Yesha`yahu, starting at chapter 28
{28:1} Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Efrayim, and to
the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the
fat valley of those who are overcome with wine! {28:2} Behold, the
Lord has a mighty and strong one; as a tempest of hail, a destroying
storm, as a tempest of mighty waters overflowing, will he cast down to
the [1>]eretz[<1] with the hand. {28:3} The crown of pride of the
drunkards of Efrayim shall be trodden under foot: {28:4} and the
fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat
valley, shall be as the first-ripe fig before the summer; which when
he who looks on it sees, while it is yet in his hand he eats it up.
{28:5} In that day will the LORD of Hosts 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} Even these reel with wine, and
stagger with strong drink; the [2>]Kohen[<2] and the prophet reel with
strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they stagger with strong
drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. {28:8} For all
tables are full of vomit [and] filthiness, [so that there is] no place
[clean]. {28:9} Whom will he teach knowledge? and whom will he make to
understand 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} No, but by [men of] strange lips and with another language
will he speak to this people; {28:12} to whom he said, This is the
rest, give you rest to him who is weary; and this is the refreshing:
yet they would not hear. {28:13} Therefore shall the word of the LORD
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, and fall
backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. {28:14} Why hear the
word of the LORD, you scoffers, that rule this people that is in
Yerushalayim: {28:15} Because you have said, We have made a covenant
with death, and with She'ol are we at agreement; when the overflowing
scourge shall pass through, it shall not come to us; for we have made
lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: {28:16}
therefore thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Tziyon for a
foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner -[stone] of sure
foundation: he who believes shall not be in haste. {28:17} I will make
justice the line, and righteousness the plummet; and the hail shall
sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the
hiding-place. {28:18} Your covenant with death shall be annulled, and
your agreement with She'ol shall not stand; when the overflowing
scourge shall pass through, then you shall be trodden down by it.
{28:19} As often as it passes though, it shall take you; for morning
by morning shall it pass through, by day and by night: and it shall be
nothing but terror to understand the message. {28:20} For the bed is
shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering
narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. {28:21} For the LORD
will rise up as on Mount Perazim, he will be angry as in the valley of
Giv`on; that he may do his work, his strange work, and bring to pass
his act, his strange act. {28:22} Now therefore don't you be scoffers,
lest your bonds be made strong; for a decree of destruction have I
heard from the Lord, the LORD of Hosts, on the whole [3>]eretz[<3].
{28:23} Give you ear, and hear my voice; listen, and hear my speech.
{28:24} Does he who plows to sow plow continually? does he
[continually] open and harrow his ground? {28:25} When he has leveled
the surface of it, doesn't he cast abroad the dill, and scatter the
cumin, and put in the wheat in rows, and the barley in the appointed
place, and the spelt in the border of it? {28:26} For his God does
instruct him aright, [and] does teach him. {28:27} For the dill are
not threshed with a sharp [threshing] instrument, neither is a cart
wheel turned about on the cumin; but the dill are beaten out with a
staff, and the cumin with a rod. {28:28} Bread [grain] is ground; for
he will not be always threshing it: and though the wheel of his cart
and his horses scatter it, he does not grind it. {28:29} This also
comes forth from the LORD of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and
excellent in wisdom.
{29:1} Ho Ari'el, Ari'el, the city where David encamped! add you
year to year; let the feasts come round: {29:2} then will I distress
Ari'el, and there shall be mourning and lamentation; and she shall be
to me as Ari'el. {29:3} I will encamp against you round about, and
will lay siege against you with posted troops, and I will raise siege
works against you. {29:4} You shall be brought down, and shall speak
out of the ground, and your speech shall be low out of the dust; and
your voice shall be as of one who has a familiar spirit, out of the
ground, and your speech shall whisper out of the dust. {29:5} But the
multitude of your foes shall be like small dust, and the multitude of
the awesome ones as chaff that passes away: yes, it shall be in an
instant suddenly. {29:6} She shall be visited of the LORD of Hosts
with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with whirlwind and
tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire. {29:7} The multitude of
all the nations that fight against Ari'el, even all who fight against
her and her stronghold, and who distress her, shall be as a dream, a
vision of the night. {29:8} It shall be as when a hungry man dreams,
and, behold, he eats; but he awakes, and his soul is empty: or as when
a thirsty man dreams, and, behold, he drinks; but he awakes, and,
behold, he is faint, and his soul has appetite: so shall the multitude
of all the nations be, that fight against Mount Tziyon. {29:9} Stay
you and wonder; take your pleasure 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 the spirit of deep sleep, and has
closed your eyes, the prophets; and your heads, the seers, has he
covered. {29:11} All vision is become to you as the words of a book
that is sealed, which men deliver to one who is learned, saying, Read
this, I pray you; and he says, I can't, for it is sealed: {29:12} and
the book is delivered to him who is not learned, saying, Read this, I
pray you; and he says, I am not learned. {29:13} The Lord said,
Because this people draw near [to me], and with their mouth and with
their lips to honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and
their fear of me is a [1>]mitzvah[<1] of men which has been taught
[them]; {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 shall perish, and the understanding of their
prudent men shall be hid. {29:15} Woe to those who hide deep 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!
Shall the potter be esteemed as clay; that the thing made should say
of 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} Is it not yet a very
little while, and Levanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and
the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest? {29:18} 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. {29:19} The humble
also shall increase their joy in the LORD, and the poor among men
shall rejoice in the Holy One of Yisra'el. {29:20} For the terrible
one is brought to nothing, and the scoffer ceases, and all those who
watch for iniquity are cut off; {29:21} that make a man an offender in
[his] cause, and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate, and
turn aside the just with a thing of nothing. {29:22} Therefore thus
says the LORD, who redeemed Avraham, concerning the house of Ya`akov:
Ya`akov shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale.
{29:23} But when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in the
midst of him, they shall sanctify my name; yes, they shall sanctify
the Holy One of Ya`akov, and shall stand in awe of the God of
Yisra'el. {29:24} They also who err in spirit shall come to
understanding, and those who murmur shall receive instruction.
{30:1} Woe to the rebellious children, says the LORD, who take
counsel, but not of me; and who make a league, but not of my Spirit,
that they may add sin to sin, {30:2} that set out to go down into
Mitzrayim, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in
the strength of Par`oh, and to take refuge in the shadow of Mitzrayim!
{30:3} Therefore shall the strength of Par`oh be your shame, and the
refuge in the shadow of Mitzrayim your confusion. {30:4} For their
princes are at Tzo`an, and their ambassadors are 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, from whence come 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 a people that shall not profit [them]. {30:7} For Mitzrayim
helps in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I called her Rachav
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,
speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits, {30:11} get you out of
the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Yisra'el to
cease from before us. {30:12} Why thus says the Holy One of Yisra'el,
Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and
perverseness, and rely thereon; {30:13} therefore this iniquity shall
be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall,
whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant. {30:14} He shall break it
as a potter's vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing;
so that there shall not be found among the pieces of it a broken piece
with which 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 Yisra'el,
In returning and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and in
confidence shall be your strength. You would not: {30:16} but you
said, No, for we will flee on horses; therefore shall you flee: and,
We will ride on the swift; therefore shall those who pursue you be
swift. {30:17} One thousand [shall flee] at the threat of one; at the
threat of five shall you flee: until you be left as a beacon on the
top of a mountain, and as an ensign on a hill. {30:18} Therefore will
the LORD wait, that he may be gracious to you; and therefore will he
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 shall dwell in Tziyon at Yerushalayim; you shall weep no more;
he will surely be gracious to you at the voice of your cry; when he
shall hear, he will answer you. {30:20} Though the Lord give you the
bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet shall not your
teachers be hidden anymore, but your eyes shall see your teachers;
{30:21} and your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, This is
the way, walk you in it; when you turn to the right hand, and when you
turn to the left. {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,
Get you hence. {30:23} He will give the rain for your seed, with which
you shall sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground, and
it shall be fat and plenteous. In that day shall your cattle feed in
large pastures; {30:24} the oxen likewise and the young donkeys that
till the ground shall eat savory provender, which has been winnowed
with the shovel and with the fork. {30:25} There shall be on every
lofty mountain, and on every high hill, brooks [and] streams of
waters, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
{30:26} Moreover 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 that the LORD binds up the hurt of his people,
and heals the stroke of their wound. {30:27} Behold, the name of the
LORD comes from far, 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} and 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 causes to err [shall be] in the jaws of
the peoples. {30:29} You shall have a song as in the night when a holy
feast is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goes with a pipe to
come to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Yisra'el. {30:30} The
LORD will cause his glorious voice to be heard, and will show the
lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of [his] anger, and the
flame of a devouring fire, with a blast, and tempest, and hailstones.
{30:31} For through the voice of the LORD shall the Ashshur be
dismayed; with his rod will he strike [him]. {30:32} Every stroke of
the appointed staff, which the LORD shall lay on him, shall be with
[the sound of] timbrels and harps; and in battles with the brandishing
[of his arm] will he fight with them. {30:33} For a Tofet is prepared
of old; yes, for the king it is made ready; he has made it deep and
large; the pile of it is fire and much wood; the breath of the LORD,
like a stream of sulfur, does kindle it.
________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes:
[1] {28:2} earth
[2] {28:7} priest
[3] {28:22} earth
[1] {29:13} commandment
________________________________________________________________________
The Hebrew Names Version of the World English Bible is in the Public
Domain. Typo reports are welcome at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please see
http://eBible.org/bible/hnv for updates and editing status.
___
To unsubscribe, please send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
unsubscribe hnv
in the body of the message OR go to http://ebible.org/subscribe.htm
