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Isaiah, starting at chapter 28
{28:1} Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to
the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the
fertile valley of those who are overcome with wine! {28:2} Behold, the
Lord has a mighty and strong one. Like a storm of hail, a destroying
storm, and like a storm of mighty waters overflowing, he will cast
them down to the earth with his hand. {28:3} The crown of pride of the
drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden under foot. {28:4} The fading
flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fertile
valley, shall be like the first-ripe fig before the summer; which
someone picks and eats as soon as he sees it. {28:5} In that day, the
LORD of Hosts will become a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, to
the residue of his people; {28:6} and a spirit of justice to him who
sits in judgment, and strength to those who turn back the battle at
the gate. {28:7} They also reel with wine, and stagger with strong
drink. The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink. They are
swallowed up by wine. They stagger with strong drink. They err in
vision. They stumble in judgment. {28:8} For all tables are completely
full of filthy vomit and filthiness. {28:9} Whom will he teach
knowledge? To whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned
from the milk, and drawn from the breasts? {28:10} For it is precept
on precept, precept on precept; line on line, line on line; here a
little, there a little. {28:11} But he will speak to this nation with
stammering lips and in another language; {28:12} to whom he said,
"This is the resting place. Give rest to weary"; and "This is the
refreshing"; yet they would not hear. {28:13} Therefore the word of
the LORD will be to them precept on precept, precept on precept; line
on line, line on line; here a little, there a little; that they may
go, fall backward, be broken, be snared, and be taken. {28:14}
Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scoffers, that rule this
people in Jerusalem: {28:15} "Because you have said, 'We have made a
covenant with death, and with [1>]Sheol[<1] are we in agreement. When
the overflowing scourge passes through, it won't come to us; for we
have made lies our refuge, and we have hidden ourselves under
falsehood.'" {28:16} Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I lay
in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious
cornerstone of a sure foundation. He who believes shall not act
hastily. {28:17} I will make justice the measuring line, and
righteousness the plumb line. The hail will sweep away the refuge of
lies, and the waters will overflow the hiding place. {28:18} Your
covenant with death shall be annulled, and your agreement with
[2>]Sheol[<2] shall not stand. When the overflowing scourge passes
through, then you will be trampled down by it. {28:19} As often as it
passes through, it will seize you; for morning by morning it will pass
through, by day and by night; and it will be nothing but terror to
understand the message." {28:20} For the bed is too short to stretch
out on, and the blanket is too narrow to wrap oneself in. {28:21} For
the LORD will rise up as on Mount Perazim. He will be angry as in the
valley of Gibeon; that he may do his work, his unusual work, and bring
to pass his act, his extraordinary act. {28:22} Now therefore don't be
scoffers, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of
destruction from the Lord, the LORD of Hosts, on the whole earth.
{28:23} Give ear, and hear my voice! Listen, and hear my speech!
{28:24} Does he who plows to sow plow continually? Does he keep
turning the soil and breaking the clods? {28:25} When he has leveled
its surface, doesn't he plant the dill, and scatter the cumin seed,
and put in the wheat in rows, the barley in the appointed place, and
the spelt in its place? {28:26} For his God instructs him in right
judgment, and teaches him. {28:27} For the dill are not threshed with
a sharp instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned over the cumin; but
the dill is beaten out with a stick, and the cumin with a rod. {28:28}
Bread flour must be ground; so he will not always be threshing it.
Although he drives the wheel of his threshing cart over it, his horses
don't grind it. {28:29} This also comes forth from the LORD of Hosts,
who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom.
{29:1} Woe to Ariel! Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year
to year; let the feasts come around; {29:2} then I will distress
Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation. She shall be to me
as an [3>]altar hearth[<3]. {29:3} I will encamp against you all
around you, and will lay siege against you with posted troops. I will
raise siege works against you. {29:4} You will be brought down, and
will speak out of the ground. Your speech will mumble out of the dust.
Your voice will be as of one who has a familiar spirit, out of the
ground, and your speech will whisper out of the dust. {29:5} But the
multitude of your foes will be like fine dust, and the multitude of
the ruthless ones like chaff that blows away. Yes, it will be in an
instant, suddenly. {29:6} She will be visited by the LORD of Hosts
with thunder, with earthquake, with great noise, with whirlwind and
storm, and with the flame of a devouring fire. {29:7} The multitude of
all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all who fight against
her and her stronghold, and who distress her, will be like a dream, a
vision of the night. {29:8} It will be like when a hungry man dreams,
and behold, he eats; but he awakes, and his hunger isn't satisfied; or
like when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he drinks; but he awakes,
and behold, he is faint, and he is still thirsty. The multitude of all
the nations that fight against Mount Zion will be like that. {29:9}
Pause and wonder! Blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunken, but
not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. {29:10} For
the LORD has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed
your eyes, the prophets; and he has covered your heads, the seers.
{29:11} All vision has become to you like the words of a book that is
sealed, which men deliver to one who is educated, saying, "Read this,
please"; and he says, "I can't, for it is sealed:" {29:12} and the
book is delivered to one who is not educated, saying, "Read this,
please"; and he says, "I can't read." {29:13} The Lord said, "Because
this people draws near with their mouth and with their lips to honor
me, but they have removed their heart far from me, and their fear of
me is a commandment of men which has been taught; {29:14} therefore,
behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even
a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men will
perish, and the understanding of their prudent men will be hidden."
{29:15} Woe to those who deeply hide their counsel from the LORD,
and whose works are in the dark, and who say, "Who sees us?" and "Who
knows us?" {29:16} You turn things upside down! Should the potter be
thought to be like clay; that the thing made should say about him who
made it, "He didn't make me"; or the thing formed say of him who
formed it, "He has no understanding?"
{29:17} Isn't it yet a very little while, and Lebanon will be turned
into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field will be regarded as a
forest? {29:18} In that day, the deaf will hear the words of the book,
and the eyes of the blind will see out of obscurity and out of
darkness. {29:19} The humble also will increase their joy in the LORD,
and the poor among men will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. {29:20}
For the ruthless is brought to nothing, and the scoffer ceases, and
all those who are alert to do evil are cut off--{29:21} who cause a
person to be indicted by a word, and lay a snare for the arbiter in
the gate, and who deprive the innocent of justice with false
testimony. {29:22} Therefore thus says the LORD, who redeemed Abraham,
concerning the house of Jacob: "Jacob shall no longer be ashamed,
neither shall his face grow pale. {29:23} But when he sees his
children, the work of my hands, in the midst of him, they will
sanctify my name. Yes, they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and
will stand in awe of the God of Israel. {29:24} They also who err in
spirit will come to understanding, and those who grumble will receive
instruction."
{30:1} "Woe to the rebellious children," says the LORD, "who take
counsel, but not from me; and who make an alliance, but not with my
Spirit, that they may add sin to sin, {30:2} who set out to go down
into Egypt, and have not asked my advice; to strengthen themselves in
the strength of Pharaoh, and to take refuge in the shadow of Egypt!
{30:3} Therefore the strength of Pharaoh will be your shame, and the
refuge in the shadow of Egypt your confusion. {30:4} For their princes
are at Zoan, and their ambassadors have come to Hanes. {30:5} They
shall all be ashamed because of a people that can't profit them, that
are not a help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach."
{30:6} The burden of the animals of the South. Through the land of
trouble and anguish, of the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery
flying serpent, they carry their riches on the shoulders of young
donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to an
unprofitable people. {30:7} For Egypt helps in vain, and to no
purpose; therefore have I called her Rahab who sits still. {30:8} Now
go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that
it may be for the time to come forever and ever. {30:9} For it is a
rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the law
of the LORD; {30:10} who tell the seers, "Don't see!" and to the
prophets, "Don't prophesy to us right things. Tell us pleasant things.
Prophesy deceits. {30:11} Get out of the way. Turn aside from the
path. Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us." {30:12}
Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, "Because you despise this
word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely on it;
{30:13} therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to
fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly in an
instant. {30:14} He will break it as a potter's vessel is broken,
breaking it in pieces without sparing, so that there won't be found
among the broken piece a piece good enough to take fire from the
hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern." {30:15} For thus said
the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, "You will be saved in returning
and rest. Your strength will be in quietness and in confidence." You
refused, {30:16} but you said, "No, for we will flee on horses";
therefore you will flee; and, "We will ride on the swift"; therefore
those who pursue you will be swift. {30:17} One thousand will flee at
the threat of one. At the threat of five, you will flee until you are
left like a beacon on the top of a mountain, and like a banner on a
hill. {30:18} Therefore the LORD will wait, that he may be gracious to
you; and therefore he will be exalted, that he may have mercy on you,
for the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for
him. {30:19} For the people will dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. You will
weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the voice of your
cry. When he hears you, he will answer you. {30:20} Though the Lord
may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet
your teachers won't be hidden anymore, but your eyes will see your
teachers; {30:21} and when you turn to the right hand, and when you
turn to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying,
"This is the way. Walk in it." {30:22} You shall defile the overlaying
of your engraved images of silver, and the plating of your molten
images of gold. You shall cast them away as an unclean thing. You
shall tell it, "Go away!" {30:23} He will give the rain for your seed,
with which you will sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the
ground will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your livestock will
feed in large pastures. {30:24} The oxen likewise and the young
donkeys that till the ground will eat savory provender, which has been
winnowed with the shovel and with the fork. {30:25} There shall be
brooks and streams of water on every lofty mountain and on every high
hill in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. {30:26}
Moreover the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and
the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of
seven days, in the day that the LORD binds up the fracture of his
people, and heals the wound they were struck with.
{30:27} Behold, the name of the LORD comes from far away, burning
with his anger, and in thick rising smoke. His lips are full of
indignation, and his tongue is as a devouring fire. {30:28} His breath
is as an overflowing stream that reaches even to the neck, to sift the
nations with the sieve of destruction; and a bridle that leads to ruin
will be in the jaws of the peoples. {30:29} You will have a song, as
in the night when a holy feast is kept; and gladness of heart, as when
one goes with a flute to come to the LORD's mountain, to Israel's
Rock. {30:30} The LORD will cause his glorious voice to be heard, and
will show the descent of his arm, with the indignation of his anger,
and the flame of a devouring fire, with a blast, storm, and
hailstones. {30:31} For through the voice of the LORD the Assyrian
will be dismayed. He will strike him with his rod. {30:32} Every
stroke of the rod of punishment, which the LORD will lay on him, will
be with the sound of tambourines and harps. He will fight with them in
battles, brandishing weapons. {30:33} For his burning place has long
been ready. Yes, for the king it is prepared. He has made its pyre
deep and large with fire and much wood. The LORD's breath, like a
stream of sulfur, kindles it.
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Footnotes:
[1] {28:15} Sheol is the place of the dead.
[2] {28:18} Sheol is the place of the dead.
[3] {29:2} or, Ariel
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