1   The vision received by Isaiah son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

2   Hark you heavens, and earth give ear,
    for the Lord has spoken:
  I have sons whom I reared and brought up,
  but they have rebelled against me.
   3   The ox knows its owner
    and the ass its master's stall;
  but Israel, my own people,
  has no knowledge, no discernment.


4   O sinful nation, people loaded with iniquity,
race of evildoers, wanton destructive children
    who have deserted the Lord,
    spurned the Holy One of Israel
    and turned your backs on him.
   5   Where can you still be struck
    if you will be disloyal still?
    Your head is covered with sores,
    your body diseased;
6   from head to foot there is not a sound spot in you—
nothing but bruises and weals and raw wounds
  which have not felt compress or bandage
    or soothing oil.
7   Your country is desolate, your cities lie in ashes.
Strangers devour your land before your eyes;
  it is desolate as Sodom ^note in its overthrow.
     8   Only Zion is left,
  like a watchman's shelter in a vineyard,
  a shed in a field of cucumbers,
    a city well guarded.
9   If the Lord of Hosts had not left us a remnant,
  we should soon have been like Sodom,
    no better than Gomorrah.

Judah arraigned

10   Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom;
attend, you people of Gomorrah, to the instruction of our God:
   11   Your countless sacrifices, what are they to me?
    says the Lord.
  I am sated with whole-offerings of rams
    and the fat of buffaloes;
  I have no desire for the blood of bulls,
    of sheep and of he-goats.
   12    13   Whenever you come to enter my presence ^note—
  who asked you for this?
  No more shall you trample my courts.
    The offer of your gifts is useless,
  the reek of sacrifice is abhorrent to me.
  New moons and sabbaths and assemblies,
  sacred seasons and ceremonies, I cannot endure.
14   I cannot tolerate your new moons and your festivals;
  they have become a burden to me,
    and I can put up with them no longer.
     15   When you lift your hands outspread in prayer,
  I will hide my eyes from you.
  Though you offer countless prayers,
    I will not listen.
  There is blood on your hands;
     16   wash yourselves and be clean.
  Put away the evil of your deeds,
    away out of my sight.
17   Cease to do evil and learn to do right,
pursue justice and champion the oppressed;
give the orphan his rights, plead the widow's cause.


   18   Come now, let us argue it out,
    says the Lord.
  Though your sins are scarlet,
    they may become white as snow;
    though they are dyed crimson,
    they may yet be like wool.
     19   Obey with a will,
  and you shall eat the best that earth yields;
     20   but, if you refuse and rebel,
    locust-beans shall be your only food. ^note
  The Lord himself has spoken.

Judah arraigned

21   How the faithful city has played the whore,
once the home of justice where righteousness dwelt—
    but now murderers!
   22   Your silver has turned into base metal
  and your liquor is diluted with water.
23   Your very rulers are rebels, confederate with thieves;
  every man of them loves a bribe
    and itches for a gift;
    they do not give the orphan his rights,
  and the widow's cause never comes before them.

24   This therefore is the word of the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, the Mighty One of Israel:

  Enough! I will secure a respite from my foes
    and take vengeance on my enemies.
   25   Once again I will act against you
  to refine away your base metal as with potash
    and purge all your impurities;
   26   I will again make your judges what once they were
    and your counsellors like those of old.
  Then at length you shall be called
  the home of righteousness, the faithful city.
     27   Justice shall redeem Zion
    and righteousness her repentant people.
28   Rebels and sinners shall be broken together
  and those who forsake the Lord shall cease to be.
29   For the sacred oaks in which you delighted shall fail you, ^note
the garden-shrines of your fancy shall disappoint you.
30   You shall be like a terebinth whose leaves have withered,
  like a garden without water;
   31   the strongest tree ^note shall become like tow,
    and what is made of it ^note shall go up in sparks,
  and the two shall burst into flames together
    with no one to quench them.

1   This is the word which Isaiah son of Amoz received in a vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

     2    ^note In days to come
  the mountain of the Lord's house
  shall be set over all other mountains,
    lifted high above the hills.
  All the nations shall come streaming to it,

Judah arraigned
3   and many peoples shall come and say,
‘Come, let us climb up on to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the house of the God of Jacob,
    that he may teach us his ways
    and we may walk in his paths.’
  For instruction issues from Zion,
    and out of Jerusalem comes the word of the Lord;
     4   he will be judge between nations,
  arbiter among many peoples.
  They shall beat their swords into mattocks
    and their spears into pruning-knives; ^note
nation shall not lift sword against nation
  nor ever again be trained for war.


     5   O people of Jacob, come,
  let us walk in the light of the Lord.
6   Thou hast abandoned thy people the house of Jacob;
  for they are crowded with traders ^note
  and barbarians like the Philistines,
  and with the children of foreigners everywhere.
7   Their land is filled with silver and gold,
    and there is no end to their treasure;
  their land is filled with horses,
    and there is no end to their chariots;
   8   their land is filled with idols,
  and they bow down to the work of their own hands,
  to what their fingers have made.
   9   Mankind shall be brought low,
  all men shall be humbled;
  and how can they raise themselves? ^note
10   Get you into the rocks and hide yourselves in the ground
from the dread of the Lord and the splendour of his majesty.
   11   Man's proud eyes shall be humbled,
    the loftiness of men brought low,
  and the Lord alone shall be exalted
    on that day.


   12   For the Lord of Hosts has a day of doom waiting
    for all that is proud and lofty,
    for all that is high ^note and lifted up,
13   for all the cedars of Lebanon, lofty and high,
  and for all the oaks of Bashan,

Judah arraigned
14   for all lofty mountains and for all high hills,
15   for every high tower and for every sheer wall,
16   for all ships of Tarshish and all the dhows of Arabia. ^note
     17   Then man's pride shall be brought low,
    and the loftiness of man shall be humbled,
  and the Lord alone shall be exalted
    on that day,
   18   while the idols shall pass away utterly.
   19   Get you into caves in the rocks
    and crevices in the ground
from the dread of the Lord and the splendour of his majesty,
  when he rises to inspire the earth with fear.
20   On that day a man shall fling away
his idols of silver and his idols of gold
  which he has made for himself to worship;
he shall fling them to the dung-beetles and the bats,
21   and creep into clefts in the rocks and crannies in the cliffs
from the dread of the Lord and the splendour of his majesty,
  when he rises to inspire the earth with fear.
22   Have no more to do with man, for what is he worth?
  He is no more than the breath in his nostrils.


   1   Be warned: the Lord, the Lord of Hosts,
  is stripping Jerusalem and Judah
    of every prop and stay, ^note
     2   warrior and soldier,
judge and prophet, diviner and elder,
   3   captains of companies ^note and men of rank,
  counsellor, magician, and cunning enchanter.
   4   Then I will appoint mere boys to be their captains,
  who shall govern as the fancy takes them;
     5   the people shall deal harshly
each man with his fellow and with his neighbour;
  children shall break out against their elders,
    and nobodies against men of substance.
6   If a man takes hold of his brother in his father's house,
saying, ‘You have a cloak, you shall be our chief;
  our stricken family shall be under you’,
7   he will cry out that day and say,
    ‘I will not be your master;
  there is neither bread nor cloak in my house,
  and you shall not make me head of the clan.’

Judah arraigned

8   Jerusalem is stricken and Judah fallen
  because they have spoken and acted against the Lord,
    rebelling against the glance of his glorious eye.
   9   The look on their faces testifies against them;
  like Sodom they proclaim their sins
    and do not conceal them. ^note
Woe upon them! they have earned their own disaster.
   10   Happy ^note the righteous man! all goes well with him,
  for such men enjoy the fruit of their actions.
   11   Woe betide the wicked! with him all goes ill,
  for he reaps the reward that he has earned.
   12   Money-lenders strip my people bare,
  and usurers lord it over them.
  O my people! your guides lead you astray
    and confuse the path that you should take.
   13   The Lord comes forward to argue his case
  and stands to judge his people. ^note
   14   The Lord opens the indictment
  against the elders of his people and their officers:
  You have ravaged the vineyard,
    and the spoils of the poor are in your houses.
   15   Is it nothing to you that you crush my people
    and grind the faces of the poor?
This is the very word of the Lord, the Lord of Hosts.


     16   Then the Lord said:
  Because the women of Zion hold themselves high
and walk with necks outstretched and wanton glances,
  moving with mincing gait
    and jingling feet,
17   the Lord will give the women of Zion bald heads,
the Lord will strip the hair from their foreheads.

18   In that day the Lord will take away all finery: anklets, discs, crescents, 19    20   pendants, bangles, coronets, head-bands, armlets, necklaces, lockets, 21    22   charms, signets, nose-rings, fine dresses, mantles, cloaks, flounced skirts, 23   scarves of gauze, kerchiefs of linen, turbans, and flowing veils.

24   So instead of perfume you shall have the stench of decay,
    and a rope in place of a girdle,
  baldness instead of hair elegantly coiled,
  a loin-cloth of sacking instead of a mantle,

Judah arraigned
    and branding instead of beauty.
   25   Your men shall fall by the sword,
    and your warriors in battle;
   26   then Zion's gates shall mourn and lament,
  and she shall sit on the ground stripped bare.


     1   Then on that day
seven women shall take hold of one man and say,
‘We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes
  if only we may be called by your name;
    take away our disgrace.’


   2   On that day the plant that the Lord has grown
  shall become glorious in its beauty,
  and the fruit of the land shall be
    the pride and splendour
    of the survivors of Israel.

3   Then those who are left in Zion, who remain in Jerusalem, every one enrolled in the book of life, ^note shall be called holy. 4   If the Lord washes away the filth of the women of Zion and cleanses Jerusalem from the blood that is in it by a spirit of judgement, 5   a consuming spirit, then over every building on Mount Zion and on all her places of assembly the Lord will create a cloud of smoke by day and a bright flame of fire by night; 6   for glory shall be spread over all as a covering and a canopy, a shade from the heat by day, a refuge and a shelter from rain and tempest.

   1   I will sing for my beloved
    my love-song about his vineyard:
  My beloved had a vineyard
    high up on a fertile hill-side.
     2   He trenched it and cleared it of stones
    and planted it with red vines;
  he built a watch-tower in the middle
  and then hewed out a winepress in it.
  He looked for it to yield grapes,
    but it yielded wild grapes.
   3   Now, you who live in Jerusalem,
    and you men of Judah,
  judge between me and my vineyard.
   4   What more could have been done for my vineyard
  that I did not do in it?
Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes,

Judah arraigned
    did it yield wild grapes?
   5   Now listen while I tell you
  what I will do to my vineyard:
I will take away its fences and let it be burnt,
I will break down its walls and let it be trampled underfoot,
     6   and so I will leave it derelict;
  it shall be neither pruned nor hoed,
  but shall grow thorns and briars.
    Then I will command the clouds
  to send no more rain upon it.
7   The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is Israel,
  and the men of Judah are the plant he cherished.
He looked for justice and found it denied,
  for righteousness but heard cries of distress.


8   Shame on you! you who add house to house
  and join field to field,
  until not an acre remains,
and you are left to dwell alone in the land.
   9   The Lord of Hosts has sworn ^note in my hearing:
Many houses shall go to ruin,
fine large houses shall be uninhabited.
10   Five acres ^note of vineyard shall yield only a gallon, ^note
and ten bushels ^note of seed return only a peck. ^note
   11   Shame on you! you who rise early in the morning
    to go in pursuit of liquor
and draw out the evening inflamed with wine,
   12   at whose feasts there are harp and lute,
  tabor and pipe and wine,
  who have no eyes for the work of the Lord,
    and never see the things that he has done.
   13   Therefore my people are dwindling away
    all unawares;
    the nobles are starving to death,
  and the common folk die of thirst.
14   Therefore Sheol gapes with straining throat
  and has opened her measureless jaws:
  down go nobility and common people,
  their noisy bustling mob. ^note
15   Mankind is brought low, men are humbled,
    humbled are haughty looks.

Judah arraigned
16   But the Lord of Hosts sits high in judgement,
and by righteousness the holy God shows himself holy.
17   Young rams shall feed where fat bullocks once pastured,
and kids shall graze broad acres where cattle grew fat. ^note
18   Shame on you! you who drag wickedness along like a tethered sheep
  and sin like a heifer on a rope,
   19   who say, ‘Let the Lord ^note make haste,
  let him speed up his work for us to see it,
  let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel
  be soon fulfilled, so that we may know it.’
20   Shame on you! you who call evil good and good evil,
who turn darkness into light and light into darkness,
who make bitter sweet and sweet bitter.
   21   Shame on you! you who are wise in your own eyes
    and prudent in your own esteem.
22   Shame on you! you mighty topers, valiant mixers of drink,
   23   who for a bribe acquit the guilty
  and deny justice to those in the right.


26    ^note So he will hoist a signal to a nation far away,
  he will whistle to call them from the end of the earth;
  and see, they come, speedy and swift;
   27   none is weary, not one of them stumbles,
    not one slumbers or sleeps.
  None has his belt loose about his waist
    or a broken thong to his sandals.
28   Their arrows are sharpened and their bows all strung,
  their horses' hooves flash like shooting stars,
    their chariot-wheels are like the whirlwind.
   29   Their growling is the growling of a lioness,
    they growl like young lions,
  which roar as they seize the prey
    and carry it beyond reach of rescue.
   30   They shall roar over it on that day
    like the roaring of the sea.
If a man looks over the earth, behold, darkness closing in,
  and the light darkened on the hill-tops ^note!

The call of Isaiah

1   In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the skirt of his robe filled the temple. 2   About him were attendant seraphim, and each had six wings; one pair covered his face and one pair his feet, and one pair was spread in flight. 3   They were calling ceaselessly to one another,

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts:
  the whole earth is full of his glory.

4   And, as each one called, the threshold shook to its foundations, while the house was filled with smoke. 5   Then I cried,

    Woe is me! I am lost,
  for I am a man of unclean lips
and I dwell among a people of unclean lips;
yet with these eyes I have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.

6   Then one of the seraphim flew to me carrying in his hand a glowing coal which he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7   He touched my mouth with it and said,

  See, this has touched your lips;
    your iniquity is removed,
    and your sin is wiped away.

8   Then I heard the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? Who will go for me? 9   And I answered, Here am I; send me. He said, Go and tell this people:

  You may listen and listen, but you will not understand. ^note
  You may look and look again, but you will never know. ^note
   10   This people's wits are dulled,
their ears are deafened and their eyes blinded,
    so that they cannot see with their eyes
    nor listen with their ears
    nor understand with their wits,
  so that they may turn and be healed.

11   Then I asked, How long, O Lord? And he answered,

Until cities fall in ruins and are deserted,
  houses are left without people,
and the land goes to ruin and lies waste,

The call of Isaiah
   12   until the Lord has sent all mankind far away,
  and the whole country is one vast desolation.
   13   Even if a tenth part of its people remain there,
  they too will be exterminated
    [like an oak or a terebinth,
  a sacred pole thrown out from its place in a hill-shrine ^note].
Prophecies during the Syro-Ephraimite war

1   While Ahaz son of Jotham and grandson of Uzziah was king of Judah, Rezin king of Aram with Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, marched on Jerusalem, but could not force a battle. 2   When the house of David heard that the Aramaeans had come to terms with the Ephraimites, king and people were shaken like forest trees in the wind. 3   Then the Lord said to Isaiah, Go out with your son Shearjashub ^note to meet Ahaz at the end of the conduit of the Upper Pool by the causeway leading to the Fuller's Field, 4   and say to him, Be on your guard, keep calm; do not be frightened or unmanned by these two smouldering stumps of firewood, because Rezin and his Aramaeans with Remaliah's son are burning with rage. 5   The Aramaeans with Ephraim and Remaliah's son have laid their plans against you, saying, Let us invade Judah and break her spirit; ^note 6   let us make her join with us, and set the son of Tabeal on the throne. 7   Therefore the Lord God has said:

  This shall not happen now, and never shall,
   8   for all that the chief city of Aram is Damascus,
    and Rezin is the chief of Damascus;
  within sixty-five years
  Ephraim shall cease to be a nation,
     9   for all that Samaria is the chief city of Ephraim,
    and Remaliah's son the chief of Samaria.
Have firm faith, or you will not stand firm.

10    11   Once again the Lord spoke to Ahaz and said, Ask the Lord your God for a sign, from lowest Sheol or from highest heaven. 12   But Ahaz said, No, I will not put the Lord to the test by asking for a sign. 13   Then the answer came: Listen, house of David. Are you not content to wear out men's patience? Must you also wear out the patience of my God? 14   Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: A young woman

Prophecies during the Syro-Ephraimite war is with child, and she will bear a son, and will ^note call him Immanuel. ^note 15   By the time that he has learnt to reject evil and choose good, he will be eating curds and honey; ^note 16   before that child has learnt to reject evil and choose good, desolation will come upon the land before whose two kings you cower now. 17   The Lord will bring on you, your people, and your house, a time the like of which has not been seen since Ephraim broke away from Judah. ^note

18   On that day the Lord will whistle for the fly from the distant streams of Egypt and for the bee from Assyria. 19   They shall all come and settle in the precipitous ravines and in the clefts of the rock; camel-thorn and stinkwood shall be black with them. 20   On that day the Lord shall shave the head and body with a razor hired on the banks of the Euphrates, ^note and it shall remove the beard as well. 21   On that day a man shall save alive a young cow and two ewes; 22   and he shall get so much milk that he eats curds; for all who are left in the land shall eat curds and honey. 23   On that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines worth a thousand pieces of silver shall be given over to thorns and briars. 24   A man shall go there only to hunt with bow and arrows, for thorns and briars cover the whole land; 25   and no one who fears thorns and briars shall set foot on any of those hills once worked with the hoe. Oxen shall be turned loose on them, and sheep shall trample them.

1   The Lord said to me, Take a large tablet and write on it in common writing, ^note Maher-shalal-hash-baz; ^note 2   and fetch ^note Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah for me as trustworthy witnesses. 3   Then I lay with the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son; and the Lord said to me, Call him Maher-shalal-hash-baz. 4   Before the boy can say Father or Mother, the wealth of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria shall be carried off and presented to the king of Assyria.

5   Once again the Lord said to me:

   6   Because this nation has rejected
the waters of Shiloah, which run so softly and gently, ^note
7   therefore the Lord will bring up against it
  the strong, flooding waters of the Euphrates,
  the king of Assyria and all his glory;
  it shall run up all its channels
  and overflow all its banks;
   8   it shall sweep through Judah in a flood,
  pouring over it and rising shoulder-high.

Prophecies during the Syro-Ephraimite war
  The whole expanse of the land shall be filled,
  so wide he spreads his wings; for God is with us. ^note
9   Take note, ^note you nations, and be dismayed.
  Listen, all you distant parts of the earth:
    you may arm yourselves but will be dismayed;
    you may arm yourselves but will be dismayed.
   10   Make your plans, but they will be foiled,
  propose what you please, but it shall not stand;
    for God is with us. ^note

11   These were the words of the Lord to me, for his hand was strong upon me; and he warned me not to follow ^note the ways of this people: 12   You shall not say ‘too hard’ of everything that this people calls hard; you shall neither dread nor fear that which they fear. 13   It is the Lord of Hosts whom you must count ‘hard’; ^note he it is whom you must fear and dread. 14   He shall become your ‘hardship’, ^note a boulder and a rock which the two houses of Israel shall run against and over which they shall stumble, a trap and a snare to those who live in Jerusalem; and many shall stumble over them, 15   many shall fall and be broken, many shall be snared and caught.

     16   Fasten up the message,
seal the oracle with my teaching; ^note
     17   and I will wait for the Lord
  who hides his face from the house of Jacob;
    I will watch for him.
18   See, I and the sons whom the Lord has given me
  are to be signs and portents in Israel,
sent by the Lord of Hosts who dwells on Mount Zion.
     19   But men will say to you,
  ‘Seek guidance of ghosts and familiar spirits
    who squeak and gibber;
  a nation may surely seek guidance of its gods,
  of the dead on behalf of the living,
     20   for an oracle or a message?’
They will surely say some such thing as this;
    but what they say is futile.
21   So despondency and fear will come over them,
  and then, when they are afraid and fearful,
  they will turn against their king and their gods.

Prophecies during the Syro-Ephraimite war
   22   Then, whether they turn their gaze upwards or look down,
    everywhere is distress and darkness inescapable,
    constraint and gloom that cannot be avoided;


   1    ^note for there is no escape for an oppressed people.

For, while the first invader has dealt lightly with the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the second has dealt heavily with Galilee of the Nations on the road beyond Jordan to the sea.

   2    ^note The people who walked in darkness
  have seen a great light:
  light has dawned upon them,
    dwellers in a land as dark as death.
3   Thou hast increased their joy and ^note given them great gladness;
they rejoice in thy presence as men rejoice at harvest,
or as they are glad when they share out the spoil;
   4   for thou hast shattered the yoke that burdened them,
    the collar that lay heavy on their shoulders,
  the driver's goad, as on the day of Midian's defeat.
   5   All the boots of trampling soldiers
  and the garments fouled with blood
shall become a burning mass, fuel for fire.
6   For a boy has been born for us, a son given to us
  to bear the symbol of dominion on his shoulder;
    and he shall be called
    in purpose wonderful, in battle God-like,
    Father for all time, ^note Prince of peace.
   7   Great ^note shall the dominion be,
    and boundless the peace
  bestowed on David's throne and on his kingdom,
  to establish it and sustain it
    with justice and righteousness
    from now and for evermore.
  The zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall do this.

Prophecies addressed to Israel

8   The Lord has sent forth his word against Jacob
    and it shall fall on Israel;
   9   all the people shall be humbled,

Prophecies addressed to Israel
    Ephraim and the dwellers in Samaria,
  though in their pride and arrogance they say,
10   The bricks are fallen, but we will build in hewn stone;
  the sycomores are hacked down,
  but we will use cedars instead.
11   The Lord has raised their foes ^note high against them
    and spurred on their enemies,
12   Aramaeans from the east and Philistines from the west,
  and they have swallowed Israel in one mouthful.
  For all this his anger has not turned back,
  and his hand is stretched out still.
   13   Yet the people did not come back to him who struck them,
    or seek guidance of the Lord of Hosts;
14   therefore on one day the Lord cut off from Israel
head and tail, palm and reed. ^note
16   This people's guides have led them astray;
    those who should have been guided are in confusion.
17   Therefore the Lord showed no mercy to their young men,
  no tenderness to their orphans and widows;
  all were godless and evildoers,
  every one speaking profanity.
  For all this his anger has not turned back,
  and his hand is stretched out still.


   18   Wicked men have been set ablaze like a fire
  fed with briars and thorns,
    kindled in the forest thickets;
    they are wrapped in a murky pall of smoke.
19   The land is scorched by the fury of the Lord of Hosts,
  and the people have become fuel for the fire. ^note
   20   On the right, one man eats his fill but yet is hungry;
  on the left, another devours but is not satisfied;
  each feeds on his own children's flesh,
  and neither spares his own brother. ^note
   21    ^note For all this his anger has not turned back,
  and his hand is stretched out still.


   1   Shame on you! you who make unjust laws
  and publish burdensome decrees,
   2   depriving the poor of justice,

Prophecies addressed to Israel
  robbing the weakest of my people of their rights,
despoiling the widow and plundering the orphan.
   3   What will you do when called to account,
  when ruin from afar confronts you?
  To whom will you flee for help
  and where will you leave your children,
   4   so that they do not cower before the gaoler
    or fall by the executioner's hand?
  For all this his anger has not turned back,
  and his hand is stretched out still.


24    ^note So, as tongues of fire lick up the stubble
  and the heat of the flame dies down,
  their root shall moulder away,
  and their shoots vanish like dust;
for they have spurned the instruction of the Lord of Hosts
and have rejected the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25    ^note So the anger of the Lord is roused against his people,
he has stretched out his hand against them and struck them down;
    the mountains trembled,
  and their corpses lay like offal in the streets.
  For all this his anger has not turned back,
  and his hand is stretched out still.


   5   The Assyrian! He is the rod that I wield in my anger,
  and the staff of my wrath is in his hand. ^note
   6   I send him against a godless nation,
  I bid him march against a people who rouse my wrath,
to spoil and plunder at will
  and trample them down like mud in the streets.
   7   But this man's purpose is lawless,
  lawless are the plans in his mind;
    for his thought is only to destroy
  and to wipe out nation after nation.
8   ‘Are not my officers all kings?’ he says;
   9   ‘see how Calno has suffered the fate of Carchemish.
Is not Hamath like Arpad, and Samaria like Damascus?
10   Before now I have found kingdoms full of idols,
  with more images than Jerusalem and Samaria,
11   and now, what I have done to Samaria and her worthless gods,
I will do also to Jerusalem and her idols.’

Prophecies addressed to Israel

12   When the Lord has finished all that he means to do on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, he ^note will punish the king of Assyria for this fruit of his pride and for his arrogance and vainglory, 13   because he said:

  By my own might I have acted
  and in my own wisdom I have laid my schemes;
  I have removed the frontiers of nations
    and plundered their treasures,
  like a bull I have trampled on their inhabitants.
14   My hand has found its way to the wealth of nations,
  and, as a man takes the eggs from a deserted nest,
  so have I taken every land;
  not a wing fluttered,
  not a beak gaped, no chirp was heard.


   15   Shall the axe set itself up against the hewer,
  or the saw claim mastery over the sawyer,
  as if a stick were to brandish him who wields it,
  or a staff of wood to wield one who is not wood?


16   Therefore the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, will send disease
  on his sturdy frame, from head to toe, ^note
and within his flesh ^note a fever like fire shall burn.
   17   The light of Israel shall become a fire
    and his Holy One a flame,
which in one day shall burn up and consume
    his thorns and his briars;
18   the glory of forest and meadow shall be destroyed
    as when a man falls in a fit;
   19   and the remnant of trees in the forest shall be so few
    that a child may count them one by one.

20   On that day the remnant of Israel, the survivors of Jacob, shall cease to lean on him that proved their destroyer, but shall loyally lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

   21   A remnant shall turn again, a remnant of Jacob,
    to God their champion.
22   Your people, Israel, may be many as the sands of the sea,
    but only a remnant shall turn again,
  the instrument of final destruction,
    justice in full flood; ^note

Prophecies addressed to Israel
23   for the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, will bring final destruction
    upon all the earth.

24   Therefore these are the words of the Lord, the Lord of Hosts: My people who live in Zion, you must not be afraid of the Assyrians, though they beat you with their rod and lift their staff against you as the Egyptians did; 25   for soon, very soon, my anger will come to an end, and my wrath will all be spent. ^note 26   Then the Lord of Hosts will brandish his whip over them as he did when he struck Midian at the Rock of Oreb, and will lift his staff against the River as he did against Egypt.

     27   On that day
  the burden they laid on your shoulder shall be removed
  and their yoke shall be broken from your neck.
28   An invader from Rimmon ^note has come to Aiath,
    has passed by Migron,
  and left his baggage-train at Michmash;
     29   he has passed by Maabarah
  and camped for the night at Geba.
Ramah is anxious, Gibeah of Saul is in panic.
   30   Raise a shrill cry, Bath-gallim;
hear it, Laish, and answer her, Anathoth:
31   ‘Madmenah is in flight; take refuge, people of Gebim.’
32   Today he is due to pitch his camp in Nob;
    he gives the signal to advance
  against the mount of the daughter of Zion,
    the hill of Jerusalem.


   33   Look, the Lord, the Lord of Hosts,
  cleaves the trees with a flash of lightning,
the tallest are hewn down, the lofty laid low,
   34   the heart of the forest is felled with the axe,
  and Lebanon with its noble trees has fallen.


   1   Then a shoot shall grow from the stock of Jesse,
  and a branch shall spring ^note from his roots.
   2   The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
    a spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    a spirit of counsel ^note and power,
    a spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. ^note
   3   He shall not judge by what he sees
  nor decide by what he hears;

Prophecies addressed to Israel
   4   he shall judge the poor with justice
  and defend the humble in the land with equity;
  his mouth shall be a rod to strike down the ruthless, ^note
  and with a word he shall slay the wicked.
5   Round his waist he shall wear the belt of justice,
  and good faith shall be the girdle round his body.
   6   Then the wolf shall live with the sheep,
  and the leopard lie down with the kid;
the calf and the young lion shall grow up ^note together,
and a little child shall lead them;
   7   the cow and the bear shall be friends,
  and their young shall lie down together.
The lion shall eat straw like cattle;
8   the infant shall play over the hole of the cobra,
and the young child dance over the viper's nest.
9   They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain;
  for as the waters fill the sea,
so shall the land be filled with the knowledge of the Lord.


   10   On that day a scion from the root of Jesse
  shall be set up as a signal to the peoples;
  the nations shall rally to it,
  and its resting-place shall be glorious.

11   On that day the Lord will make his power more glorious by recovering the remnant of his people, those who are still left, from Assyria and Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush and Elam, from Shinar, Hamath and the islands of the sea.

   12   Then he will raise a signal to the nations
    and gather together those driven out of Israel;
    he will assemble Judah's scattered people
    from the four corners of the earth.
     13   Ephraim's jealousy shall vanish,
    and Judah's enmity shall be done away.
  Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah,
  nor Judah the enemy of Ephraim.
14   They shall swoop down on the Philistine flank in the west
  and together they shall plunder the tribes of the east;
  Edom and Moab shall be within their grasp,
    and Ammon shall obey them.
15   The Lord will divide the tongue of the Egyptian sea
  and wave his hand over the River
    to bring a scorching wind;

Prophecies addressed to Israel
  he shall split it into seven channels
  and let men go across dry-shod.
16   So there shall be a causeway for the remnant of his people,
    for the remnant rescued from Assyria,
as there was for Israel when they came up out of Egypt.


   1   You shall say on that day:
    I will praise thee, O Lord,
    though thou hast been angry with me;
    thy anger has turned back, ^note
    and thou hast comforted me.
   2   God is indeed my deliverer.
    I am confident and unafraid;
  for the Lord is my refuge and defence ^note
    and has shown himself my deliverer.
   3   And so you shall draw water with joy
    from the springs of deliverance.


   4   You shall all say on that day:
Give thanks to the Lord and invoke him by name,
  make his deeds known in the world around;
  declare that his name is supreme.
5   Sing psalms to the Lord, for he has triumphed,
  and this must be made known in all the world.
   6   Cry out, shout aloud, you that dwell in Zion,
for the Holy One of Israel is among you in majesty.
Prophecies relating to foreign nations

1   Babylon: an oracle which Isaiah son of Amoz received in a vision.

   2   Raise the standard on a windy height,
  roar out your summons,
  beckon with arm upraised to the advance,
    draw ^note your swords, you nobles.
   3   I have given my warriors their orders
  and summoned my fighting men to launch my anger;
    they are eager for my triumph.
4   Hark, a tumult in the mountains, the sound of a vast multitude;
hark, the roar of kingdoms, of nations gathering!

Prophecies relating to foreign nations
The Lord of Hosts is mustering a host for war,
5   men from a far country, from beyond the horizon.
    It is the Lord with the weapons of his wrath
    coming to lay the whole land waste.
   6   Howl, for the Day of the Lord is at hand;
  it comes, a mighty blow from Almighty God.
   7   Thereat shall every hand hang limp,
  every man's courage shall melt away,
     8   his stomach hollow with fear;
anguish shall grip them, like a woman in labour.
  One man shall look aghast at another,
    and their faces shall burn with shame.
   9   The Day of the Lord is coming indeed,
  that cruel day of wrath and fury,
  to make the land a desolation
  and exterminate its wicked people.
10   The stars of heaven in their constellations shall give no light,
  the sun shall be darkened at its rising,
  and the moon refuse to shine.
   11   I will bring disaster upon the world
  and their due punishment upon the wicked.
    I will check the pride of the haughty
    and bring low the arrogance of ruthless men.
   12   I will make men scarcer than fine gold,
  rarer than gold of Ophir.
   13   Then the heavens shall shudder, ^note
  and the earth shall be shaken from its place
at the fury of the Lord of Hosts, on the day of his anger.
     14   Then, like a gazelle before the hunter
    or a flock with no man to round it up,
  each man will go back to his own people,
  every one will flee to his own land.
     15   All who are found will be stabbed,
  all who are taken will fall by the sword;
16   their infants will be dashed to the ground before their eyes,
their houses rifled and their wives ravished.
   17   I will stir up against them the Medes,
  who care nothing for silver and are not tempted by gold, ^note
   18   who have no pity on little children
  and spare no mother's son;
     19   and Babylon, fairest of kingdoms,

Prophecies relating to foreign nations
    proud beauty of the Chaldaeans,
  shall be like Sodom and Gomorrah
    when God overthrew them.
     20   Never again shall she be inhabited,
  no man shall dwell in her through all the ages;
  there no Arab shall pitch his tent,
  no shepherds fold their flocks.
   21   There marmots shall have their lairs,
  and porcupines ^note shall overrun her houses;
  there desert owls shall dwell,
  and there he-goats shall gambol;
   22   jackals shall occupy her mansions, ^note
    and wolves her ^note gorgeous palaces.
  Her time draws very near,
  and her days have not long to run.

1   The Lord will show compassion for Jacob and will once again make Israel his choice. He will settle them on their own soil, and strangers will come to join them and attach themselves to Jacob. 2   Many ^note nations shall escort Israel to her place, and she shall employ them as slaves and slave-girls on the land of the Lord; she shall take her captors captive and rule over her task-masters.

3   When the Lord gives you relief from your pain and your fears and from the cruel slavery laid upon you, 4   you will take up this song of derision over the king of Babylon:

See how the oppressor has met his end and his frenzy ^note ceased!
5   The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked,
  the sceptre of the ruler
   6   who struck down peoples in his rage
    with unerring blows,
  who crushed nations in anger
  and persecuted them unceasingly.
7   The whole world has rest and is at peace;
  it breaks into cries of joy.
8   The pines themselves and the cedars of Lebanon exult over you:
  Since you have been laid low, they say,
  no man comes up to fell us.


   9   Sheol below was all astir
    to meet you at your coming;
  she roused the ancient dead to meet you,

Prophecies relating to foreign nations
    all who had been leaders on earth;
    she made all who had been kings of the nations
    rise from their thrones.
10   One and all they greet you with these words:
  So you too are weak as we are,
    and have become one of us!
   11   Your pride and all the music of your lutes
    have been brought down to Sheol; ^note
  maggots are the pallet beneath you,
    and worms your coverlet.


12   How you have fallen from heaven, bright morning star,
felled to the earth, sprawling helpless across the nations!
   13   You thought in your own mind,
    I will scale the heavens;
I will set my throne high above the stars of God,
  I will sit on the mountain where the gods meet
    in the far recesses of the north.
   14   I will rise high above the cloud-banks
    and make myself like the Most High.
   15   Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
    to the depths of the abyss.
   16   Those who see you will stare at you,
    they will look at you and ponder:
Is this, they will say, the man who shook the earth,
    who made kingdoms quake,
   17   who turned the world into a desert
    and laid its cities in ruins,
  who never let his prisoners go free to their homes,
     18   the kings of every land?
  Now they lie all of them in honour,
    each in his last home.
   19   But you have been flung out unburied,
    mere loathsome carrion, ^note
  a companion to the slain pierced by the sword
  who have gone down to the stony abyss.
    And you, a corpse trampled underfoot,
   20   shall not share burial with them,
for you have ruined your land and slaughtered your people.
Such a brood of evildoers shall never be seen again.
   21   Make the shambles ready for his sons
    butchered for their fathers' sin;

Prophecies relating to foreign nations
  they shall not rise up and possess the world
  nor cover the face of the earth with cities.

22   I will rise against them, says the Lord of Hosts; I will destroy the name of Babylon and what remains of her, her offspring and posterity, says the Lord; 23   I will make her a haunt of the bustard, a waste of fen, and sweep her with the besom of destruction. This is the very word of the Lord of Hosts.

   24   The Lord of Hosts has sworn:
In very truth, as I planned, so shall it be; ^note
  as I designed, so shall it fall out:
   25   I will break the Assyrian in my own land
    and trample him underfoot upon my mountains;
  his yoke shall be lifted from you,
  his burden taken from your ^note shoulders.
26   This is the plan prepared for the whole earth,
this the hand stretched out over all the nations.
   27   For the Lord of Hosts has prepared his plan:
    who shall frustrate it?
His is the hand stretched out, and who shall turn it back?

28   In the year that King Ahaz died this oracle came from God:

   29   Let none of you rejoice, you Philistines,
    because the rod that chastised you is broken;
for a viper shall be born of a snake as a plant from the root,
  and its fruit shall be a flying serpent.
   30   But the poor shall graze their flocks in my meadows,
  and the destitute shall lie down in peace;
  but the offspring of your roots I will kill by starvation,
    and put ^note the remnant of you to death.
31   Howl in the gate, cry for help in the city,
  let all Philistia be in turmoil;
  for a great enemy is coming from the north,
    not a man straying from ^note his ranks.
   32   What answer is there for the envoys of the nation?
  This, that the Lord has fixed Zion in her place,
  and the afflicted among his people shall take refuge there.
1   Moab: an oracle.

On the night when Ar is sacked, Moab meets her doom;
on the night when Kir is sacked, Moab meets her doom.

Prophecies relating to foreign nations
2   The people of Dibon go up ^note to the hill-shrines to weep;
Moab howls over Nebo and over Medeba.
The hair is torn from every head, and every beard shaved off.
   3   In the streets men go clothed with sackcloth,
    they cry out ^note on the roofs;
  in the public squares every man howls,
    weeping as he goes through them.
   4   Heshbon and Elealeh cry for help,
  their voices are heard as far as Jahaz.
  Thus Moab's stoutest warriors become cowards,
  and her courage ebbs away.
   5   My heart cries out for Moab,
  whose nobles have fled ^note as far as Zoar. ^note
On the ascent to Luhith men go up weeping;
on the road to Horonaim there are cries of ^note ‘Disaster!’
6   The waters of Nimrim are desolate indeed;
the grass is parched, the herbage dead,
    not a green thing is left;
7   and so the people carry off across the gorge of the Arabim
  their hard-earned wealth and all their savings.
8   The cry for help echoes round the frontiers of Moab,
their howling reaches Eglaim and Beer-elim.
   9   The waters of Dimon already run with blood;
  yet I have more troubles in store for Dimon,
    for I have a vision ^note of the survivors of Moab,
    of the remnant of Admah.


1   The rulers of the country send a present of lambs
    from Sela in the wilderness
  to the hill of the daughter of Zion;
2   the daughters of Moab at the fords of the Arnon
shall be like fluttering birds, like scattered nestlings.
3   ‘Take up our cause with all your might;
let your shadow shield us at high noon, dark as night.
Shelter the homeless, do not betray the fugitive;
4   let the homeless people of Moab find refuge with you;
hide them from the despoiler.’


When extortion has done its work and the looting is over,
  when the heel of the oppressor has vanished from the land,
5   a throne shall be set up in mutual trust in David's tent,

Prophecies relating to foreign nations
  and on it there shall sit a true judge,
one who seeks justice and is swift to do right.


   6   We have heard tell of Moab's pride, how great it is,
  we have heard of his pride, his overweening pride;
    his talk is full of lies.
   7   For this all Moab shall howl;
  Moab shall howl indeed;
he ^note shall mourn for the prosperous farmers of Kir-hareseth,
    utterly ruined;
     8   the orchards of Heshbon,
    the vines of Sibmah languish,
though their red grapes once laid low the lords of the nations,
    though they reached as far as Jazer
    and trailed out to the wilderness,
though their branches spread abroad and crossed the sea.
9   Therefore I will weep for Sibmah's vines as I weep for Jazer.
I will drench you with my tears, Heshbon and Elealeh;
  for over your summer-fruits and your harvest
    the shouts of the harvesters are ended.
10   Joy and gladness shall be banished from the meadows,
no more shall men shout and sing in the vineyards,
  no more shall they tread wine in the winepresses;
    I have silenced the shouting of the harvesters.
   11   Therefore my heart throbs
    like a harp for Moab,
    and my very soul for Kir-hareseth. ^note
     12   When Moab comes to worship
    and wearies himself at the hill-shrines,
  when he enters his sanctuary to pray,
    he will gain nothing.

13   These are the words which the Lord spoke long ago about Moab; and now he says, 14   In three years, as a hired labourer counts them off, the glory of Moab shall become contemptible for all his vast numbers; a handful shall be left ^note and those of no account. 1   Damascus: an oracle.

Damascus shall be a city no longer,
    she shall be but a heap of ruins.
2   For ever desolate, flocks shall have her for their own, ^note
    and lie there undisturbed.

Prophecies relating to foreign nations
   3   No longer shall Ephraim boast a fortified city,
    or Damascus a kingdom;
the remnant of Aram and the glory of Israel, their fate is one.
  This is the very word of the Lord of Hosts.


   4   On that day Jacob's weight shall dwindle
    and the fat on his limbs waste away,
5   as when the harvester gathers up the standing corn,
  and reaps the ears in armfuls,
or as when a man gleans the ears in the Vale of Rephaim,
     6   or as when one beats an olive-tree
  and only gleanings are left on it,
two or three berries on the top of a branch,
  four or five on the boughs of the fruiting tree.
This is the very word of the Lord the God of Israel.

7   On that day men shall look to their Maker and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel; 8   they shall not look to the altars made by their own hands nor to anything that their fingers have made, sacred poles or incense-altars.

9   On that day their strong cities shall be deserted like the cities of the Hivites and the Amorites, ^note which they abandoned when Israel came in; all shall be desolate.

   10   For you forgot the God who delivered you,
  and did not remember the rock, your stronghold.
Plant then, if you will, your gardens in honour of Adonis,
    strike your cuttings for a foreign god;
   11   protect your gardens on the day you plant them,
    and next day make the seed sprout.
  But the crop will be scorched when wasting disease comes
    in the day of incurable pain.


   12   Listen! it is the thunder of many peoples,
  they thunder with the thunder of the sea.
  Listen! it is the roar of nations
  roaring with the roar of mighty waters. ^note
   13   When he rebukes them, away they fly,
  driven like chaff on the hills before the wind,
    like thistledown before the storm.
   14   At evening all is confusion,
    and before morning they are gone.
  Such is the fate of our plunderers,
    the lot of those who despoil us.

Prophecies relating to foreign nations

   1   There is a land of sailing ships,
  a land beyond the rivers of Cush
   2   which sends its envoys by the Nile, ^note
  journeying on the waters in vessels of reed.
  Go, swift messengers,
  go to a people tall and smooth-skinned,
  to a people dreaded near and far,
  a nation strong and proud,
  whose land is scoured by rivers.
3   All you who dwell in the world, inhabitants of earth,
shall see when the signal is hoisted on the mountains
  and shall hear when the trumpet sounds.

4   These were the words of the Lord to me:

  From my dwelling-place I will look quietly down
  when the heat shimmers in the summer sun,
  when the dew is heavy at harvest time. ^note
   5   Before the vintage, when the budding is over
and the flower ripens into a berry,
  the shoots shall be cut down with knives,
  the branches struck off and cleared away.
   6   All shall be left to birds of prey on the hills
    and to beasts of the earth;
  in summer the birds shall make their home there,
in winter every beast of the earth.

7   At that time tribute shall be brought to the Lord of Hosts from ^note a people tall and smooth-skinned, dreaded near and far, a nation strong and proud, whose land is scoured by rivers. They shall bring it to Mount Zion, the place where men invoke the name of the Lord of Hosts. 1   Egypt: an oracle.

See how the Lord comes riding swiftly upon a cloud,
    he shall descend upon Egypt;
  the idols of Egypt quail before him,
  Egypt's courage melts within her.
   2   I will set Egyptian against Egyptian,
  and they shall fight one against another,
    neighbour against neighbour,
city against city and kingdom against kingdom.
   3   Egypt's spirit shall sink within her,
    and I will throw her counsels into confusion.

Prophecies relating to foreign nations
  They may resort to idols and oracle-mongers,
    to ghosts and spirits,
4   but I will hand Egypt over to a hard master,
  and a cruel king shall rule over them.
  This is the very word of the Lord, the Lord of Hosts.


   5   The waters of the Nile ^note shall drain away,
  the river shall be parched and run dry;
     6   its channels shall stink,
the streams of Egypt shall be parched and dry up;
  reeds and rushes shall wither away;
     7   the lotus too beside the Nile ^note
  and all that is sown along the Nile shall dry up,
    shall be blown away and vanish.
   8   The fishermen shall groan and lament,
  all who cast their hooks into the Nile
and those who spread nets on the water shall lose heart.
     9   The flax-dressers shall hang their heads,
  the women carding and the weavers shall grow pale, ^note
   10   Egypt's spinners shall be downcast,
  and all her artisans sick at heart.


   11   Fools that you are, you princes of Zoan!
Wisest of Pharaoh's counsellors you may be,
  but stupid counsellors you are.
  How can you say to Pharaoh,
‘I am the heir of wise men and spring from ancient kings’?
   12   Where are your wise men, Pharaoh,
  to teach you and make known to you
what the Lord of Hosts has planned for Egypt?
13   Zoan's princes are fools, the princes of Noph are dupes;
  the chieftains of her clans have led Egypt astray.
   14   The Lord has infused into them ^note
    a spirit that warps their judgement;
  they make Egypt miss her way in all she does,
  as a drunkard will miss his footing as he vomits.
15   There shall be nothing in Egypt that any man can do,
head or tail, palm or rush.

16   When that day comes the Egyptians shall become weak as women; they shall fear and tremble when they see the Lord of Hosts raise his hand against them, as raise it he will. 17   The land of Judah shall strike

Prophecies relating to foreign nations terror into Egypt; its very name shall cause dismay, because of the plans that the Lord of Hosts has laid against them.

18   When that day comes there shall be five cities in Egypt speaking the language of Canaan and swearing allegiance to the Lord of Hosts, and one of them shall be called the City of the Sun. ^note

19   When that day comes there shall be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt, and a sacred pillar set up for the Lord upon her frontier. 20   It shall stand as a token and a reminder to the Lord of Hosts in Egypt, so that when they appeal to him against their oppressors, he may send a deliverer to champion their cause, and he shall rescue them. 21   The Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians; on that day they shall acknowledge the Lord and do him service with sacrifice and grain-offering, make vows to him and pay them. 22   The Lord will strike down Egypt, healing as he strikes; ^note then they will turn back to him and he will hear their prayers and heal them.

23   When that day comes there shall be a highway between Egypt and Assyria; Assyrians shall come to Egypt and Egyptians to Assyria; then Egyptians shall worship with ^note Assyrians.

24   When that day comes Israel shall rank with Egypt and Assyria, those three, and shall be a blessing in the centre of the world. 25   So the Lord of Hosts will bless them: A blessing be upon Egypt my people, upon Assyria the work of my hands, and upon Israel my possession.

1   Sargon king of Assyria sent his commander-in-chief ^note to Ashdod, and he took it by storm. 2   At that time the Lord said to ^note Isaiah son of Amoz, Come, strip the sackcloth from your waist and take your sandals off. He did so, and went about naked and barefoot. 3   The Lord said, My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a warning to Egypt and Cush; 4   just so shall the king of Assyria lead the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush naked and barefoot, their buttocks shamefully exposed, young and old alike. 5   All men shall be dismayed, their hopes in Cush and their pride in Egypt humbled. 6   On that day those who dwell along this coast will say, So much for all our hopes on which we relied ^note for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria; what escape have we now? 1   A wilderness: an oracle.

Rough weather, advancing like a storm in the south,
coming from the wilderness, from a land of terror!

Prophecies relating to foreign nations
   2   Grim is the vision shown to me:
the traitor betrayed, the spoiler himself despoiled.
Up, Elam; up, Medes, to the siege,
    no time for weariness!
3   At this my limbs writhe in anguish,
I am gripped by pangs like a woman in labour.
I am distraught past hearing, dazed past seeing,
4   my mind reels, sudden convulsions seize me.


The cool twilight I longed for has become a terror:
5   the banquet is set out, the rugs are spread;
    they are eating and drinking—
rise, princes, burnish your shields.
   6   For these were the words of the Lord to me:
  Go, post a watchman to report what he sees.
   7   He sees chariots, two-horsed chariots,
  riders on asses, riders on camels.
  He is alert, alert, always on the alert.
     8   Then the look-out ^note cried:
All day long I stand on the Lord's watch-tower
and night after night I keep my station.
9   See, there come men in a chariot, a two-horsed chariot.
    And a voice calls back:
  Fallen, fallen is Babylon,
and all the images of her gods lie shattered on the ground.
     10   O my people,
once trodden out and winnowed on the threshing-floor,
  what I have heard from the Lord of Hosts,
  from the God of Israel, I have told you.
11   Dumah: an oracle.

  One calls to me from Seir:
  Watchman, what is left of the night?
  Watchman, what is left?
     12   The watchman answered:
  Morning comes, and also night. ^note
Ask if you must; then come back again.
13   With the Arabs: an oracle.

You caravans of Dedan, that camp in the scrub with the Arabs,
   14   bring water to meet the thirsty.
You dwellers in Tema, meet the fugitives with food,

Prophecies relating to foreign nations
15   for they flee from the sword, the sharp edge of the sword,
from the bent bow, and from the press of battle.

16   For these are the words of the Lord to me: Within a year, as a hired labourer counts off the years, all the glory of Kedar shall come to an end; 17   few shall be the bows left to the warriors of Kedar.

The Lord the God of Israel has spoken. 1   The Valley of Vision: [Subnote: Or of Calamity.] an oracle.

    Tell me, what is amiss
  that you have all climbed on to the roofs,
2   O city full of tumult, town in ferment
    and filled with uproar,
  whose slain were not slain with the sword
    and did not die in battle?
     3   Your commanders are all in flight,
  huddled together out of bowshot;
  all your stoutest warriors ^note are huddled together,
    they have taken to their heels.
4   Then I said, Turn your eyes away from me;
    leave me to weep in misery.
    Do not thrust consolation on me
    for the ruin of my own people.

5   For the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, has ordained a day of tumult, a day of trampling and turmoil in the Valley of Vision, ^note rousing cries for help that echo among the mountains.

   6   Elam took up his quiver,
  horses were harnessed to the chariots of Aram, ^note
  Kir took the cover from his shield.
7   Your fairest valleys were overrun by chariots and horsemen,
  the gates were hard beset,
     8   the heart of Judah's defence was laid open.

On that day you looked to the weapons stored in the House of the Forest; 9   you filled all the many pools in the City of David, collecting water from the Lower Pool. ^note 10   Then you surveyed the houses in Jerusalem, tearing some down to make the wall inaccessible, 11   and between the two walls you made a cistern for the Waters of the Old Pool;

    but you did not look to the Maker of it all
  or consider him who fashioned it long ago.

Prophecies relating to foreign nations

12   On that day the Lord, the Lord of Hosts,
  called for weeping and beating the breast,
  for shaving the head and putting on sackcloth;
   13   but instead there was joy and merry-making,
slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep,
eating of meat and drinking of wine, as you thought,
Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.

14   The Lord of Hosts has revealed himself to me; in my hearing he swore:

  Your wickedness shall never be purged
    until you die.
  This is the word of the Lord, the Lord of Hosts.

15   These were the words of the Lord, the Lord of Hosts:

  Go to this steward,
  to Shebna, comptroller of the household, and say:
16   What right, what business, have you here,
  that you have dug yourself a grave here,
  cutting out your grave on a height
  and carving yourself a resting-place in the rock?
17   The Lord will shake you out,
  shake you as a garment ^note is shaken out
  to rid it of lice;
18   then he will bundle you tightly and throw you
like a ball into a great wide land.
  There you shall die,
  and there shall lie your chariot of honour,
  an object of contempt to your master's household.
19   I will remove you from office and drive ^note you from your post.

20   On that day I will send for my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah; I will invest him with your robe, gird him with your sash; 21   and hand over your authority to him. He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the people of Judah. 22   I will lay the key of the house of David on his shoulder; what he opens no man shall shut, and what he shuts no man shall open. 23   He shall be a seat of honour for his father's family; I will fasten him firmly in place like a peg. 24   On him shall hang all the weight of the family, down to the lowest dregs ^note—all the little vessels, both bowls and pots. 25   On that day, says the Lord of Hosts, the peg which was firmly fastened in its place shall be removed; it shall be

Prophecies relating to foreign nations hacked out and shall fall, and the load of things hanging on it shall be destroyed. The Lord has spoken. 1   Tyre: an oracle.

The ships of Tarshish howl, for the harbour is sacked;
the port of entry from Kittim is swept away.
   2    3   The people of the sea-coast, the merchants of Sidon, wail,
  people whose agents ^note cross the great waters,
    whose harvest ^note is the grain of the Shihor
    and their revenue the trade of nations.
4   Sidon, the sea-fortress, ^note cries in her disappointment, ^note
I no longer feel the anguish of labour or bear children;
I have no young sons to rear, no daughters to bring up.
   5   When the news is confirmed in Egypt
  her people sway in anguish at the fate of Tyre.
     6   Make your way to Tarshish, they say,
    howl, you who dwell by the sea-coast.
   7   Is this your busy city, ancient in story,
on whose voyages you were carried to settle far away?


8   Whose plan was this against Tyre, the city of battlements,
    whose merchants were princes
    and her traders the most honoured men on earth?
9   The Lord of Hosts planned it to prick every noble's pride
  and bring all the most honoured men on earth into contempt.
   10   Take to the tillage of your fields, ^note you people of Tarshish;
    for your market ^note is lost.
11   The Lord has stretched out his hand over the sea
    and shaken kingdoms,
he has given his command to destroy the marts of Canaan;
12   and he has said, You shall busy yourselves no more,
  you, the sorely oppressed virgin city of Sidon.
  Though you arise and cross over to Kittim,
  even there you shall find no rest.

13   Look at this land, the destined home of ships ^note! The Chaldaeans ^note erected their ^note siege-towers, dismantled its palaces and laid it in ruins.

     14   Howl, you ships of Tarshish;
    for your haven is sacked.

Prophecies relating to foreign nations

15   From that day Tyre shall be forgotten for seventy years, the span of one king's life. At the end of the seventy years her plight shall be that of the harlot in the song:

16   Take your harp, go round the city,
  poor forgotten harlot;
touch the strings sweetly, sing all your songs,
  make men remember you again.

17   At the end of seventy years, the Lord will turn again to Tyre; she shall go back to her old trade and hire herself out to every kingdom on earth. 18   The profits of her trading will be dedicated to the Lord; they shall not be hoarded or stored up, but shall be given to those who worship ^note the Lord, to purchase food in plenty and fine attire. The Lord's judgement on the earth

1   Beware, the Lord will empty the earth,
split it open and turn it upside down,
    and scatter its inhabitants.
   2   Then it will be the same for priest and people,
the same for master and slave, mistress and slave-girl,
    seller and buyer,
borrower and lender, debtor and creditor.
   3   The earth is emptied clean away
    and stripped clean bare.
For this is the word that the Lord has spoken.
   4   The earth dries up and withers,
  the whole world withers and grows sick;
    the earth's high places ^note sicken,
   5   and earth itself is desecrated by the feet of those who live in it,
because they have broken the laws, disobeyed the statutes
    and violated the eternal covenant.
6   For this a curse has devoured the earth
    and its inhabitants stand aghast.
  For this those who inhabit the earth dwindle
  and only a few men are left.


   7   The new wine dries up, the vines sicken,
  and all the revellers turn to sorrow.
     8   Silent the merry beat of tambourines,

The Lord's judgement on the earth
    hushed the shouts of revelry,
    the merry harp is silent.
   9   No one shall drink wine to the sound of song;
  the liquor will be bitter to the man who drinks it.
     10   The city of chaos is a broken city,
  every house barred, that no one may enter.
   11   Men call for wine in the streets;
    all revelry is darkened,
    and mirth is banished from the land.


   12   Desolation alone is left in the city
  and the gate is broken into pieces.
13   So shall it be in all the world, in every nation,
  as when an olive-tree is beaten and stripped,
    as when the vintage is ended.


14   Men raise their voices and cry aloud,
  they shout in the west, ^note so great is the Lord's majesty.
   15   Therefore let the Lord be glorified in the regions of the east, ^note
    and the name of the Lord the God of Israel
    in the coasts and islands of the west.


   16   From the ends of the earth we have heard them sing,
    How lovely is righteousness!
  But I thought, Villainy, villainy!
  Woe to the traitors ^note and their treachery!
  Traitors double-dyed they are indeed!
   17   The hunter's scare, the pit, and the trap
    threaten all who dwell in the land;
   18   if a man runs from the rattle of the scare
    he will fall into the pit;
  if he climbs out of the pit
    he will be caught in the trap.
  When the windows of heaven above are opened
    and earth's foundations shake,
   19   the earth is utterly shattered,
it is convulsed and reels wildly.
20   The earth reels to and fro like a drunken man
    and sways like a watchman's shelter;
  the sins of men weigh heavy upon it,
  and it falls to rise no more.


   21   On that day the Lord will punish
the host of heaven in heaven, and on earth the kings of the earth,

The Lord's judgement on the earth
22   herded together, close packed like prisoners in a dungeon;
shut up in gaol, after a long time they shall be punished.
23   The moon shall grow pale and the sun hide its face in shame;
    for the Lord of Hosts has become king
    on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
    and shows his glory before their elders.
The deliverance and ingathering of Judah

   1   O Lord, thou art my God;
  I will exalt thee and praise thy name;
  for thou hast accomplished a wonderful purpose,
  certain and sure, from of old.
   2   For thou hast turned cities ^note into heaps of ruin,
  and fortified towns into rubble;
  every mansion in the cities is swept away,
    never to be rebuilt.
   3   For this a cruel nation holds thee in honour,
  the cities of ruthless nations fear thee.
   4   Truly thou hast been a refuge to the poor,
  a refuge to the needy in his trouble,
shelter from the tempest and shade from the heat.
  For the blast of the ruthless is like an icy storm
     5   or a scorching drought;
    thou subduest the roar of the foe, ^note
    and the song of the ruthless dies away.


6   On this mountain the Lord of Hosts will prepare
    a banquet of rich fare for all the peoples,
  a banquet of wines well matured and richest fare,
    well-matured wines strained clear.
7   On this mountain the Lord will swallow up
  that veil that shrouds all the peoples,
  the pall thrown over all the nations;
   8   he will swallow up death for ever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears
    from every face
and remove the reproach of his people from the whole earth.
  The Lord has spoken.


   9   On that day men will say,
  See, this is our God

The deliverance and ingathering of Judah
  for whom we have waited to deliver us;
  this is the Lord for whom we have waited;
  let us rejoice and exult in his deliverance.
10   For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain,
  but Moab shall be trampled under his feet
  as straw is trampled into a midden.
   11   In it Moab shall spread out his hands
  as a swimmer spreads his hands to swim,
but he shall sink his pride with every stroke of his hands.
   12   The Lord has thrown down the high defences of your walls,
    has levelled them to the earth
    and brought them down to the dust.

1   On that day this song shall be sung in Judah:

    We have a strong city
whose walls and ramparts are our deliverance.
2   Open the gates to let a righteous nation in,
    a nation that keeps faith.
3   Thou dost keep in peace men of constant mind,
    in peace because they trust in thee.
   4   Trust in the Lord for ever;
  for the Lord himself is an everlasting rock.
5   He has brought low all who dwell high in a towering city;
  he levels it ^note to the ground and lays it in the dust,
6   that the oppressed and the poor may tread it underfoot.
   7   The path of the righteous is level,
and thou markest out the right way for the upright.
8   We too look to ^note the path prescribed in thy laws, O Lord;
    thy name and thy memory are our heart's desire.
   9   With all my heart I long for thee in the night,
  I seek thee eagerly when dawn breaks;
  for, when thy laws prevail in the land,
  the inhabitants of the world learn justice.
10   The wicked are destroyed, they have never learnt justice;
    corrupt in a land of honest ways,
  they do not regard the majesty of the Lord.


   11   O Lord, thy hand is lifted high,
  but the bitter enemies of thy ^note people do not see it; ^note
  let the fire of thy enmity destroy them.
12   O Lord, thou wilt bestow prosperity on us;
for in truth all our works are thy doing.

The deliverance and ingathering of Judah
     13   O Lord our God,
  other lords than thou have been our masters,
  but thee alone do we invoke by name.
     14   The dead will not live again,
    those long in their graves will not rise;
  to this end thou hast punished them and destroyed them,
    and made all memory of them perish.
   15   Thou hast enlarged the nation, O Lord,
  enlarged it and won thyself honour,
  thou hast extended all the frontiers of the land.
   16   In our distress, O Lord, we ^note sought thee out,
  chastened by the mere whisper of thy rebuke.
   17   As a woman with child, when her time is near,
  is in labour and cries out in her pains,
so were we in thy presence, O Lord.
     18   We have been with child, we have been in labour, ^note
    but have brought forth wind.
  We have won no success for the land,
  and no one will be born to inhabit the world.
19   But thy dead live, their bodies ^note will rise again.
They that sleep in the earth will awake and shout for joy;
  for thy dew is a dew of sparkling light,
and the earth will bring those long dead to birth again.


20   Go, my people, enter your rooms
  and shut your doors behind you;
withdraw for a brief while, until wrath has gone by.
21   For see, the Lord is coming from his place
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their sins;
  then the earth shall uncover her blood-stains
  and hide her slain no more.


1   On that day the Lord will punish
with his cruel sword, his mighty and powerful sword,
  Leviathan that twisting ^note sea-serpent,
  that writhing serpent Leviathan,
  and slay the monster of the deep.


2   On that day sing to the pleasant ^note vineyard,
   3   I the Lord am its keeper,
moment by moment I water it for fear its green leaves fail.
  Night and day I tend it,
     4   but I get no wine;

The deliverance and ingathering of Judah
  I would as soon have briars and thorns,
then I would wage war upon it and burn it all up,
5   unless it grasps me as its refuge and makes peace with me—
    unless it makes peace with me.


   6   In time to come Jacob's offspring shall take root
  and Israel shall bud and blossom,
  and they shall fill the whole earth with fruit.


   7   Has God struck him down as he struck others down?
  Has the slayer been slain as he slew others?
8    9    10    ^note This then purges Jacob's iniquity,
  this ^note has removed his sin:
that he grinds all altar stones to powder like chalk;
  no sacred poles and incense-altars are left standing.


  The fortified city is left solitary,
  and his quarrel with her ends in brushing her away, ^note
  removing her by a cruel blast when the east wind blows;
it is a homestead stripped bare, deserted like a wilderness;
  there the calf grazes and there lies down,
    and crops every twig.
   11   Its boughs snap off when they grow dry,
and women come and light their fires with them.
  For they are a people without sense;
  therefore their maker will show them no mercy,
    he who formed them will show them no favour.


   12   On that day the Lord will beat out the grain,
  from the streams of the Euphrates to the Torrent of Egypt;
  but you Israelites will be gleaned
  one by one.


     13   On that day
  a blast shall be blown on a great trumpet,
    and those who are lost in Assyria
  and those dispersed in Egypt will come in
and worship the Lord on the holy mountain, in Jerusalem.

Assyria and Judah

   1   Oh, the proud garlands of the drunkards of Ephraim
  and the flowering sprays, so lovely in their beauty,
on the heads of revellers dripping with perfumes, ^note
    overcome with wine!
2   See, the Lord has one at his bidding, mighty and strong,
  whom he sets to work with violence against the land,
like a sweeping storm of hail, like a destroying tempest,
like a torrent of water in overwhelming flood.
     3   The proud garlands of Ephraim's drunkards
    shall be trampled underfoot,
   4   and the flowering sprays, so lovely in their beauty
    on the heads dripping with perfumes, ^note
  shall be like early figs ripe before summer;
  he who sees them plucks them,
  and their bloom is gone while they lie in his hand.
5   On that day the Lord of Hosts shall be a lovely garland,
  a beautiful diadem for the remnant of his people,
6   a spirit of justice for one who presides in a court of justice,
and of valour for ^note those who repel the enemy at the gate.


   7   These too are addicted to wine,
    clamouring in their cups:
priest and prophet are addicted to strong drink
    and bemused with wine;
clamouring in their cups, confirmed topers, ^note
    hiccuping in drunken stupor;
   8   every table is covered with vomit,
    filth that leaves no clean spot.
   9   Who is it that the prophet hopes to teach,
  to whom will what they hear make sense?
Are they babes newly weaned, just taken from the breast?
10   It is all harsh cries and raucous shouts,
‘A little more here, a little there!’
11   So it will be with barbarous speech and strange tongue
  that this people will hear God speaking,

Assyria and Judah
     12   this people to whom he once said,
‘This is true rest; let the exhausted have rest.
This is repose’, and they refused to listen.
   13   Now to them the word of the Lord will be
harsh cries and raucous shouts,
‘A little more here, a little there!’—
and so, as they walk, they will stumble backwards,
  they will be injured, trapped and caught.
14   Listen then to the word of the Lord, you arrogant men
who rule this people in Jerusalem.
15   You say, ‘We have made a treaty with Death
  and signed a pact with Sheol:
so that, when the raging flood sweeps by, it shall not touch us;
  for we have taken refuge in lies
    and sheltered behind falsehood.’
16   These then are the words of the Lord God:
Look, I am laying a stone in Zion, a block of granite,
  a precious corner-stone for a firm foundation;
    he who has faith shall not waver.
   17   I will use justice as a plumb-line
    and righteousness as a plummet;
  hail shall sweep away your refuge of lies,
  and flood-waters carry away your shelter.
   18   Then your treaty with Death shall be annulled
  and your pact with Sheol shall not stand;
  the raging waters will sweep by,
  and you will be like land swept by the flood.
   19   As often as it sweeps by, it will take you;
  morning after morning it will sweep by,
    day and night.
  The very thought of such tidings
  will bring nothing but dismay;
   20   for ‘The bed is too short for a man to stretch,
  and the blanket too narrow to cover him.’
21   But the Lord shall arise as he rose on Mount Perazim
and storm with rage as he did in the Vale of Gibeon
to do what he must do—how strange a deed!
to perform his work—how outlandish a work!
     22   But now have done with your arrogance,
    lest your bonds grow tighter;
  for I have heard destruction decreed
by the Lord God of Hosts for the whole land.

Assyria and Judah

   23   Listen and hear what I say,
  attend and hear my words.
24   Will the ploughman continually plough for the sowing,
  breaking his ground and harrowing it?
   25   Does he not, once he has levelled it,
broadcast the dill and scatter the cummin?
  Does he not plant the wheat in rows
  with barley ^note and spelt along the edge?
26   Does not his God instruct him and train him aright?
27   Dill is not threshed with a sledge,
  and the cartwheel is not rolled over cummin;
  dill is beaten with a rod,
    and cummin with a flail.
28   Corn is crushed, but not to the uttermost,
    not with a final crushing;
his cartwheels rumble over it and break it up,
    but they do not grind it fine.
29   This message, too, comes from the Lord of Hosts,
    whose purposes are wonderful
    and his power great.


   1   Alas for Ariel! Ariel,
    the city where David encamped.
  Add year to year,
    let the pilgrim-feasts run their round,
     2   and I will bring Ariel to sore straits,
  when there shall be moaning and lamentation.
  I will make her my Ariel indeed, my fiery altar.
   3   I will throw my army round you like a wall;
  I will set a ring of outposts all round you
  and erect siege-works against you.
   4   You shall be brought low, you will speak out of the ground
  and your words will issue from the earth;
your voice will come like a ghost's from the ground,
  and your words will squeak out of the earth.
5   Yet the horde of your enemies shall crumble into dust,
  the horde of ruthless foes shall fly like chaff.
  Then suddenly, all in an instant,
   6   punishment shall come from the Lord of Hosts
  with thunder and earthquake and a great noise,
with storm and tempest and a flame of devouring fire;
7   and the horde of all the nations warring against Ariel,

Assyria and Judah
  all their baggage-trains and siege-works, ^note
    and all her oppressors themselves,
  shall fade as a dream, a vision of the night.
   8   Like a starving man who dreams
    and thinks that he is eating,
  but wakes up to find himself empty,
  or a thirsty man who dreams
    and thinks that he is drinking,
but wakes up to find himself thirsty and dry,
  so shall the horde of all the nations be
    that war against Mount Zion.


9   Loiter and be dazed, enjoy yourselves and be blinded,
be drunk but not with wine, reel but not with strong drink;
10   for the Lord has poured upon you a spirit of deep stupor;
  he has closed your eyes, the prophets,
  and muffled your heads, the seers.

11   All prophetic vision has become for you like a sealed book. Give such a book to one who can read and say, ‘Come, read this’; he will answer, ‘I cannot’, because it is sealed. 12   Give it to one who cannot read and say, ‘Come, read this’; he will answer, ‘I cannot read.’

13   Then the Lord said:

Because this people approach me with their mouths
    and honour me with their lips
  while their hearts are far from me,
and their religion is but a precept of men, learnt by rote,
14   therefore I will yet again shock this people,
  adding shock to shock:
  the wisdom of their wise men shall vanish
  and the discernment of the discerning shall be lost.


   15   Shame upon those who seek to hide their purpose
    too deep for the Lord to see,
  and who, when their deeds are done in the dark,
  say, ‘Who sees us? Who knows of us?’
     16   How you turn things upside down,
  as if the potter ranked no higher than the clay!
Shall the thing made say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’?
Shall the pot say of the potter, ‘He has no skill’?
   17   The time is but short
  before Lebanon goes back to grassland
  and the grassland is no better than scrub.

Assyria and Judah

   18   On that day deaf men shall hear
    when a book is read,
    and the eyes of the blind shall see
    out of impenetrable darkness.
19   The lowly shall once again rejoice in the Lord,
  and the poorest of men exult in the Holy One of Israel.
20   The ruthless shall be no more, the arrogant shall cease to be;
  those who are quick to see mischief,
   21   those who charge others with a sin
or lay traps for him who brings the wrongdoer into court
  or by falsehood deny justice to the righteous—
    all these shall be exterminated.

22   Therefore these are the words of the Lord the God of the house of Jacob, the God who ransomed Abraham:

  This is no time for Jacob to be shamed,
  no time for his face to grow pale;
   23   for his descendants will hallow my name
  when they see ^note what I have done in their nation.
  They will hallow the Holy One of Jacob
  and hold the God of Israel in awe;
   24   those whose minds are confused will gain understanding,
  and the obstinate will receive instruction.


   1   Oh, rebel sons! says the Lord,
  you make plans, but not of my devising,
  you weave schemes, but not inspired by me,
  piling sin upon sin;
2   you hurry down to Egypt without consulting me,
  to seek protection under Pharaoh's shelter
    and take refuge under Egypt's wing.
3   Pharaoh's protection will bring you disappointment
    and refuge under Egypt's wing humiliation;
     4   for, though his officers are at Zoan
    and his envoys reach as far as Hanes,
5   all are left in sorry plight by that unprofitable nation,
no help they find, no profit, only disappointment and disgrace.
6   The Beasts of the South: an oracle.

  Through a land of hardship and distress
  the tribes of lioness and roaring lion,
  sand-viper and venomous flying serpent,
  carry their wealth on the backs of asses

Assyria and Judah
  and their treasures on camels' humps
    to an unprofitable people.
7   Vain and worthless is the help of Egypt;
  therefore have I given her this name,
    Rahab Quelled.
8   Now come and write it on a tablet,
engrave it as an inscription before their eyes,
  that it may be there in future days,
    a testimony for all time.
9   For they are a race of rebels, disloyal sons,
sons who will not listen to the Lord's instruction;
   10   they say to the seers, ‘You shall not see’,
and to the visionaries, ‘You shall have no true visions;
give us smooth words and seductive visions.
11   Turn aside, leave the straight path,
and rid us for ever of the Holy One of Israel.’

12   These are the words of the Holy One of Israel:

  Because you have rejected this warning
  and trust in devious and dishonest practices,
    resting on them for support,
13   therefore you shall find this iniquity will be
    like a crack running down
  a high wall, which bulges
and suddenly, all in an instant, comes crashing down,
14   as an earthen jar is broken with a crash,
    mercilessly shattered,
  so that not a shard is found among the fragments
    to take fire from the glowing embers,
    or to scoop up water from a pool.

15   These are the words of the Lord God the Holy One of Israel:

  Come back, keep peace, and you will be safe;
in stillness and in staying quiet, there lies your strength.
   16   But you would have none of it; you said, No,
    we will take horse and flee;
    therefore you shall be put to flight:
    We will ride apace;
  therefore swift shall be the pace of your pursuers.
   17   When a thousand flee at the challenge of one,
you shall all flee at the challenge of five, until you are left
like a pole on a mountain-top, a signal post on a hill.
18   Yet the Lord is waiting to show you his favour,

Assyria and Judah
  yet he yearns to have pity on you;
    for the Lord is a God of justice.
  Happy are all who wait for him!

19   O people of Zion who dwell in Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. The Lord ^note will show you favour and answer you when he hears your cry for help. 20   The Lord may give you bread of adversity and water of affliction, but he who teaches you shall no longer be hidden out of sight, but with your own eyes you shall see him always. 21   If you stray from the road to right or left you shall hear with your own ears a voice behind you saying, This is the way; follow it. 22   You will reject, as things unclean, your silvered images and your idols sheathed in gold; you will loathe them like a foul discharge and call them ordure. ^note 23   The Lord will give you rain for the seed you sow, and as the produce of your soil he will give you heavy crops of corn in plenty. When that day comes the cattle shall graze in broad pastures; 24   the oxen and asses that work your land shall be fed with well-seasoned fodder, winnowed with shovel and fork. 25   On each high mountain and each lofty hill shall be streams of running water, on the day of massacre when the highest in the land fall. 26   The moon shall shine with a brightness like the sun's, and the sun with seven times his wonted brightness, seven days' light in one, on the day when the Lord binds up the broken limbs of his people and heals their wounds.

   27   See, the name of the Lord comes from afar,
  his anger blazing and his doom heavy.
  His lips are charged with wrath
  and his tongue is a devouring fire.
   28   His breath is like a torrent in spate,
    rising neck-high,
a yoke to force the nations to their ruin,
a bit in the mouth to guide the peoples astray.
   29   But for you there shall be songs,
  as on a night of sacred pilgrimage,
your hearts glad, as the hearts of men who walk to the sound of the pipe
on their way to the Lord's hill, to the rock of Israel.
   30   Then the Lord shall make his voice heard in majesty
and show his arm sweeping down in fierce anger
    with devouring flames of fire,
with cloudburst and tempests of rain and hailstones;
   31   for at the voice of the Lord Assyria's heart fails her,
    as she feels the stroke of his rod.

Assyria and Judah
32   Tambourines and harps and shaking sistrums
    shall keep time
  with every stroke of his rod,
of the chastisement ^note which the Lord inflicts on her.
   33   Long ago was Topheth made ready, ^note
    made deep and broad,
  its fire-pit a blazing mass of logs,
  and the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone
    blazing in it.


   1   Shame upon those who go down to Egypt for help
    and rely on horses,
  putting their trust in chariots many in number
  and in horsemen in their thousands,
  but do not look to the Holy One of Israel
    or seek guidance of the Lord!
2   Yet the Lord too in his wisdom can bring about trouble
    and he does not take back his words;
  he will rise up against the league of evildoers,
    against all who help those who do wrong.
   3   The Egyptians are men, not God, ^note
  their horses are flesh, not spirit;
  and, when the Lord stretches out his hand,
the helper will stumble and he who is helped will fall,
  and they will all vanish together.

4   This is what the Lord has said to me:

As a lion or a young lion growls over its prey
when the muster of shepherds is called out against it,
    and is not scared at their noise
    or cowed by their clamour,
so shall the Lord of Hosts come down to do battle
  for Mount Zion and her high summit.
   5   Thus the Lord of Hosts, like a bird hovering over its young,
  will be a shield over Jerusalem;
    he will shield her and deliver her,
    standing over her and delivering her.
6   O Israel, come back to him whom you have so deeply offended,
   7   for on that day when you spurn, one and all,
  the idols of silver and the idols of gold
  which your own sinful hands have made,
8   Assyria shall fall by the sword, but by no sword of man;

Assyria and Judah
  a sword that no man wields shall devour him.
  He shall flee before the sword,
  and his young warriors shall be put to forced labour,
   9   his officers shall be helpless from terror
  and his captains too dismayed to flee.
    This is the very word of the Lord
  whose fire blazes in Zion,
  and whose furnace is set up in Jerusalem.


1   Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness
  and his rulers rule with justice,
   2   and a man shall be a refuge from the wind
    and a shelter from the tempest,
    or like runnels of water in dry ground,
like the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.
   3   The eyes that can see will not be clouded,
  and the ears that can hear will listen;
   4   the anxious heart will understand and know,
and the man who stammers will at once speak plain.
5   The scoundrel will no longer be thought noble,
  nor the villain called a prince;
   6   for the scoundrel will speak like a scoundrel
  and will hatch ^note evil in his heart;
    he is an impostor in all his actions,
  and in his words a liar even to the Lord;
    he starves the hungry of their food
    and refuses drink to the thirsty.
   7   The villain's ways are villainous
  and he devises infamous plans
  to ruin the poor with his lies
  and deny justice to the needy.
   8   But the man of noble mind forms noble designs
  and stands firm in his nobility.


   9   You women that live at ease, stand up
    and hear what I have to say.
You young women without a care, mark my words.
10   You have no cares now, but when the year is out, you will tremble,
for the vintage will be over and no produce gathered in.
     11   You who are now at ease, be anxious;
    tremble, you who have no cares.
    Strip yourselves bare;
    put a cloth round your waists

Assyria and Judah
     12   and beat your breasts ^note
  for the pleasant fields and fruitful vines.
13   On the soil of my people shall spring up thorns and briars,
in ^note every happy home and in the busy town,
14   for the palace is forsaken and the crowded streets deserted;
citadel ^note and watch-tower are turned into open heath,
the joy of wild asses ever after and pasture for the flocks,
15   until a spirit from on high is lavished upon us.
  Then the wilderness will become grassland
  and grassland will be cheap as scrub;
   16   then justice shall make its home in the wilderness,
  and righteousness dwell in the grassland;
   17   when righteousness shall yield peace
and its fruit be quietness and confidence for ever.
   18   Then my people shall live in a tranquil country,
dwelling in peace, in houses full of ease;
   19   it will be cool on the slopes of the forest then,
  and cities shall lie peaceful in the plain.
   20   Happy shall you be, sowing every man by the water-side,
    and letting ox and ass run free.


1   Ah! you destroyer, yourself undestroyed,
  betrayer still unbetrayed,
  when you cease to destroy you will be destroyed,
  after all your ^note betrayals, you will be betrayed yourself.


2   O Lord, show us thy favour; we hope in thee.
  Uphold us ^note every morning,
  save us when troubles come.
   3   At the roar of the thunder the peoples flee,
  at thy rumbling ^note nations are scattered;
4   their ^note spoil is swept up as if young locusts had swept it,
  like a swarm of locusts men swarm upon it.


5   The Lord is supreme, for he dwells on high;
if you fill Zion with justice and with righteousness,
   6   then he will be the mainstay of the age: ^note
wisdom and knowledge are the assurance of salvation;
  the fear of the Lord is her ^note treasure.


   7   Hark, how the valiant cry aloud for help,
  and those sent to sue for peace weep bitterly!

Assyria and Judah
8   The highways are deserted, no travellers tread the roads.
Covenants are broken, treaties ^note are flouted;
    man is of no account.
   9   The land is parched and wilting,
  Lebanon is eaten away and crumbling;
  Sharon has become a desert,
  Bashan and Carmel are stripped bare.
10   Now, says the Lord, I will rise up.
Now I will exalt myself, now lift myself up.
11   What you conceive and bring to birth is chaff and stubble;
  a wind like fire shall devour you.
   12   Whole nations shall be heaps of white ash,
or like thorns cut down and set on fire.
   13   You who dwell far away, hear what I have done;
  acknowledge my might, you who are near.
   14   In Zion sinners quake with terror,
  the godless are seized with trembling and ask,
Can any of us live with a devouring fire?
Can any live in endless burning?
15   The man who lives an upright life and speaks the truth,
  who scorns to enrich himself by extortion,
who snaps his fingers at a bribe,
  who stops his ears to hear nothing of bloodshed,
  who closes his eyes to the sight of evil—
   16   that is the man who shall dwell on the heights,
  his refuge a fastness in the cliffs,
his bread secure and his water never failing.


17   Your eyes shall see a king in his splendour
  and will look upon a land of far distances.
   18   You will call to mind what once you feared:
‘Where then is he that counted, where is he that weighed,
  where is he that counted the treasures?’
   19   You will no longer see that barbarous people,
  that people whose speech was so hard to catch,
  whose stuttering speech you could not understand.


   20   Look upon Zion, city of our solemn feasts,
  let your eyes rest on Jerusalem,
a land of comfort, a tent that shall never be shifted,
  whose pegs shall never be pulled up,
  not one of its ropes cast loose.
21   There we have the Lord's majesty; ^note

Assyria and Judah
  it will be a place ^note of rivers and broad streams;
  but ^note no galleys shall be rowed there,
  no stately ship sail by.
22   For the Lord our judge, the Lord our law-giver,
the Lord our king—he himself will save us.
   23   [Men may say, Your rigging is slack;
  it will not hold the mast firm in its socket,
    nor can the sails be spread.]
Then the blind ^note man shall have a full share of the spoil
  and the lame shall take part in the pillage;
   24   no man who dwells there shall say, ‘I am sick’;
and the sins of the people who live there shall be pardoned.
Edom and Israel

   1   Approach, you nations, to listen,
    and attend, you peoples;
    let the earth listen and everything in it,
  the world and all that it yields;
   2   for the Lord's anger is turned against all the nations
    and his wrath against all the host of them:
  he gives them over to slaughter and destruction.
     3   Their slain shall be flung out,
  the stench shall rise from their corpses,
  and the mountains shall stream with their blood.
   4   All the host of heaven shall crumble into nothing,
  the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll,
    and the starry host fade away,
  as the leaf withers from the vine
    and the ripening fruit from the fig-tree;
   5   for the sword of the Lord ^note appears ^note in heaven.
  See how it descends in judgement on Edom,
  on the people whom he dooms ^note to destruction.
6   The Lord has a sword steeped in blood,
    it is gorged with fat,
the fat of rams' kidneys, and the blood of lambs and goats;
  for he has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
  a great slaughter in Edom.

Edom and Israel
   7   Wild oxen shall come down and buffaloes ^note with them,
    bull and bison together,
  and the land shall drink deep of blood
  and the soil be sated with fat.
   8   For the Lord has a day of vengeance,
  the champion of Zion has a year when he will requite.
   9   Edom's torrents shall be turned into pitch
    and its soil into brimstone,
and the land shall become blazing pitch,
   10   which night and day shall never be quenched,
  and its smoke shall go up for ever.
  From generation to generation it shall lie waste,
  and no man shall pass through it ever again.
   11   Horned owl and bustard shall make their home in it,
  screech-owl and raven shall haunt it.
  He has stretched across it a measuring-line of chaos,
   12   and its frontiers shall be a jumble of stones.
  No king shall be acclaimed there,
  and all its princes shall come to nought.
   13   Thorns shall sprout in its palaces;
  nettles and briars shall cover its walled towns.
It shall be rough land fit for wolves, a haunt of desert-owls.
   14   Marmots shall consort with jackals,
  and he-goat shall encounter he-goat.
  There too the nightjar shall rest
  and find herself a place for repose.
   15   There the sand-partridge shall make her nest,
  lay her eggs and hatch them
  and gather her brood under her wings;
  there shall the kites gather,
    one after another.
16   Consult the book of the Lord and read it:
  not one of these shall be lacking,
    not one miss its fellow,
  for with his own mouth he has ordered it
  and with his own breath he has brought them together.
17   He it is who has allotted each its place,
  and his hand has measured out their portions;
    they shall occupy it for ever
    and dwell there from generation to generation.


   1   Let the wilderness and the thirsty land be glad,

Edom and Israel
  let the desert rejoice and burst into flower.
   2   Let it flower with fields of asphodel,
  let it rejoice and shout for joy.
  The glory of Lebanon is given to it,
    the splendour too of Carmel and Sharon;
these shall see the glory of the Lord, the splendour of our God.
   3   Strengthen the feeble arms,
  steady the tottering knees;
4   say to the anxious, Be strong and fear not.
  See, your God comes with vengeance,
with dread retribution he comes to save you.
   5   Then shall blind men's eyes be opened,
    and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
   6   Then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
    and the tongue of the dumb shout aloud;
  for water springs up in the wilderness,
  and torrents flow ^note in dry land.
   7   The mirage becomes a pool,
    the thirsty land bubbling springs;
    instead of reeds and rushes, grass shall grow
    in the rough land where wolves now lurk.
   8   And there shall be a causeway ^note there
  which shall be called the Way of Holiness,
    and the unclean shall not pass along it;
  it shall become a pilgrim's way, ^note
    no fool shall trespass on it.
   9   No lion shall come there,
  no savage beast climb on to it;
    not one shall be found there.
  By it those he has ransomed shall return
     10   and the Lord's redeemed come home;
  they shall enter Zion with shouts of triumph,
  crowned with everlasting gladness.
  Gladness and joy shall be their escort,
  and suffering and weariness shall flee away.

Jerusalem delivered from Sennacherib

1    ^noteIn the fourteenth ^note year of the reign of Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked and took all the fortified cities of Judah. 2   From Lachish he sent the chief officer ^note with a strong force to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem; and he halted by the conduit of the Upper Pool on the causeway which leads to the Fuller's Field. 3   There Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the comptroller of the household, came out to him, with Shebna the adjutant-general and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary of state. 4   The chief officer said to them, ‘Tell Hezekiah that this is the message of the Great King, the king of Assyria: “What ground have you for this confidence of yours? 5   Do you ^note think fine words can take the place of skill and numbers? On whom then do you rely for support in your rebellion against me? 6   On Egypt? Egypt is a splintered cane that will run into a man's hand and pierce it if he leans on it. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt proves to all who rely on him. 7   And if you tell me that you are relying on the Lord your God, is he not the god whose hill-shrines and altars Hezekiah has suppressed, telling Judah and Jerusalem that they must prostrate themselves before this altar alone?”

8   ‘Now, make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses if you can find riders for them. 9   Will you reject the authority of even the least of my master's servants and rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? 10   Do you think that I have come to attack this land and destroy it without the consent of the Lord? No; the Lord himself said to me, “Attack this land and destroy it.”’

11   Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief officer, ‘Please speak to us in Aramaic, for we understand it; do not speak Hebrew to us within earshot of the people on the city wall.’ 12   The chief officer answered, ‘Is it to your master and to you that my master has sent me to say this? Is it not to the people sitting on the wall who, like you, will have to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?’ 13   Then he stood and shouted in Hebrew, ‘Hear the message of the Great King, the king of Assyria. 14   These are the king's words: “Do not be taken in by Hezekiah. 15   He cannot save you. Do not let him persuade you to rely on the Lord, and tell you that the Lord will save you and that this city will never be surrendered to the king of Assyria.” 16   Do not listen to Hezekiah; these are the words of the king of Assyria: “Make peace with me. Come out to me, and then you shall each eat the fruit of his own vine and his own

Jerusalem delivered from Sennacherib fig-tree, 17   and drink the water of his own cistern, until I come and take you to a land like your own, a land of grain and new wine, of corn and vineyards. 18   Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by telling you that the Lord will save you. Did the god of any of these nations save his land from the king of Assyria? 19   Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Where are the gods of Samaria? ^note 20   Did they save Samaria from me? Among all the gods of these nations is there one who saved his land from me? And how is the Lord to save Jerusalem?”’

21   The people were silent and answered not a word, for the king had given orders that no one was to answer him. 22   Eliakim son of Hilkiah, comptroller of the household, Shebna the adjutant-general, and Joah son of Asaph, secretary of state, came to Hezekiah with their clothes rent and reported what the chief officer had said.

1    ^noteWhen King Hezekiah heard their report, he rent his clothes and wrapped himself in sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. 2   He sent Eliakim comptroller of the household, Shebna the adjutant-general, and the senior priests, all covered in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz, to give him this message from the king: 3   ‘This day is a day of trouble for us, a day of reproof and contempt. We are like a woman who has no strength to bear the child that is coming to the birth. 4   It may be that the Lord your God heard the words of the chief officer whom his master the king of Assyria sent to taunt the living God, and will confute what he, the Lord your God, heard. Offer a prayer for those who still survive.’ 5    6   King Hezekiah's servants came to Isaiah, and he told them to say this to their master: ‘This is the word of the Lord: “Do not be alarmed at what you heard when the lackeys of the king of Assyria blasphemed me. 7   I will put a spirit in him, and he shall hear a rumour and withdraw to his own country; and there I will make him fall by the sword.”’

8   So the chief officer withdrew. He heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, and he found him attacking Libnah. 9   But when the king learnt that Tirhakah king of Cush was on the way to make war on him, he sent messengers again ^note to Hezekiah king of Judah, 10   to say to him, ‘How can you be deluded by your god on whom you rely when he promises that Jerusalem shall not fall into the hands of the king of Assyria? 11   Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all countries, exterminating their people; can you then hope to escape? 12   Did their gods save the nations which my forefathers destroyed, Gozan, Harran, Rezeph, and the people of Beth-eden living in Telassar?

Jerusalem delivered from Sennacherib 13   Where are the kings of Hamath, of Arpad, and of Lahir, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’

14   Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers and read it; then he went up into the house of the Lord, spread it out before the Lord and offered this prayer: 15    16   ‘O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, enthroned on the cherubim, thou alone art God of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth. 17   Turn thy ear to me, O Lord, and listen; open thine eyes, O Lord, and see; hear the message that Sennacherib has sent to taunt the living God. 18   It is true, O Lord, that the kings of Assyria have laid waste every country, ^note 19   that they have consigned their gods to the fire and destroyed them; for they were no gods but the work of men's hands, mere wood and stone. 20   But now, O Lord our God, save us from his power, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou, O Lord, alone art God.’ ^note

21   Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah and said, ‘This is the word of the Lord the God of Israel: I have heard ^note your prayer to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria. 22   This is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning him:

  The virgin daughter of Zion disdains you,
      she laughs you to scorn;
  the daughter of Jerusalem tosses her head
      as you retreat.
     23   Whom have you taunted and blasphemed?
      Against whom have you clamoured,
  casting haughty glances at the Holy One of Israel?
     24   You have sent your servants to taunt the Lord,
      and said:
    With my countless chariots I have gone up
    high in the mountains, into the recesses of Lebanon.
    I have cut down its tallest cedars,
      the best of its pines,
  I have reached its highest limit of forest and meadow. ^note
       25   I have dug wells
    and drunk the waters of a foreign land, ^note
  and with the soles of my feet I have dried up
      all the streams of Egypt.


     26   Have you not heard long ago?
      I did it all.
    In days gone by I planned it

Jerusalem delivered from Sennacherib
    and now I have brought it about,
    making fortified cities tumble down
      into heaps of rubble. ^note
   27   Their citizens, shorn of strength,
      disheartened and ashamed,
    were but as plants in the field, as green herbs,
    as grass on the roof-tops blasted before the east wind. ^note
     28   I know your rising up ^note and your sitting down,
      your going out and your coming in.
   29   The frenzy of your rage against me ^note and your arrogance
      have come to my ears.
    I will put a ring in your nose
      and a hook in your lips,
    and I will take you back by the road
      on which you have come.

30   This shall be the sign for you: this year you shall eat shed grain and in the second year what is self-sown; but in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 31   The survivors left in Judah shall strike fresh root under ground and yield fruit above ground, 32   for a remnant shall come out of Jerusalem and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this.

33   ‘Therefore, this is the word of the Lord concerning the king of Assyria:

    He shall not enter this city
      nor shoot an arrow there,
    he shall not advance against it with shield
    nor cast up a siege-ramp against it.
   34   By the way on which he came he shall go back;
      this city he shall not enter.
      This is the very word of the Lord.
     35   I will shield this city to deliver it,
  for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.’

36   The angel of the Lord went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp; when morning dawned, they all lay dead. 37   So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp, went back to Nineveh and stayed there. 38   One day, while he was worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons murdered him and escaped to the land of Ararat. He was succeeded by his son Esarhaddon.

Jerusalem delivered from Sennacherib

1    ^noteAt this time Hezekiah fell dangerously ill and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, ‘This is the word of the Lord: Give your last instructions to your household, for you are a dying man and will not recover.’ 2   Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and offered this prayer to the Lord: 3   ‘O Lord, remember how I have lived before thee, faithful and loyal in thy service, always doing what was good in thine eyes.’ 4   And he wept bitterly. Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah: 5   ‘Go and say to Hezekiah: “This is the word of the Lord the God of your father David: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life. 6   I will deliver you and this city from the king of Assyria and will protect this city.”’ 21    ^noteThen Isaiah told them to apply a fig-plaster; so they made one and applied it to the boil, and he recovered. 22   Then Hezekiah said, ‘By what sign shall I know that I shall go up into the house of the Lord?’ 7   And Isaiah said, ^note ‘This shall be your sign from the Lord that he will do what he has promised. 8   Watch the shadow cast by the sun on the stairway of Ahaz: I will bring backwards ten steps the shadow which has gone down on the stairway.’ And the sun went back ten steps on the stairway down which it had gone.

9   A poem of Hezekiah king of Judah after his recovery from his illness, as it was written down:

10   I thought: In the prime of life I must pass away;
for the rest of my years I am consigned to the gates of Sheol.
   11   I said: I shall no longer see the Lord
    in the land of the living;
  never again, like those who live in the world, ^note
    shall I look on a man.
     12   My dwelling is taken from me,
    pulled up like a shepherd's tent;
  thou hast cut short ^note my life like a weaver
  who severs the web from the thrum.
  From morning to night thou tormentest me,
     13   then I am racked with pain ^note till the morning.
All my bones are broken, as a lion would break them;
  from morning to night thou tormentest me.
   14   I twitter as if I were a swallow, ^note
    I moan like a dove.
  My eyes falter as I look up to the heights;
O Lord, pay heed, stand surety for me.
15   How can I complain, what can I say to the Lord ^note

Jerusalem delivered from Sennacherib
    when he himself has done this?
  I wander to and fro all my life long
    in the bitterness of my soul.
16   Yet, O Lord, my soul shall live with thee;
  do thou give my spirit rest. ^note
  Restore me and give me life.
   17   Bitterness had indeed been my lot in place of prosperity;
  but thou by thy love hast brought me back
    from the pit of destruction;
  for thou hast cast all my sins behind thee.
   18   Sheol cannot confess thee,
  Death cannot praise thee,
  nor can they who go down to the abyss
    hope for thy truth.
   19   The living, the living alone can confess thee
    as I do this day,
as a father makes thy truth known, O God, to his sons.
     20   The Lord is at hand to save me;
    so let us sound the music of our praises
all our life long in the house of the Lord. ^note

1    ^noteAt this time Merodach-baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent envoys with a gift to Hezekiah; for he had heard that he had been ill and was well again. 2   Hezekiah welcomed them and showed them all his treasury, silver and gold, spices and fragrant oil, his entire armoury and everything to be found among his treasures; there was nothing in his house and in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. 3   Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and asked him, ‘What did these men say and where have they come from?’ ‘They have come from a far-off country,’ Hezekiah answered, ‘from Babylon.’ 4   Then Isaiah asked, ‘What did they see in your house?’ ‘They saw everything,’ Hezekiah replied; ‘there was nothing among my treasures that I did not show them.’ 5   Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, ‘Hear the word of the Lord of Hosts: 6   The time is coming, says the Lord, when everything in your house, and all that your forefathers have amassed till the present day, will be carried away to Babylon; not a thing shall be left. 7   And some of the sons who will be born to you, sons of your own begetting, shall be taken and shall be made eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’ 8   Hezekiah answered, ‘The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good’; thinking to himself that peace and security would last out his lifetime.

News of the returning exiles

   1   Comfort, comfort my people; ^note
    —it is the voice of your God;
   2   speak tenderly to Jerusalem ^note
    and tell her this,
that she has fulfilled her term of bondage,
    that her penalty is paid;
  she has received at the Lord's hand
    double ^note measure for all her sins.


     3   There is a voice that cries:
  Prepare a road for the Lord through the wilderness,
clear a highway across the desert for our God.
   4   Every valley shall be lifted up,
every mountain and hill brought down;
rugged places shall be made smooth
  and mountain-ranges become a plain.
   5   Thus shall the glory of the Lord be revealed,
and all mankind together shall see it;
  for the Lord himself has spoken.


6   A voice says, ‘Cry’,
and another asks, ^note ‘What shall I cry?’
‘That all mankind is grass,
they last no longer than a flower of the field.
7   The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of ^note the Lord blows upon them; ^note
8   the grass withers, the flowers fade,
  but the word of our God endures for evermore.’


9   You who bring Zion good news, ^note up with you to the mountain-top;
  lift up your voice and shout,
  you who bring good news to Jerusalem, ^note
    lift it up fearlessly;
cry to the cities of Judah, ‘Your God is here.’
10   Here is the Lord God coming in might,
  coming to rule with his right arm.

News of the returning exiles
    His recompense comes with him,
    he carries his reward before him.
   11   He will tend his flock like a shepherd
    and gather them together with his arm;
  he will carry the lambs in his bosom
    and lead the ewes to water.

Israel delivered and redeemed

   12   Who has gauged the waters in the palm of his hand,
  or with its span set limits to the heavens?
  Who has held all the soil of earth in a bushel,
  or weighed the mountains on a balance
    and the hills on a pair of scales?
   13   Who has set limits to the spirit of the Lord?
  What counsellor stood at his side to instruct him?
   14   With whom did he confer to gain discernment?
  Who taught him how to do justice ^note
    or gave him lessons in wisdom?
15   Why, to him nations are but drops from a bucket,
  no more than moisture on the scales;
coasts and islands weigh as light as specks of dust.
   16   All Lebanon does not yield wood enough for fuel
  or beasts enough for a sacrifice.
   17   All nations dwindle to nothing before him,
he reckons them mere nothings, less than nought.


   18   What likeness will you find for God
  or what form to resemble his?
   19   Is it an image which a craftsman sets up,
  and a goldsmith covers with plate
  and fits ^note with studs of silver as a costly gift?
   20   Or is it mulberry-wood that will not rot which a man chooses,
  seeking out a skilful craftsman for it,
  to mount an image that will not fall?


   6    ^note Each workman helps the others,
  each man encourages his fellow.
   7    ^note The craftsman urges on the goldsmith,
  the gilder urges the man who beats the anvil,

Israel delivered and redeemed
  he declares the soldering to be sound;
  he fastens the image with nails
  so that it will not fall down.


21   Do you not know, have you not heard,
were you not told long ago,
have you not perceived ever since the world began,
22   that God sits throned on the vaulted roof of earth,
    whose inhabitants are like grasshoppers ^note?
  He stretches out the skies like a curtain,
  he spreads them out like a tent to live in;
   23   he reduces the great to nothing
  and makes all earth's princes less than nothing.
24   Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely have they taken root in the earth,
  before he blows upon them and they wither away,
  and a whirlwind carries them off like chaff.
   25   To whom then will you liken me,
    whom set up as my equal?
    asks the Holy One.
   26   Lift up your eyes to the heavens;
  consider who created it all,
  led out their host one by one
  and called them all by their names;
    through his great might, his might and power,
    not one is missing.
   27   Why do you complain, O Jacob,
    and you, Israel, why do you say,
  ‘My plight is hidden from the Lord
  and my cause has passed out of God's notice’?
28   Do you not know, have you not heard?
The Lord, the everlasting God, creator of the wide world,
    grows neither weary nor faint;
    no man can fathom his understanding.
   29   He gives vigour to the weary,
  new strength to the exhausted.
   30   Young men may grow weary and faint,
  even in their prime they may stumble and fall;
   31   but those who look to the Lord will win new strength,
  they will grow wings like eagles;
  they will run and not be weary,
  they will march on and never grow faint.

Israel delivered and redeemed

   1   Keep silence before me, all you coasts and islands;
  let the peoples come to meet me. ^note
  Let them come near, then let them speak;
  we will meet at the place of judgement, I and they.
   2   Tell me, who raised up that one from the east,
  one greeted by victory wherever he goes?
  Who is it that puts nations into his power
  and makes kings go down before him, ^note
  he scatters them with his sword like dust
  and with his bow like chaff before the wind;
   3   he puts them to flight and passes on unscathed,
  swifter than any traveller on foot?
   4   Whose work is this, I ask, who has brought it to pass?
  Who has summoned the generations from the beginning?
  It is I, the Lord, I am the first,
  and to the last of them I am He.
   5   Coasts and islands saw it and were afraid,
    the world trembled from end to end. ^note


   8    ^note But you, Israel my servant,
  you, Jacob whom I have chosen,
    race of Abraham my friend,
     9   I have taken you up,
  have fetched you from the ends of the earth,
    and summoned you from its farthest corners,
  I have called you my servant,
  have chosen you and not cast you off:
   10   fear nothing, for I am with you;
  be not afraid, for I am your God.
  I strengthen you, I help you,
  I support you with my victorious right hand.


   11   Now shall all who defy you
  be disappointed and put to shame;
  all ^note who set themselves against you
  shall be as nothing; they shall vanish.
12   You will look for your assailants but not find them;
  all who take up arms against you
  shall be as nothing, nothing at all.
   13   For I, the Lord your God,
  take you by the right hand;

Israel delivered and redeemed
  I say to you, Do not fear;
  it is I who help you,
   14   fear not, Jacob you worm and Israel poor louse.
  It is I who help you, says the Lord,
    your ransomer, the Holy One of Israel.
15   See, I will make of you a sharp threshing-sledge,
    new and studded with teeth;
  you shall thresh the mountains and crush them
  and reduce the hills to chaff;
   16   you shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away
  and a great gale shall scatter them.
  Then shall you rejoice in the Lord
    and glory in the Holy One of Israel.


17   The wretched and the poor look for water and find none,
  their tongues are parched with thirst;
  but I the Lord will give them an answer,
  I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
   18   I will open rivers among the sand-dunes
    and wells in the valleys;
  I will turn the wilderness into pools
  and dry land into springs of water;
   19   I will plant cedars in the wastes,
  and acacia and myrtle and wild olive;
  the pine shall grow on the barren heath
  side by side with fir and box,
   20   that men may see and know,
  may once for all give heed and understand
  that the Lord himself has done this,
    that the Holy One of Israel has performed it.


21   Come, open your plea, says the Lord,
present your case, says Jacob's King;
   22   let them come forward, these idols,
  let them foretell the future.
  Let them declare the meaning of past events
    that we may give our minds to it;
  let them predict things that are to be
    that we may know their outcome.
   23   Declare what will happen hereafter;
  then we shall know you are gods.
  Do what you can, good or ill,
  anything that may grip us with fear and awe.
   24   You cannot! You are sprung from nothing,

Israel delivered and redeemed
  your works are rotten;
  whoever chooses you is vile as you are.
   25   I roused one from the north, and he obeyed;
  I called one from the east, summoned him in ^note my name,
  he marches over viceroys as if they were mud,
  like a potter treading his clay.
26   Tell us, who declared this from the beginning, that we might know it,
  or told us beforehand so that we could say, ‘He was right’?
Not one declared, not one foretold,
  not one heard a sound from you.
27   Here is one who will speak ^note first as advocate for Zion,
  here I appoint defending counsel for Jerusalem;
28   but from the other side no advocate steps forward
  and, when I look, there is no one there.
I ask a question and no one answers;
   29   see what empty things they are!
    Nothing that they do has any worth,
  their effigies are wind, mere nothings.


   1   Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
  my chosen one in whom I delight,
  I have bestowed my spirit upon him,
  and he will make justice shine on the nations.
   2   He will not call out or lift his voice high,
  or ^note make himself heard in the open street.
   3   He will not break a bruised reed,
  or snuff out a smouldering wick;
  he will make justice shine on every race, ^note
   4   never faltering, never breaking down, ^note
  he will plant justice on earth,
  while coasts and islands wait for his teaching.


5   Thus speaks the Lord who is God,
  he who created the skies and stretched them out,
  who fashioned the earth and all that grows in it,
who gave breath to its people,
  the breath of life to all who walk upon it:
6   I, Lord, have called you with righteous purpose
    and taken you by the hand;

Israel delivered and redeemed
    I have formed you, and appointed you
    to be a light ^note to all peoples,
    a beacon for the nations,
   7   to open eyes that are blind,
  to bring captives out of prison,
    out of the dungeons where they lie in darkness.
8   I am the Lord; the Lord ^note is my name;
  I will not give my glory to another god,
    nor my praise to any idol.
   9   See how the first prophecies have come to pass,
  and now I declare new things;
before they break from the bud I announce them to you.


10   Sing a new song to the Lord,
    sing his praise throughout the earth,
    you that sail the sea, and all sea-creatures,
  and you that inhabit the coasts and islands. ^note
   11   Let the wilderness and its towns rejoice,
    and the villages of the tribe of Kedar.
Let those who live in Sela shout for joy
    and cry out from the hill-tops.
   12   You coasts and islands, all uplift his praises;
  let all ascribe glory to the Lord.
   13   The Lord will go forth as a warrior,
  he will rouse the frenzy of battle like a hero;
  he will shout, he will raise the battle-cry
    and triumph over his foes.
     14   Long have I lain still,
  I kept silence and held myself in check;
  now I will cry like a woman in labour,
    whimpering, panting and gasping.
   15   I will lay waste mountains and hills
    and shrivel all their green herbs;
  I will turn rivers into desert wastes ^note
    and dry up all the pools.
   16   Then will I lead blind men on their way ^note
  and guide them by paths they do not know;
I will turn darkness into light before them
    and straighten their twisting roads.
All this I will do and leave nothing undone.
   17   Those who trust in an image,

Israel delivered and redeemed
those who take idols for their gods
turn tail in bitter shame.


     18   Hear now, you that are deaf;
  you blind men, look and see:
   19   yet who is blind but my servant,
  who so deaf as the messenger whom I send?
  Who so blind as the one who holds my commission,
    so deaf ^note as the servant of the Lord?
   20   You have seen much but remembered little,
  your ears are wide open but nothing is heard.
   21   It pleased the Lord, for the furtherance of his justice,
  to make his law a law of surpassing majesty;
   22   yet here is a people plundered and taken as prey,
  all of them ensnared, trapped in holes,
    lost to sight in dungeons,
  carried off as spoil without hope of rescue,
  as plunder with no one to say, ‘Give it back.’
   23   Hear this, all of you who will,
  listen henceforward and give me a hearing:
   24   who gave away Jacob for plunder,
    who gave Israel away for spoil?
  Was it not the Lord? They ^note sinned against him,
  they would not follow his ways
    and refused obedience to his law;
   25   so in his anger he poured out upon Jacob
  his wrath and the fury of battle.
  It wrapped him in flames, yet still he did not learn the lesson,
  scorched him, yet he did not lay it to heart.


   1   But now this is the word of the Lord,
  the word of your creator, O Jacob,
    of him who fashioned you, Israel:
  Have no fear; for I have paid your ransom;
  I have called you by name and you are my own.
2   When you pass through deep waters, I am with you,
    when you pass through rivers,
    they will not sweep you away;
  walk through fire and you will not be scorched,
  through flames and they will not burn you.
   3   For I am the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel, your deliverer;
  for your ransom I give Egypt,

Israel delivered and redeemed
  Nubia and Seba are your price.
4   You are more precious to me than the Assyrians,
  you are honoured and I have loved you,
  I would give the Edomites in exchange for you,
  and the Leummim for your life.


     5   Have no fear; for I am with you;
  I will bring your children from the east
    and gather you all from the west.
   6   I will say to the north, ‘Give them up’,
    and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.
  Bring my sons and daughters from afar,
    bring them from the ends of the earth;
   7   bring every one who is called by my name,
    all whom I have created, whom I have formed,
  all whom I have made for my glory.’
     8   Bring out this people,
    a people who have eyes but are blind,
  who have ears but are deaf.
   9   All the nations are gathered together
    and the peoples assembled.
  Who amongst them can expound this thing
    and interpret for us all that has gone before?
  Let them produce witnesses to prove their case,
  or let them listen and say, ‘That is the truth.’
10   My witnesses, says the Lord, are you, my servants,
  you whom I have chosen
  to know me and put your faith in me
  and understand that I am He.
  Before me there was no god fashioned
  nor ever shall be after me.
   11   I am the Lord, I myself,
  and none but I can deliver.
   12   I myself have made it known in full, and declared it,
  I and no alien god amongst you,
  and you are my witnesses, says the Lord.
   13   I am God; from this very day I am He.
  What my hand holds, none can snatch away;
  what I do, none can undo.


14   Thus says the Lord your ransomer, the Holy One of Israel:
  For your sakes I have sent to Babylon;
  I will lay the Chaldaeans prostrate as they flee,
  and their cry of triumph will turn to groaning.

Israel delivered and redeemed
   15   I am the Lord, your Holy One,
    your creator, Israel, and your King.


   16   Thus says the Lord,
  who opened a way in the sea
  and a path through mighty waters,
   17   who drew on chariot and horse to their destruction,
  a whole army, men of valour;
  there they lay, never to rise again;
they were crushed, snuffed out like a wick:
   18   Cease to dwell on days gone by
  and to brood over past history.
   19   Here and now I will do a new thing;
    this moment it will break from the bud.
    Can you not perceive it?
I will make a way even through the wilderness
    and paths ^note in the barren desert;
     20   the wild beasts shall do me honour,
    the wolf and the ostrich;
  for I will provide water in the wilderness
    and rivers in the barren desert,
    where my chosen people may drink.
   21   I have formed this people for myself
    and they shall proclaim my praises.
   22   Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob;
much less did you weary yourself in my service, O Israel.
   23   You did not bring me sheep as whole-offerings
    or honour me with sacrifices;
    I asked you for no burdensome offerings
    and wearied you with no demands for incense.
24   You did not buy me sweet-cane with your money
  or glut me with the fat of your sacrifices;
  rather you burdened me with your sins
    and wearied me with your iniquities.
   25   I alone, I am He,
  who for his own sake wipes out your transgressions,
  who will remember your sins no more. ^note
   26   Cite me by name, let us argue it out;
  set forth your pleading and justify yourselves.
   27   Your first father transgressed,
  your spokesmen rebelled against me,

Israel delivered and redeemed
   28   and your princes profaned my sanctuary; ^note
  so I sent Jacob to his doom ^note
    and left Israel to execration.


1   Hear me now, Jacob my servant,
  hear me, my chosen Israel.
   2   Thus says the Lord your maker,
  your helper, who fashioned you from birth:
  have no fear, Jacob my servant,
  Jeshurun whom I have chosen,
   3   for I will pour down rain on a thirsty land,
    showers on the dry ground.
  I will pour out my spirit on your offspring
    and my blessing on your children.
   4   They shall spring up like ^note a green tamarisk,
  like poplars by a flowing stream.
5   This man shall say, ‘I am the Lord's man’,
  that one shall call himself a son of Jacob,
another shall write the Lord's name on his hand
  and shall add the name of Israel to his own.


   6   Thus says the Lord, Israel's King,
  the Lord of Hosts, his ransomer:
I am the first and I am the last,
    and there is no god but me.
   7   Who is like me? Let him stand up, ^note
  let him declare himself and speak and show me his evidence,
  let him announce beforehand ^note things to come,
  let him ^note declare what is yet to happen.
     8   Take heart, do not be afraid. ^note
  Did I not foretell this long ago?
  I declared it, and you are my witnesses.
  Is there any god beside me,
    or any creator, even one that I do not know?
9   Those who make idols are less than nothing;
    all their cherished images profit nobody;
  their worshippers are blind,
    sheer ignorance makes fools of them.
10   If a man makes a god or casts an image,
    his labour is wasted.

Israel delivered and redeemed
11   Why! its votaries show their folly;
  the craftsmen too are but men.
  Let them all gather together and confront me,
  all will be afraid and look the fools they are.

12   The blacksmith sharpens ^note a graving tool and hammers out his work ^note hot from the coals and shapes it with his strong arm; when he grows hungry his strength fails, if he has no water to drink he tires. 13   The wood-worker draws his line taut and marks out a figure with a scriber; he planes the wood and measures it with callipers, and he carves it to the shape of a man, comely as the human form, to be set up presently in a house. ^note

14   A man plants a cedar ^note and the rain makes it grow, so that later on he will have cedars to cut down; or he chooses an ilex or an oak to raise a stout tree for himself in the forest. 15   It becomes fuel for his fire: some of it he takes and warms himself, some he kindles and bakes bread on it, and some he makes into a god and prostrates himself, shaping it into an idol and bowing down before it. 16   The one half of it he burns in the fire and on this he roasts meat, so that he may eat his roast and be satisfied; he also warms himself at it and he says, ‘Good! I can feel the heat, I am growing warm.’ 17   Then what is left of the wood he makes into a god by carving it into shape; he bows down to it and prostrates himself and prays to it, saying, ‘Save me; for thou art my god.’ 18   Such people neither know nor understand, their eyes made too blind to see, their minds too narrow to discern. 19   Such a man will not use his reason, he has neither the wit nor the sense to say, ‘Half of it I have burnt, yes, and used its embers to bake bread; I have roasted meat on them too and eaten it; but the rest of it I turn into this abominable thing and so I am worshipping a log of wood.’ ^note 20   He feeds on ashes indeed! His own deluded mind has misled him, he cannot recollect himself so far as to say, ‘Why! this thing in my hand is a sham.’

   21   Remember all this, Jacob,
  remember, Israel, for you are my servant,
  I have fashioned you, and you are to serve me;
    you shall not forget me, Israel.
   22   I have swept away your sins like a dissolving mist,
    and your transgressions are dispersed like clouds;
  turn back to me; for I have ransomed you.
23   Shout in triumph, you heavens, for it is the Lord's doing;
  cry out for joy, you lowest depths of the earth;
  break into songs of triumph, you mountains,

Israel delivered and redeemed
  you forest and all your trees;
  for the Lord has ransomed Jacob
    and made Israel his masterpiece.


   24   Thus says the Lord, your ransomer,
    who fashioned you from birth:
I am the Lord who made all things,
    by myself I stretched out the skies,
  alone I hammered out the floor of the earth.
   25   I frustrate false prophets and their signs
    and make fools of diviners;
  I reverse what wise men say
    and make nonsense of their wisdom.
   26   I make my servants' prophecies come true
    and give effect to my messengers' designs.
    I say of Jerusalem,
    ‘She shall be inhabited once more’,
  and of the cities of Judah, ‘They shall be rebuilt;
    all their ruins I will restore.’
   27   I say to the deep waters, ‘Be dried up;
    I will make your streams run dry.’
   28   I say to Cyrus, ‘You shall be my shepherd
    to carry out all my purpose,
  so that Jerusalem may be rebuilt
    and the foundations of the temple may be laid.’ ^note


1   Thus says the Lord to Cyrus his anointed,
  Cyrus whom he has taken by the hand
  to subdue nations before him
  and undo the might ^note of kings;
  before whom gates shall be opened
    and no doors be shut:
   2   I will go before you
    and level the swelling hills;
    I will break down gates of bronze
    and hack through iron bars.
   3   I will give you treasures from dark vaults,
    hoarded in secret places,
  that you may know that I am the Lord,
    Israel's God who calls you by name.
4   For the sake of Jacob my servant and Israel my chosen
  I have called you by name
and given you your title, though you have not known me.

Israel delivered and redeemed
   5   I am the Lord, there is no other;
    there is no god beside me.
    I will strengthen you though you have not known me,
   6   so that men from the rising and the setting sun
  may know that there is none but I:
    I am the Lord, there is no other;
     7   I make the light, I create darkness,
    author alike of prosperity and trouble.
I, the Lord, do all these things.


   8   Rain righteousness, you heavens,
  let the skies above pour down;
    let the earth open to receive it,
    that it may bear the fruit of salvation
  with righteousness in blossom at its side.
  All this I, the Lord, have created.


   9   Will the pot contend ^note with the potter,
  or the earthenware ^note with the hand that shapes it?
Will the clay ask the potter what he is making?
  or his ^note handiwork say to him, ‘You have no skill’?
10   Will the babe say ^note to his father, ‘What are you begetting?’,
  or to his mother, ‘What are you bringing to birth?’
11   Thus says the Lord, Israel's Holy One, his maker:
  Would you dare question me concerning my children,
  or instruct me in my handiwork?
   12   I alone, I made the earth
  and created man upon it;
I, with my own hands, stretched out the heavens
  and caused all their host to shine.
   13   I alone have roused this man in righteousness,
    and I will smooth his path before him;
  he shall rebuild my city
    and let my exiles go free—
    not for a price nor for a bribe,
    says the Lord of Hosts.


     14   Thus says the Lord:
    Toilers of Egypt and Nubian merchants
    and Sabaeans bearing tribute ^note
shall come into your power and be your slaves,
shall come and march behind you in chains;

Israel delivered and redeemed
they shall bow down before you in supplication, saying,
‘Surely God is among you and there is no other,
    no other god.
15   How then canst thou be a god that hidest thyself,
    O God of Israel, the deliverer?’


16   Those who defy him ^note are confounded and brought to shame,
those who make idols perish in confusion.
     17   But Israel has been delivered by the Lord,
    delivered for all time to come;
they shall not be confounded or put to shame for all eternity.


18   Thus says the Lord, the creator of the heavens,
    he who is God,
  who made the earth and fashioned it
    and himself fixed it fast,
  who created it no empty void,
    but made it for a place to dwell in:
  I am the Lord, there is no other.
19   I do not speak in secret, in realms of darkness,
  I do not say to the sons of Jacob,
    ‘Look for me in the empty void.’
I the Lord speak what is right, declare what is just.
   20   Gather together, come, draw near,
    all you survivors of the nations,
  you fools, who carry your wooden idols in procession
  and pray to a god that cannot save you.
21   Come forward and urge your case, consult ^note together:
  who foretold this in days of old,
    who stated it long ago?
  Was it not I the Lord?
  There is no god but me;
there is no god other than I, victorious and able to save.
   22   Look to me and be saved,
    you peoples from all corners of the earth;
  for I am God, there is no other.
     23   By my life I have sworn,
  I have given a promise of victory,
    a promise that will not be broken,
  that to me every knee shall bend
    and by me every tongue shall swear.
24   In the Lord alone, men shall say,
    are victory and might;

Israel delivered and redeemed
  and all who defy him
  shall stand ashamed in his presence,
   25   but all the sons of Israel shall stand victorious
    and find their glory in the Lord.


1   Bel has crouched down, Nebo has stooped low:
their images, once carried in your processions,
  have been loaded on to beasts and cattle,
  a burden for the weary creatures;
     2   they stoop and they crouch;
  not for them to bring the burden to safety;
  the gods themselves go into captivity.
   3   Listen to me, house of Jacob
  and all the remnant of the house of Israel,
a load on me from your birth, carried by me from the womb:
   4   till you grow old I am He,
  and when white hairs come, I will carry you still;
I have made you and I will bear the burden,
  I will carry you and bring you to safety.
   5   To whom will you liken me? Who is my equal?
  With whom can you compare me? Where is my like?
   6   Those who squander their bags of gold
  and weigh out their silver with a balance
hire a goldsmith to fashion them into a god;
  then they worship it and fall prostrate before it;
7   they hoist it shoulder-high and carry it home;
    they set it down on its base;
  there it must stand, it cannot stir from its place.
  Let a man cry to it as he will, it never answers him;
    it cannot deliver him from his troubles.


   8   Remember this, you rebels,
  consider it well, and abandon hope,
   9   remember all that happened long ago;
  for I am God, there is no other,
  I am God, and there is no one like me;
   10   I reveal the end from the beginning,
  from ancient times I reveal what is to be;
  I say, ‘My purpose shall take effect,
  I will accomplish all that I please.’
   11   I summon a bird of prey ^note from the east,
  one from a distant land to fulfil my purpose.
    Mark this; I have spoken, and I will bring it about,

Israel delivered and redeemed
  I have a plan to carry out, and carry it out I will.
   12   Listen to me, all you stubborn hearts,
    for whom victory is far off:
   13   I bring my victory near, it is not far off,
    and my deliverance shall not be delayed;
  I will grant deliverance in Zion
    and give my glory to Israel. ^note


   1   Down with you, sit in the dust,
    virgin daughter of Babylon.
  Down from your throne, sit on the ground,
    daughter of the Chaldaeans;
  never again shall men call you
    soft-skinned and delicate.
2   Take up the millstone, grind meal, uncover your tresses;
strip off your skirt, bare your thighs, wade through rivers,
   3   so that your nakedness may be plain to see
    and your shame exposed.
I will take vengeance, I will treat with none of you,
   4   says ^note the Holy One of Israel, our ransomer,
    whose name is the Lord of Hosts.


     5   Sit silent,
  be off into the shadows, daughter of the Chaldaeans;
  for never again shall men call you
    queen of many kingdoms.
     6   When I was angry with my people,
    I dishonoured my own possession
    and gave them into your power.
  You showed them no mercy,
you made your yoke weigh heavy on the aged.
7   You said then, ‘I shall reign a queen for ever’,
  while ^note you gave no thought to this
    and did not consider how it would end.
     8   Now therefore listen to this,
you lover of luxury, carefree on your throne.
    You say to yourself,
  ‘I am, and who but I?
No widow's weeds for me, no deaths of children.’
   9   Yet suddenly, in a single day,
  these two things shall come upon you;
they shall both come upon you in full measure: ^note

Israel delivered and redeemed
  children's deaths and widowhood,
  for all your monstrous sorceries, your countless spells.
10   Secure in your wicked ways you thought, ‘No one is looking.’
Your wisdom betrayed you, omniscient as you were,
    and you said to yourself,
  ‘I am, and who but I?’
   11   Therefore evil shall come upon you,
    and you will not know how to master it;
  disaster shall befall you,
    and you will not be able to charm it away;
    ruin all unforeseen
  shall come suddenly upon you.
   12   Persist in your spells and your monstrous sorceries, ^note
  maybe you can get help from them,
    maybe you will yet inspire awe.
   13   But no! in spite of your many wiles you are powerless.
  Let your astrologers, your star-gazers
who foretell your future month by month,
    persist, and save you!
   14   But look, they are gone like chaff;
    fire burns them up;
  they cannot snatch themselves from the flames;
    this is no glowing coal to warm them,
  no fire for them to sit by.
     15   So much for your magicians
  with whom you have trafficked all your life:
  they have stumbled off, each his own way,
    and there is no one to save you.


     1   Hear this, you house of Jacob,
    you who are called by the name of Israel,
    you who spring from the seed of Judah;
    who swear by the name of the Lord
    and boast in the God of Israel,
    but not in honesty or sincerity,
   2   although you call yourselves citizens of a holy city
    and lean for support on the God of Israel;
    his name is the Lord of Hosts.
   3   Long ago I announced what would first happen,
  I revealed it with my own mouth;
  suddenly I acted and it came about.
   4   I knew that you were stubborn,

Israel delivered and redeemed
    your neck stiff as iron, your brow like bronze,
   5   therefore I told you of these things long ago,
  and declared them before they came about,
  so that you could not say, ‘This was my idol's doing;
  my image, the god that I fashioned, he ordained them.’
   6   You have heard what I said; consider it well,
  and you must admit the truth of it.
  Now I show you new things,
    hidden things which you did not know before.
   7   They were not created long ago, but in this very hour;
  you had never heard of them before today.
  You cannot say, ‘I know them already.’
   8   You neither heard nor knew,
  long ago your ears were closed;
  for I knew that you were untrustworthy, treacherous,
  a notorious rebel from your birth.
   9   For the sake of my own name I was patient, ^note
  rather than destroy you I held myself in check.
   10   See how I tested you, not as silver is tested,
    but in the furnace of affliction; there I purified you.
   11   For my honour, for my own honour I did it;
  let them disparage my past triumphs ^note if they will:
  I will not give my glory to any other god.


   12   Hear me, Jacob,
    and Israel whom I called:
I am He; I am the first,
    I am the last also.
   13   With my own hands I founded the earth,
with my right hand I formed the expanse of sky;
  when I summoned them,
    they sprang at once into being.
   14   Assemble, all of you, and listen to me;
  which of you ^note has declared what is coming,
that he whom I ^note love shall wreak my ^note will on Babylon
    and the Chaldaeans shall be scattered?
15   I, I myself, have spoken, I have called him,
I have made him appear, and wherever he goes he shall prosper.
16   Draw near to me and hear this:
  from the beginning I have never spoken in secret;
  from the moment of its first happening I was there. ^note

Israel delivered and redeemed

17   Thus says the Lord your ransomer, the Holy One of Israel:
  I am the Lord your God:
    I teach you for your own advantage
  and lead you in the way you must go.
   18   If only you had listened to my commands,
your prosperity would have rolled on like a river in flood
    and your just success like the waves of the sea;
   19   in number your children would have been like the sand
    and your descendants countless as its grains;
their name would never be erased or blotted from my sight.
20   Come out of Babylon, hasten away from the Chaldaeans;
proclaim it with loud songs of triumph,
  crying the news to the ends of the earth;
tell them, ‘The Lord has ransomed his servant Jacob.’
21   Though he led them through desert places they suffered no thirst,
for them he made water run from the rock,
for them he cleft the rock and streams gushed forth.


     22   There is no peace for the wicked,
      says the Lord.
Israel a light to the nations

   1   Listen to me, you coasts and islands,
  pay heed, you peoples far away:
  from birth the Lord called me,
  he named me from my mother's womb.
2   He made my tongue ^note his sharp sword
    and concealed me under cover of his hand;
  he made me a polished arrow
    and hid me out of sight in his quiver.
3   He said to me, ‘You are my servant,
  Israel through whom I shall win glory’;
    so I rose to honour in the Lord's sight
  and my God became my strength. ^note
4   Once I said, ‘I have laboured in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing, to no purpose’;
  yet in truth my cause is with the Lord
    and my reward is in God's hands.
5   And now the Lord who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
  to bring Jacob back to him

Israel a light to the nations
  that Israel should be gathered to him, ^note
  now the Lord calls me again: ^note
   6   it is too slight a task for you, as my servant,
  to restore the tribes of Jacob,
    to bring back the descendants of Israel:
  I will make you a light to the nations,
  to be my salvation ^note to earth's farthest bounds.


   7   Thus says the Holy One, the Lord who ransoms Israel,
    to one who thinks little of himself, ^note
    whom every nation abhors,
    the slave of tyrants:
  When they see you kings shall rise,
  princes shall rise and bow down,
  because of the Lord who is faithful,
because of the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you.


   8   Thus says the Lord:
    In the hour of my favour I answered you,
    and I helped you on the day of deliverance, ^note
    putting the land to rights
  and sharing out afresh its desolate fields;
   9   I said to the prisoners, ‘Go free’,
  and to those in darkness, ‘Come out and be seen.’
  They shall find pasture in the desert sands ^note
  and grazing on all the dunes.
     10   They shall neither hunger nor thirst,
  no scorching heat or sun shall distress them;
    for one who loves them shall lead them
    and take them to water at bubbling springs.
   11   I will make every hill a path
    and build embankments for my highways.
12   See, they come; some from far away,
these from the north and these from the west
    and those from the land of Syene. ^note
13   Shout for joy, you heavens, rejoice, O earth,
  you mountains, break into songs of triumph,
  for the Lord has comforted his people
    and has had pity on his own in their distress.

Israel a light to the nations

     14   But Zion says,
‘The Lord has forsaken me; my God ^note has forgotten me.’
   15   Can a woman forget the infant at her breast,
  or a loving mother the child of her womb?
Even these forget, yet I will not forget you.
   16   Your walls are always before my eyes,
  I have engraved them on the palms of my hands.
   17   Those who are to rebuild you make better speed
    than those who pulled you down,
  while those who laid you waste depart.
   18   Raise your eyes and look around you:
see how they assemble, how they are flocking back to you.
    By my life I, the Lord, swear it,
  you shall wear them proudly as your jewels,
    and adorn yourself with them like a bride;
   19   I did indeed make you waste and desolate,
    I razed you to the ground,
  but your boundaries ^note shall now be too narrow
  for your inhabitants—
  and those who laid you in ruins are far away.
20   The children born in your bereavement shall yet say in your hearing,
‘This place is too narrow; make room for me to live in.’
   21   Then you will say to yourself,
  ‘All these children, how did I come by them,
  bereaved and barren as I was? ^note
  Who reared them
  when I was left alone, left by myself;
  where did I get them all?’


   22   The Lord God says,
Now is the time: I will beckon to the nations
  and hoist a signal to the peoples,
  and they shall bring your sons in their arms
  and carry your daughters on their shoulders;
   23   kings shall be your foster-fathers
    and their princesses shall be your nurses.
They shall bow to the earth before you
    and lick the dust from your feet;
  and you shall know that I am the Lord
  and that none who look to me will be disappointed.
   24   Can his prey be taken from the strong man,

Israel a light to the nations
  or the captive be rescued from the ruthless ^note?
     25   And the Lord answers,
  The captive shall be taken even from the strong,
    and the prey of the ruthless shall be rescued;
  I will contend with all who contend against you
    and save your children from them.
26   I will force your oppressors to feed on their own flesh
and make them drunk with their own blood as if with fresh wine,
    and all mankind shall know
  that it is I, the Lord, who save you,
    I your ransomer, the Mighty One of Jacob.


   1   The Lord says,
Is there anywhere a deed of divorce
    by which I have put your mother away?
    Was there some creditor of mine
    to whom I sold you?
  No; it was through your own wickedness that you were sold
  and for your own misconduct that your mother was put away.
   2   Why, then, did I find no one when I came?
    Why, when I called, did no one answer?
Did you think my arm too short to redeem,
    did you think I had no power to save?
Not so. By my rebuke I dried up the sea
  and turned rivers into desert;
  their fish perished for lack of water
    and died on the thirsty ground;
   3   I clothed the skies in mourning
  and covered them with sackcloth.


     4   The Lord God has given me
    the tongue of a teacher
    and skill to console the weary
    with a word ^note in the morning;
    he sharpened my hearing ^note
  that I might listen like one who is taught.
     5   The Lord God opened my ears
and I did not disobey or turn back in defiance.
   6   I offered my back to the lash,
    and let my beard be plucked from my chin,
I did not hide my face from spitting and insult;
   7   but the Lord God stands by to help me;

Israel a light to the nations
  therefore no insult can wound me.
I have set my face like flint,
  for I know that I shall not be put to shame,
   8   because one who will clear my name is at my side.
Who dare argue against me? Let us confront one another.
Who will dispute my cause? Let him come forward.
9   The Lord God will help me;
  who then can prove me guilty?
They will all wear out like a garment,
    the moths will eat them up.


10   Which of you fears the Lord and obeys his servant's commands?
The man who walks in dark places with no light,
yet trusts in the name of the Lord and leans on his God.
   11   But you who kindle a fire and set fire-brands alight, ^note
  go, walk into your own fire
  and among the fire-brands you have set ablaze.
  This is your fate at my hands:
    you shall lie down in torment.


1   Listen to me, all who follow the right and seek the Lord:
  look to the rock from which you were hewn,
    to the quarry from which you were dug;
   2   look to your father Abraham
    and to Sarah who gave you birth:
when I called him he was but one,
  I blessed him and made him many.
   3   The Lord has indeed comforted Zion,
    comforted all her ruined homes,
  turning her wilderness into an Eden,
    her thirsty plains into a garden of the Lord.
Joy and gladness shall be found in her,
    thanksgiving and melody.
   4   Pay heed to me, my people, ^note
  and hear me, O my nation; ^note
  for my law shall shine forth
and I will flash the light of my judgement over the nations.
5   My victory is near, my deliverance has gone ^note forth
  and my arm shall rule the nations;
  for me coasts and islands shall wait
    and they shall look to me for protection.

Israel a light to the nations
   6   Lift your eyes to the heavens,
  look at the earth beneath:
  the heavens grow murky as smoke;
  the earth wears into tatters like a garment,
  and those who live on it die like maggots;
  but my deliverance is everlasting
    and my saving power shall never wane.


   7   Listen to me, my people who know what is right,
  you who lay my law to heart:
    do not fear the taunts of men,
    let no reproaches dismay you;
   8   for the grub will devour them like a garment
  and the moth as if they were wool,
  but my saving power shall last for ever
    and my deliverance to all generations.


9   Awake, awake, put on your strength, O arm of the Lord,
  awake as you did long ago, in days gone by.
    Was it not you
who hacked the Rahab in pieces and ran the dragon through?
     10   Was it not you
who dried up the sea, the waters of the great abyss,
and made the ocean depths a path for the ransomed?
     11   So the Lord's people shall come back, set free,
  and enter Zion with shouts of triumph,
    crowned with everlasting joy;
    joy and gladness shall overtake them as they come,
    and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
   12   I, I myself, am he that comforts you.
  Why then fear man, man who must die,
    man frail as grass?
     13   Why have you forgotten the Lord your maker,
  who stretched out the skies and founded the earth?
    Why are you continually afraid, all the day long,
why dread the fury of oppressors ready to destroy you?
    Where is that fury?
14   He that cowers under it shall soon stand upright and not die,
  he shall soon reap the early crop and not lack bread.

15   I am the Lord your God, the Lord of Hosts is my name. I cleft the sea and its waves roared, 16   that I might fix the heavens in place and form the earth and say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’ I have put my words in your mouth and kept you safe under the shelter of my hand.

Israel a light to the nations

17   Awake, awake; rise up, Jerusalem.
  You have drunk from the Lord's hand
    the cup of his wrath,
  drained to its dregs the bowl of drunkenness;
18   of all the sons you have borne there is not one to guide you,
of all you have reared, not one to take you by the hand.
   19   These two disasters have overtaken you;
    who can console you?—
havoc and ruin, famine and the sword;
    who can comfort you ^note?
   20   Your sons are in stupor, they lie at the head of every street,
    like antelopes caught in the net,
    glutted with the wrath of the Lord,
    the rebuke of your God.
21   Therefore listen to this, in your affliction,
    drunk that you are, but not with wine;
22   thus says the Lord, your Lord and your God,
    who will plead his people's cause:
  Look, I take from your hand
    the cup of drunkenness;
you shall never again drink from the bowl of my wrath,
   23   I will give it instead to your tormentors and oppressors, ^note
those who said to you, ‘Lie down and we will walk over you’;
  and you made your backs like the ground beneath them,
    like a roadway for passers-by.


1   Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion,
put on your loveliest garments, holy city of Jerusalem;
for never shall the uncircumcised and the unclean enter you again.
2   Rise up, captive Jerusalem, shake off the dust;
    loose your neck from the collar that binds it,
    O captive daughter of Zion.

3   The Lord says, You were sold but no price was paid, and without payment you shall be ransomed. 4   The Lord God says, At the beginning my people went down into Egypt to live there, and at the end it was the Assyrians who oppressed them; 5   but now what do I find here? says the Lord. My people carried off and no price paid, their rulers derided, and my name reviled all day long, says the Lord. 6   But on that day my people shall know my name; ^note they shall know that it is I who speak; here I am.

Israel a light to the nations

7   How lovely on the mountains are the feet of the herald
who comes to proclaim prosperity and bring good news,
    the news of deliverance,
calling to Zion, ‘Your God is king.’
8   Hark, your watchmen raise their voices
    and shout together in triumph;
  for with their own eyes they shall see
  the Lord returning in pity ^note to Zion.
   9   Break forth together in shouts of triumph,
    you ruins of Jerusalem;
  for the Lord has taken pity on his people
    and has ransomed Jerusalem.
   10   The Lord has bared his holy arm
    in the sight of all nations,
  and the whole world from end to end
  shall see the deliverance of our God.
11   Away from Babylon; come out, come out,
    touch nothing unclean.
  Come out from Babylon, keep yourselves pure,
    you who carry the vessels of the Lord.
   12   But you shall not come out in urgent haste
    nor leave like fugitives;
  for the Lord will march at your head,
    your rearguard will be Israel's God.


13   Behold, my servant shall prosper, ^note
he shall be lifted up, exalted to the heights.


14   Time was when many ^note were aghast at you, my people; ^note
15   so now many nations ^note recoil at sight of him,
and kings curl their lips in disgust.
For they see what they had never been told
  and things unheard before fill their thoughts.


   1   Who could have believed what we have heard,
and to whom has the power of the Lord been revealed?


   2   He grew up before the Lord like a young plant
  whose roots are in parched ground;
he had no beauty, no majesty to draw our eyes,
    no grace to make us delight in him;
his form, disfigured, lost all the likeness of a man,
    his beauty changed beyond human semblance. ^note

Israel a light to the nations
   3   He was despised, he shrank from the sight of men,
    tormented and humbled by suffering;
    we despised him, ^note we held him of no account,
    a thing from which men turn away their eyes.
4   Yet on himself he bore our sufferings,
    our torments he endured,
  while we counted him smitten by God,
    struck down by disease and misery;
   5   but he was pierced for our transgressions,
    tortured for our iniquities;
  the chastisement he bore is health for us
    and by his scourging we are healed.
   6   We had all strayed like sheep,
  each of us had gone his own way;
  but the Lord laid upon him
    the guilt of us all.
   7   He was afflicted, he submitted to be struck down
    and did not open his mouth;
  he was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
  like a ewe that is dumb before the shearers. ^note
8   Without protection, without justice, ^note he was taken away;
  and who gave a thought to his fate,
    how he was cut off from the world of living men,
  stricken to the death ^note for my people's transgression?
   9   He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
  a burial-place ^note among the refuse of mankind,
  though he had done no violence
    and spoken no word of treachery.
   10   Yet the Lord took thought for his tortured servant
and healed him who had made himself ^note a sacrifice for sin; ^note
so shall he enjoy long life and see his children's children,
  and in his hand the Lord's cause shall prosper.
   11   After all his pains he shall be bathed in light, ^note
  after his disgrace he shall be fully vindicated;
  so shall he, my servant, vindicate many,
  himself bearing the penalty of their guilt.
12   Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
  and he shall share the spoil with the mighty,

Israel a light to the nations
because he exposed himself to face death ^note
    and was reckoned among transgressors,
because he bore the sin of many
    and interceded for their transgressions.


   1   Sing aloud, O barren woman who never bore a child,
  break into cries of joy, you who have never been in labour;
  for the deserted wife has more sons than she who lives in wedlock,
    says the Lord.
   2   Enlarge the limits of your home,
    spread wide ^note the curtains of your tent;
  let out its ropes to the full
    and drive the pegs home;
   3   for you shall break out of your confines right and left,
  your descendants shall dispossess wide regions, ^note
  and re-people cities now desolate.
   4   Fear not; you shall not be put to shame,
  you shall suffer no insult, have no cause to blush.
  It is time to forget the shame of your younger days
  and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood;
5   for your husband is your maker, whose name is the Lord of Hosts;
    your ransomer is the Holy One of Israel
  who is called God of all the earth.
   6   The Lord has acknowledged you a wife again,
    once deserted and heart-broken,
  your God has called you a bride still young
    though once rejected.
   7   On the impulse of a moment I forsook you,
but with tender affection I will bring you home again.
     8   In sudden anger
  I hid my face from you for a moment;
but now have I pitied you with a love which never fails,
    says the Lord who ransoms you.
   9   These days recall for me the days of Noah:
  as I swore that the waters of Noah's flood
  should never again pour over the earth,
    so now I swear to you
never again to be angry with you or reproach you.
   10   Though the mountains move and the hills shake,
  my love shall be immovable and never fail,
    and my covenant of peace shall not be shaken.
    So says the Lord who takes pity on you.

Israel a light to the nations

   11   O storm-battered city, distressed and disconsolate,
now I will set your stones in the finest mortar
    and your foundations in lapis lazuli;
   12   I will make your battlements of red jasper ^note
    and your gates of garnet; ^note
    all your boundary-stones shall be jewels.
     13   Your masons shall all be instructed by the Lord,
    and your sons shall enjoy great prosperity;
     14   and in triumph ^note shall you be restored.
You shall be free from oppression and have no fears,
free from terror, and it shall not come near you;
15   should any attack you, it will not be my doing,
the aggressor, whoever he be, shall perish for his attempt.
16   It was I who created the smith
  to fan the coals in the furnace
  and forge weapons each for its purpose,
and I who created the destroyer to lay waste;
17   but now no weapon made to harm you shall prevail,
and you shall rebut every charge brought against you.
  Such is the fortune of the servants of the Lord;
    their vindication comes from me.
    This is the very word of the Lord.


1   Come, all who are thirsty, come, fetch water;
come, you who have no food, buy corn and eat;
come and buy, not for money, not for a price. ^note
2   Why spend money and get what is not bread,
  why give the price of your labour and go unsatisfied?
Only listen to me and you will have good food to eat,
  and you will enjoy the fat of the land.
3   Come to me and listen to my words,
  hear me, and you shall have life:
  I will make a covenant with you, this time for ever,
to love you faithfully as I loved David.
4   I made him a witness to all races,
    a prince and instructor of peoples;
5   and you in turn shall summon nations you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall come running to you,
    because the Lord your God,
  the Holy One of Israel, has glorified you.


   6   Inquire of the Lord while he is present,
  call upon him when he is close at hand.

Israel a light to the nations
   7   Let the wicked abandon their ways
    and evil men their thoughts:
let them return to the Lord, who will have pity on them,
  return to our God, for he will freely forgive.
   8   For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    and your ways are not my ways.
    This is the very word of the Lord.
   9   For as ^note the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts;
10   and as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return until they have watered the earth,
    making it blossom and bear fruit,
and give seed for sowing and bread to eat,
11   so shall the word which comes from my mouth prevail;
  it shall not return to me fruitless
without accomplishing my purpose
    or succeeding in the task I gave it.
     12   You shall indeed go out with joy
    and be led forth in peace.
Before you mountains and hills shall break into cries of joy,
and all the trees of the wild shall clap their hands,
   13   pine-trees shall shoot up in place of camel-thorn,
    myrtles instead of briars;
  all this shall win the Lord a great name,
    imperishable, a sign for all time.
Warnings to keep the moral law

   1   These are the words of the Lord:
Maintain justice, do the right;
for my deliverance is close at hand,
    and my righteousness will show itself victorious.
   2   Happy is the man who follows these precepts,
  happy the mortal who holds them fast,
    who keeps the sabbath undefiled,
  who refrains from all wrong-doing!
3   The foreigner who has given his allegiance to the Lord must not say,
‘The Lord will keep me separate from his people for ever’;
    and the eunuch must not say,

Warnings to keep the moral law
  ‘I am nothing but a barren tree.’
   4   For these are the words of the Lord:
The eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,
who choose to do my will and hold fast to my covenant,
5   shall receive from me something better than sons and daughters,
a memorial and a name in my own house and within my walls;
  I will give them ^note an everlasting name,
    a name imperishable for all time.
6   So too with the foreigners who give their allegiance to me, the Lord,
  to minister to me and love my name
  and to become my servants,
  all who keep the sabbath undefiled
    and hold fast to my covenant:
   7   them will I bring to my holy hill
    and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their offerings and sacrifices shall be acceptable on my altar;
    for my house shall be called
    a house of prayer for all nations.
     8   This is the very word of the Lord God,
    who brings home the outcasts of Israel:
I will yet bring home all that remain to be brought in.


9   Come, beasts of the plain, beasts of the forest,
    come, eat your fill,
10   for Israel's watchmen are blind, all of them unaware.
They are all dumb dogs who cannot bark,
  stretched on the ground, dreaming, lovers of sleep,
11   greedy dogs that can never have enough.
They are shepherds who understand nothing,
  absent each of them on his own pursuits,
  each intent on his own gain wherever he can find it.
   12   ‘Come,’ says each of them, ‘let me fetch wine,
    strong drink, and we will drain it down;
  let us make tomorrow like today,
  or greater far!’


     1   The righteous perish,
  and no one takes it to heart;
men of good faith are swept away, but no one cares,
the righteous are swept away before the onset of evil,
     2   but they enter into peace;
    they have run a straight course
    and rest in their last beds.

Warnings to keep the moral law

3   Come, stand forth, you sons of a soothsayer.
You spawn of an adulterer and a harlot, ^note
     4   who is the target of your jests?
  Against whom do you open your mouths
    and wag your tongues,
children of sin that you are, spawn of a lie,
   5   burning with lust under the terebinths,
    under every spreading tree,
  and sacrificing children in the gorges,
    under the rocky clefts?
     6   And you, woman,
  your place is with the creatures of the gorge;
    that is where you belong.
  To them you have dared to pour a libation
    and present an offering of grain. ^note
   7   On a high mountain-top
    you have made your bed;
  there too you have gone up to offer sacrifice.
  In spite of all this am I to relent? ^note
8   Beside door and door-post you have put up your sign.
  Deserting me, you have stripped and lain down ^note
    on the wide bed which you have made,
  and you drove bargains with men
    for the pleasure of sleeping together,
  and you have committed countless acts of fornication ^note
    in the heat of your lust. ^note
   9   You drenched your tresses in oil
    blended with many perfumes;
  you sent out your procurers far and wide
    even down to the gates of Sheol.
   10   Worn out by your unending excesses,
    even so you never said, ‘I am past hope.’
    You earned a livelihood
    and so you had no anxiety.
11   Whom do you fear so much, that you should be false,
that you never remembered me or gave me ^note a thought?
Did I not hold my peace and seem not to see
    while you showed no fear of me?
   12   Now I will denounce your conduct

Warnings to keep the moral law
    that you think so righteous.
13   These idols of yours shall not help when you cry;
    no idol shall save you.
  The wind shall carry them off, one and all,
    a puff of air shall blow them away;
but he who makes me his refuge shall possess the earth
    and inherit my holy hill.


     14   Then a voice shall be heard:
Build up a highway, build it and clear the track,
  sweep away all that blocks my people's path.
15   Thus speaks the high and exalted one,
whose name is holy, who lives for ever:
  I dwell in a high and holy place
    with him who is broken and humble in spirit,
    to revive the spirit of the humble,
    to revive the courage of the broken.
   16   I will not be always accusing,
  I will not continually nurse my wrath.
  For a breath of life passed out from me,
  and by my own act I created living creatures.
   17   For a time I was angry at the guilt of Israel; ^note
  I smote him in my anger and withdrew my favour.
  But he ran wild and went his wilful way.
     18   Then I considered his ways,
  I cured him and gave him relief,
and I brought him comfort in full measure,
   19   brought peace to those who mourned for him,
  by the words that issue from my lips,
peace for all men, both near and far,
  and so I cured him, says the Lord.
   20   But the wicked are like a troubled sea,
    a sea that cannot rest,
whose troubled waters cast up mud and filth.


     21   There is no peace for the wicked,
      says the Lord.


   1   Shout aloud without restraint;
  lift up your voice like a trumpet.
  Call my people to account for their transgression
    and the house of Jacob for their sins,
   2   although they ask counsel of me day by day