number of the archers,
Which shall be reckoned among the mighty sons of Kedar;
For Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath spoken it.
1 The burden of the valley of vision.
What hast thou here, 379
That thou art entirely gone up upon the roofs?
2 Full of miseries,
Tumultuous city, joyful city;
Thy slain men are not slain by the sword,
And are not dead in battle.
3 All thy rulers have fled;
Together have they been made prisoners by the archers;
All that were found in thee have been made prisoners together,
Who have fled from afar.
4 Therefore I said, Let me alone;
I will be bitter in my weeping;
Labour not to comfort me
Because of the plundering of the daughters of my people.
5 For it is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity,
From the Lord Jehovah of hosts, in the valley of vision,
Demolishing the city,
And crying to the mountain.
6 Yet Elam beareth the quiver
In a chariot of men and horsemen,
And Kir uncovereth the shield.
7 And the choice of thy valleys was filled with chariots,
And horsemen set themselves in array at the gate.
8 And he took away the covering of Judah;
And thou didst look in that day
To the armory of the house of the forest.
9 And ye have seen the breaches of the city of David, which were many;
And ye collected the waters of the lower pool.
10 And the houses of Jerusalem have ye numbered,
And ye have thrown down houses to fortify the wall.
11 For the waters of the old pool
Have ye also made a ditch between the walls;
And ye have not looked to him that made it,
And have not seen him that formed it in ancient times. 380
12 And in that day the Lord, Jehovah of hosts,
Called to weeping and to lamentation,
To baldness and girding with sackcloth;
13 And, behold! joy and gladness,
Slaying oxen, killing sheep,
Eating flesh, and drinking wine,
Eating and drinking;
For tomorrow we shall die!
14 It was revealed in my ears by Jehovah of hosts,
If this iniquity shall be forgiven you till ye die,
Saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts.
15 Thus saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts,
Go, approach to that abettor,
To Shebna, the ruler of the house.
16 What hast thou here? and whom hast thou here?
That thou hast hewed out here for thyself a sepulchre,
As he who heweth out his sepulchre on high,
Or who cutteth out a habitation for himself in the rock.
17 Behold, Jehovah will carry thee away with a remarkable carrying away,
And covering will cover thee.
18 Whirling he will turn thee with whirling,
As a ball with the hands, into a distant country;
There shalt thou die;
And there the chariot of thy glory
Shall be the disgrace of the house of thy lord.
19 And I will drive thee from thy post,
And from thy abode shall he east thee out.
20 And it shall be in that day, I will call my servant,
Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah.
21 And I will clothe him with thy raiment,
And will strengthen him with thy girdle,
And will deliver thy power into his hand;
And he shall be a father of the inhabitant of Jerusalem,
And of the house of Judah.
22 And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder;
He will open, and none shall shut;
He will shut, and none shall open.
23 And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place,
And to the house of his father he shall become a throne of glory.
24 And all the glory of his fathers house,
Grandchildren and great-grandchildren,
All smaller vessels,
From vessels of cups to all vessels of musical instruments,
They shall hang upon him.
25 In that day, saith Jehovah of hosts,
The nail fixed in a sure place shall be removed,
And shall be cut down, and shall fall;
And the burden which was upon it shall be cut off;
For Jehovah hath spoken it.
1 The burden of Tyre.
Howl, ye ships of Tarshish;
For desolation has been made,
So that there is no house,
That there is no entering in from the land of Chittim.
This was revealed to them.
2 Be silent, ye inhabitants of the islands,
The merchant of Sidon; they that crossed the sea;
Who supplied thee.
3 By great waters was the seed of the Nile;
Her fruits were the harvest of the river;
And she was a mart of nations.
4 Be ashamed, O Sidon;
For the sea hath spoken,
The strength of the sea, saying,
I have not conceived nor brought forth,
And I have not brought up young men,
And have not reared virgins.
5 As soon as the report shall reach the Egyptians,
They shall be grieved according to the report of Tyre.
6 Pass ye over to Tarshish;
Howl, ye inhabitants of the islands.
7 Is this your exulting city?
From ancient days is her antiquity.
Her feet shall carry her,
To travel into a distant country.
8 Who hath consulted this concerning crowning Tyre,
Whose merchants are princes,
Whose traders are the nobles of the land?
9 Thus hath Jehovah of hosts decreed,
To profane the pride of all that are illustrious,
To bring into contempt all the renowned of the land.
10 Cross over from thy land, like a river,
To the daughter of Tarshish;
For there is no longer any girdle.
11 He laid his hand upon the sea,
He shook kingdoms.
Jehovah hath commanded concerning Canaan,
To weaken her strength.
12 And he saith, O virgin daughter of Sidon,
When thou shalt be oppressed,
Thou shalt not add any more to rejoice.
Arise, that thou mayest pass over into Chittim;
Yet even there thou shalt not have rest.
13 Behold, the land of the Chaldeans;
This was not a people;
Assyria founded it for the inhabitants of the wilderness;
They have reared its fortresses;
They have built its palaces;
He hath reduced it to desolation.
14 Howl, ye ships of Tarshish;
For your strength is laid waste.
15 It shall come to pass in that day,
That Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years,
According to the days of one king;
At the end of seventy years
Shall Tyre have a song like that of a harlot.
16 Take a harp, go about the city,
O harlot, devoted to forgetfulness!
Make sweet melody, multiply song,
That thou mayest be kept in remembrance.
17 It shall then be at the end of seventy years,
That Jehovah will visit Tyre;
And then shall she return to her hire,
And shall commit fornication
With all the kingdoms of the earth
Which are upon the earth.
18 Yet her merchandise and her hire
Shall be holy to Jehovah;
It shall not be treasured nor laid up;
But her merchandise shall be
For them that dwell before Jehovah,
That they may eat sufficiently,
And may have a thick covering.
1 Behold, Jehovah emptieth the earth,
Maketh it bare,
Overturneth its face,
And scattereth its inhabitants.
2 And it shall be, as the people, so the priest;
As the servant, so his master;
As the maid, so her mistress;
As the buyer, so the seller;
As the lender, so the borrower;
As the usurer, so he that giveth usury. 381
3 By emptying shall the earth be emptied,
And by plundering shall it be plundered;
For Jehovah hath spoken this word.
4 The earth hath lamented, and hath fallen;
The world hath languished, and hath fallen;
They who were the lofty people of the earth have languished.
5 And the earth hath been deceitful under its inhabitants;
Because they have transgressed the laws,
They have changed the ordinance,
They have broken the covenant of eternity.
6 Therefore hath the curse consumed the earth,
And its inhabitants are made desolate;
Therefore are the inhabitants of the earth burned,
And few men have been left.
7 The wine hath failed;
The vine hath languished;
All who were of joyful heart have groaned.
8 The joy of tabrets hath ceased,
The noise of them that exult is ended,
The mirth of the harp is silent.
9 They shall not drink wine with a song;
Strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.
10 The city of vanity is broken down;
Every house is shut up, that none may enter.
11 There is a cry about wine in the streets;
All joy is darkened;
The mirth of the land hath departed.
12 Desolation is left in the city,
And the gate is smitten with desolation.
13 For in the midst of the land,
In the midst of the peoples,
Thus shall it be as the shaking of an olive-tree,
And as the shaking of the grapes, when the vintage is ended.
14 They shall lift up their voice;
They shall shout for the majesty of the Lord;
They shall cry aloud from the sea.
15 Therefore glorify ye Jehovah in the valleys,
The name of Jehovah, the God of Israel, in the isles of the sea.
16 From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs,
Glory to the Righteous One!
And I said, I have leanness! I have leanness! Wo to me!
The treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously;
With treachery have the treacherous dealers dealt treacherously.
17 Fear, and the pit, and the snare,
Are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth!
18 And it shall come to pass,
That he who fleeth from the voice of fear,
Shall fall into the pit,
And he who goeth up out of the midst of the pit
Shall be taken in the snare;
For the windows from on high are opened,
And the foundations of the earth are shaken.
19 By bruising is the earth bruised;
By breaking down is the earth broken down;
By shaking is the earth shaken.
20 With reeling doth the earth reel, like a drunkard;
And it shall be removed, like a tabernacle;
And its transgression shall be heavy upon it;
And it shall fall, and shall not add to rise again.
21 And it shall be in that day,
Jehovah will visit
Upon the high army on high,
And upon the kings of the earth on the earth.
22 And with gathering together shall they be gathered together
Like prisoners in a dungeon;
And they shall be shut up in a prison;
Afterwards at the end of many days shall they be visited.
23 The moon shall be confounded,
And the sun shall be ashamed,
When Jehovah of hosts shall reign
In Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem;
And before his elders glory.
1 O Jehovah, thou art my God;
I will exalt thee;
I will praise thy name;
For thou hast done a wonderful thing;
Counsels which have been already decreed of old;
Firm truth.
2 For thou hast made of a city a heap;
A fortified city to be a ruin;
A palace of foreigners, that it may not be a city,
That it may never be built.
3 Therefore shall the mighty people glorify thee;
The city of the powerful nations shall fear thee.
4 For thou hast been strength to the poor;
Strength to the needy in his affliction;
A refuge from the flood,
A shadow from the heat;
For the breath of the strong 382
ones
Was as a storm 383
against the wall.
5 As the heat in a dry place,
Thou wilt lay low the noise of foreigners,
As the heat by the shadow of a cloud;
The shouting 384
of the strong ones wilt thou lay low.
6 And Jehovah of hosts will make
For all people in that mountain
A feast of fat things,
A feast of liquids purified,
Of fat things full of marrow,
Of liquids purified.
7 And he will destroy in that mountain
The face of the covering with which all nations were covered,
And the veil which was spread over all nations.
8 He hath destroyed death eternally.
And the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from all faces,
And will take away the disgrace of his people from all the earth;
For Jehovah hath spoken it.
9 And it shall he said in that day:
Lo, this is our God;
We have waited for him,
And he will save us;
This is Jehovah;
We have waited for him;
We will rejoice and be glad in his salvation.
10 For the hand of Jehovah shall rest on that mountain;
And Moab shall be trodden down under him,
As straw is trodden down on the dunghill.
11 And he will spread out his hand under the midst of them,
As a swimmer spreadeth forth his hands to swim;
And he will lay low their pride,
With the arms of their hands.
12 And the fortress of the loftiness of thy walls
He will bring down,
He will lay low,
And he will cast down to the ground,
To the dust.
1 In that day shall a song be sung in the land of Judah;
We have a city of strength;
He hath made salvation to be walls and a rampart.
2 Open ye the gates,
And the righteous nation shall enter,
Which keepeth the truth.
3 The thought is fixed;
Thou wilt keep peace, peace;
For they have trusted in thee.
4 Hope ye in Jehovah for ever;
For in Jah Jehovah is the strength of ages.
5 For he will bow down the inhabitants of loftiness;
He will lay low the elevated city;
He will lay it low to the ground;
He will bring it to the dust.
6 The foot shall tread it down;
The feet of the poor,
The steps of the needy.
7 Straightnesses are the path of the righteous man;
The straight way of the righteous man thou wilt weigh. 385
8 Even in the way of thy judgments, O Jehovah,
We have waited for thee;
To thy name,
And to the remembrance of thee,
Is the desire of the soul.
9 My soul hath desired thee in the night;
Yea, with my spirit within me I will seek thee in the morning; 386
For so soon as thy judgments shall be in the earth,
The inhabitants of the earth shall learn righteousness.
10 The wicked man will obtain favour,
And will not learn righteousness;
In the land of upright actions he will deal unjustly,
And will not behold the majesty of Jehovah.
11 Jehovah, though thy hand is lifted up,
They will not see;
They shall see, and be ashamed,
Through their envy of the people;
Yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them.
12 O Jehovah, thou wilt ordain peace for us;
For thou also hast wrought all our works for us.
13 O Jehovah our God,
Lords besides thee have had dominion over us;
By thee only will we call thy name to remembrance.
14 The dead shall not live;
The slain shall not rise again;
Therefore thou hast visited and driven them away,
And hast destroyed all remembrance of them.
15 Thou hast added to the nation, O Jehovah!
Thou hast added to the nation;
Thou art glorified;
Thou hast enlarged all the boundaries of the earth.
16 O Jehovah, in trouble have they visited thee;
They poured out a prayer, when thy chastening was upon them.
17 As a woman with child, who draweth near to her delivery,
Is in pain, and crieth out in her pains;
So have we been before thy face, O Jehovah.
18 We have been in labour,
We have had pain,
As if we had brought forth wind;
Salvation hath not been wrought for the earth,
And the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
19 Thy dead men shall live;
My dead body, they shall arise;
Awake and sing, ye inhabitants of the dust;
For thy dew is the dew of herbs;
And the earth shall cast out the dead. 387
20 Come, O my people;
Enter thou into thy chambers;
Shut the door behind thee;
Hide thyself a little for a moment,
Till the indignation pass over.
21 For, behold, Jehovah cometh out of his place,
To visit the iniquity of the inhabitant of the earth against him;
And the earth shall disclose her blood,
And shall no longer cover her slain.
1 In that day will Jehovah visit
With his hard, and great, and strong sword,
On leviathan the piercing serpent,
And on leviathan the crooked serpent;
And he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
2 In that day sing ye to the vineyard of redness.
3 I Jehovah keep it;
Every moment will I water it;
That (the enemy) may not visit it,
I will keep it night and day.
4 Fury doth not dwell in me.
Who shall engage me in battle with the brier and thorn? 388
I will pass through it in a hostile manner,
I will utterly burn it up.
5 Will she take hold of my strength,
That she may make peace with me?
Yea, that she may make peace with me?
6 Afterwards shall Jacob put forth roots;
Israel shall bud and blossom;
And the face of the world shall be filled with fruit.
7 Hath he smitten him according to the stroke of him that smote him?
Hath he been slain according to the slaughter of them that slew him?
8 In measure, in her shooting forth,
Thou wilt contend with her;
Even though he blow with his violent wind
In the day of the east wind.
9 Therefore in this manner shall the iniquity of Jacob be expiated;
And this is all the fruit,
The taking away of his sin;
When he shall make all the stones of the altar
As lime-stones broken in pieces,
That groves and images may not rise again.
10 Yet the fortified city shall be desolate;
The inhabited place shall be deserted,
And forsaken like a wilderness.
There the calf shall feed,
And there shall lie down,
And shall browse on its tops.
11 When its harvest shall wither, they shall break 389
it;
Women coming shall burn it;
For it is a people that doth not understand;
Therefore their Maker will not have compassion on them,
And he who formed them will not be gracious to them.
12 Yet in that day it shall come to pass
That Jehovah will thrash
From the channel of the river
To the river of Egypt;
And ye shall be gathered one by one,
O children of Israel.
13 It shall also come to pass in that day
That the great trumpet shall be blown;
And they shall come who were perishing in the land of Assyria,
And who had been scattered in the land of Egypt;
And they shall worship Jehovah
In the holy mountain, in Jerusalem.
1 Wo to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim;
For the splendour of his glory shall be a fading flower,
Which is on the head of the valley of the fat ones,
Of them that are overcome by wine.
2 Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one;
As a deluge of hail,
A desolating whirlwind;
As the violence of mighty waters overflowing,
Casting down to the earth with the hand.
3 The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim
Shall be trodden under feet.
4 And the splendour of his glory shall be a fading flower,
Which is on the head of the valley of the fat ones;
Like the premature fig before the summer,
Which, while he looketh at it,
While it is yet in his hand,
He that seeth it devoureth.
5 In that day will Jehovah of hosts
Become a crown of glory
And a diadem of excellence
To the remnant of his people,
6 And a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth on the judgment-seat,
And strength to them that drive back the battle to the gate.
7 But they also have erred through wine;
Through strong drink they have gone astray.
The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink;
They have been swallowed up by wine;
They have gone astray through strong drink;
They have erred in vision,
They have stumbled in judgment.
8 For all tables are full of nauseous vomiting,
So that no place is unoccupied.
9 Whom shall he teach knowledge?
And whom shall he make to understand doctrine?
Them that are weaned from the milk?
Them that are withdrawn from the breasts?
10 For precept must be on precept, precept on precept;
Instruction on instruction, instruction on instruction;
Here a little, there a little.
11 For with stammering lips will he speak to this people,
And with a foreign tongue.
12 For he said to them, This is the rest;
Cause the weary to rest;
And this is the refreshing;
And they refused to hear.
13 The word of Jehovah shall therefore be to them
Rule upon rule, rule upon rule;
Instruction upon instruction, instruction upon instruction;
Here a little, there a little;
Therefore they shall go, and shall fall backward,
Shall be broken, and snared, and taken.
14 Therefore hear the word of Jehovah, ye scornful men,
Who govern this people, which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said,
We have struck a league with death,
And with hell have we made a compact;
When the overflowing scourge shall pass through,
It shall not come to us;
For we have made falsehood our refuge,
And under vanity have we hidden ourselves.
16 Wherefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah:
Behold, I will lay in Zion a stone, a stone of trial,
A precious corner-stone, a sure foundation.
He that believeth shall not make haste.
17 And I will lay judgment to the line,
And righteousness to the measure. 390
The hail shall sweep away the reliance of falsehood,
And the waters shall overflow the hiding-place.
18 And your compact with death shall be disannulled;
Your agreement with hell shall not stand;
When the overflowing scourge shall pass through,
Then shall ye become a treading down to it.
19 From the time that it shall pass,
It shall seize you every morning,
And shall pass every day by day and by night;
And it shall be that terror 391
alone
Shall cause them to understand the report.
20 For the bed is short, so that it is not enough;
The covering shall be narrow for wrapping,
21 For as in Mount Perazim will Jehovah stand up,
And as in the valley of Gibeon will he be angry; 392
To do his work, his strange work;
To perform his act, his strange act.
22 Now therefore be ye not mockers,
Lest your chains be more firmly fastened;
For I have heard from the Lord Jehovah of hosts a consumption,
And a completion on the whole earth.
23 Listen ye, and hear my voice;
Hearken, and hear my speech.
24 Doth the ploughman plough every day, that he may sow?
Doth he open and break the clods of his field?
25 When he hath leveled its surface,
Will he not then scatter fitches, and sow cummin,
And allot wheat in measure, and barley measured,
And spelt in its order?
26 His God instructeth him,
And teacheth him what is right.
27 Certainly vetches shall not be thrashed with a toothed instrument,
Nor shall the wheel of a cart be turned round on the cummin;
For vetches are beaten with a staff,
And cummin with a rod.
28 Though wheat be bruised,
He doth not bruise it continually,
Nor always cause the wheel of his cart to grind it,
Lest he crush it with its teeth.
29 This also hath proceeded from Jehovah of hosts,
Who is wonderful in counsel,
And majestic in procedure.
1 Alas! Ariel, Ariel,
The city which David inhabited,
Add ye year to year,
That the lambs may be slain.
2 Yet I will bring Ariel into distress,
And there shall be grief and sorrow,
And it shall be to me as Ariel.
3 And I will encamp against thee round about,
And will attack thee with a military force,
And will erect ramparts against thee.
4 Then shalt thou be brought low,
Thou shalt speak out of the earth,
And thy speech shall come out of the dust,
And thy voice shall be like that of a sorcerer out of the earth,
And thy speech shall mutter out of the dust.
5 And the sound of thy foreigners shall be as the small dust,
And the multitude of thy mighty men as the passing chaff,
And it shall be in a moment suddenly.
6 Thou shalt be visited by Jehovah of hosts
With thunder, and earthquake, and great noise,
With whirlwind and tempest,
And with the flame of devouring fire.
7 And as a dream of a vision of the night shall be
The multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
Of every one that fighteth,
And that raiseth fortifications against her,
And that distresseth her.
8 It shall therefore be
As when a hungry man dreameth, and behold! he eateth,
But when he awaketh, his soul is empty;
And as when a thirsty man dreameth, And behold! He drinketh,
But when he awaketh, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite;
So shall be the multitude of all the nations
That fight against Mount Zion.
9 Tarry and wonder;
They are blinded and they blind;
They are drunken, but not with wine;
They stagger, and not with strong drink.
10 For Jehovah hath overpowered you with the spirit of slumber,
And hath closed your eyes;
Your prophets And principal seers
He hath struck with darkness.
11 Therefore every vision hath become to you
As the words of a sealed book;
Which if they deliver to one who knoweth letters,
And say, Read in it, I pray,
Then shall he say, I cannot,
For it is sealed:
12 And if the book be delivered to one who hath not learned letters,
And it be said, Read in it, I pray,
Then shall he say, I know not letters.
13 Therefore the Lord saith:
Because this people draw near to me with their mouth,
And honour me with their lips,
And have removed their heart far from me,
And their fear toward me hath been taught by the commandment of men;
14 Therefore, behold! I add to do
A wonderful work among this people,
A miracle and a prodigy;
For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
And the prudence of their prudent men shall vanish away.
15 Wo to them that conceal themselves from Jehovah,
That they may hide counsel;
For their works are in the dark, and they say,
Who seeth us? and, Who knoweth us?
16 Is your turning reckoned like potters clay?
Doth a work say of its author, He did not make me?
And doth a thing framed say of its framer, He did not understand?
17 Is it not yet a little, a little,
And Lebanon shall be changed into Carmel,
And Carmel shall be reckoned a forest?
18 And in that day shall the deaf hear
The words of the book,
And the eyes of the blind shall see
Out of obscurity and out of darkness.
19 Then shall the humble again take joy in Jehovah,
And the poor of men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the violent man is brought to nought,
The mocker is despised;
And they who hastened early to iniquity are ruined.
21 Who make a man to offend in word,
Who have laid snares for him that reproveth in the gate,
And have turned aside the righteous man for nothing.
22 Therefore Jehovah, who redeemed Abraham,
Speaketh thus to the house of Jacob:
Jacob shall not now be confounded,
Nor shall his face now become pale.
23 For when he shall see in the midst of him
His children, the work of my hands,
They shall sanctify my name,
They shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob,
They shall fear the God of Israel.
24 Then they that erred in spirit shall learn understanding,
And the murmurers shall learn doctrine.
1 Wo to the rebellious 393
children, saith Jehovah,
That they may take counsel, and not from me;
That they may cover a secret, 394
and not from my Spirit;
That they may add sin to sin.
2 Who set out that they may go down into Egypt,
And have not inquired at my mouth;
Strengthening themselves with the strength of Pharaoh,
And trusting in the shadow of Egypt.
3 But the strength of Pharaoh
Shall become to you shame;
And reliance on the shadow of Egypt
Shall become disgrace.
4 For his princes were in Zoan,
And his ambassadors came to Hanes.
5 All shall be ashamed
Of a people that will not profit them,
And will not become a help,
And will not yield advantage,
But will become shame,
And even disgrace.
6 The burden of the beasts of the south.
In the land of trouble and anguish,
The lion and the stronger lion,
The viper and the flying serpent;
While they shall carry their riches
On the shoulders of young asses,
And on the bunches of camels,
To a people that will not profit them.
7 Surely the Egyptians are vanity,
And shall help in vain.
Therefore have I cried to her,
Their strength is to sit still.
8 Now go, and write this vision on a tablet before them,
And engrave it in a book,
That it may be till the last day,
For ever and ever.
9 For this is a rebellious people,
Lying children,
Children who refuse to hear the law of Jehovah.
10 Who say to the seers, Do not see,
And to the foreseers, Do not foresee to us right things;
Speak ye to us flatteries,
See ye errors.
11 Go out of the way;
Turn aside from the path;
Cause the Holy One of Israel
To depart from our presence.
12 Therefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel:
Because ye have disdained this word,
And have trusted in violence and wickedness,
And have rested on it;
13 Therefore shall your iniquity be to you
Like a breach falling,
Like the bulging out in a lofty wall,
The fall of which comes suddenly and unexpectedly.
14 And the breaking of it shall be
As the breaking of a potter’s vessel,
Which is broken without mercy;
And in its breaking there is not found a sherd
To carry fire from the hearth,
Or to draw water from a well.
15 For thus saith the Lord Jehovah,
The Holy One of Israel:
In rest and quietness shall you be safe;
In peace and confidence shall be your strength;
But ye would not.
16 And ye said, No, but we will flee on horses;
Therefore shall ye flee;
We will ride on the swift;
Therefore they that shall pursue you shall be more swift.
17 A thousand as one from the face of the rebuke of one,
From the face of the rebuke of five shall ye flee,
Until ye shall be left
As the mast of a ship on the top of a mountain,
And as a banner on a hill.
18 Therefore will Jehovah wait for you,
That he may have compassion on you;
And therefore will he be exalted,
That he may have compassion on you;
For Jehovah is a God of judgment:
Blessed are all they that wait for him.
19 Surely the people in Zion shall dwell in Jerusalem:
Weeping thou shalt not weep;
With compassion will he have compassion on thee;
At the voice of thy cry, as soon as he shall hear it,
He will answer thee.
20 When the Lord shall have given to you
Bread of anguish
And water of affliction,
Thy rain shall not be withheld,
And thine eyes shall see thy rain.
21 Then shall thine ears hear a word behind thee,
Saying, This is the way;
Walk ye in it;
Whether ye go to the right,
Or go to the left.
22 Then shall ye profane
The covering of the graven images of thy silver,
And the covering of thy molten gold;
And thou shalt put it away from thee as a menstruous cloth,
And shalt say to it, Depart. 395
23 Then will he give rain to thy seed,
When thou shalt have sowed the ground,
And bread of the produce of the earth;
And it shall be plentiful and fat;
And in that day thy cattle
Shall feed in large pastures.
24 Thine oxen also,
And the young asses that labour the ground,
Shall eat clean provender,
Which shall be winnowed with the shovel
And with the sieve.
25 And it shall come to pass,
That on every high mountain,
And on every lofty hill,
Shall be streams, streams of waters,
In the day of the great slaughter
When the towers shall have fallen.
26 And 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 when Jehovah
Shall have bound up the breach of his people,
And shall have healed the stroke of their wound.
27 Behold! the name of Jehovah cometh
From a distant place:
His face burneth,
And the burden is heavy;
His lips are full of indignation,
And his tongue as a devouring fire.
28 And his breath, as an overflowing torrent,
Shall divide even to the neck;
To sift the nations with a useless sieve;
And on the cheeks of the peoples
There shall be a bridle causing to err.
29 You shall have a song, as in the night
When a festival is kept,
And gladness of heart,
As of him that moveth to a pipe,
That he may come to the mountain of Jehovah,
To the Mighty One of Israel.
30 And Jehovah shall cause to be heard the power of his voice,
And shall cause to be seen the descent of his arm,
With rage of countenance,
And with the flame of devouring fire,
With scattering, with flood, and with hailstones.
31 Verily by the voice of Jehovah shall the Assyrian be crushed,
Who smote with a rod.
32 And in every passage shall be the fastened staff,
Which Jehovah shall lay upon him
With tabrets and harps,
And with battles of lifting up
Shall he fight against her.
33 For Tophet is ordained since yesterday;
Yea, for the king it is prepared:
He hath made it deep and large;
The pile of it is fire, and much wood;
The breath of Jehovah, like a torrent of brimstone,
Doth kindle it.
1 Wo to them that go down into Egypt for help,
And who rely on horses,
And who trust to chariots, because they are numerous,
And to horses, because they are very strong,
And have not looked to the Holy One of Israel,
Nor have sought Jehovah.
2 Yet he also is wise:
Therefore he will bring evil,
And will not make void his words;
He will rise up against the house of the evil-doers,
And against the aid of the workers of vanity.
3 And verily the Egyptian is a man, and not God;
And his horses are flesh, and not spirit.
Therefore, as soon as Jehovah shall stretch out his arm,
The helper shall fall,
And he who is helped shall fall down,
And all shall fail together.
4 For thus hath Jehovah said to me:
As the lion roareth,
And the young lion for his prey,
Against whom, if a multitude of shepherds be gathered together,
He shall not be alarmed by their cry,
And shall not humble himself on account of their noise;
Thus will Jehovah of hosts come down
To fight for Mount Zion,
And for its hill.
5 As birds which fly,
So will Jehovah of hosts defend Jerusalem;
Defending, he will deliver it,
And passing over, he will preserve it.
6 Return ye,
As ye have made a deep revolt,
O children of Israel!
7 For in that day shall a man cast away
The idols of his silver,
And the idols of his gold,
Which your hands have made for you, a sin.
8 Then shall the Assyrian fall by the sword, not of a mighty man;
And the sword, not of a man, shall devour him;
And by flight shall he seek safety from the face of the sword,
And his young men shall melt away.
9 He shall pass to his stronghold through fear,
And his princes shall tremble at the banner, saith Jehovah,
Who hath a fire 396
in Zion,
And who hath a furnace in Jerusalem.
1 Behold! a king shall reign in righteousness,
And princes shall rule in judgment.
2 And that man shall be
As a hiding-place from the wind,
As a covert from the rain,
As streams of waters on dry ground,
As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
3 Then the eyes of them that see shall not be closed up,
And the ears of them that hear shall hearken.
4 And the heart of fools shall be eagerly directed to knowledge,
And the tongue of stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.
5 No longer shall the base man be called liberal,
Nor shall the parsimonious man be called bountiful.
6 For the vile person will speak vileness,
And his heart will contrive iniquity,
To commit wickedness,
That he may utter mockery against Jehovah,
That he may make empty the hungry soul,
And that he may withhold drink from him that is thirsty.
7 The instruments of the covetous man are evil; 397
He contriveth wickednesses,
That he may deceive the simple by lying words,
And that he may speak against the poor man in judgment.
8 But the liberal man shall devise liberal things,
And in acting liberally he shall make progress.
9 Ye women at ease, arise;
Hear my voice, ye careless daughters;
Hearken to my speech.
10 Days above a year shall ye tremble, ye careless women;
For the vintage shall fail,
And the gathering shall not come.
11 Tremble, ye women that are at ease;
Be troubled, ye careless women;
Strip you, make you bare, gird your limbs.
12 Mourning over the udders,
Over the pleasant fields,
Over the fruitful vine.
13 There shall come up the thorn and brier
On the land of my people,
Even on all the houses of gladness in the city of rejoicing.
14 For the palace shall be forsaken;
The noise of the city shall be left;
The tower and the fortress
Shall be reduced to dens for ever,
Where wild asses may delight themselves,
And where flocks may feed.
15 Till the Spirit be poured out upon you from on high,
And the wilderness become a cultivated field,
And the cultivated field be reckoned like a forest.
16 And judgment shall dwell in the wilderness,
And justice shall have its abode in the cultivated field.
17 And the work of righteousness shall be peace;
The effect of righteousness shall be
Safety and quietness for ever.
18 And my people shall dwell in a tabernacle of peace,
And in safe dwellings,
And in quiet resting-places.
19 And in coming down the hail shall turn aside on the forest,
And the city shall be situated in a low place.
20 Blessed are ye who sow on all waters,
Who send forth the feet of the ox and of the ass.
Or, Have rebelled against me; or, Have revolted against me.
Or, Thou wilt not forgive them.
Or, Skilled in mysterious style.
Or, Let us be called by thy name.
Or, Without me they shall stumble.
Or, That didst weaken the nations.
Or, Shall serve with the Assyrians.
Or, As the creditor, so the debtor.
Or, The singing; or, The cutting off.
Or, Thou, who art upright, wilt weigh (or, wilt direct) the path of the righteous man.
Or, Thou wilt overthrow the land of the giants; or, The earth will cause the giants to fall.
Or, Who shall set the brier against the thorn? or, Who shall set me as a brier and thorn?
Or, That they may pour out a pouring out.