August 6

Isaiah 32:1 — 35:10

32 Look! A king will reign for righteousness itself; and as respects princes, they will rule as princes for justice itself. 2 And each one must prove to be like a hiding place from the wind and a place of concealment from the rainstorm, like streams of water in a waterless country, like the shadow of a heavy crag in an exhausted land.

3 And the eyes of those seeing will not be pasted together, and the very ears of those hearing will pay attention. 4 And the heart itself of those who are overhasty will consider knowledge, and even the tongue of the stammerers will be quick in speaking clear things. 5 The senseless one will no longer be called generous; and as for the unprincipled man, he will not be said to be noble; 6 because the senseless one himself will speak mere senselessness, and his very heart will work at what is hurtful, to work at apostasy and to speak against Jehovah what is wayward, to cause the soul of the hungry one to go empty, and he causes even the thirsty one to go without drink itself. 7 As for the unprincipled man, his instruments are bad; he himself has given counsel for acts of loose conduct, to wreck the afflicted ones with false sayings, even when someone poor speaks what is right.

8 As regards the generous one, it is for generous things that he has given counsel; and in favor of generous things he himself will rise up.

9 “YOU women who are at ease, rise up, listen to my voice! YOU careless daughters, give ear to my saying! 10 Within a year and some days YOU careless ones will be agitated, because the grape picking will have come to an end [but] no [fruit] gathering will come in. 11 Tremble, YOU women who are at ease! Be agitated, YOU careless ones! Undress and make yourselves naked, and gird [sackcloth] upon the loins. 12 Beat yourselves upon the breasts in lamentation over the desirable fields, over the fruit-bearing vine. 13 Upon the ground of my people merely thorns, spiny bushes come up, for they are upon all the houses of exultation, yes, the highly elated town. 14 For the dwelling tower itself has been forsaken, the very hubbub of the city has been abandoned; Ophel and the watchtower themselves have become bare fields, for time indefinite the exultation of zebras, the pasture of droves; 15 until upon us the spirit is poured out from on high, and the wilderness will have become an orchard, and the orchard itself is accounted as a real forest.

16 “And in the wilderness justice will certainly reside, and in the orchard righteousness itself will dwell. 17 And the work of the [true] righteousness must become peace; and the service of the [true] righteousness, quietness and security to time indefinite. 18 And my people must dwell in a peaceful abiding place and in residences of full confidence and in undisturbed resting-places. 19 And it will certainly hail when the forest goes down and the city becomes low in an abased state.

20 “Happy are YOU people who are sowing seed alongside all waters, sending forth the feet of the bull and of the ass.”

33 Woe to you who are despoiling, without you yourself being despoiled, and to you who are dealing treacherously, without [others] having dealt treacherously with you! As soon as you have finished as a despoiler, you will be despoiled. As soon as you have done with dealing treacherously, they will deal treacherously with you.

2 O Jehovah, show us favor. In you we have hoped. Become our arm every morning, yes, our salvation in the time of distress. 3 At the sound of turmoil peoples have fled. At your arising nations have been dispersed. 4 And the spoil of YOU people will actually be gathered [like] the cockroaches when gathering in, like the onrush of locust swarms that is rushing against one. 5 Jehovah will certainly be put on high, for he is residing in the height. He must fill Zion with justice and righteousness. 6 And the trustworthiness of your times must prove to be a wealth of salvations—wisdom and knowledge, the fear of Jehovah, which is his treasure.

7 Look! Their very heroes have cried out in the street; the very messengers of peace will weep bitterly. 8 The highways have been made desolate; the one passing over the path has ceased. He has broken the covenant; he has contemned the cities; he has taken no account of mortal man. 9 The land has gone mourning, has withered away. Lebanon has become abashed; it has moldered. Sharon has become like the desert plain; and Bashan and Carmel are shaking off [their leaves].

10 “Now I will rise up,” says Jehovah, “now I will exalt myself; now I will lift myself up. 11 YOU people conceive dried grass; YOU will give birth to stubble. YOUR own spirit, as a fire, will eat YOU up. 12 And peoples must become as the burnings of lime. As thorns cut away, they will be set ablaze even with fire. 13 Hear, YOU men who are far away, what I must do! And know, YOU who are nearby, my mightiness. 14 In Zion the sinners have come to be in dread; shivering has grabbed hold of the apostates: ‘Who of us can reside for any time with a devouring fire? Who of us can reside for any time with long-lasting conflagrations?’

15 “There is one who is walking in continual righteousness and speaking what is upright, who is rejecting the unjust gain from frauds, who is shaking his hands clear from taking hold on a bribe, who is stopping up his ear from listening to bloodshed, and who is closing his eyes so as not to see what is bad. 16 He is the one that will reside on the heights themselves; his secure height will be craggy places difficult to approach. His own bread will certainly be given [him]; his water supply will be unfailing.”

17 A king in his handsomeness is what your eyes will behold; they will see a land far away. 18 Your own heart will comment in low tones on a frightful thing: “Where is the secretary? Where is the one that does the paying out? Where is the one counting the towers?” 19 No insolent people will you see, a people too deep in language to listen to, of a stammering tongue without [your] understanding. 20 Behold Zion, the town of our festal occasions! Your own eyes will see Jerusalem an undisturbed abiding place, a tent that no one will pack up. Never will its tent pins be pulled out, and none of its ropes will be torn in two. 21 But there the Majestic One, Jehovah, will be for us a place of rivers, of wide canals. On it no galley fleet will go, and no majestic ship will pass over it. 22 For Jehovah is our Judge, Jehovah is our Statute-giver, Jehovah is our King; he himself will save us.

23 Your ropes must hang loose; their mast they will not hold firmly erect; they have not spread a sail.

At that time even spoil in abundance will have to be divided up; the lame ones themselves will actually take a big plunder. 24 And no resident will say: “I am sick.” The people that are dwelling in [the land] will be those pardoned for their error.

34 Come up close, YOU nations, to hear; and YOU national groups, pay attention. Let the earth and that which fills it listen, the productive land and all its produce. 2 For Jehovah has indignation against all the nations, and rage against all their army. He must devote them to destruction; he must give them to the slaughter. 3 And their slain ones will be thrown out; and as for their carcasses, their stink will ascend; and the mountains must melt because of their blood. 4 And all those of the army of the heavens must rot away. And the heavens must be rolled up, just like a book scroll; and their army will all shrivel away, just as the leafage shrivels off the vine and like a shriveled [fig] off the fig tree.

5 “For in the heavens my sword will certainly be drenched. Look! Upon Edom it will descend, and upon the people devoted by me to destruction in justice. 6 Jehovah has a sword; it must be filled with blood; it must be made greasy with the fat, with the blood of young rams and he-goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For Jehovah has a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughtering in the land of Edom. 7 And the wild bulls must come down with them, and young bulls with the powerful ones; and their land must be drenched with blood, and their very dust will be made greasy with the fat.”

8 For Jehovah has a day of vengeance, a year of retributions for the legal case over Zion.

9 And her torrents must be changed into pitch, and her dust into sulphur; and her land must become as burning pitch. 10 By night or by day it will not be extinguished; to time indefinite its smoke will keep ascending. From generation to generation she will be parched; forever and ever no one will be passing across her. 11 And the pelican and the porcupine must take possession of her, and long-eared owls and ravens themselves will reside in her; and he must stretch out over her the measuring line of emptiness and the stones of wasteness. 12 Her nobles—there are none there whom they will call to the kingship itself, and her very princes will all become nothing. 13 On her dwelling towers thorns must come up, nettles and thorny weeds in her fortified places; and she must become an abiding place of jackals, the courtyard for the ostriches. 14 And haunters of waterless regions must meet up with howling animals, and even the goat-shaped demon will call to its companion. Yes, there the nightjar will certainly take its ease and find for itself a resting-place. 15 There the arrow snake has made its nest and lays [eggs], and it must hatch [them] and gather [them] together under its shadow. Yes, there the gledes must collect themselves together, each one with her mate.

16 Search for yourselves in the book of Jehovah and read out loud: not one has been missing of them; they actually do not fail to have each one her mate, for it is the mouth of Jehovah that has given the command, and it is his spirit that has collected them together. 17 And it is He that has cast for them the lot, and his own hand has apportioned the place to them by the measuring line. To time indefinite they will take possession of it; for generation after generation they will reside in it.

35 The wilderness and the waterless region will exult, and the desert plain will be joyful and blossom as the saffron. 2 Without fail it will blossom, and it will really be joyful with joyousness and with glad crying out. The glory of Lebanon itself must be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and of Sharon. There will be those who will see the glory of Jehovah, the splendor of our God.

3 Strengthen the weak hands, YOU people, and make the knees that are wobbling firm. 4 Say to those who are anxious at heart: “Be strong. Do not be afraid. Look! YOUR own God will come with vengeance itself, God even with a repayment. He himself will come and save YOU people.”

5 At that time the eyes of the blind ones will be opened, and the very ears of the deaf ones will be unstopped. 6 At that time the lame one will climb up just as a stag does, and the tongue of the speechless one will cry out in gladness. For in the wilderness waters will have burst out, and torrents in the desert plain. 7 And the heat-parched ground will have become as a reedy pool, and the thirsty ground as springs of water. In the abiding place of jackals, a resting-place for [them], there will be green grass with reeds and papyrus plants.

8 And there will certainly come to be a highway there, even a way; and the Way of Holiness it will be called. The unclean one will not pass over it. And it will be for the one walking on the way, and no foolish ones will wander about [on it]. 9 No lion will prove to be there, and the rapacious sort of wild beasts will not come up on it. None will be found there; and the repurchased ones must walk [there]. 10 And the very ones redeemed by Jehovah will return and certainly come to Zion with a joyful cry; and rejoicing to time indefinite will be upon their head. To exultation and rejoicing they will attain, and grief and sighing must flee away.