New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures Reference Bible

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Isaiah

 

1 The vision+ of Isaiah*+ the son of Amoz* that he visioned concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah,*+ Jotham,*+ Ahaz*+ [and] Hezekiah,*+ kings of Judah:+
 

2 Hear,+ O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for Jehovah himself has spoken: “Sons I have brought up and raised,+ but they themselves have revolted* against me.+ 3 A bull well knows its buyer, and the ass the manger of its owner;* Israel itself has not known,+ my own people have not behaved understandingly.”+
 

4 Woe to the sinful nation,+ the people heavy with error, an evildoing seed,+ ruinous sons!+ They have left Jehovah,+ they have treated the Holy One of Israel with disrespect,+ they have turned backwards.+ 5 Where else will YOU be struck still more,+ in that YOU add more revolt?+ The whole head is in a sick condition, and the whole heart is feeble.+ 6 From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no sound spot in it.+ Wounds and bruises and fresh stripes—they have not been squeezed out or bound up, nor has there been a softening with oil.+ 7 YOUR land is a desolation,+ YOUR cities are burned with fire;+ YOUR ground—right in front of YOU strangers+ are eating it up,+ and the desolation is like an overthrow by strangers.+ 8 And the daughter of Zion+ has been left remaining like a booth in a vineyard, like a lookout hut in a field of cucumbers, like a blockaded city.+ 9 Unless Jehovah of armies himself had left remaining to us just a few survivors,+ we should have become* just like Sodom, we should have resembled Gomorrah itself.+
 

10 Hear the word of Jehovah,+ YOU dictators+ of Sodom.+ Give ear to the law of our God, YOU people of Gomorrah. 11 “Of what benefit to me is the multitude of YOUR sacrifices?” says Jehovah. “I have had enough of whole burnt offerings+ of rams+ and the fat of well-fed animals;+ and in the blood+ of young bulls and male lambs and he-goats+ I have taken no delight.+ 12 When YOU people keep coming in to see my face,+ who is it that has required this from YOUR hand, to trample my courtyards?+ 13 Stop bringing in any more valueless grain offerings.+ Incense—it is something detestable to me.+ New moon+ and sabbath,+ the calling of a convention*+—I cannot put up with the [use of] uncanny power*+ along with the solemn assembly. 14 YOUR new moons and YOUR festal seasons my soul has hated.+ To me they have become a burden;+ I have become tired of bearing [them].+ 15 And when YOU spread out YOUR palms,+ I hide my eyes from YOU.+ Even though YOU make many prayers,+ I am not listening;+ with bloodshed* YOUR very hands have become filled.+ 16 Wash yourselves;+ make yourselves clean;+ remove the badness of YOUR dealings from in front of my eyes;+ cease to do bad.+ 17 Learn to do good;+ search for justice;+ set right the oppressor;+ render judgment for the fatherless boy;+ plead the cause of the widow.”+
 

18 “Come, now, YOU people, and let us set matters straight between us,” says Jehovah.+Though the sins of YOU people should prove to be as scarlet,* they will be made white just like snow;+ though they should be red like crimson cloth, they will become even like wool. 19 If YOU people show willingness and do listen, the good of the land* YOU will eat.+ 20 But if YOU people refuse+ and are actually rebellious, with a sword YOU will be eaten up; for the very mouth of Jehovah has spoken [it].”+

21 O how the faithful town*+ has become a prostitute!+ She was full of justice;*+ righteousness itself used to lodge in her,+ but now murderers.+ 22 Your* silver itself has become scummy dross.+ Your wheat beer* is diluted with water.+ 23 Your princes are stubborn and partners with thieves.+ Every one of them is a lover of a bribe+ and a chaser after gifts.+ For a fatherless boy they do not render judgment; and even the legal case of a widow does not get admittance to them.+
 

24 Therefore the utterance of the [true] Lord,* Jehovah of armies, the Powerful One of Israel,+ is: “Aha! I shall relieve myself of my adversaries, and I will avenge+ myself on my enemies.+ 25 And I will turn back my hand upon* you,* and I shall smelt away your scummy dross as with lye, and I will remove all your waste products.+ 26 And I will bring back again judges for you as at the first, and counselors for you as at the start.+ After this you will be called City of Righteousness, Faithful Town.+ 27 With justice* Zion herself will be redeemed,+ and those returning of her, with righteousness.+ 28 And the crash of revolters and that of sinful ones will be at the same time,+ and those leaving Jehovah will come to their finish.+ 29 For they will be ashamed of the mighty trees that YOU people desired,+ and YOU will be abashed because of the gardens that YOU have chosen.+ 30 For YOU will become like a big tree the foliage of which is withering,+ and like a garden that has no water. 31 And the vigorous man will certainly become tow,+ and the product of his activity a spark; and both of them will certainly go up in flames at the same time, with no one to do the extinguishing.”+

2 The thing* that Isaiah* the son of Amoz visioned concerning Judah and Jerusalem:+ 2 And it must occur in the final part of the days+ [that] the mountain of the house+ of Jehovah will become firmly established above the top of the mountains,+ and it will certainly be lifted up above the hills;+ and to it all the nations must stream.+ 3 And many peoples will certainly go and say: “Come,+ YOU people, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will instruct us about his ways, and we will walk* in his paths.”+ Mica4:2 For out of Zion law will go forth, and the word of Jehovah out of Jerusalem.+ 4 And he will certainly render judgment among the nations+ and set matters straight+ respecting many peoples.+ And they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears.+ Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore.+

5 O men of the house of Jacob,* come and let us walk in the light of Jehovah.+

6 For you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob.+ For they have become full of what is from the East,+ and they are practicers of magic+ like the Philistines, and with the children of foreigners they abound.*+ 7 And their* land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no limit to their treasures.+ And their land is filled with horses, and there is no limit to their chariots.+ 8 And their land is filled with valueless gods.+ To the work of one’s hands they bow down, to that which one’s fingers have made.+ 9 And earthling man bows down, and man becomes low, and you cannot possibly pardon them.*+

10 Enter into the rock and hide yourself in the dust because of the dreadfulness of Jehovah, and from his splendid superiority.*+ 11 The haughty eyes of earthling man must become low, and the loftiness of men* must bow down;+ and Jehovah alone must be put on high in that day.+ 12 For it is the day belonging to Jehovah of armies.+ It is upon everyone self-exalted and lofty and upon everyone lifted up or low;+ 13 and upon all the cedars of Lebanon+ that are lofty and lifted up and upon all the massive trees of Bashan;+ 14 and upon all the lofty mountains and upon all the hills that are lifted up;+ 15 and upon every high tower and upon every fortified wall;+ 16 and upon all the ships of Tarshish+ and upon all desirable boats.* 17 And the haughtiness of the earthling man* must bow down, and the loftiness of men must become low;+ and Jehovah alone must be put on high in that day.+

18 And the valueless gods themselves will pass away completely.+ 19 And people will enter into the caves of the rocks and into the holes of the dust because of the dreadfulness of Jehovah and from his splendid superiority,*+ when he rises up for the earth to suffer shocks.+ 20 In that day the earthling man will throw his worthless gods of silver and his valueless gods of gold that they had made for him to bow before to the shrewmice and to the bats,+ 21 in order to enter into the holes in the rocks and into the clefts of the crags, because of the dreadfulness of Jehovah and from his splendid superiority,*+ when he rises up for the earth to suffer shocks. 22 For YOUR own sakes, hold off from the earthling man, whose breath* is in his nostrils,+ for on what basis is he himself to be taken into account?+

3 For, look! the [true] Lord,*+ Jehovah of armies, is removing from Jerusalem+ and from Judah support and stay, the whole support of bread and the whole support of water,+ 2 mighty man and warrior,* judge and prophet,+ and practicer of divination and elderly man,+ 3 chief of fifty+ and highly respected man* and counselor and expert in magical arts, and the skilled charmer.*+ 4 And I shall certainly make boys their princes, and mere arbitrary power* will rule over them.+ 5 And the people will actually tyrannize one over the other, even each one over his fellowman.+ They will storm, the boy against the old man,+ and the lightly esteemed one against the one to be honored.+ 6 For each one will lay hold of his brother in the house of his father, [saying:] “You have a mantle. A dictator+ you ought to become to us, and this overthrown mass should be under your hand.” 7 He will raise [his voice] in that day, saying: “I shall not become a wound dresser; and in my house there is neither bread nor a mantle. YOU men must not set me as dictator over the people.”

8 For Jerusalem has stumbled, and Judah itself has fallen,+ because their tongue and their dealings are against Jehovah,+ in behaving rebelliously in the eyes of his glory.+ 9 The very expression of their faces* actually testifies against them,+ and of their sin like that of Sodom they do tell.+ They have not hidden [it]. Woe to their soul! For they have dealt out to themselves calamity.+

10 Say, YOU men, that it [will be] well with the righteous one,+ for they will eat the very fruitage of their dealings.+ 11 Woe to the wicked one!—Calamity; for the treatment [rendered] by his own hands will be rendered to him!+ 12 As for my people, its task assigners* are dealing severely,* and mere women actually rule over it.+ O my people, those leading you on are causing [you] to wander,+ and the way of your paths they have confused.+

13 Jehovah is stationing himself to contend and is standing up to pass sentence upon peoples.+ 14 Jehovah himself will enter into judgment with the elderly ones of his people and its princes.+

“And YOU yourselves have burned down the vineyard. What was taken by robbery from the afflicted one is in YOUR houses.+ 15 What do YOU men mean in that YOU crush my people, and that YOU grind the very faces of the afflicted ones?”+ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord, Jehovah of armies.

16 And Jehovah says: “For the reason that the daughters of Zion have become haughty and they walk with their throats stretched forth and ogling with their eyes, they go walking with tripping steps, and with their feet they make a tinkling sound,*+ 17 Jehovah* also will actually make the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion scabby,+ and Jehovah himself will lay their very forehead bare.+ 18 In that day Jehovah* will take away the beauty of the bangles* and the headbands* and the moon-shaped ornaments,*+ 19 the eardrops and the bracelets and the veils,+ 20 the headdresses and the step chains and the breastbands*+ and the ‘houses of the soul’* and the ornamental humming shells,*+ 21 the finger rings and the nose rings,+ 22 the robes of state and the overtunics and the cloaks and the purses, 23 and the hand mirrors+ and the undergarments and the turbans+ and the large veils.+

24 “And it must occur that instead of balsam oil+ there will come to be merely a musty smell; and instead of a belt, a rope; and instead of an artistic hair arrangement, baldness;+ and instead of a rich garment, a girding of sackcloth;+ a brand mark+ instead of prettiness. 25 By the sword your* own men will fall, and your mightiness* by war.+ 26 And her entrances will have to mourn+ and express sorrow, and she will certainly be cleaned out. She will sit down on the very earth.”+

4 And seven women will actually grab hold of one man in that day,+ saying: “We shall eat our own bread and wear our own mantles; only may we be called by your name* to take away our reproach.”+

2 In that day what Jehovah makes sprout*+ will come to be for decoration and for glory,+ and the fruitage of the land* will be something to be proud of+ and something beautiful for those of Israel who have escaped.*+ 3 And it must occur that the ones remaining* in Zion and the ones left over* in Jerusalem will be said to be holy to him,+ everyone written down for life in Jerusalem.+

4 When Jehovah* will have washed away the excrement of the daughters of Zion+ and he will rinse+ away even the bloodshed*+ of Jerusalem from within her by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning down,+ 5 Jehovah will also certainly create over every established place of Mount Zion+ and over her convention place a cloud by day and a smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire+ by night;+ because over all the glory there will be a shelter.+ 6 And there will come to be a booth for a shade by day from the dry heat,+ and for a refuge and for a hiding place from the rainstorm and from the precipitation.+

5 Let me sing, please, to my beloved one a song of my loved one concerning his vineyard.+ There was a vineyard that my beloved one came to have on a fruitful hillside.* 2 And he proceeded to dig it up and to rid it of stones and to plant it with a choice red vine, and to build a tower in the middle of it.+ And there was also a winepress that he hewed out in it.+ And he kept hoping for it to produce grapes,+ but it gradually produced wild grapes.*+

3 “And now, O YOU inhabitants* of Jerusalem and YOU men* of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard.+ 4 What is there yet to do for my vineyard that I have not already done in it?+ Why is it that I hoped for it to produce grapes, but it gradually produced wild grapes? 5 And now, please, may I make known to YOU men what I am doing to my vineyard: There will be a removing of its hedge,+ and it must be destined for burning down.+ There must be a breaking down of its stone wall, and it must be destined for a place of trampling.+ 6 And I shall set it as a thing destroyed.+ It will not be pruned, nor will it be hoed.+ And it must come up with the thornbush and weeds;+ and upon the clouds I shall lay a command to keep from precipitating any rain upon it.+ 7 For the vineyard+ of Jehovah of armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plantation of which he was fond.+ And he kept hoping for judgment,+ but, look! the breaking of law;* for righteousness, but, look! an outcry.”+

8 Woe to the ones joining house to house,+ [and] those who annex field to field until there is no more room+ and YOU men have been made to dwell all by yourselves in the midst of the land! 9 In my ears Jehovah of armies [has sworn that] many houses, though great and good, will become an outright object of astonishment, without an inhabitant.+ 10 For even ten acres+ of vineyard will produce but one bath* measure,+ and even a homer* measure of seed will produce but an ephah* measure.+

11 Woe to those who are getting up early in the morning that they may seek just intoxicating liquor,+ who are lingering till late in the evening darkness so that wine itself inflames them!+ 12 And there must prove to be harp and stringed instrument, tambourine and flute, and wine at their feasts;+ but the activity of Jehovah they do not look at, and the work of his hands they have not seen.+

13 Therefore my people will have to go into exile for lack of knowledge;+ and their glory will be famished men,*+ and their crowd will be parched with thirst.+ 14 Therefore Sheol* has made its soul* spacious and has opened its mouth wide beyond bounds;+ and what is splendid in her,* also her crowd and her uproar and the exultant one, will certainly go down into it.+ 15 And earthling man will bow down, and man will become low, and even the eyes of the high ones will become low.+ 16 And Jehovah of armies will become high through judgment,+ and the [true] God,* the Holy One,+ will certainly sanctify himself through righteousness.+ 17 And the male lambs will actually graze as in their pasture; and the desolate places of well-fed animals alien residents* will eat.+

18 Woe to those drawing error with ropes of untruth, and as with wagon cords sin;+ 19 those who are saying: “Let his work hasten; do let it come quickly,* in order that we may see [it]; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know [it]!”+

20 Woe to those who are saying that good is bad and bad is good,+ those who are putting darkness for light and light for darkness, those who are putting bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!+

21 Woe to those wise in their own eyes and discreet even in front of their own faces!+

22 Woe to those who are mighty in drinking wine, and to the men with vital energy for mixing intoxicating liquor,+ 23 those who are pronouncing the wicked one righteous in consideration of a bribe,+ and who take away even the righteousness* of the righteous one* from him!+

24 Therefore just as a tongue of fire eats up the stubble+ and into the flames mere dried grass sinks down, their very rootstock will become just like a musty smell,+ and their blossom itself will go up just like powder, because they have rejected the law of Jehovah of armies,+ and the saying of the Holy One of Israel they have disrespected.+ 25 That is why the anger of Jehovah has grown hot against his people, and he will stretch out his hand against them and strike them.+ And the mountains will be agitated,+ and their dead bodies will become like the offal in the midst of the streets.+

In view of all this his anger has not turned back, but his hand is stretched out still. 26 And he has raised up a signal to a great nation* far away,+ and he has whistled to it at the extremity of the earth;+ and, look! in haste it will swiftly come in.+ 27 There is no one tired nor is anyone stumbling among them.* No one is drowsy and no one sleeps. And the belt around their loins will certainly not be opened, nor the laces of their sandals be torn in two; 28 because their arrows are sharpened and all their bows are bent.+ The very hoofs of their horses will have to be accounted as flint itself,+ and their wheels as a storm wind.+ 29 The roaring of theirs is like that of a lion, and they roar like maned young lions.+ And they will growl and grab hold of the prey and bring [it] safely away, and there will be no deliverer.+ 30 And they will growl over it in that day as with the growling of the sea.+ And one will actually gaze at the land, and, look! there is distressing darkness;+ and even the light has grown dark because of the drops falling on it.

6 In the year that King Uzziah died+ I, however, got to see Jehovah,*+ sitting on a throne+ lofty and lifted up, and his skirts were filling the temple.*+ 2 Seraphs were standing above him.*+ Each one had six wings. With two he kept his face covered,+ and with two he kept his feet covered, and with two he would fly about. 3 And this one called to that one and said: “Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of armies.+ The fullness of all the earth is his glory.” 4 And the pivots+ of the thresholds began to quiver at the voice of the one calling, and the house itself gradually filled with smoke.*+

5 And I proceeded to say: “Woe to me! For I am as good as brought to silence, because a man unclean in lips I am,+ and in among a people unclean in lips I am dwelling;+ for my eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of armies, himself!”+

6 At that, one of the seraphs flew to me, and in his hand there was a glowing coal+ that he had taken with tongs off the altar.+ 7 And he proceeded to touch my mouth+ and to say: “Look! This has touched your lips, and your error has departed and your sin itself is atoned for.”+

8 And I began to hear the voice of Jehovah* saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”+ And I proceeded to say: “Here I am! Send me.”+ 9 And he went on to say: “Go, and you must say to this people, ‘Hear again and again, O men, but do not understand; and see again and again, but do not get any knowledge.’+ 10 Make the heart of this people unreceptive,*+ and make their very ears unresponsive,*+ and paste their very eyes together, that they may not see with their eyes and with their ears they may not hear, and that their own heart may not understand and that they may not actually turn back and get healing for themselves.”+

11 At this I said: “How long, O Jehovah?”*+ Then he said: “Until the cities actually crash in ruins, to be without an inhabitant, and the houses be without earthling man, and the ground itself is ruined into a desolation;+ 12 and Jehovah actually removes earthling men far away, and the deserted condition does become very extensive in the midst of the land.*+ 13 And there will still be in it a tenth,+ and it must again become something for burning down, like a big tree and like a massive tree in which,* when there is a cutting down [of them],+ there is a stump;+ a holy seed* will be the stump of it.”*+

7 Now it came about in the days of Ahaz+ the son of Jotham the son of Uzziah, the king of Judah, that Rezin+ the king of Syria and Pekah+ the son of Remaliah,* the king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem for war against it, and he* proved unable to war against it.+ 2 And a report was made to the house of David, saying: “Syria has leaned* upon Ephraim.”+

And his heart and the heart of his people began to quiver, like the quivering of the trees of the forest because of a wind.*+

3 And Jehovah proceeded to say to Isaiah: “Go out, please, to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub*+ your son, to the end of the conduit+ of the upper pool by the highway of the laundryman’s field.+ 4 And you must say to him, ‘Watch yourself and keep undisturbed.+ Do not be afraid, and do not let your heart itself be timid+ because of the two tail ends of these smoking logs, because of the hot anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah,+ 5 for the reason that Syria [with] Ephraim and the son of Remaliah has advised what is bad against you, saying: 6 “Let us go up against Judah and tear it apart and by breakthroughs take it for ourselves; and let us make another king reign inside it, the son of Tabeel.”+

7 “‘This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said: “It will not stand, neither will it take place.+ 8 For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within just sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered to pieces so as not to be a people.+ 9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria,+ and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.+ Unless YOU people have faith, YOU will in that case not be of long duration.”’”+

10 And Jehovah went on speaking some more to Ahaz, saying: 11 “Ask for yourself a sign from Jehovah your God,+ making it as deep as Sheol* or making it high as the upper regions.” 12 But Ahaz said: “I shall not ask, neither shall I put Jehovah to the test.”

13 And he proceeded to say: “Listen, please, O house of David. Is it such a little thing for YOU to tire out men, that YOU should also tire out my God?+ 14 Therefore Jehovah* himself will give YOU men a sign: Look! The maiden*+ herself will actually become pregnant,+ and she is giving birth to a son,+ and she will certainly call his name Immanuel.* 15 Butter and honey he will eat by the time that he knows how to reject the bad and choose the good.+ 16 For before the boy will know how to reject the bad and choose the good,+ the ground of whose two kings you are feeling a sickening dread will be left entirely.+ 17 Jehovah will bring against you+ and against your people and against the house of your father days such as have not come since the day of Ephraim’s turning away from alongside Judah,+ namely, the king of Assyria.*+

18 “And it must occur in that day that Jehovah will whistle for the flies* that are at the extremity of the Nile canals of Egypt and for the bees*+ that are in the land of Assyria,+ 19 and they will certainly come in and settle down, all of them, upon the precipitous torrent valleys and upon the clefts of the crags and upon all the thorn thickets and upon all the watering places.*+

20 “In that day, by means of a hired razor in the region of the River,+ even by means of the king of Assyria,+ Jehovah* will shave the head and the hair of the feet,* and it* will sweep away even the beard itself.+

21 “And it must occur in that day that an individual* will preserve alive a young cow of the herd and two sheep.+ 22 And it must occur that, due to the abundance of the producing of milk, he will eat butter; because butter and honey+ are what everyone left remaining in the midst of the land* will eat.

23 “And it must occur in that day that every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand pieces of silver,+ will come to be—for the thornbushes and for the weeds it will come to be.+ 24 With arrows and the bow he* will come there,+ because all the land will become mere thornbushes and weeds. 25 And all the mountains that used to be cleared of troublesome plants with a hoe—you will not come there for fear of thornbushes and weeds; and it will certainly become a place for letting bulls loose and a trampling ground of sheep.”+

8 And Jehovah proceeded to say to me: “Take for yourself a large tablet+ and write upon it with the stylus of mortal man,* ‘Maher-shalal-hash-baz.’* 2 And let me have attestation+ for myself by faithful witnesses,+ Uriah the priest+ and Zechariah* the son of Jeberechiah.”*

3 Then I went near to the prophetess, and she came to be pregnant and in time gave birth to a son.+ Jehovah now said to me: “Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz, 4 for before the boy will know how to call out,+ ‘My father!’ and ‘My mother!’ one will carry away the resources of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria before the king of Assyria.”+

5 And Jehovah proceeded to speak yet further to me, saying: 6 “For the reason that this people has rejected+ the waters of the Shiloah*+ that are going gently, and there is exultation+ over Rezin and the son of Remaliah;*+ 7 even therefore, look! Jehovah* is bringing up against them+ the mighty and the many waters of the River,+ the king of Assyria+ and all his glory.+ And he will certainly come up over all his streambeds and go over all his banks 8 and move on through Judah. He will actually flood and pass over.+ Up to the neck he will reach.+ And the outspreading of his wings+ must occur to fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel!”*+

9 Be injurious,* O YOU peoples, and be shattered to pieces; and give ear, all YOU in distant parts of the earth!+ Gird yourselves,+ and be shattered to pieces!+ Gird yourselves, and be shattered to pieces! 10 Plan out a scheme, and it will be broken up!+ Speak any word, and it will not stand, for God is with us!*+ 11 For this is what Jehovah has said to me with strongness of the hand, that he may make me turn aside* from walking in the way of this people, saying: 12 “YOU men must not say, ‘A conspiracy!’ respecting all that of which this people keep saying, ‘A conspiracy!’+ and the object of their fear YOU men must not fear, nor must YOU tremble at it.+ 13 Jehovah of armies—he is the One whom YOU should treat as holy,+ and he should be the object of YOUR fear,+ and he should be the One causing YOU to tremble.”+

14 And he must become as a sacred place;*+ but as a stone to strike against and as a rock over which to stumble+ to both the houses of Israel, as a trap and as a snare to the inhabitants* of Jerusalem.+ 15 And many among them will be certain to stumble and to fall and be broken, and to be snared and caught.+

16 Wrap up the attestation,*+ put a seal about the law among my disciples!*+ 17 And I will keep in expectation of Jehovah,+ who is concealing his face from the house of Jacob,+ and I will hope in him.+

18 Look! I and the children whom Jehovah has given me+ are as signs+ and as miracles* in Israel from Jehovah of armies, who is residing in Mount Zion.+

19 And in case they should say to YOU people: “Apply to the spiritistic mediums+ or to those having a spirit of prediction who are chirping+ and making utterances in low tones,”* is it not to its God that any people should apply?+ [Should there be application] to dead persons in behalf of living persons?+ 20 To* the law and to the attestation!+

Surely they will keep saying what is according to this statement*+ that will have no light of dawn.+ 21 And each one* will certainly pass through the land* hard pressed and hungry;+ and it must occur that because he is hungry and has made himself feel indignant, he will actually call down evil upon his king and upon his God*+ and will certainly peer upward. 22 And to the earth he will look, and, lo! distress and darkness,+ obscurity, hard times and gloominess with no brightness.*+

9 However, the obscureness will not be as when the land* had stress, as at the former time when one treated with contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali+ and when at the later time one caused [it] to be honored+—the way by the sea, in the region of the Jordan, Galilee* of the nations.*+ 2 The people that were walking in the darkness have seen a great light.+ As for those dwelling in the land of deep shadow,+ light itself has shone upon them.+ 3 You have made the nation populous;+ for it* you have made the rejoicing great.+ They have rejoiced before you as with the rejoicing in the harvesttime,+ as those who are joyful when they divide up the spoil.+

4 For the yoke of their load+ and the rod upon their shoulders, the staff of the one driving them to work,+ you have shattered to pieces as in the day of Midian.+ 5 For every boot of the one tramping+ with tremors* and the mantle rolled in blood* have even come to be for burning as food for fire.+ 6 For there has been a child born to us,+ there has been a son given to us;+ and the princely rule* will come to be upon his shoulder.+ And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor,*+ Mighty God,*+ Eternal Father,*+ Prince of Peace.*+ 7 To the abundance of the princely rule*+ and to peace there will be no end,*+ upon the throne of David+ and upon his kingdom in order to establish it* firmly+ and to sustain it by means of justice+ and by means of righteousness,+ from now on and to time indefinite. The very zeal of Jehovah of armies will do this.+

8 There was a word that Jehovah* sent against Jacob, and it fell upon Israel.+ 9 And the people will certainly know [it],+ even all of them, Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria,+ because of [their] haughtiness and because of [their] insolence of heart in saying:+ 10 “Bricks are what have fallen, but with hewn stone+ we shall build. Sycamore+ trees are what have been cut down, but with cedars we shall make replacement.” 11 And Jehovah will set the adversaries of Rezin on high against him, and the enemies of that one he will goad on,+ 12 Syria from the east+ and the Philistines from behind,+ and they will eat up Israel with open mouth.+ In view of all this his anger has not turned back, but his hand is stretched out still.+

13 And the people themselves have not returned to the One striking them,+ and Jehovah of armies they have not sought.+ 14 And Jehovah will cut off from Israel head+ and tail,+ shoot and rush, in one day.+ 15 The aged and highly respected one* is the head,+ and the prophet giving false instruction is the tail.+ 16 And those who are leading this people on prove to be the ones causing [them] to wander;+ and those of them who are being led on, the ones who are being confused.+ 17 That is why Jehovah* will not rejoice even over their young men,+ and upon their fatherless boys and upon their widows he will have no mercy; because all of them are apostates+ and evildoers and every mouth is speaking senselessness. In view of all this his anger has not turned back, but his hand is stretched out still.+

18 For wickedness has become aflame just like a fire;+ thornbushes and weeds it will eat up.+ And it will catch fire in the thickets of the forest,+ and they will be borne aloft as the billowing of smoke.+ 19 In the fury of Jehovah of armies the land has been set afire,* and the people will become as food for the fire.+ No one will show compassion even on his brother.+ 20 And one will cut down on the right and will certainly be hungry; and one will eat on the left, and they will certainly not be satisfied.+ They will each one eat the flesh of his own arm,+ 21 Manasseh Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh. Together they will be against Judah.+ In view of all this his anger has not turned back, but his hand is stretched out still.+

10 Woe to those who are enacting harmful regulations+ and those who, constantly writing, have written out sheer trouble, 2 in order to push away the lowly ones from a legal case and to wrest away justice from the afflicted ones of my people,+ for the widows to become their spoil, and that they may plunder even the fatherless boys!+ 3 And what will YOU men do at the day of being given attention+ and at the ruin, when it comes from far away?+ Toward whom will YOU flee for assistance,+ and where will YOU leave YOUR glory,+ 4 except it be that one must bow down under the prisoners and that people keep falling under those who have been killed?+ In view of all this his anger has not turned back, but his hand is stretched out still.+

5 “Aha, the Assyrian,+ the rod for my anger,+ and the stick that is in their hand for my denunciation! 6 Against an apostate+ nation I shall send him, and against the people of my fury I shall issue a command to him,+ to take much spoil and to take much plunder* and to make it* a trampling place like the clay of the streets.+ 7 Though he may not be that way, he will feel inclined; though his heart may not be that way, he will scheme, because to annihilate is in his heart,+ and to cut off nations not a few.+ 8 For he will say, ‘Are not my princes at the same time kings?+ 9 Is not Calno+ just like Carchemish?+ Is not Hamath+ just like Arpad?+ Is not Samaria+ just like Damascus?+ 10 Whenever my hand has reached the kingdoms of the valueless god whose graven images are more than those at Jerusalem and at Samaria,+ 11 will it not be that just as I shall have done to Samaria and to her valueless gods,+ even so I shall do to Jerusalem and to her idols?’+

12 “And it must occur that when Jehovah* terminates all his work in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I shall make an accounting for the fruitage of the insolence of the heart of the king of Assyria and for the self-importance of his loftiness of eyes.+ 13 For he has said, ‘With the power of my hand I shall certainly act,+ and with my wisdom, for I do have understanding; and I shall remove the boundaries of peoples,+ and their things stored up I shall certainly pillage,+ and I shall bring down the inhabitants just like a powerful one.+ 14 And just as if a nest, my hand+ will reach the resources+ of the peoples; and just as when one gathers eggs that have been left, I myself will gather up even all the earth, and there will certainly be no one fluttering [his] wings or opening [his] mouth or chirping.’”

15 Will the ax enhance itself over the one chopping with it, or the saw magnify itself over the one moving it back and forth, as though the staff moved back and forth the ones* raising it on high, as though the rod raised on high the one who is not wood?+ 16 Therefore the [true] Lord,* Jehovah of armies, will keep sending upon his fat ones a wasting disease,+ and under his glory a burning will keep burning away like the burning of a fire.+ 17 And Israel’s Light+ must become a fire,+ and his Holy One a flame;+ and it must blaze up and eat up his weeds and his thornbushes+ in one day. 18 And the glory of his forest and of his orchard He will bring to an end,+ even from the soul clear to the flesh, and it must become like the melting away of one that is ailing.*+ 19 And the rest* of the trees of his forest—they will become such a number that a mere boy will be able to write them down.+

20 And it will certainly occur in that day that those remaining over of Israel+ and those who have escaped* of the house of Jacob will never again support themselves upon the one striking them,+ and they will certainly support themselves upon Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel,+ in trueness.*+ 21 A mere remnant* will return,* the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God.*+ 22 For although your people, O Israel, would prove to be like the grains of sand of the sea,+ a mere remnant* among them will return.+ An extermination+ decided upon will be flooding through in righteousness,+ 23 because an exterminating+ and a strict decision the Sovereign Lord, Jehovah of armies, will be executing in the midst of the whole land.*+

24 Therefore this is what the Sovereign+ Lord, Jehovah of armies, has said: “Do not be afraid, O my people who are dwelling in Zion,+ because of the Assyrian, who with the rod used to strike [you]+ and who used to lift up his own staff against you in the way that Egypt did.+ 25 For yet a very little while—and the denunciation+ will have come to an end, and my anger, in their wearing away.+ 26 And Jehovah of armies will certainly brandish against him a whip+ as at the defeat of Midian by the rock Oreb;+ and his staff will be upon the sea,+ and he will certainly lift it up in the way that he did with Egypt.+

27 “And it must occur in that day that his load will depart from upon your shoulder,+ and his yoke from upon your neck,+ and the yoke will certainly be wrecked+ because of the oil.”*

28 He has come upon Aiath;+ he has passed along through Migron; at Michmash+ he deposits his articles. 29 They have passed over the ford,* Geba+ is a place for them to spend the night, Ramah+ has trembled, Gibeah+ of Saul itself has fled. 30 Let your voice out in shrill cries, O daughter of Gallim.+ Pay attention, O Laishah. O you afflicted one, Anathoth!+ 31 Madmenah has run away. The inhabitants of Gebim themselves have taken to shelter. 32 It is yet day in Nob+ to make a halt. He waves his hand* [threateningly] at the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.+

33 Look! The [true] Lord,* Jehovah of armies, is lopping off boughs with a terrible crash;+ and those tall in growth are being cut down, and the high ones themselves become low.+ 34 And he has struck down the thickets of the forest with an iron tool, and by a powerful one Lebanon itself will fall.+

11 And there must go forth a twig+ out of the stump* of Jesse;+ and out of his roots a sprout*+ will be fruitful.*+ 2 And upon him the spirit* of Jehovah must settle down,+ the spirit of wisdom+ and of understanding,+ the spirit of counsel and of mightiness,+ the spirit of knowledge+ and of the fear of Jehovah;+ 3 and there will be enjoyment by him in the fear of Jehovah.+

And he will not judge by any mere appearance to his eyes, nor reprove simply according to the thing heard by his ears.+ 4 And with righteousness he must judge the lowly ones,+ and with uprightness he must give reproof in behalf of the meek ones of the earth. And he must strike the earth* with the rod of his mouth;+ and with the spirit of his lips he will put the wicked one to death.+ 5 And righteousness must prove to be the belt of his hips,+ and faithfulness the belt of his loins.+

6 And the wolf will actually reside for a while with the male lamb,+ and with the kid the leopard itself will lie down, and the calf and the maned young lion+ and the well-fed animal all together;+ and a mere little boy will be leader over them.* 7 And the cow and the bear themselves will feed; together their young ones will lie down. And even the lion will eat straw just like the bull.+ 8 And the sucking child will certainly play upon the hole of the cobra;+ and upon the light aperture* of a poisonous snake will a weaned child actually put his own hand. 9 They will not do any harm+ or cause any ruin in all my holy mountain;+ because the earth* will certainly be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters are covering the very sea.*+

10 And it must occur in that day+ that there will be the root of Jesse+ that will be standing up as a signal* for the peoples.+ To him even the nations will turn inquiringly,+ and his resting-place must become glorious.+

11 And it must occur in that day that Jehovah* will again offer his hand, a second time,+ to acquire the remnant* of his people who will remain over from Assyria+ and from Egypt+ and from Pathros+ and from Cush*+ and from Elam+ and from Shinar*+ and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.+ 12 And he will certainly raise up a signal* for the nations and gather the dispersed ones of Israel;+ and the scattered ones* of Judah he will collect together from the four extremities* of the earth.+

13 And the jealousy of Ephraim must depart,+ and even those showing hostility to Judah will be cut off. Ephraim itself will not be jealous of Judah, nor will Judah show hostility toward Ephraim.+ 14 And they must fly at the shoulder of the Philistines to the west;*+ together they will plunder the sons of the East.*+ Edom and Moab will be those upon whom they will thrust out their hand,+ and the sons of Ammon will be their subjects.+ 15 And Jehovah will certainly cut off* the tongue of the Egyptian sea,+ and wave his hand at the River+ in the glow* of his spirit. And he must strike it in [its] seven torrents, and he will actually cause people to walk in [their] sandals.+ 16 And there must come to be a highway+ out of Assyria for the remnant+ of his people who will remain over,+ just as there came to be [one] for Israel in the day of his coming up out of the land of Egypt.

12 And in that day+ you will be sure to say: “I shall thank you, O Jehovah, for [although] you got incensed at me, your anger gradually turned back,+ and you proceeded to comfort me.+ 2 Look! God* is my salvation.+ I shall trust and be in no dread;+ for Jah* Jehovah* is my strength+ and [my]* might,*+ and he came to be the salvation of me.”+

3 With exultation YOU people will be certain to draw water out of the springs of salvation.+ 4 And in that day YOU will certainly say: “Give thanks to Jehovah, YOU people!+ Call upon his name.+ Make known among the peoples his dealings.+ Make mention that his name is put on high.+ 5 Make melody to Jehovah,+ for he has done surpassingly.+ This is made known in all the earth.*

6 “Cry out shrilly and shout for joy, O you inhabitress* of Zion, for great in the midst of you* is the Holy One of Israel.”+

13 The pronouncement against Babylon*+ that Isaiah* the son of Amoz+ saw in vision: 2 “Upon a mountain of bare rocks* raise up a signal,*+ YOU men. Lift up the voice to them, wave the hand,+ that they may come into the entrances of the nobles.+ 3 I myself have issued the command to my sanctified ones.*+ I have also called my mighty ones for [expressing] my anger,+ my eminently exultant ones. 4 Listen!* A crowd in the mountains, something like a numerous people!+ Listen!* The uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathered together!+ Jehovah of armies is mustering the army of war.+ 5 They are coming from the land far away,+ from the extremity of the heavens, Jehovah and the weapons of his denunciation, to wreck all the earth.+

6 “Howl, YOU people,+ for the day of Jehovah is near!+ As a despoiling from the Almighty* it will come.+ 7 That is why all hands themselves will drop down, and the whole heart itself of mortal man will melt.+ 8 And people have become disturbed.+ Convulsions and birth pains themselves grab hold; like a woman that is giving birth they have labor pains.+ They look at each other in amazement. Their faces are inflamed faces.+

9 “Look! The day of Jehovah itself is coming, cruel both with fury and with burning anger, in order to make the land an object of astonishment,+ and that it may annihilate [the land’s]* sinners out of it.+ 10 For the very stars of the heavens and their constellations of Kesil*+ will not flash forth their light; the sun will actually grow dark at its going forth, and the moon itself will not cause its light to shine. 11 And I shall certainly bring home [its own] badness upon the productive land,*+ and their own error upon the wicked themselves. And I shall actually cause the pride of the presumptuous ones to cease, and the haughtiness of the tyrants* I shall abase.+ 12 I shall make mortal man rarer than refined gold,*+ and earthling man [rarer] than the gold* of Ophir.+ 13 That is why I shall cause heaven itself to become agitated,+ and the earth will rock out of its place at the fury of Jehovah of armies+ and at the day of his burning anger.+ 14 And it must occur that, like a gazelle chased away and like a flock without anyone to collect them together,+ they will turn, each one to his own people; and they will flee, each one to his own land.+ 15 Every one that is found will be pierced through, and every one that is caught in the sweep will fall by the sword;+ 16 and their very children will be dashed to pieces before their eyes.+ Their houses will be pillaged, and their own wives will be raped.+

17 “Here I am arousing against them the Medes,+ who account silver itself as nothing and who, as respects gold, take no delight in it. 18 And [their] bows will dash even young men to pieces.+ And the fruitage of the belly they will not pity;+ for sons their eye will not feel sorry. 19 And Babylon, the decoration of kingdoms,+ the beauty of the pride of the Chaldeans,+ must become as when God* overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.+ 20 She will never be inhabited,+ nor will she reside for generation after generation.+ And there the Arab will not pitch his tent, and no shepherds will let [their flocks] lie down there. 21 And there the haunters of waterless regions* will certainly lie down, and their houses must be filled with eagle owls.*+ And there the ostriches* must reside, and goat-shaped demons* themselves will go skipping about there.+ 22 And jackals must howl in her dwelling towers,+ and the big snake will be in the palaces of exquisite delight. And the season for her is near to come, and her days themselves will not be postponed.”+

14 For Jehovah will show mercy to Jacob,+ and he is yet certain to choose Israel;+ and he will actually give them rest upon their soil,+ and the alien resident* must be joined to them, and they must attach themselves to the house of Jacob.+ 2 And peoples will actually take them and bring them to their own place, and the house of Israel must take them to themselves as a possession upon the soil of Jehovah as menservants and as maidservants;+ and they must become the captors+ of those holding them captive, and they must have in subjection those who were driving them to work.+

3 And it must occur in the day when Jehovah gives you* rest from your pain and from your agitation and from the hard slavery in which you were made a slave,+ 4 that you must raise up this proverbial saying against the king of Babylon and say:

“How has the one driving [others] to work come to a stop,* the oppression* come to a stop!+ 5 Jehovah has broken the rod of the wicked ones, the staff of the ruling ones,+ 6 the one striking peoples in fury with a stroke incessantly,+ the one subduing nations in sheer anger with a persecution without restraint.+ 7 The whole earth has come to rest,+ has become free of disturbance. People have become cheerful with joyful cries.+ 8 Even the juniper trees+ have also rejoiced at you,* the cedars of Lebanon, [saying,] ‘Ever since you have lain down, no [wood]cutter+ comes up against us.’

9 “Even Sheol*+ underneath has become agitated at you in order to meet you on coming in. At you it has awakened those impotent in death,*+ all the goatlike leaders*+ of the earth. It has made all the kings of the nations get up from their thrones.+ 10 All of them speak up and say to you, ‘Have you yourself also been made weak* like us?+ Is it to us that you have been made comparable?+ JOHN8:44 11 Down to Sheol your pride has been brought, the din of your stringed instruments.+ Beneath you, maggots are spread out as a couch; and worms are your covering.’+

12 O how you have fallen from heaven,+ you shining one,* son of the dawn! How you have been cut down to the earth,+ REV12:8-9 you who were disabling the nations!+ 13 As for you, you have said in your heart, ‘To the heavens I shall go up.+ Above the stars+ of God* I shall lift up my throne,+ and I shall sit down upon the mountain of meeting,+ in the remotest parts of the north.+ 14 I shall go up above the high places of the clouds;+ I shall make myself resemble the Most High.’+ EZEK28:2

15 “However, down to Sheol* you will be brought,+ to the remotest parts of the pit.+ REV20:1-3 16 Those seeing you will gaze even at you; they will give close examination even to you, [saying,] ‘Is this the man* that was agitating the earth, MT13:28 that was making kingdoms rock,+ 17 that made the productive land* like the wilderness and that overthrew its* very cities,+ that did not open the way homeward even for his prisoners?’+ 18 All other kings of the nations, yes, all of them, have lain down in glory, each one in his own house.+ 19 But as for you, you have been thrown away without a burial place for you,*+ like a detested sprout,* clothed with killed men stabbed with the sword that are going down to the stones of a pit,+ like a carcass trodden down.+ 20 You will not become united with them in a grave,* because you brought your own land to ruin, you killed your own people. To time indefinite the offspring* of evildoers will not be named.*+

21 “Make ready, YOU men, a slaughtering block for his own sons because of the error of their forefathers,+ that they may not rise up and actually take possession of the earth* and fill the face of the productive land* with cities.”+

22 “And I will rise up against them,”+ is the utterance of Jehovah of armies.

“And I will cut off from Babylon* name+ and remnant* and progeny and posterity,”+ is the utterance of Jehovah.

23 “And I will make her a possession of porcupines and reedy pools of water, and I will sweep her with the broom of annihilation,”+ is the utterance of Jehovah of armies.

24 Jehovah of armies has sworn,+ saying: “Surely just as I have figured, so it must occur; and just as I have counseled, that is what will come true,+ 25 in order to break the Assyrian* in my land+ and that I may tread him down on my own mountains;+ and that his yoke may actually depart from upon them and that his very load may depart from upon their* shoulder.”+

26 This is the counsel that is counseled against all the earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out against all the nations. 27 For Jehovah of armies himself has counseled,+ and who can break [it] up?+ And his hand is the one stretched out, and who can turn it back?+

28 In the year that King Ahaz died+ this pronouncement occurred: 29 “Do not rejoice,+ O Philistia,+ any one of you, just because the staff of the one striking you has been broken.+ For out of the root of the serpent+ there will come forth a poisonous snake,+ and its fruit will be a flying fiery snake.+ 30 And the firstborn ones of the lowly ones will certainly feed, and in security the poor ones themselves will lie down.+ And with famine I will put your root to death, and what remains over of you* will be killed.*+ 31 Howl, O gate! Cry out, O city! All of you must become disheartened, O Philistia! For out of the north a smoke is coming, and there is no one getting isolated from his ranks.”+

32 And what will anyone say in answer to the messengers+ of the nation? That Jehovah himself has laid the foundation of Zion,+ and in her the afflicted ones of his people will take refuge.

15 The pronouncement against Moab:+ Because in the night it has been despoiled, Ar+ of Moab itself has been silenced. Because in the night it has been despoiled, Kir+ of Moab itself has been silenced. 2 He has gone up to The House and to Dibon,*+ to the high places, to a weeping. Over Nebo+ and over Medeba+ Moab itself howls. On all heads in it there is baldness;+ every beard is clipped. 3 In its streets they have girded on sackcloth.+ Upon the roofs+ thereof* and in the public squares thereof everyone thereof howls, going down with weeping.+ 4 And Heshbon and Elealeh+ cry out. As far as Jahaz+ their voice has been heard. That is why the armed men of Moab themselves keep shouting. His very soul has quivered within him.

5 My own heart cries out over Moab himself.+ The runaways thereof are as far along as Zoar+ [and] Eglath-shelishiyah.+ For on the ascent of Luhith+—with weeping [each] one goes up on it; for on the way to Horonaim+ they arouse the outcry about the catastrophe. 6 For the very waters of Nimrim+ become sheer desolations. For the green grass has dried up, the grass has come to an end; nothing has become green.+ 7 That is why the leftovers and their stored goods that they have put up, they keep carrying them away right over the torrent valley of the poplars. 8 For the outcry has gone around the territory of Moab.+ The howling thereof is clear to Eglaim; the howling thereof is clear to Beer-elim, 9 because the very waters of Dimon have become full of blood. For upon Dimon I shall place additional things, such as a lion for the escapees of Moab who escape and for the remaining ones of the ground.+

16 Send a ram, YOU men, to the ruler of the land,+ from Sela toward the wilderness, to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.+

2 And it must occur [that] like a fleeing winged creature, chased away from [its] nest,+ the daughters of Moab will become at the fords of Arnon.+

3 “Bring in* counsel, YOU men, execute the decision.+

“Make* your shadow just like the night in the midst of noontime.+ Conceal the dispersed ones;+ do not betray anyone fleeing.+ 4 May my dispersed ones reside as aliens even in you, O Moab.+ Become a place of concealment to them because of the despoiler.+ For the oppressor* has reached his end; the despoiling has terminated; those trampling down [others] have been finished off the earth.*+

5 “And in loving-kindness* a throne will certainly be firmly established;+ and one must sit down upon it in trueness* in the tent of David,+ judging and seeking justice and being prompt in righteousness.”+

6 We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud;+ his haughtiness and his pride and his fury+—his empty talk will not be so.+ 7 Therefore Moab will howl for Moab; even all of it will howl.+ For the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth+ the stricken ones indeed will moan, 8 because the terraces themselves of Heshbon+ have withered. The vine of Sibmah+—the owners* of the nations themselves have smitten down its bright-red [branches].* As far as Jazer+ they had reached; they had wandered about in the wilderness. Its own shoots had been left to luxuriate for themselves; they had gone over to the sea.

9 That is why I shall weep with the weeping of Jazer over the vine of Sibmah.+ With my tears I shall drench you, O Heshbon+ and Elealeh,+ because shouting even over your summer and over your harvest has fallen down.*+ 10 And rejoicing and joyfulness have been taken away from the orchard; and in the vineyards there is no joyful crying out, there is no shouting done.+ No wine in the presses does the treader tread out.+ Shouting I have caused to cease.+

11 That is why my very inwards are boisterous just like a harp even over Moab,+ and the midst of me over Kir-hareseth.*+

12 And it occurred that it was seen that Moab was made weary upon the high place;+ and he came to his sanctuary to pray,+ and he could not accomplish anything.+

13 This is the word that Jehovah spoke concerning Moab formerly. 14 And now Jehovah has spoken, saying: “Within three years, according to the years of a hired laborer,+ the glory+ of Moab must also be disgraced with much commotion of every sort, and those who remain over will be a trifling few, not mighty.”+

17 The pronouncement against Damascus:+ “Look! Damascus removed from being a city, and she has become a heap, a decaying ruin.+ 2 The cities of Aroer+ that have been left behind become mere places for droves, where they actually lie down, with no one to make [them] tremble.+ 3 And the fortified city has been made to cease out of Ephraim,+ and the kingdom out of Damascus;+ and those of Syria remaining over will become just like the glory of the sons of Israel,” is the utterance of Jehovah of armies.+

4 “And it must occur in that day that the glory of Jacob will become lowly,+ and even the fatness of his flesh will be made lean.+ 5 And it must occur that when the harvester* is gathering the standing grain and his own arm harvests the ears of grain,+ he must even become like one gleaning ears of grain in the low plain of Rephaim.+ 6 And there must remain in it a gleaning as when there is a beating off of the olive tree: two [or] three ripe olives in the top of the branch; four [or] five on the fruit-bearing boughs thereof,” is the utterance of Jehovah the God of Israel.+

7 In that day earthling man* will look up to his Maker, and his own eyes will gaze at the Holy One of Israel himself.+ 8 And he will not look to the altars,+ the work of his hands;+ and at what his fingers have made he will not gaze, either at the sacred poles* or at the incense stands.+ 9 In that day his fortress cities will become like a place left entirely in the woodland, even the branch that they have left entirely on account of the sons of Israel; and it must become a desolate waste.+ 10 For you* have forgotten+ the God of your salvation;+ and the Rock+ of your fortress you have not remembered. That is why you plant pleasant plantations, and with the shoot of a stranger* you set it. 11 In the day you may carefully fence about the plantation of yours, and in the morning you may cause the seed of yours to sprout, [but] the harvest will certainly flee in the day of the disease* and incurable pain.+

12 Ha for the commotion of many peoples, who are boisterous as with the boisterousness of the seas! And for the noise of national groups, who make a din just like the noise of mighty waters!+ 13 The national groups+ themselves will make a din just like the noise of many waters. And He will certainly rebuke it,+ and it must flee far away and be chased like the chaff of the mountains before a wind and like a thistle whirl before a storm wind.+ 14 At evening time, why, look! there is sudden terror. Before morning—it is no more.+ This is the share of those pillaging us, and the lot belonging to those plundering us.+

18 Ha for the land of the whirring insects with wings,* which is in the region of the rivers of Ethiopia!*+ 2 It is the one sending forth envoys+ by means of the sea, and by means of vessels of papyrus upon the surface of the waters, [saying:] “Go, YOU swift messengers, to a nation drawn out and scoured,* to a people fear-inspiring everywhere, a nation of tensile strength* and of treading down, whose land the rivers have washed away.”+

3 All YOU inhabitants of the productive land*+ and YOU residents of the earth, YOU will see a sight just as when there is the raising up of a signal* upon the mountains,+ and YOU will hear a sound just as when there is the blowing of a horn.*+ 4 For this is what Jehovah has said to me: “I will keep undisturbed and look upon my established place,+ like the dazzling heat along with the light,+ like the cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.+ 5 For before the harvest, when the blossom comes to perfection and the bloom becomes a ripening grape, one must also cut off the sprigs with pruning shears and must remove the tendrils, must lop [them] off.+ 6 They will be left all together for the bird of prey of the mountains and for the beast of the earth.+ And upon it the bird of prey will certainly pass the summer, and upon it even every beast of the earth will pass the harvesttime.+

7 “In that time a gift will be brought to Jehovah of armies,+ [from] a people drawn out and scoured,+ even from a people fear-inspiring everywhere, a nation of tensile strength* and of treading down, whose land the rivers have washed away, to the place of the name of Jehovah of armies, Mount Zion.”+

19 The pronouncement against Egypt:+ Look! Jehovah is riding on a swift cloud+ and coming into Egypt. And the valueless gods of Egypt will certainly quiver because of him,+ and the very heart of Egypt will melt in the midst of it.+

2 “And I will goad Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will certainly war each one against his brother, and each one against his companion, city against city, kingdom against kingdom.+ 3 And the spirit of Egypt must become bewildered in the midst of it,+ and I shall confuse its own counsel.+ And they will be certain to resort to the valueless gods+ and to the charmers and to the spirit mediums* and to the professional foretellers of events.+ 4 And I will deliver up Egypt into the hand of a hard master,* and strong will be the king that will rule over them,”+ is the utterance of the [true] Lord,* Jehovah of armies.

5 And the water will certainly be dried up from the sea, and the river itself will become parched and actually run dry.+ 6 And the rivers must stink; the Nile canals of Egypt* must become low and parched.+ The reed+ and the rush themselves must molder.* 7 The bare places* by the Nile River, at the mouth of the Nile River, and every seedland of the Nile River will dry up.+ It will certainly be driven away, and it will be no more. 8 And the fishers will have to mourn, and all those casting fishhooks into the Nile River must express sorrow, and even those spreading fishing nets upon the surface of the water will actually fade away.+ 9 And the workers in carded flax+ must become ashamed; also the loom workers on white fabrics. 10 And her weavers+ must become crushed, all the wage workers grieved in soul.

11 The princes of Zoan+ are indeed foolish. As regards the wise ones of Pharaoh’s counselors, [their] counsel is something unreasonable.+ How will YOU men say to Pharaoh: “I am the son of wise ones, the son of kings of ancient time”? 12 Where, then, are they—the wise men of yours+—that they may now tell you and that they may know what Jehovah of armies has counseled concerning Egypt?*+ 13 The princes of Zoan have acted foolishly,+ the princes of Noph*+ have been deceived, the keymen+ of her tribes have caused Egypt to wander about. 14 Jehovah himself has mingled in the midst of her* the spirit of disconcertedness;+ and they have caused Egypt to wander about in all its work, just as someone drunk is made to wander about in his vomit.+ 15 And Egypt will not come to have any work that the head or the tail, the shoot or the rush, can do.+

16 In that day Egypt will become like women, and it will certainly tremble+ and be in dread because of the waving of the hand of Jehovah of armies which he is waving against it.+ 17 And the ground of Judah must become to Egypt a cause for reeling.+ Everybody to whom one mentions it* is in dread because of the counsel of Jehovah of armies that he is counseling against him.+

18 In that day there will prove to be five cities in the land of Egypt+ speaking the language of Canaan+ and swearing+ to Jehovah of armies. The City of Tearing Down* will one [city] be called.

19 In that day there will prove to be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt,+ and a pillar to Jehovah beside its boundary. 20 And it must prove to be for a sign and for a witness to Jehovah of armies in the land of Egypt;+ for they will cry out to Jehovah because of the oppressors,+ and he will send them a savior, even a grand one, who will* actually deliver them.+ 21 And Jehovah will certainly become known to the Egyptians;+ and the Egyptians must know Jehovah in that day, and they must render sacrifice and gift+ and must make a vow to Jehovah and pay it.+ 22 And Jehovah will certainly deal Egypt a blow.+ There will be a dealing of a blow and a healing;*+ and they must return to Jehovah,+ and he must let himself be entreated by them and must heal them.+

23 In that day there will come to be a highway+ out of Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will actually come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria; and they will certainly render service, Egypt with Assyria. 24 In that day Israel will come to be the third with Egypt and with Assyria,+ namely, a blessing in the midst of the earth,*+ 25 because Jehovah of armies will have blessed it,+ saying: “Blessed be my people, Egypt, and the work of my hands, Assyria,+ and my inheritance, Israel.”+

20 In the year that Tartan*+ came to Ashdod,+ when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,+ and he proceeded to war against Ashdod and to capture it;+ 2 at that time Jehovah spoke by the hand of Isaiah the son of Amoz,+ saying: “Go,+ and you must loosen the sackcloth from off your hips;+ and your sandals you should draw from off your feet.”+ And he proceeded to do so, walking about naked and barefoot.+

3 And Jehovah went on to say: “Just as my servant Isaiah has walked about naked and barefoot three years as a sign+ and a portent against Egypt+ and against Ethiopia,*+ 4 so the king of Assyria will lead the body of captives of Egypt+ and the exiles of Ethiopia, boys and old men, naked and barefoot, and with buttocks stripped, the nakedness of Egypt.+ 5 And they will certainly be terrified and be ashamed of Ethiopia their looked-for hope+ and of Egypt their beauty.+ 6 And the inhabitant of this coastland will be certain to say in that day, ‘There is how our looked-for hope is, to which we fled for assistance, in order to be delivered because of the king of Assyria!+ And how shall we ourselves escape?’” 

21 The pronouncement against the wilderness of the sea:+ Like storm winds+ in the south* in moving onward, from the wilderness it is coming, from a fear-inspiring land.+ 2 There is a hard vision+ that has been told to me: The treacherous dealer is dealing treacherously, and the despoiler is despoiling.+ Go up, O Elam! Lay siege, O Media!+ All sighing due to her I have caused to cease.+ 3 That is why my hips have become full of severe pains.+ Convulsions themselves have grabbed hold of me, like the convulsions of a woman that is giving birth.+ I have become disconcerted so that I do not hear; I have become disturbed so that I do not see. 4 My heart has wandered about; a shuddering itself has terrified me. The twilight for which I had an attachment has been made for me a trembling.+

5 Let there be a setting of the table in order, an arranging of the location of seats, an eating, a drinking!*+ Get up, YOU princes,+ anoint the shield.+ 6 For this is what Jehovah* has said to me:

“Go, post a lookout that he may tell just what he sees.”+

7 And he saw a war chariot [with] a span of steeds,* a war chariot of asses, a war chariot of camels. And he paid strict attention,* with much attentiveness. 8 And he proceeded to call out like a lion:+ “Upon the watchtower,* O Jehovah,* I am standing constantly by day, and at my guardpost I am stationed all the nights.+ 9 And here, now, there is coming a war chariot of men,* [with] a span of steeds!”+

And he began to speak up and say: “She has fallen! Babylon has fallen,+ and all the graven images of her gods* he has broken to the earth!”+

10 O my threshed ones* and the son of my threshing floor,*+ what I have heard from Jehovah of armies, the God* of Israel, I have reported to YOU people.

11 The pronouncement against Dumah:* To me there is one calling out from Seir:+ “Watchman, what about the night? Watchman, what about the night?”+ 12 The watchman said: “The morning has to come, and also the night. If YOU people would inquire, inquire. Come again!”

13 The pronouncement against the desert plain:* In the forest in the desert plain YOU will spend the night, O caravans of men of Dedan.+ 14 To meet the thirsty one BRING water. O YOU inhabitants of the land of Tema,+ confront the one fleeing away with bread for him. 15 For because of the swords they have fled away, because of the drawn sword, and because of the bent bow and because of the heaviness of the war.

16 For this is what Jehovah* has said to me: “Within yet a year, according to the years of a hired laborer,+ all the glory of Kedar+ must even come to its end. 17 And the ones remaining over of the number of bow[men], the mighty men of the sons of Kedar, will become few,+ for Jehovah himself, the God of Israel, has spoken [it].”+ 

22 The pronouncement of the valley of the vision:*+ What is the matter with you,* then, that you have gone up in your entirety to the roofs?+ 2 With turmoil you were full, a boisterous city, an exultant town.+ Your slain ones are not those slain with the sword, nor those dead in battle.+ 3 All your dictators+ themselves have fled at one time.+ Without [need of] a bow they have been taken prisoner. All those of you who have been found have been taken prisoner together.+ Far off they had run away.

4 That is why I have said: “Turn YOUR gaze away from me. I will show bitterness in weeping.+ Do not YOU people insist on comforting me over the despoiling of the daughter of my people.+ 5 For it is the day of confusion+ and of downtreading+ and of confounding+ that the Sovereign Lord, Jehovah of armies, has in the valley of the vision.* There is the demolisher of the wall,+ and the cry* to the mountain.+ 6 And Elam+ itself has taken up the quiver, in the war chariot of earthling man, [with] steeds; and Kir+ itself has uncovered the shield. 7 And it will occur that the choicest of your* low plains must become full of war chariots, and the very steeds must without fail set themselves in position at the gate, 8 and one will remove the screen of Judah. And you will look in that day toward the armory+ of the house of the forest,+ 9 and YOU people will certainly see the very breaches of the City of David, for they will actually be many.+ And YOU will collect the waters of the lower pool.+ 10 And the houses of Jerusalem YOU will actually count. YOU will also pull down the houses to make the wall+ unattainable. 11 And there will be a collecting basin that YOU must make between the two walls for the waters of the old pool.+ And YOU will certainly not look at the grand maker of it, and the one forming it long ago YOU will certainly not see.

12 “And the Sovereign+ Lord, Jehovah of armies, will call in that day for weeping+ and for mourning and for baldness and for girding on sackcloth.+ 13 But, look! exultation and rejoicing, the killing of cattle and the slaughtering of sheep, the eating of flesh and the drinking of wine,+ ‘Let there be eating and drinking, for tomorrow we shall die.’”+

14 And in my ears Jehovah of armies has revealed himself:+ “‘This error will not be atoned+ for in YOUR behalf until YOU people die,’+ the Sovereign Lord, Jehovah of armies, has said.”

15 This is what the Sovereign Lord, Jehovah of armies, has said: “Go, enter in to this steward,* to Shebna,+ who is over the house,+ 16 ‘What is there of interest to you here, and who is there of interest to you here, that you have hewed out for yourself here a burial place?’+ On a height he is hewing out his burial place; in a crag he is cutting out a residence for himself. 17 ‘Look! Jehovah is hurling you down with violent hurling, O able-bodied man, and grasping you forcibly. 18 Without fail he will wrap you up tightly,* like a ball for a wide land.* There you will die, and there the chariots of your glory will be the dishonor of the house of your master.* 19 And I will push you away from your position;* and from your official standing* one will tear you down.+

20 “‘And it must occur in that day that I will call my servant,*+ namely, Eliakim+ the son of Hilkiah.*+ 21 And I will clothe him with your robe, and your sash I shall firmly bind about him,+ and your dominion* I shall give into his hand; and he must become a father to the inhabitant of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.+ 22 And I will put the key+ of the house of David upon his shoulder, and he must open without anyone’s shutting, and he must shut without anyone’s opening.+ 23 And I will drive him in as a peg+ in a lasting place, and he must become as a throne of glory to the house of his father.+ 24 And they must hang upon him all the glory of the house of his father, the descendants and the offshoots, all the vessels of the small sort, the vessels of the bowl sort as well as all the vessels of the large jars.

25 “‘In that day,’ is the utterance of Jehovah of armies, ‘the peg+ that is driven in a lasting place will be removed,+ and it must be hewn down and fall, and the load that is upon it must be cut off, for Jehovah himself has spoken [it].’”+ 

23 The pronouncement of Tyre:*+ Howl, YOU ships of Tarshish!+ for it has been despoiled from [being] a port,* from [being a place] to enter in.+ From the land of Kittim*+ it has been revealed to them. 2 Be silent, YOU inhabitants of the coastland.* The merchants from Sidon,+ the ones crossing over the sea—they have filled you. 3 And on many waters has been the seed of Shihor,+ the harvest of the Nile, her revenue; and it came to be the profit of the nations.+

4 Be ashamed, O Sidon;+ because the sea, O you stronghold of the sea, has said: “I have not had birth pains, and I have not given birth, nor have I brought up young men, raised up virgins.”+ 5 Just as at the report pertaining to Egypt,+ people will likewise be in severe pains at the report on Tyre.+ 6 Cross over to Tarshish; howl, YOU inhabitants of the coastland. 7 Is this YOUR [city] that was exultant from days of long ago, [from] her early times? Her feet used to bring her far away to reside as an alien.

8 Who is it that has given this counsel+ against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose merchants were princes, whose tradesmen were the honorable ones of the earth?+

9 Jehovah of armies himself has given this counsel,+ to profane the pride of all beauty,+ to treat with contempt all the honorable ones of the earth.+

10 Cross over your land like the Nile River, O daughter of Tarshish.+ There is no shipyard any longer.+ 11 His hand he has stretched out over the sea; he has caused kingdoms to be agitated.+ Jehovah himself has given a command against Phoenicia,* to annihilate her* strongholds.+ 12 And he says: “You must never again exult,+ O oppressed one, the virgin daughter of Sidon.+ Get up, cross over to Kittim+ itself. Even there it will not be restful for you.”

13 Look! The land of the Chaldeans.+ This is the people—Assyria+ did not prove to be [the one]—they founded her for the desert haunters.+ They have erected their siege towers;+ they have stripped bare her dwelling towers;+ one has set her as a crumbling ruin.+

14 Howl, YOU ships of Tarshish, for YOUR stronghold has been despoiled.+

15 And it must occur in that day that Tyre must be forgotten seventy years,+ the same as the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the song of a prostitute:* 16 “Take a harp, go around the city, O forgotten prostitute.+ Do your best at playing on the strings; make your songs many, in order that you may be remembered.”

17 And it must occur at the end of seventy years that Jehovah will turn his attention to Tyre, and she must return to her hire+ and commit prostitution with all the kingdoms of the earth upon the surface of the ground.+ 18 And her profit and her hire+ must become something holy to Jehovah. It will not be stored up, nor be laid up, because her hire will come to be for those dwelling before Jehovah,+ for eating to satisfaction and for elegant covering.+

24 Look! Jehovah is emptying the land* and laying it waste,+ and he has twisted* the face of it+ and scattered its inhabitants.+ 2 And it must come to be the same for the people as for the priest; the same for the servant as for his master;* the same for the maidservant as for her mistress; the same for the buyer as for the seller; the same for the lender as for the borrower; the same for the interest taker* as for the one paying the interest.*+ 3 Without fail the land will be emptied, and without fail it will be plundered,+ for Jehovah himself has spoken this word.+ 4 The land has gone to mourning,+ has faded away. The productive land* has withered, has faded away. The high ones of the people of the land have withered.+ 5 And the very land has been polluted under its inhabitants,+ for they have bypassed the laws,+ changed the regulation,+ broken the indefinitely lasting covenant.+ 6 That is why the curse itself has eaten up the land,+ and those inhabiting it are held guilty. That is why the inhabitants of the land have decreased in number, and very few mortal men have remained over.+

7 The new wine has gone to mourning, the vine has withered,+ all those glad at heart have gone to sighing.+ 8 The exultation of the tambourines has ceased, the noise of the highly elated ones has discontinued, the exultation of the harp has ceased.+ 9 It is with no song that they drink wine; the intoxicating liquor becomes bitter to those drinking it. 10 The deserted town has been broken down;+ every house has been shut up from entering. 11 There is an outcry in the streets for [want of] wine. All rejoicing has passed away;* the exultation of the land has departed.+ 12 In the city an astonishing condition has been left behind; the gate has been crushed to a mere rubble heap.+

13 For thus it will become in the midst of the land, in among the peoples, like the beating off of the olive tree,+ like the gleaning when the grape gathering has come to an end.+ 14 They themselves will raise their voice, they will cry out joyfully. In the superiority of Jehovah they will certainly cry out shrilly from the sea.*+ 15 That is why in the region of light*+ they must glorify Jehovah,+ in the islands of the sea the name of Jehovah,+ the God* of Israel. 16 From the extremity* of the land there are melodies that we have heard:+ “Decoration to the Righteous One!”+

But I say: “For me there is leanness,+ for me there is leanness! Woe to me! The treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously.+ Even with treachery the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously.”+

17 Dread and the hollow and the trap are upon you, you inhabitant of the land.+ 18 And it must occur that anyone fleeing from the sound of the dreaded thing will fall into the hollow, and anyone coming up from inside the hollow will be caught in the trap.+ For the very floodgates* on high will actually be opened,+ and the foundations of the land will rock.+ 19 The land has absolutely burst apart, the land has absolutely been shaken up, the land has absolutely been sent staggering.+ 20 The land absolutely moves unsteadily like a drunken man, and it has swayed to and fro like a lookout hut.+ And its transgression has become heavy upon it,+ and it must fall, so that it will not rise up again.+

21 And it must occur in that day that Jehovah will turn his attention upon the army of the height in the height, and upon the kings of the ground upon the ground.+ 22 And they will certainly be gathered with a gathering as of prisoners into the pit,+ and be shut up in the dungeon;+ and after an abundance of days they will be given attention.+ 23 And the full moon has become abashed, and the glowing [sun] has become ashamed,+ for Jehovah of armies has become king+ in Mount Zion+ and in Jerusalem and in front of his elderly men with glory.+

25 O Jehovah, you are my God.*+ I exalt you,+ I laud your name,+ for you have done wonderful things,+ counsels+ from early times, in faithfulness,+ in trustworthiness.+ 2 For you have made a city a pile of stones, a fortified town a crumbling ruin, a dwelling tower of strangers to be no city, which will not be rebuilt even to time indefinite.+ 3 That is why those who are a strong people will glorify you; the town of the tyrannical nations, they will fear you.+ 4 For you have become a stronghold to the lowly one, a stronghold to the poor one in the distress that he has,+ a refuge from the rainstorm,* a shade+ from the heat, when the blast* of the tyrannical ones is like a rainstorm against a wall. 5 Like the heat in a waterless country, the noise of strangers you subdue, the heat with the shadow of a cloud.+ The melody itself of the tyrannical ones becomes suppressed.+

6 And Jehovah of armies will certainly make for all the peoples,+ in this mountain,+ a banquet of well-oiled dishes,+ a banquet of [wine kept on] the dregs, of well-oiled dishes filled with marrow,+ of [wine+ kept on] the dregs, filtered.+ 7 And in this mountain he will certainly swallow up the face of the envelopment that is enveloping over all the peoples,+ and the woven work that is interwoven upon all the nations. 8 He will actually swallow up death forever,+ and the Sovereign Lord Jehovah will certainly wipe the tears from all faces.+ And the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,*+ for Jehovah himself has spoken [it].

9 And in that day one will certainly say: “Look! This is our God.*+ We have hoped in him,+ and he will save us.+ This is Jehovah.+ We have hoped in him. Let us be joyful and rejoice in the salvation by him.”*+

10 For the hand of Jehovah will settle down on this mountain,+ and Moab must be trodden down+ in its place as when a straw heap is trodden down in a manure+ place. 11 And he must slap out* his hands in the midst of it* as when a swimmer slaps [them] out to swim, and he must abase its haughtiness+ with the tricky movements of his hands. 12 And the fortified city, with your high walls of security, he must lay low; he must abase [it], bring [it] into contact with the earth, to the dust.+

26 In that day+ this song will be sung+ in the land of Judah:+ “We have a strong city.+ He sets salvation itself for walls and rampart.+ 2 Open the gates,+ YOU men, that the righteous nation that is keeping faithful conduct may enter.+ 3 The inclination that is well supported* you will safeguard in continuous peace,*+ because it is in you that one* is made to trust.+ 4 Trust in Jehovah,+ YOU people, for all times, for in Jah* Jehovah* is the Rock+ of times indefinite.

5 “For he has laid low those inhabiting the height,+ the elevated town.+ He abases it, he abases it to the earth; he brings it in touch with the dust.+ 6 The foot will trample it down, the feet of the afflicted one, the steps of the lowly ones.”+

7 The path of the righteous one is uprightness.+ You being upright, you will smooth out the very course of a righteous one.+ 8 Yes, for the path of your judgments, O Jehovah, we have hoped in you.+ For your name and for your memorial+ the desire of the soul has been.+ 9 With my soul I have desired you in the night;+ yes, with my spirit within me I keep looking for you;+ because, when there are judgments from you for the earth,+ righteousness+ is what the inhabitants of the productive land* will certainly learn.+ 10 Though the wicked one should be shown favor, he simply will not learn righteousness.+ In the land of straightforwardness he will act unjustly+ and will not see the eminence of Jehovah.+

11 O Jehovah, your hand has become high,+ [but] they do not behold [it].+ They will behold and be ashamed+ at the zeal for [your] people. Yes, the very fire+ for your own adversaries will eat them up.* 12 O Jehovah, you will adjudge peace to us,+ because even all our works you have performed for us.+ 13 O Jehovah our God,* other masters* besides you have acted as owners of us.+ By you only shall we make mention of your name.+ 14 They are dead; they will not live.+ Impotent in death,*+ they will not rise up.+ Therefore you have turned your attention that you might annihilate them and destroy all mention of them.+

15 You have added to the nation; O Jehovah, you have added to the nation;+ you have glorified yourself.+ You have extended afar all the borders of the land.*+ 16 O Jehovah, during distress they have turned their attention to you;+ they have poured out a whisper [of prayer] when they had your disciplining.+ 17 Just as a pregnant woman draws near to giving birth, has labor pains, cries out in her birth pangs, so we have become because of you, O Jehovah.+ 18 We have become pregnant, we have had labor pains;+ as it were, we have given birth to wind.* No real salvation do we accomplish as regards the land,+ and no inhabitants for the productive land proceed to fall [in birth].+

19 “Your dead ones will live.+ A corpse of mine*—they will rise up.+ Awake and cry out joyfully, YOU residents in the dust!+ For your dew+ is as the dew of mallows,+ and the earth itself will let even those impotent in death* drop [in birth].+

20 “Go, my people, enter into your interior rooms, and shut your doors behind you.+ Hide yourself for but a moment until the denunciation passes over.+ 21 For, look! Jehovah is coming forth from his place to call to account the error of the inhabitant of the land against him,+ and the land will certainly expose her bloodshed*+ and will no longer cover over her killed ones.”+

27 In that day Jehovah,+ with his hard and great and strong sword,+ will turn his attention to Leviathan,*+ the gliding serpent,+ even to Leviathan, the crooked serpent, and he will certainly kill the sea monster+ that is in the sea.

2 In that day sing to her,+ YOU people: “A vineyard+ of foaming wine!* 3 I, Jehovah, am safeguarding her.+ Every moment I shall water her.+ In order that no one may turn his attention against her, I shall safeguard her even night and day.+ 4 There is no rage that I have.+ Who will give me thornbushes+ [and] weeds in the battle? I will step on such. I will set such on fire at the same time.+ 5 Otherwise let him take hold of my stronghold, let him make peace with me; peace let him make with me.”+

6 In the coming [days] Jacob will take root, Israel+ will put forth blossoms and actually sprout; and they will simply fill the surface of the productive land* with produce.+

7 As with the stroke of one striking him does one have to strike him? Or as with the slaughter* of his killed ones does he have to be killed?+ 8 With a scare cry you will contend with her when sending her forth. He must expel [her] with his blast, a hard one in the day of the east wind.+ 9 Therefore by this means the error of Jacob will be atoned for,+ and this is all the fruit [when] he takes away his sin,+ when he makes all the stones of the altar like chalkstones that have been pulverized, so that the sacred poles*+ and the incense stands will not rise up.+ 10 For the fortified city will be solitary, the pasture ground will be left to itself and abandoned like a wilderness.+ There the calf will graze, and there it will lie down; and he will actually consume her boughs.+ 11 When her sprigs have dried up, women coming in will break [them] off, lighting them up.+ For it is not a people of keen understanding.+ That is why its Maker will show it no mercy, and its own Former will show it no favor.+

12 And it must occur in that day that Jehovah will beat off [the fruit],+ from the flowing stream of the River*+ to the torrent valley of Egypt,+ and so YOU yourselves will be picked up one after the other,+ O sons of Israel. 13 And it must occur in that day that there will be a blowing on a great horn,*+ and those who are perishing in the land of Assyria+ and those who are dispersed in the land of Egypt+ will certainly come and bow+ down to Jehovah in the holy mountain in Jerusalem.+

28 Woe to the eminent crown* of the drunkards of Ephraim,+ and the fading blossom of its* decoration of beauty that is upon the head of the fertile valley* of those overpowered by wine! 2 Look! Jehovah* has someone strong and vigorous.+ Like a thunderous storm of hail,+ a destructive storm, like a thunderous storm of powerful, flooding waters,+ he will certainly do a casting down to the earth with force.* 3 With the feet the eminent crowns of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trampled+ down. 4 And the fading flower+ of its decoration of beauty that is upon the head of the fertile valley must become like the early fig+ before summer, that, when the seer sees it, while it is yet in his palm, he swallows it down.

5 In that day Jehovah of armies will become as a crown of decoration+ and as a garland of beauty+ to the ones remaining+ over* of his people, 6 and as a spirit of justice* to the one sitting in the judgment,+ and as mightiness [to] those turning away the battle from the gate.+

7 And these also—because of wine they have gone astray and because of intoxicating liquor they have wandered about. Priest and prophet+—they have gone astray because of intoxicating liquor, they have become confused as a result of the wine, they have wandered+ about as a result of the intoxicating liquor; they have gone astray in their seeing, they have reeled as to decision. 8 For the tables themselves have all become full of filthy vomit+—there is no place [without it].

9 Whom will one instruct in knowledge,+ and whom will one make understand what has been heard?*+ Those who have been weaned from the milk, those moved away from the breasts?+ 10 For it is “command upon command, command upon command, measuring line upon measuring line, measuring line upon measuring line, here a little, there a little.”*+ 11 For by those stammering with their lips+ and by a different tongue+ he will speak to this people,+ 12 those to whom he has said: “This is the resting-place. GIVE rest to the weary one. And this is the place of ease,” but who were not willing to hear.+ 13 And to them the word of Jehovah will certainly become “command upon command, command upon command, measuring line upon measuring line, measuring line upon measuring line,+ here a little, there a little,” in order that they may go and certainly stumble backwards and actually be broken and ensnared and caught.+

14 Therefore hear the word of Jehovah, YOU braggarts,* YOU rulers+ of this people who are in Jerusalem: 15 Because YOU men have said: “We have concluded a covenant with Death;+ and with Sheol we have effected a vision;*+ the overflowing flash flood, in case it should pass through, will not come to us, for we have made a lie our refuge+ and in falsehood we have concealed ourselves”;+ 16 therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said: “Here I am laying* as a foundation in Zion+ a stone,*+ a tried stone,+ the precious corner+ of a sure foundation.*+ No one exercising faith will get panicky.*+ 17 And I will make justice* the measuring line+ and righteousness+ the leveling instrument; and the hail+ must sweep away the refuge of a lie,+ and the waters themselves will flood out the very place of concealment.+ 18 And YOUR covenant with Death will certainly be dissolved,*+ and that vision of YOURS with Sheol will not stand.+ The overflowing flash flood, when it passes through+YOU must also become for it a trampling place.+ 19 As often as it passes through, it will take YOU men away,+ because morning by morning it will pass through, during the day and during the night; and it must become nothing but a reason for quaking+ to make [others] understand what has been heard.”*

20 For the couch has proved too short for stretching oneself on, and the woven sheet itself is [too] narrow when wrapping oneself up. 21 For Jehovah will rise up just as at Mount Perazim,+ he will be agitated just as in the low plain near Gibeon,+ that he may do his deed—his deed is strange—and that he may work his work*—his work is unusual.+ 22 And now do not show yourselves scoffers,+ in order that YOUR bands may not grow strong, for there is an extermination, even something decided upon, that I have heard of from the Sovereign+ Lord, Jehovah of armies, for all the land.*+

23 Give ear, YOU men, and listen to my voice; pay attention and listen to my saying. 24 Is it all day long+ that the plower plows in order to sow seed, that he loosens and harrows his ground?+ 25 Does he not, when he has smoothed out its surface, then scatter black cumin and sprinkle the cumin,+ and must he not put in wheat, millet,*+ and barley in the appointed place,*+ and spelt+ as his boundary?+ 26 And one corrects+ him according to what is right.* His own God* instructs him.+ 27 For it is not with a threshing instrument+ that black cumin is given a treading; and upon cumin no wheel of a wagon is turned. For it is with a rod+ that black cumin is generally beaten out, and cumin with a staff. 28 Is breadstuff itself generally crushed? For never does one incessantly+ keep treading it out.+ And he must set the roller of his wagon in motion, and his own steeds, [but] he will not crush it.+ 29 This also is what has come forth from Jehovah of armies himself,+ who has been wonderful in counsel, who has done greatly in effectual working.+

29 “Woe to Ariel,*+ to Ariel, the town where David encamped!+ Add year upon year, YOU people; let the festivals+ run the round. 2 And I have to make things tight+ for Ariel, and there must come to be mourning and lamentation,+ and she must become to me as the altar hearth of God.*+ 3 And I must encamp on all sides against you,* and I must lay siege to you with a palisade* and raise up against you siegeworks.+ 4 And you must become low so that you will speak from the very earth, and as from the dust your saying will sound low.+ And like a spirit medium your voice must become even from the earth, and from the dust your own saying will chirp.+ 5 And the crowd of those strange to you must become just like fine powder,+ and the crowd of the tyrants+ just like the chaff that is passing away.+ And it must occur in an instant, suddenly.+ 6 From Jehovah of armies you will have attention with thunder and with quaking and with a great sound, storm wind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.”+

7 And it must occur just as in a dream, in a vision of the night, regarding the crowd of all the nations that are waging war against Ariel,+ even all those waging war against her, and the siege towers against her and those making things tight for her.+ 8 Yes, it must occur just as when someone hungry dreams and here he is eating, and he actually awakes and his soul is empty;+ and just as when someone thirsty dreams and here he is drinking, and he actually awakes and here he is tired and his soul is dried out; thus it will occur with the crowd of all the nations that are waging war against Mount Zion.+

9 Linger, YOU men, and be amazed;+ blind yourselves, and be blinded.*+ They have become intoxicated,+ but not with wine; they have moved unsteadily, but not because of intoxicating liquor.+

10 For upon YOU men Jehovah has poured a spirit of deep sleep;+ and he closes YOUR eyes, the prophets,+ and he has covered even YOUR heads,+ the visionaries.+ 11 And for YOU men the vision of everything becomes like the words of the book that has been sealed up,+ which they give to someone knowing the writing, saying: “Read this out loud, please,” and he has to say: “I am unable, for it is sealed up”;+ 12 and the book must be given to someone that does not know writing, [somebody] saying: “Read this out loud, please,” and he has to say: “I do not know writing at all.”

13 And Jehovah* says: “For the reason that this people have come near with their mouth, and they have glorified me merely with their lips,+ and they have removed their heart itself far away from me,+ and their fear toward me becomes men’s commandment that is being taught,+ 14 therefore here I am, the One that will act wonderfully again with this people,+ in a wonderful manner and with something wonderful; and the wisdom of their wise men must perish, and the very understanding of their discreet men will conceal itself.”+

15 Woe to those who are going very deep in concealing counsel from Jehovah himself,+ and whose deeds have occurred in a dark place,+ while they say: “Who is seeing us, and who is knowing of us?”+ 16 The perversity of YOU men! Should the potter* himself be accounted just like the clay?+ For should the thing made say respecting its maker: “He did not make me”?+ And does the very thing formed actually say respecting its former: “He showed no understanding”?+

17 Is it not yet but a very little time and Lebanon must be turned into an orchard+ and the orchard itself will be accounted just as a forest?+ 18 And in that day the deaf ones will certainly hear the words of the book,+ and out of the gloom and out of the darkness even the eyes of the blind ones will see.+ 19 And the meek+ ones will certainly increase their rejoicing in Jehovah himself, and even the poor ones of mankind* will be joyful in the Holy One of Israel himself,+ 20 because the tyrant must reach his end,+ and the bragger must come to his finish,+ and all those keeping alert to do harm+ must be cut off, 21 those bringing a man into sin by [his] word,+ and those who lay bait even for the one reproving in the gate,+ and those who push aside the righteous one with empty arguments.+

22 Therefore this is what Jehovah has said to the house of Jacob, he that redeemed Abraham:+ “Jacob will not now be ashamed, nor will his own face now grow pale;+ 23 for when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in the midst of him,+ they will sanctify* my name,+ and they will certainly sanctify the Holy One of Jacob,+ and the God of Israel* they will regard with awe.+ 24 And those who are erring in [their] spirit will actually get to know understanding, and even those who are grumbling will learn instruction.”+

30 “Woe to the stubborn sons,”+ is the utterance of Jehovah, “[those disposed] to carry out counsel, but not that from me;+ and to pour out a libation,* but not with my spirit, in order to add sin to sin;+ 2 those who are setting out to go down to Egypt+ and who have not inquired of my own mouth,+ to take shelter in the stronghold of Pharaoh and to take refuge in the shadow of Egypt!+ 3 And the stronghold of Pharaoh must become even for YOU men a reason for shame,+ and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt a cause for humiliation.+ 4 For his princes have come to be in Zoan+ itself, and his own envoys* reach even Hanes. 5 Every one will certainly become ashamed of a people that bring no benefit to one, that are of no help and bring no benefit, but are a reason for shame and also a cause for reproach.”+

6 The pronouncement against the beasts of the south:*+ Through* the land of distress+ and hard conditions, of the lion and the leopard growling,* of the viper and the flying fiery snake,+ on the shoulders of full-grown asses they carry their resources, and on the humps of camels+ their supplies. In behalf of the people they will prove of no benefit. 7 And the Egyptians are mere vanity, and they will help simply for nothing.+ Therefore I have called this one:* “Rahab+—they are for sitting still.”

8 “Now come, write it upon a tablet with them, and inscribe it even in a book,+ that it may serve for a future day, for a witness* to time indefinite.+ 9 For it is a rebellious people,+ untruthful sons,+ sons who have been unwilling to hear the law of Jehovah;+ 10 who have said to the ones seeing, ‘YOU must not see,’ and to the ones having visions, ‘YOU must not envision for us any straightforward things.+ Speak to us smooth* things; envision deceptive things.+ 11 Turn aside from the way; deviate from the path.+ Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease just on account of us.’”+

12 Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel has said: “In view of YOUR rejecting of this word,+ and [since] YOU men trust in defrauding and in what is devious and YOU support yourselves on it,+ 13 therefore for YOU this error will become like a broken section about to fall down, a swelling out in a highly raised wall,+ the breakdown of which may come suddenly, in an instant.+ 14 And one will certainly break it as in the breaking of a large jar of the potters,+ crushed to pieces without one’s sparing [it], so that there cannot be found among its crushed pieces a fragment of earthenware with which to rake the fire from the fireplace or to skim water from a marshy place.”*+

15 For this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel,+ has said: “By coming back and resting YOU people will be saved. YOUR mightiness will prove to be simply in keeping undisturbed and in trustfulness.”+ But YOU were not willing.+ 16 And YOU proceeded to say: “No, but on horses we shall flee!”+ That is why YOU will flee. “And on swift [horses] we shall ride!”+ That is why those pursuing YOU will show themselves swift.+ 17 A thousand will tremble* on account of the rebuke of one;+ on account of the rebuke of five YOU will flee until YOU will have remained over like a mast on the top of a mountain and like a signal* on a hill.+

18 And therefore Jehovah will keep in expectation of showing YOU favor,+ and therefore he will rise up to show YOU mercy.+ For Jehovah is a God of judgment.*+ Happy+ are all those keeping in expectation of him.+ 19 When the very people in Zion+ will dwell in Jerusalem,+ you* will by no means weep.+ He* will without fail show you favor at the sound of your outcry; as soon as he hears it he will actually answer you.+ 20 And Jehovah* will certainly give YOU people bread in the form of distress and water in the form of oppression;+ yet your Grand Instructor* will no longer hide himself, and your eyes must become [eyes] seeing your Grand Instructor.+ 21 And your own ears will hear a word behind you saying: “This is the way.+ Walk in it, YOU people,” in case YOU people should go to the right or in case YOU should go to the left.+

22 And YOU people* must defile the overlaying of your* graven images of silver+ and the close-fitting covering of your molten+ statue of gold.+ You will scatter them.+ Like a menstruating woman, you will say to it: “Mere dirt!”+ 23 And he will certainly give the rain for your seed with which you sow the ground,+ and as the produce of the ground bread, which must become fat and oily.+ Your livestock will graze in that day in a spacious pasture.+ 24 And the cattle and the full-grown asses cultivating the ground will eat fodder seasoned with sorrel, which was winnowed with the shovel+ and with the fork. 25 And upon every high mountain and upon every elevated hill there must come to be streams,+ water ditches, in the day of the big slaughter when the towers fall.+ 26 And the light of the full moon must become as the light of the glowing [sun]; and the very light of the glowing [sun] will become seven times as much,+ like the light of seven days, in the day that Jehovah binds up the breakdown+ of his people and heals+ even the severe wound resulting from the stroke by him.

27 Look! The name of Jehovah is coming from far away, burning with his anger+ and with heavy clouds. As for his lips, they have become full of denunciation, and his tongue is like a devouring fire.+ 28 And his spirit* is like a flooding torrent that reaches clear to the neck,+ to swing the nations to and fro with a sieve+ of worthlessness; and a bridle+ that causes one to wander about will be in the jaws of the peoples.+ 29 YOU people will come to have a song+ like that in the night that one sanctifies oneself for a festival,+ and rejoicing of heart like that of one walking with a flute+ to enter into the mountain of Jehovah,+ to the Rock* of Israel.+

30 And Jehovah will certainly make the dignity of his voice+ to be heard and will make the descending of his arm to be seen,+ in the raging of anger+ and the flame of a devouring fire+ [and] cloudburst and rainstorm+ and hailstones.+ 31 For because of the voice of Jehovah Assyria will be struck with terror;+ he will strike [it] even with a staff.+ 32 And every swing of his rod of chastisement* that Jehovah will cause to settle down upon [Assyria] will certainly prove to be with tambourines and with harps;+ and with battles of brandishing* he will actually fight against them.+ 33 For his Topheth*+ is set in order from recent times; it is also prepared for the king himself.+ He has made its pile deep. Fire and wood are in abundance. The breath* of Jehovah, like a torrent of sulphur, is burning against it.+

31 Woe to those going down to Egypt for assistance,+ those who rely on mere horses,+ and who put their trust in war chariots,+ because they are numerous, and in steeds,* because they are very mighty, but who have not looked to the Holy One of Israel and have not searched for Jehovah himself.+ 2 And he is also wise+ and will bring in what is calamitous,+ and he has not called back his own words;+ and he will certainly rise up against the house of evildoers+ and against the assistance of those practicing what is hurtful.+

3 The Egyptians, though, are earthling men,*+ and not God;* and their horses are flesh,+ and not spirit. And Jehovah himself will stretch out his hand, and he that is offering help will have to stumble, and he that is being helped will have to fall,+ and at the same time they will all of them come to an end.

4 For this is what Jehovah has said to me: “Just as the lion growls, even the maned young lion,+ over its prey, when there is called out against it a full number of shepherds, [and] in spite of their voice he will not be terrified and in spite of their commotion he will not stoop; in the same way Jehovah of armies will come down to wage war over Mount Zion and over her hill.+ 5 Like birds flying, Jehovah of armies will in the same way defend Jerusalem.+ Defending [her], he will also certainly deliver [her].+ Sparing* [her], he must also cause [her] to escape.”

6 “Return,+ YOU people, to the One against whom the sons of Israel have gone deep in their revolt.+ 7 For in that day they will reject each one his worthless gods of silver and his valueless gods of gold,+ that YOUR hands have made for yourselves as a sin.+ 8 And the Assyrian must fall by the sword, not [that of] a man;* and a sword, not [that of] earthling man,* will devour him.+ And he must flee because of the sword, and his own young men will come to be for forced labor itself. 9 And his own crag will pass away out of sheer fright, and because of the signal*+ his princes must be terrified,” is the utterance of Jehovah, whose light is in Zion and whose furnace+ is in Jerusalem.

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.+

36 Now it came about in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah* that Sennacherib+ the king of Assyria+ came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and proceeded to seize them.+ 2 And the king of Assyria finally sent Rabshakeh+ from Lachish+ to Jerusalem,+ to King Hezekiah, with a heavy military force, and he proceeded to stand still by the conduit+ of the upper pool+ at the highway of the laundryman’s field.+ 3 Then there came out to him Eliakim+ the son of Hilkiah,* who was over the household, and Shebna+ the secretary and Joah+ the son of Asaph+ the recorder.+

4 Accordingly Rabshakeh said to them: “Please, say to Hezekiah, ‘This is what the great king,+ the king of Assyria,+ has said: “What is this confidence in which you have trusted?+ 5 You* have said (but it is the word of lips), ‘There are counsel and mightiness for the war.’+ Now in whom have you put trust, that you have rebelled against me?+ 6 Look! You have trusted in the support of this crushed reed,+ in Egypt,+ which, if a man should brace himself upon it, would certainly enter into his palm and pierce it. That is the way Pharaoh+ the king of Egypt* is to all those putting their trust in him.+ 7 And in case you should say to me, ‘It is Jehovah our God* in whom we have trusted,’ is he not the one whose high places+ and whose altars Hezekiah has removed,+ while he says to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘Before this altar YOU should bow down’?”’+ 8 Now, then, make a wager,+ please, with my lord the king of Assyria,+ and let me give you two thousand horses [to see] whether you are able, on your part, to put riders upon them.+ 9 How, then, could you turn back the face of one governor of the smallest servants of my lord,+ while you, for your part, put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?+ 10 And now is it without authorization from Jehovah that I have come up against this land to bring it to ruin? Jehovah himself said to me,+ ‘Go up against this land, and you must bring it to ruin.’”+

11 At this Eliakim+ and Shebna+ and Joah+ said to Rabshakeh:+ “Speak, please, to your servants in the Syrian language,*+ for we are listening;* and do not speak to us in the Jews’ language*+ in the ears of the people that are on the wall.”+ 12 But Rabshakeh said: “Is it to your lord* and to you that my lord has sent me to speak these words? Is it not to the men sitting upon the wall, that they may eat their own excrement and drink their own urine with YOU men?”+

13 And Rabshakeh continued to stand+ and call out in a loud voice in the Jews’ language,+ and he went on to say: “HEAR the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.+ 14 This is what the king has said, ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive YOU people,+ for he is not able to deliver YOU.+ 15 And do not let Hezekiah cause YOU to trust in Jehovah,+ saying: “Without fail Jehovah will deliver us.+ This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”+ 16 Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria has said: “Make a capitulation to me+ and come out to me and eat each one from his own vine and each one from his own fig tree+ and drink each one the water of his own cistern,+ 17 until I come and actually take YOU to a land like YOUR own land,+ a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards; 18 in order that Hezekiah may not allure YOU,+ saying, ‘Jehovah himself will deliver us.’ Have the gods* of the nations delivered each one his own land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?+ 19 Where are the gods of Hamath+ and Arpad?+ Where are the gods of Sepharvaim?+ And have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?+ 20 Who are there among all the gods of these lands that have delivered their land out of my hand+ so that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?”’”+

21 And they continued to keep silent and did not answer him a word,+ for the commandment of the king was, saying: “YOU must not answer him.”+ 22 But Eliakim+ the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household,+ and Shebna+ the secretary and Joah+ the son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their garments ripped apart,+ and told him the words of Rabshakeh.+

37 And it came about that as soon as King Hezekiah heard, he immediately ripped his garments apart and covered himself with sackcloth+ and came into the house of Jehovah.+ 2 Further, he sent Eliakim,+ who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary+ and the older men* of the priests+ covered with sackcloth to Isaiah+ the son of Amoz the prophet.+ 3 And they proceeded to say to him: “This is what Hezekiah has said, ‘This day is a day of distress+ and of rebuke and of scornful insolence,+ for the sons have come as far as the womb’s mouth,* and there is no power to give birth.+ 4 Perhaps Jehovah your God* will hear the words of Rabshakeh,+ whom the king of Assyria his lord* sent to taunt+ the living God,* and he will actually call him to account for the words that Jehovah your God has heard.+ And you must lift up prayer+ in behalf of the remnant that are to be found.’”+


5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came in to Isaiah.+ 6 Then Isaiah said to them: “This is what YOU should say to YOUR lord, ‘This is what Jehovah has said:+ “Do not be afraid+ because of the words that you have heard with which the attendants+ of the king of Assyria spoke abusively of me. 7 Here I am putting a spirit+ in him, and he must hear a report+ and return to his own land; and I shall certainly cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.”’”+


8 After that Rabshakeh+ returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah,+ for he had heard that he had pulled away from Lachish.+ 9 Now he heard it said concerning Tirhakah+ the king of Ethiopia:* “He has come out to fight against you.” When he heard, he at once sent messengers+ to Hezekiah, saying: 10 “This is what YOU men should say to Hezekiah the king of Judah, ‘Do not let your God in whom you are trusting deceive you,+ saying: “Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”+ 11 Look! You yourself have heard what the kings of Assyria did to all the lands by devoting them to destruction,+ and will you yourself be delivered?+ 12 Have the gods+ of the nations that my forefathers brought to ruin delivered them,+ even Gozan+ and Haran+ and Rezeph and the sons of Eden+ that were in Tel-assar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath+ and the king of Arpad+ and the king of the city of Sepharvaim+—of Hena and of Ivvah?’”+


14 Then Hezekiah took the letters out of the hand of the messengers and read them,+ after which Hezekiah went up to the house of Jehovah and spread it out before Jehovah.+ 15 And Hezekiah began to pray to Jehovah,+ saying: 16 “O Jehovah of armies, the God of Israel,+ sitting upon the cherubs, you alone are the [true] God of all the kingdoms of the earth.+ You yourself have made the heavens and the earth.+ 17 Incline your ear, O Jehovah, and hear.+ Open your eyes,+ O Jehovah, and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib+ that he has sent to taunt the living God.*+ 18 It is a fact, O Jehovah, that the kings of Assyria have devastated all the lands, and their own land.+ 19 And there was a consigning of their gods to the fire,+ because they were no gods,*+ but the workmanship of man’s hands,+ wood and stone, so that they destroyed them.+ 20 And now, O Jehovah our God,+ save us out of his hand,+ that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Jehovah, are [God]* alone.”+


21 And Isaiah the son of Amoz proceeded to send to Hezekiah, saying: “This is what Jehovah the God of Israel has said, ‘Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib the king of Assyria,+ 22 this is the word that Jehovah has spoken against him:

“The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you, she has held you in derision.+

    Behind you the daughter of Jerusalem has wagged [her] head.+

23 Whom have you taunted+ and spoken of abusively?+

   And against whom have you lifted up [your] voice+

    And do you raise your eyes on high?+

    It is against the Holy One of Israel!+

24 By means of your servants you have taunted Jehovah* and you say,+

    ‘With the multitude of my war chariots I myself+

    I shall certainly ascend the height of mountainous regions,+

    The remotest parts of Lebanon;+

    And I shall cut down its lofty cedars, its choice juniper trees.+

    And I shall enter its final height,* the forest of its orchard.+

25 I myself shall certainly dig and drink waters,

    And I shall dry up with the soles of my feet all the Nile+ canals of Egypt.’*+

26 Have you not heard?+ From remote times it is what I will do.+

    From bygone days I have even formed it.+ Now I will bring it in.+

    And you will serve to make fortified cities become desolate as piles of ruins.+

27 And their inhabitants will be feeble-handed;+

    They will simply be terrified and ashamed.+

    They must become as vegetation of the field and green tender grass,+

    Grass of the roofs+ and of the terrace before the east wind.+

28 And your sitting quiet* and your going out+ and your coming in I well know,+

    And your exciting yourself against me,+

29 Because your exciting yourself against me+ and your roaring have come up into my ears.+

    And I shall certainly put my hook in your nose and my bridle between your lips,+

    And I shall indeed lead you back by the way by which you have come.”+


30 “‘And this will be the sign for you: There will be an eating this year of the growth from spilled kernels,+ and in the second year grain that shoots up of itself; but in the third year sow seed, YOU people, and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruitage.+ 31 And those who escape of the house of Judah, those who are left remaining,+ will certainly take root downward and produce fruitage upward.+ 32 For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go forth+ and those who escape out of Mount Zion.+ The very zeal of Jehovah of armies will do this.+


33 “‘Therefore this is what Jehovah has said concerning the king of Assyria:+ “He will not come into this city,+ nor will he shoot an arrow there, nor confront it with a shield, nor cast up a siege rampart against it.”’+
34 “‘By the way by which he came he will return, and into this city he will not come,’ is the utterance of Jehovah.+ 35 ‘And I shall certainly defend+ this city to save it for my own sake+ and for the sake of David my servant.’”+


36 And the angel+ of Jehovah proceeded to go forth and strike down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians.+ When people rose up early in the morning, why, there all of them were dead carcasses.+ 37 Hence Sennacherib+ the king of Assyria pulled away and went and returned+ and took up dwelling in Nineveh.+ 38 And it came about that as he was bowing down at the house of Nisroch+ his god,*+ Adrammelech and Sharezer, his own sons, struck him down with the sword,+ and they themselves escaped to the land of Ararat.*+ And Esar-haddon+ his son began to reign in place of him.

38 In those days Hezekiah got sick to the point of dying.+ Accordingly Isaiah+ the son of Amoz the prophet came in to him and said to him: “This is what Jehovah has said, ‘Give commands to your household,+ for you yourself will indeed die and will not live.’”+ 2 At that Hezekiah turned his face to the wall+ and began to pray to Jehovah+ 3 and to say: “I beseech you, O Jehovah, remember,+ please, how I have walked+ before you in truthfulness+ and with a complete heart,+ and what was good in your eyes I have done.” And Hezekiah began to weep profusely.*+

4 And the word+ of Jehovah now occurred to Isaiah, saying: 5 “Go,* and you must say to Hezekiah, ‘This is what Jehovah the God of David your forefather+ has said: “I have heard your prayer.+ I have seen your tears.+ Here I am adding onto your days fifteen years;+ 6 and out of the palm of the king of Assyria I shall deliver you and this city, and I will defend this city.+ 7 And this is the sign for you from Jehovah that Jehovah will perform this word that he has spoken:+ 8 Here I am making the shadow of the steps that had gone down on the steps [of the stairs] of Ahaz by the sun+ retrace backward ten steps.”’”+ And the sun gradually went back ten steps on the steps [of the stairs] that it had gone down.+

9 A writing of Hezekiah the king of Judah, when he got sick+ and revived from his sickness.+

10 I myself said: “In the midst of my days I will go into the gates+ of Sheol.

    I must be deprived of the remainder+ of my years.”

11 I have said: “I shall not see Jah, even Jah,* in the land of the living ones.+

    I shall no more look on mankind*—with the inhabitants of [the land of] cessation.*

12 My own habitation* has been pulled out+ and removed from me like the tent of shepherds.*

    I have rolled up my life just like a loom worker;

    One proceeds to cut me off+ from the very threads of the warp.*

    From daylight till night you keep handing me over.+

13 I have soothed myself* until the morning.+

    Like a lion, so he keeps breaking all my bones;+

    From daylight till night you keep handing me over.+

14 Like the swift, the bulbul, so I keep chirping;+

    I keep cooing like the dove.+

    My eyes have looked languishingly to the height:+

    ‘O Jehovah,* I am under oppression. Stand good for me.’+

15 What shall I speak, and [what] will he actually say to me?+

    He himself has also acted.+

    I keep walking solemnly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.+

16 ‘O Jehovah,* on that account they keep living; and as with everybody, thereby is the life of my spirit.+

    And you will restore me to health and certainly preserve me alive.+

17 Look! For peace I had what was bitter, yes, bitter;+

    And you yourself have become attached to my soul* [and kept it] from the pit of disintegration.+

    For you have thrown behind your back all my sins.+

18 For it is not Sheol that can laud you;+ death itself cannot praise you.+

    Those going down into the pit cannot look hopefully to your trueness.+

19 The living, the living, he is the one that can laud you,+

    Just as I can this day.+

    The father himself can give knowledge+ to his own sons concerning your trueness.

20 O Jehovah, [undertake] to save me,+ and we shall play my string selections+

    All the days of our life at the house of Jehovah.’”+

21 And Isaiah proceeded to say: “Let them take a cake of pressed dried figs and rub [it] in upon the boil,+ that he may revive.”+ 22 Meantime, Hezekiah said: “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of Jehovah?”+

39 At that time Merodach-baladan+ the son of Baladan the king of Babylon*+ sent letters and a gift+ to Hezekiah, after he heard that he had been sick but was strong again.+ 2 So Hezekiah began to rejoice over them+ and proceeded to show them his treasure-house,+ the silver and the gold and the balsam oil+ and the good oil and all his armory+ and all that was to be found in his treasures. There proved to be nothing that Hezekiah did not show them in his own house+ and in all his dominion.+

3 After that Isaiah the prophet came in to King Hezekiah and said to him:+ “What did these men say, and from where did they proceed to come to you?” So Hezekiah said: “From a distant land they came to me, from Babylon.”+ 4 And he went on to say: “What did they see in your house?”+ To this Hezekiah said: “Everything that is in my house they saw. There proved to be nothing that I did not show them in my treasures.” 5 Isaiah now said to Hezekiah:+ “Hear the word of Jehovah of armies, 6 ‘Look! Days are coming, and all that is in your own house and that your forefathers have stored up down to this day will actually be carried to Babylon.’+ ‘Nothing will be left,’+ Jehovah has said. 7 ‘And some of your own sons that will come forth from you, to whom you will become father, will themselves be taken+ and actually become court officials+ in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”+

8 At that Hezekiah said to Isaiah: “The word of Jehovah that you have spoken is good.”+ And he went on to say: “Because peace and truth+ will continue in my own days.”+

40 “COMFORT, comfort my people,” says the God of YOU men.*+ 2 “SPEAK to the heart of Jerusalem+ and call out to her that her military service* has been fulfilled,+ that her error has been paid off.+ For from the hand of Jehovah she has received a full amount* for all her sins.”+

3 Listen! Someone is calling out* in the wilderness:+ “Clear up the way* of Jehovah,+ YOU people! MAKE the highway for our God through* the desert plain straight.*+ John1:23 4 Let every valley be raised up,+ and every mountain and hill be made low.+ And the knobby ground must become level land, and the rugged ground a valley plain.+ 5 And the glory of Jehovah will certainly be revealed,+ and all flesh must see [it] together,+ for the very mouth of Jehovah has spoken [it].”+

6 Listen! Someone is saying:* “Call out!”+ And one said:* “What shall I call out?”

“All flesh is green grass, and all their loving-kindness* is like the blossom of the field.+ 7 The green grass has dried up, the blossom has withered,+ because the very spirit of Jehovah has blown upon it.+ Surely the people are green grass.+ 8 The green grass has dried up, the blossom has withered;+ but as for the word of our God, it will last to time indefinite.”+

9 Make your way up even onto a high mountain,+ you woman bringing good news for Zion.+ Raise your voice even with power, you woman bringing good news for Jerusalem.+ Raise [it]. Do not be afraid.+ Say to the cities of Judah: “Here is YOUR God.”*+ 10 Look! The Sovereign Lord Jehovah himself will come even as a strong one,* and his arm will be ruling for him.+ Look! His reward is with him,+ and the wage he pays is before him.+ 11 Like a shepherd he will shepherd his own drove.+ With his arm he will collect together the lambs;+ and in his bosom he will carry [them].+ Those giving suck he will conduct [with care].+

12 Who has measured the waters in the mere hollow of his hand,+ and taken the proportions of the heavens themselves with a mere span+ and included in a measure* the dust of the earth,+ or weighed with an indicator the mountains, and the hills in the scales? 13 Who has taken the proportions of the spirit of Jehovah, and who as his man of counsel can make him know anything?+ 14 With whom did he consult together that one might make him understand, or who teaches him in the path of justice, or teaches him knowledge,+ or makes him know the very way of real understanding?+

15 Look! The nations are as a drop from a bucket; and as the film of dust on the scales they have been accounted.+ Look! He lifts the islands+ themselves as mere fine [dust]. 16 Even Lebanon is not sufficient for keeping a fire burning, and its wild animals+ are not sufficient for a burnt offering.+ 17 All the nations are as something nonexistent in front of him;+ as nothing and an unreality they have been accounted to him.+

18 And to whom can YOU people liken God,*+ and what likeness can YOU put alongside him?+ 19 The craftsman has cast a mere molten image,+ and with gold the metalworker overlays it,+ and silver chains he is forging.+ 20 A certain tree as a contribution, a tree that is not rotten, he chooses.+ A skillful craftsman he searches out for himself, to prepare a carved image+ that may not be made to totter.+

21 Do YOU people not know? Do YOU not hear? Has it not been told to YOU from the outset? Have YOU not applied understanding from the foundations of the earth?+ 22 There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth,+ the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers, the One who is stretching out the heavens just as a fine gauze, who spreads them out like a tent in which to dwell,+ 23 the One who is reducing high officials to nothing, who has made the very judges of the earth as a mere unreality.+

24 Never yet have they been planted; never yet have they been sown; never yet has their stump taken root in the earth.+ And one has only to blow upon them and they dry up;+ and like stubble the windstorm itself will carry them away.+

25 “But to whom can YOU people liken me so that I should be made his equal?” says the Holy One.+ 26 “Raise YOUR eyes high up and see. Who has created these things?+ It is the One who is bringing forth the army of them even by number, all of whom he calls even by name.+ Due to the abundance of dynamic energy,*+ he also being vigorous in power,* not one [of them] is missing.

27 “For what reason do you say, O Jacob, and do you speak out, O Israel, ‘My way has been concealed from Jehovah,+ and justice to me eludes my God* himself’?+ 28 Have you not come to know or have you not heard?+ Jehovah, the Creator of the extremities* of the earth, is a God to time indefinite.+ He does not tire out or grow weary.+ There is no searching out of his understanding.+ 29 He is giving to the tired one power;+ and to the one without dynamic energy+ he makes full might abound. 30 Boys will both tire out and grow weary, and young men themselves will without fail stumble, 31 but those who are hoping+ in Jehovah will regain power.+ They will mount up with wings like eagles.+ They will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not tire out.”+

41 “Attend to me in silence, YOU islands;*+ and let national groups+ themselves regain power. Let them approach.+ At that time let them speak. Let us come up close together for the judgment+ itself.

2 “Who has roused up [someone] from the sunrise?+ [Who] proceeded in righteousness to call him to His feet, to give before him the nations, and to make [him] go subduing even kings?+ [Who] kept giving [them] like dust to his sword, so that they have been driven about like mere stubble with his bow?+ 3 [Who] kept pursuing them, kept peacefully passing along on his feet over the path [by which] he did not proceed to come? 4 Who has been active+ and has done [this], calling out the generations from the start?+

“I, Jehovah, the First One;+ and with the last ones I am the same.”+

5 The islands+ saw and began to fear. The very extremities of the earth began trembling.+ They drew near and kept coming. 6 They went helping each one his companion, and one would say to his brother: “Be strong.”+ 7 So the craftsman went strengthening the metalworker;+ the one doing the smoothing out with the forge hammer him that is hammering away at the anvil, saying regarding the soldering: “It is good.” Finally one fastened it with nails that it could not be made to totter.+

8 “But you, O Israel, are my servant,+ you, O Jacob, whom I have chosen,+ the seed* of Abraham+ my friend;*+ 9 you, whom I have taken hold of from the extremities of the earth,+ and you, whom I have called even from the remote parts of it.+ And so I said to you, ‘You are my servant;+ I have chosen you,+ and I have not rejected you.+ 10 Do not be afraid, for I am with you.+ Do not gaze about, for I am your God.*+ I will fortify you.+ I will really help you.+ I will really keep fast hold of you with my right hand+ of righteousness.’+

11 “Look! All those getting heated up against you will become ashamed and be humiliated.+ The men in a quarrel with you will become as nothing and will perish.+ 12 You will search for them, but you will not find them, those men in a struggle with you.+ They will become as something nonexistent and as nothing,+ those men at war with you. 13 For I, Jehovah your God, am grasping your right hand,+ the One saying to you, ‘Do not be afraid.+ I myself will help you.’+

14 “Do not be afraid, you worm+ Jacob, YOU men* of Israel.+ I myself will help you,”* is the utterance of Jehovah, even your Repurchaser,+ the Holy One of Israel. 15 “Look! I have made you a threshing sledge,+ a new threshing instrument having double-edged [teeth]. You will tread down the mountains and crush [them]; and the hills you will make just like the chaff.+ 16 You will winnow+ them, and a wind itself will carry them away,+ and a windstorm itself will drive them different ways.+ And you yourself will be joyful in Jehovah.+ In the Holy One of Israel you will boast about yourself.”+

17 “The afflicted ones and the poor ones are seeking for water,+ but there is none. Because of thirst+ their very tongue has become dry.+ I myself, Jehovah, shall answer them.+ I, the God of Israel,* shall not leave them.+ 18 Upon bare hills I shall open up rivers, and in the midst of the valley plains, springs.+ I shall make the wilderness into a reedy pool of water, and the waterless land into sources of water.+ 19 In the wilderness I shall set the cedar tree, the acacia and the myrtle and the oil tree.+ In the desert plain* I shall place the juniper tree, the ash and the cypress at the same time;+ 20 in order that people may see and know and pay heed and have insight at the same time, that the very hand of Jehovah has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has himself created it.”+

21 “Bring YOUR controversial case+ forward,” says Jehovah. “Produce YOUR arguments,”+ says the King of Jacob.+ 22 “Produce and tell to us the things that are going to happen. The first things—what they were—do tell, that we may apply our heart and know the future of them. Or cause us to hear even the things that are coming.+ 23 Tell the things that are to come afterward, that we may know that YOU are gods.*+ Yes, YOU ought to do good or do bad, that we may gaze about and see [it] at the same time.+ 24 Look! YOU are something nonexistent, and YOUR achievement is nothing.+ A detestable thing is anyone that chooses YOU.+

25 “I have roused up [someone] from the north, and he will come.+ From the rising of the sun+ he will call upon my name. And he will come upon deputy rulers as [if they were] clay+ and just as a potter that tramples down the moist material.

26 “Who has told anything from the start, that we may know, or from times past, that we may say, ‘He is right’?+ Really there is no one telling. Really there is no one causing [one] to hear. Really there is no one that is hearing any sayings of YOU men.”+

27 There is one first, [saying] to Zion: “Look! Here they are!”+ and to Jerusalem I shall give a bringer of good news.+

28 And I kept seeing, and there was not a man; and out of these there was also no one that was giving counsel.+ And I kept asking them, that they might make a reply. 29 Look! All of them are something nonexistent.* Their works are nothing. Their molten images are wind* and unreality.+

42 Look! My servant,+ on whom I keep fast hold!+ My chosen one,+ [whom] my soul has approved!+ I have put my spirit* in him.+ Justice to the nations is what he will bring forth.+ 2 He will not cry out or raise [his voice], and in the street* he will not let his voice be heard.+ 3 No crushed reed will he break;+ and as for a dim flaxen wick, he will not extinguish it. In trueness he will bring forth justice.*+ 4 He will not grow dim nor be crushed* until he sets justice in the earth itself;+ and for his law the islands* themselves will keep waiting.*+

5 This is what the [true] God, Jehovah, has said, the Creator of the heavens+ and the Grand One stretching* them out;+ the One laying out the earth+ and its produce,+ the One giving breath*+ to the people on it,+ and spirit to those walking in it:+ 6 “I myself, Jehovah, have called you in righteousness,+ and I proceeded to take hold of your hand.+ And I shall safeguard you and give you as a covenant of the people,+ as a light of the nations,+ 7 [for you] to open the blind eyes,+ to bring forth out of the dungeon the prisoner,+ out of the house of detention those sitting in darkness.+

8 “I am Jehovah. That is my name;+ and to no one else shall I give my own glory,+ neither my praise+ to graven images.+

9 “The first things—here they have come,+ but new things I am telling out. Before they begin to spring up, I cause YOU people to hear [them].”+

10 Sing to Jehovah a new song,+ his praise from the extremity of the earth,+ YOU men that are going down to the sea+ and to that which fills it, YOU islands and YOU inhabiting them.+ 11 Let the wilderness+ and its cities raise [their voice], the settlements that Kedar inhabits.+ Let the inhabitants of the crag+ cry out in joy. From the top of the mountains let people cry aloud. 12 Let them attribute to Jehovah glory,+ and in the islands let them tell forth even his praise.+

13 Like a mighty man Jehovah himself will go forth.+ Like a warrior* he will awaken zeal.+ He will shout, yes, he will let out a war cry;+ over his enemies he will show himself mightier.+

14 “I have kept quiet for a long time.+ I continued silent.+ I kept exercising self-control.+ Like a woman giving birth I am going to groan, pant, and gasp at the same time.+ 15 I shall devastate+ mountains and hills, and all their vegetation I shall dry up. And I will turn rivers into islands, and reedy pools I shall dry up.+ 16 And I will make the blind ones walk in a way that they have not known;+ in a roadway that they have not known I shall cause them to tread.+ I shall turn a dark place before them into light,+ and rugged terrain into level land.+ These are the things that I will do for them, and I will not leave them.”+

17 They must be turned back, they will be very much ashamed, those who are putting trust in the carved image,+ those who are saying to a molten image: “YOU are our gods.”*+

18 Hear, YOU deaf ones; and look forth to see, YOU blind ones.+ 19 Who is blind, if not my servant, and who is deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as the one rewarded,* or blind as the servant of Jehovah?+ 20 It was a case of seeing many things, but you did not keep watching.+ It was a case of opening the ears, but you* did not keep listening.+ 21 Jehovah himself for the sake of his righteousness+ has taken a delight in that he should magnify the law+ and make it majestic. 22 But it is a people plundered and pillaged,+ all of them being trapped in the holes, and in the houses of detention they have been kept hidden.+ They have come to be for plunder without a deliverer,+ for pillage without anyone to say: “Bring back!”

23 Who among YOU people will give ear to this? Who will pay attention and listen for later times?+ 24 Who has given Jacob for mere pillage, and Israel to the plunderers? Is it not Jehovah, the One against whom we have sinned, and in whose ways they did not want to walk and to whose law they did not listen?+ 25 So He kept pouring out upon him rage, his anger, and the strength of war.+ And it kept consuming him all around,+ but he took no note;+ and it kept blazing up against him, but he would lay nothing to heart.+

43 And now this is what Jehovah has said, your Creator,+ O Jacob, and your Former,+ O Israel: “Do not be afraid, for I have repurchased you.+ I have called [you] by your name.+ You are mine.+ 2 In case you should pass through the waters,+ I will be with you;+ and through the rivers, they will not flood over you.+ In case you should walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, neither will the flame itself singe you.+ 3 For I am Jehovah your God,* the Holy One of Israel your Savior.+ I have given Egypt as a ransom for you,*+ Ethiopia*+ and Seba in place of you. 4 Owing to the fact that you have been precious in my eyes,+ you have been considered honorable, and I myself have loved you.+ And I shall give men* in place of you, and national groups in place of your soul.+

5 “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.+ From the sunrising I shall bring your seed, and from the sunset I shall collect you together.+ 6 I shall say to the north,+ ‘Give up!’ and to the south,* ‘Do not keep back. Bring my sons from far off, and my daughters from the extremity of the earth,+ 7 everyone that is called by my name+ and that I have created for my own glory,+ that I have formed, yes, that I have made.’+

8 “Bring forth a people blind though eyes themselves exist, and the ones deaf though they have ears.+ 9 Let the nations all be collected together* at one place, and let national groups be gathered together.+ Who is there among them that can tell this?+ Or can they cause us to hear even the first things?+ Let them furnish their witnesses,+ that they may be declared righteous, or let them hear and say, ‘It is the truth!’”*+

10 YOU are my witnesses,”*+ is the utterance of Jehovah, “even my servant* whom I have chosen,+ in order that YOU may know+ and have faith in me,+ and that YOU may understand that I am the same One.+ Before me there was no God* formed,+ and after me there continued to be none.*+ 11 I—I am Jehovah,+ and besides me there is no savior.”+

12 “I myself have told forth and have saved and have caused [it] to be heard,+ when there was among YOU no strange [god].*+ So YOU are my witnesses,”+ is the utterance of Jehovah, “and I am God.*+ 13 Also, all the time* I am the same One;+ and there is no one effecting deliverance out of my own hand.+ I shall get active,+ and who can turn it* back?”+

14 This is what Jehovah has said, the Repurchaser of YOU people,+ the Holy One of Israel:+ “For YOUR sakes I will send to Babylon and cause the bars of the prisons* to come down,+ and the Chaldeans in the ships with whining cries on their part.+ 15 I am Jehovah YOUR Holy One,*+ the Creator of Israel,+ YOUR King.”+

16 This is what Jehovah has said, the One making a way through the sea itself and a roadway even through strong waters,+ 17 the One bringing forth the war chariot and the horse, the military force and the strong ones* at the same time:+ “They will lie down.+ They will not get up.+ They will certainly be extinguished.+ Like a flaxen wick they must be put out.”+

18 “Do not remember the first things, and to the former things do not turn YOUR consideration. 19 Look! I am doing something new.+ Now it will spring up. YOU people will know it, will YOU not?+ Really, through the wilderness I shall set a way,+ through the desert rivers.+ 20 The wild beast of the field will glorify me,+ the jackals and the ostriches;*+ because I shall have given water even in the wilderness, rivers in the desert,+ to cause my people, my chosen one,+ to drink, 21 the people whom I have formed for myself, that they should recount the praise of me.+

22 “But you have not called even me, O Jacob,+ because you have grown weary of me, O Israel.+ 23 You have not brought me the sheep of your whole burnt offerings, and with your sacrifices you have not glorified me.+ I have not compelled you to serve me with a gift, nor have I made you weary with frankincense.+ 24 For me you have bought no [sweet] cane+ with any money;* and with the fat of your sacrifices you have not saturated me.+ In reality you have compelled me to serve because of your sins; you have made me weary with your errors.+

25 “I—I am the One that is wiping+ out your transgressions+ for my own sake,+ and your sins I shall not remember.+ 26 Remind me; let us put ourselves on judgment* together;+ tell your own account of it in order that you may be in the right.+ 27 Your own father, the first one, has sinned,+ and your own spokesmen* have transgressed against me.+ 28 So I shall profane the princes of the holy place,* and I will give Jacob over as a man devoted to destruction and Israel over to words of abuse.+

44 “And now listen, O Jacob my servant,+ and you, O Israel, whom I have chosen.+ 2 This is what Jehovah has said, your Maker+ and your Former,+ who kept helping you even from the belly,*+ ‘Do not be afraid,+ O my servant Jacob, and you, Jeshurun,*+ whom I have chosen. 3 For I shall pour out water upon the thirsty one,+ and trickling streams upon the dry place.+ I shall pour out my spirit upon your seed,*+ and my blessing upon your descendants. 4 And they will certainly spring up as among the green grass,+ like poplars+ by the water ditches. 5 This one will say: “I belong to Jehovah.”+ And that one will call [himself] by the name of Jacob,+ and another will write upon his hand: “Belonging to Jehovah.”* And by the name of Israel one will betitle [himself].’+

6 “This is what Jehovah has said, the King of Israel+ and the Repurchaser of him,+ Jehovah of armies, ‘I am the first and I am the last,+ and besides me there is no God.*+ 7 And who is there like me?+ Let him call out,* that he may tell it and present it to me.+ From when I appointed the people of long ago,+ both the things coming and the things that will enter in let them tell on their part. 8 Do not be in dread, YOU people, and do not become stupefied.+ Have I not from that time on caused you individually to hear and told [it] out?+ And YOU are my witnesses.+ Does there exist a God* besides me?+ No, there is no Rock.*+ I have recognized none.’”

9 The formers of the carved image are all of them an unreality,+ and their darlings* themselves will be of no benefit;+ and as their witnesses* they see nothing and know nothing,+ in order that they may be ashamed.+ 10 Who has formed a god* or cast a mere molten image?+ Of no benefit at all has it been.+ 11 Look! All his partners themselves will be ashamed,+ and the craftsmen are from earthling men.* They will all of them collect themselves together.+ They will stand still. They will be in dread. They will be ashamed at the same time.+

12 As for the carver of iron with the billhook, he has been busy [at it] with the coals; and with the hammers he proceeds to form it, and he keeps busy at it with his powerful arm.+ Also, he has become hungry, and so without power. He has not drunk water; so he gets tired.

13 As for the wood carver, he has stretched out the measuring line; he traces it out with red chalk; he works it up with a wood scraper; and with a compass he keeps tracing it out, and gradually he makes it like the representation of a man,*+ like the beauty of mankind,* to sit in a house.+

14 There is one whose business is to cut down cedars; and he takes a certain species of tree, even a massive tree, and he lets it become strong for himself among the trees of the forest.+ He planted the laurel tree, and the pouring rain itself keeps making it get big. 15 And it has become [something] for man* to keep a fire burning. So he takes part of it that he may warm himself. In fact he builds a fire and actually bakes bread. He also works on a god* to which he may bow down.+ He has made it into a carved image,+ and he prostrates himself to it. 16 Half of it* he actually burns up in a fire. Upon half of it he roasts well the flesh that he eats, and he becomes satisfied. He also warms himself and says: “Aha! I have warmed myself. I have seen the firelight.” 17 But the remainder of it he actually makes into a god itself, into his carved image. He prostrates himself to it and bows down and prays to it and says: “Deliver me, for you are my god.”+

18 They have not come to know,+ nor do they understand,+ because their eyes have been besmeared so as not to see,+ their heart so as to have no insight.+ 19 And no one recalls to his heart+ or has knowledge or understanding,+ saying: “The half of it I have burned up in a fire, and upon its coals I have also baked bread; I roast flesh and eat. But the rest of it shall I make into a mere detestable thing?+ To the dried-out wood of a tree shall I prostrate myself?” 20 He is feeding on ashes.+ His own heart that has been trifled with has led him astray.+ And he does not deliver his soul, nor does he say: “Is there not a falsehood in my right hand?”+

21 “Remember these things, O Jacob,+ and you, O Israel, because you are my servant.+ I have formed you.+ You are a servant belonging to me. O Israel, you will not be forgotten on my part.+ 22 I will wipe out your transgressions just as with a cloud,+ and your sins just as with a cloud mass. Do return to me,+ for I will repurchase you.+

23 “Joyfully cry out, YOU heavens,+ for Jehovah has taken action!+ Shout in triumph,+ all YOU lowest parts* of the earth!+ Become cheerful, YOU mountains,+ with joyful outcry, you forest and all YOU trees in it! For Jehovah has repurchased Jacob, and on Israel he shows his beauty.”+

24 This is what Jehovah has said, your Repurchaser+ and the Former of you from the belly:* “I, Jehovah, am doing everything, stretching out the heavens+ by myself, laying out the earth.+ Who was with me? 25 [I am] frustrating the signs of the empty talkers,* and [I am] the One that makes diviners themselves act crazily;+ the One turning wise men backwards, and the One that turns even their knowledge into foolishness;+ 26 the One making the word of his servant come true, and the One that carries out completely the counsel of his own messengers;+ the One saying of Jerusalem, ‘She will be inhabited,’+ and of the cities of Judah, ‘They will be rebuilt,+ and her desolated places I shall raise up’;+ 27 the One saying to the watery deep, ‘Be evaporated; and all your rivers I shall dry up’;+ 28 the One saying of Cyrus,*+ ‘He is my shepherd, and all that I delight in he will completely carry out’;+ even in [my] saying* of Jerusalem, ‘She will be rebuilt,’* and of the temple, ‘You will have your foundation laid.’”+

45 This is what Jehovah has said to his anointed one,*+ to Cyrus,* whose right hand I have taken hold of,+ to subdue before him nations,+ so that I may ungird even the hips of kings; to open before him the two-leaved doors, so that even the gates will not be shut: 2 “Before you I myself shall go,+ and the swells of land I shall straighten out.+ The copper doors I shall break in pieces, and the iron bars I shall cut down.+ 3 And I will give you the treasures+ in the darkness and the hidden treasures in the concealment places, in order that you may know that I am Jehovah, the One calling [you] by your name,+ the God* of Israel. 4 For the sake of my servant Jacob and of Israel my chosen one,+ I even proceeded to call you by your name; I proceeded to give you a name of honor, although you did not know me.+ 5 I am Jehovah, and there is no one else.+ With the exception of me there is no God.+ I shall closely gird you, although you have not known me, 6 in order that people may know from the rising of the sun and from its setting that there is none besides me.+ I am Jehovah, and there is no one else.+ 7 Forming light+ and creating darkness,+ making peace+ and creating calamity,+ I, Jehovah, am doing all these things.+

8 “O YOU heavens, cause a dripping from above;+ and let the cloudy skies themselves trickle with righteousness.+ Let the earth open up, and let it be fruitful with salvation, and let it cause righteousness itself to spring up+ at the same time. I myself, Jehovah, have created it.”*+

9 Woe to the one that has contended with his Former,+ as an earthenware fragment with the other earthenware fragments of the ground! Should the clay+ say to its former: “What do you make?” And your achievement [say]: “He has no hands”? 10 Woe to the one saying to a father: “What do you become father to?” and to the wife:* “What are you in birth pains with?”+

11 This is what Jehovah has said, the Holy One of Israel+ and the Former+ of him: “Ask me even about the things that are coming+ concerning my sons;+ and concerning the activity+ of my hands YOU people should command me. 12 I myself have made the earth+ and have created even man* upon it.+ I—my own hands have stretched out the heavens,+ and all the army of them I have commanded.”+

13 “I myself have roused up someone in righteousness,+ and all his ways I shall straighten out.+ He is the one that will build my city,+ and those of mine in exile he will let go,*+ not for a price+ nor for bribery,” Jehovah of armies has said.

14 This is what Jehovah has said: “The unpaid laborers of Egypt+ and the merchants of Ethiopia* and the Sabeans,+ tall men,*+ will themselves come over even to you,* and yours they will become.+ Behind you they will walk; in fetters+ they will come over, and to you they will bow down.+ To you they will pray, [saying,] ‘Indeed God is in union with you,*+ and there is no one else; there is no [other] God.’”*+

15 Truly you are a God keeping yourself concealed,+ the God of Israel, a Savior.+ 16 They will certainly be ashamed and even be humiliated, all of them. Together in humiliation+ the manufacturers of [idol] forms will have to walk. 17 As for Israel, he will certainly be saved in union with Jehovah+ with a salvation for times indefinite.+ YOU people will not be ashamed,+ nor will YOU be humiliated+ for the indefinite times of eternity.

18 For this is what Jehovah has said, the Creator of the heavens,+ He the [true] God,+ the Former of the earth and the Maker of it,+ He the One who firmly established it,+ who did not create it simply for nothing, who formed it even to be inhabited:+ “I am Jehovah, and there is no one else.+ 19 In a place of concealment I spoke not,+ in a dark place of the earth; nor said I to the seed* of Jacob, ‘Seek me simply for nothing, YOU people.’+ I am Jehovah, speaking what is righteous, telling what is upright.+

20 “Collect yourselves and come.+ Bring yourselves up close together, YOU escapees from the nations.+ Those carrying the wood* of their carved image have not come to any knowledge, neither have those praying to a god that cannot save.*+ 21 Make YOUR report and YOUR presentation.+ Yes, let them consult together in unity. Who has caused this to be heard from a long time ago?+ [Who] has reported it from that very time?+ Is it not I, Jehovah, besides whom there is no other God;*+ a righteous God* and a Savior,+ there being none excepting me?+

22 “Turn to me and be saved,+ all YOU [at the] ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no one else.+ 23 By my own self I have sworn+—out of my own mouth in righteousness the word has gone forth,+ so that it will not return+—that to me every knee will bend down,+ every tongue will swear,*+ 24 saying, ‘Surely in Jehovah there are full righteousness and strength.+ All those getting heated up against him will come straight to him and be ashamed.+ 25 In Jehovah all the seed+ of Israel will prove to be right+ and will boast about themselves.’”+

46 Bel+ has bent down,+ Nebo is stooping over; their idols+ have come to be for the wild beasts and for the domestic animals, their loads, pieces of luggage, a burden for the tired animals. 2 They must stoop over; they must each alike bend down; they are simply unable to furnish escape+ for the burden, but into captivity their own soul must go.+

3 “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, and all YOU remaining ones* of the house of Israel,+ YOU the ones conveyed [by me] from the belly, the ones carried from the womb.+ 4 Even to [one’s] old age I am the same One;+ and to [one’s] gray-headedness I myself shall keep bearing up.+ I myself shall certainly act,+ that I myself may carry and that I myself may bear up and furnish escape.+

5 “To whom will YOU people liken me+ or make [me] equal or compare me that we may resemble each other?+ 6 There are those who are lavishing out the gold from the purse, and with the scale beam they weigh out the silver. They hire a metalworker, and he makes it into a god.*+ They prostrate themselves, yes, they bow down.+ 7 They carry it upon the shoulder,+ they bear it and deposit it in its place that it may stand still. From its standing place it does not move away.+ One even cries out to it, but it does not answer; out of one’s distress it does not save one.+

8 “Remember this, that YOU people may muster up courage.* Lay it to heart,+ YOU transgressors.+ 9 Remember the first things of a long time ago,+ that I am the Divine One*+ and there is no other God,*+ nor anyone like me;+ 10 the One telling from the beginning the finale,+ and from long ago the things that have not been done;+ the One saying, ‘My own counsel will stand,+ and everything that is my delight I shall do’;+ 11 the One calling from the sunrising a bird of prey,+ from a distant land the man* to execute my* counsel.+ I have even spoken [it]; I shall also bring it in.+ I have formed [it], I shall also do it.+

12 “Listen to me, YOU the ones powerful at heart,+ YOU the ones far away from righteousness.+ 13 I have brought near my righteousness.+ It is not far away,+ and my own salvation will not be late.+ And I will give in Zion salvation, to Israel my beauty.”+

47 Come down and sit down in the dust,+ O virgin daughter of Babylon.*+ Sit down on the earth where there is no throne,+ O daughter of the Chaldeans.+ For you will not experience again that people call you delicate and dainty.+ 2 Take a hand mill+ and grind out flour. Uncover your veil.+ Strip off the flowing skirt.+ Uncover the leg.+ Cross over the rivers. 3 You ought to uncover your nakedness.+ Also, your reproach ought to be seen.+ Vengeance is what I shall take,+ and I shall not meet any man* [kindly].

4 “There is One repurchasing us.+ Jehovah of armies is his name,+ the Holy One of Israel.”+

5 Sit down silently+ and come into the darkness,+ O daughter of the Chaldeans;+ for you will not experience again that people call you Mistress+ of Kingdoms.+ 6 I grew indignant at my people.+ I profaned my inheritance,+ and I proceeded to give them into your hand.+ You showed them no mercies.+ Upon the old man you made your yoke very heavy.+ 7 And you kept saying: “To time indefinite I shall prove to be Mistress,+ forever.” You did not take these things to your heart; you did not remember the finale of the matter.+

8 And now hear this, you pleasure-given [woman], the one sitting in security,+ the one saying in her heart: “I am, and there is nobody else.+ I shall not sit as a widow, and I shall not know the loss of children.”+ 9 But to you these two things will come suddenly, in one day:+ loss of children and widowhood. In their complete measure they must come upon you,+ for the abundance of your sorceries, for the full might of your spells—exceedingly.+ 10 And you kept trusting in your badness.+ You have said: “There is no one seeing me.”+ Your wisdom and your knowledge+—this is what has led you away; and you keep saying in your heart: “I am, and there is nobody else.” 11 And upon you calamity must come; you will know no charming against it. And upon you adversity will fall;+ you will not be able to avert it. And upon you there will suddenly+ come a ruin that you are not accustomed to know.

12 Stand still, now, with your spells and with the abundance of your sorceries,+ in which you have toiled from your youth; that perhaps you might be able to benefit, that perhaps you might strike people with awe. 13 You have grown weary with the multitude of your counselors.* Let them stand up, now, and save you, the worshipers* of the heavens, the lookers at the stars,*+ those giving out knowledge at the new moons concerning the things that will come upon you.* 14 Look! They have become like stubble.+ A fire itself will certainly burn them up.+ They will not deliver their soul+ from the power* of the flame.+ There will be no glow of charcoals for people to warm themselves, no firelight in front of which to sit down. 15 Thus they will certainly become to you, with whom you have toiled as your charmers*+ from your youth. They will actually wander, each one to his own region. There will be no one to save you.+

48 Hear this, O house of Jacob, YOU who are calling yourselves by the name of Israel+ and who have come forth from the very waters* of Judah,+ YOU who are swearing by the name of Jehovah+ and who make mention even of the God* of Israel,+ not in truth* and not in righteousness.+ 2 For they have called themselves as being from the holy city,+ and upon the God of Israel they have supported themselves,+ Jehovah of armies being his name.+

3 “The first things I have told even from that time, and out of my own mouth they went forth, and I kept making them heard.+ Suddenly I acted, and the things proceeded to come in.+ 4 Due to my knowing that you are hard+ and that your neck is an iron sinew+ and your forehead is copper,+ 5 I also kept telling you from that time. Before it could come in, I caused you to hear [it],+ that you might not say, ‘My own idol has done them, and my own carved image and my own molten image have commanded them.’+ 6 You have heard.+ Behold it all.+ As for YOU people, will YOU not tell [it]?+ I have made you hear new things from the present time, even things kept in reserve,* that you have not known.+ 7 At the present time they must be created, and not from that time, even things that before today you have not heard, that you may not say, ‘Look! I have already known them.’+

8 “Moreover, you have not heard,+ neither have you known, nor from that time on has your ear been opened. For I well know that without fail you kept dealing treacherously,+ and a ‘transgressor from the belly’* you have been called.+ 9 For the sake of my name I shall check my anger,+ and for my praise I shall restrain myself toward you that there may be no cutting you off.+ 10 Look! I have refined you, but not in [the form of] silver.+ I have made choice of you in the smelting furnace of affliction.+ Jer.6:29; MARK9:49 11 For my own sake, for my own sake I shall act,+ for how could one let oneself be profaned?+ And to no one else shall I give my own glory.+

12 “Listen to me, O Jacob, and you Israel my called one. I am the same One.+ I am the first.+ Moreover, I am the last.+ 13 Moreover, my own hand laid the foundation of the earth,+ and my own right hand extended out the heavens.+ I am calling to them, that they may keep standing together.+

14 “Be collected together, all YOU people, and hear.+ Who among them* has told these things? Jehovah himself has loved him.+ He will do what is his delight upon Babylon,+ and his own arm will be upon the Chaldeans.+ 15 I—I myself have spoken. Moreover, I have called him.+ I have brought him in, and there will be a making of his way successful.+

16 “Come near to me, YOU people. Hear this. From the start I have spoken in no place of concealment at all.+ From the time of its occurring I have been there.”

And now the Sovereign Lord Jehovah himself has sent me, even* his spirit.+ 17 This is what Jehovah has said, your Repurchaser,+ the Holy One of Israel:+ “I, Jehovah, am your God, the One teaching you to benefit [yourself],+ the One causing you to tread in the way in which you should walk.+ 18 O if only you would actually pay attention to my commandments!+ Then your peace would become just like a river,+ and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.+ 19 And your offspring would become just like the sand, and the descendants from your inward parts like the grains of it.+ One’s name* would not be cut off or be annihilated from before me.”+

20 Go forth, YOU people, out of Babylon!+ Run away from the Chaldeans.+ Tell forth even with the sound of a joyful cry, cause this to be heard.+ Make it to go forth to the extremity of the earth.+ Say: “Jehovah has repurchased his servant Jacob.+ 21 And they did not get thirsty+ when he was making them walk even through devastated places.+ Water out of the rock he caused to flow forth for them, and he proceeded to split a rock that the water might stream forth.”+

22 There is no peace,” Jehovah has said, “for the wicked ones.+

49 Listen to me, O YOU islands,*+ and pay attention, YOU national groups far away.+ Jehovah himself has called me+ even from the belly.+ From the inward parts of my mother he has made mention of my name.+ 2 And he proceeded to make my mouth like a sharp sword.+ In the shadow+ of his hand he has hidden me.+ And he gradually made me a polished* arrow. He concealed me in his own quiver. 3 And he went on to say to me: “You are my servant, O Israel,+ you the one in whom I shall show my beauty.”+

4 But as for me, I said: “It is for nothing that I have toiled.+ For unreality and vanity I have used up my own power.+ Truly my judgment is with Jehovah,+ and my wages with my God.”*+ 5 And now Jehovah, the One forming me from the belly as a servant belonging to him,+ has said [for me] to bring back Jacob to him,+ in order that to him Israel itself may be gathered.*+ And I shall be glorified in the eyes of Jehovah, and my own God will have become my strength. 6 And he proceeded to say: “It has been more than a trivial matter for you to become my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back even the safeguarded ones of Israel;+ I also have given you for a light of the nations,+ that my salvation may come to be* to the extremity* of the earth.”+

7 This is what Jehovah, the Repurchaser of Israel,+ his Holy One, has said to him that is despised in soul,*+ to him that is detested by the nation,*+ to the servant of rulers:+ “Kings themselves will see and certainly rise up,+ [and] princes, and they will bow down, by reason of Jehovah, who is faithful,+ the Holy One of Israel, who chooses you.”+

8 This is what Jehovah has said: “In a time of goodwill* I have answered you,+ and in a day of salvation I have helped you;+ and I kept safeguarding you that I might give you as a covenant for the people,*+ to rehabilitate the land,+ to bring about the repossessing of the desolated hereditary possessions,+ 9 to say to the prisoners,*+ ‘Come out!’+ to those who are in the darkness,+ ‘Reveal yourselves!’+ By the ways they will pasture, and on all beaten paths* their pasturing will be.+ 10 They will not go hungry,+ neither will they go thirsty,+ John6:35 nor will parching heat or sun strike them.+ For the One who is having pity* upon them will lead them,+ and by the springs of water he will conduct them.+ 11 And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways themselves will be on an elevation.+ 12 Look! These will come even from far away,+ and, look! these from the north+ and from the west,*+ and these from the land of Sinim.”*

13 Give a glad cry, YOU heavens,+ and be joyful, you earth.+ Let the mountains become cheerful with a glad outcry.+ For Jehovah has comforted his people,+ and he shows pity* upon his own afflicted ones.+

14 But Zion kept saying: “Jehovah has left me,+ and Jehovah* himself has forgotten me.”+ 15 Can a wife forget her suckling so that she should not pity the son of her belly?+ Even these women can forget,+ yet I myself shall not forget you.*+ 16 Look! Upon [my] palms* I have engraved you.+ Your walls are in front of me constantly.+ 17 Your sons have hurried up. The very ones tearing you down and devastating you will go forth even from you. 18 Raise your eyes all around and see. They have all of them been collected together.+ They have come to you. “As I am living,” is the utterance of Jehovah,+ “with all of them you will clothe yourself just as with ornaments, and you will bind them on yourself like a bride.+ 19 Although there are your devastated places and your desolated places and the land of your ruins,+ although now you are too cramped to be dwelling, and those swallowing you down have been far away,+ 20 yet in your own ears the sons of your bereaved state+ will say, ‘The place has become too cramped for me.+ Do make room for me, that I may dwell.’+ 21 And you will for certain say in your heart, ‘Who has become father to these for me, since I am a woman bereaved of children and sterile, gone into exile and taken prisoner?*+ As for these, who has brought [them] up?+ Look! I myself had been left behind alone.+ These—where have they been?’”+

22 This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said: “Look! I shall raise up my hand even to the nations,+ and to the peoples I shall lift up my signal.*+ And they will bring your sons in the bosom, and upon the shoulder they will carry your own daughters.+ 23 And kings must become caretakers for you,+ and their princesses* nursing women for you. With faces* to the earth they will bow down to you,+ and the dust of your feet they will lick up;+ and you will have to know that I am Jehovah, of whom those hoping in me will not be ashamed.”+

24 Can those already taken* be taken from a mighty man himself,+ or can the body of captives of the tyrant* make their escape?+ 25 But this is what Jehovah has said: “Even the body of captives of the mighty man will be taken away,+ and those already taken by the tyrant himself will make their escape.+ And against anyone contending against you I myself shall contend,+ and your own sons I myself shall save.+ 26 And I will make those maltreating you eat their own flesh; and as with the sweet wine they will become drunk with their own blood. And all flesh will have to know that I, Jehovah,+ am your Savior+ and your Repurchaser,+ the Powerful One of Jacob.”+

50 This is what Jehovah has said: “Where, then, is the divorce certificate+ of the mother of YOU people, whom I sent away?+ Or which one of my creditors is it to whom I have sold YOU people?+ Look! Because of YOUR own errors+ YOU have been sold, and because of YOUR own transgressions YOUR mother has been sent away.+ 2 Why is it that, when I came in, there was no one?*+ When I called, there was nobody answering?+ Has my hand become in fact so short that it cannot redeem,+ or is there in me no power to deliver? Look! With my rebuke+ I dry up the sea;+ I make rivers a wilderness.+ Their fish stink due to there being no water, and they die because of thirst.+ 3 I clothe the heavens with obscurity,+ and I make sackcloth itself their covering.”+

4 The Sovereign Lord Jehovah himself has given me the tongue of the taught ones,*+ that I may know how to answer the tired one with a word.+ He awakens morning by morning; he awakens my ear to hear like the taught ones.+ 5 The Sovereign Lord Jehovah himself has opened my ear, and I, for my part, was not rebellious.+ I did not turn in the opposite direction.+ 6 My back I gave to the strikers, and my cheeks+ to those plucking off [the hair]. My face I did not conceal from humiliating things* and spit.+

7 But the Sovereign Lord Jehovah himself will help me.+ That is why I shall not have to feel humiliated. That is why I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.+ 8 The One declaring me righteous* is near.+ Who can contend with me? Let us stand up together.+ Who is my judicial antagonist?*+ Let him approach me.+ 9 Look! The Sovereign Lord Jehovah himself will help me. Who is there that can pronounce me wicked?*+ Look! All of them, like a garment, will wear out.+ A mere moth will eat them up.+

10 Who among YOU people is in fear+ of Jehovah, listening to the voice of his servant,+ who has walked in continual darkness+ and for whom there has been no brightness? Let him trust in the name of Jehovah+ and support himself upon his God.*+

11 “Look! All YOU who are igniting a fire, making sparks light up,* walk in the light of YOUR fire, and amid the sparks that YOU have set ablaze. From my hand YOU will certainly come to have this: In sheer pain YOU will lie down.+

51 “Listen to me, YOU people who are pursuing after righteousness,+ YOU who are seeking to find Jehovah.+ Look to the rock+ from which YOU were hewn out, and to the hollow of the pit from which YOU were dug out. 2 Look to Abraham+ YOUR father+ and to Sarah+ who gradually brought YOU forth with childbirth pains. For he was one when I called him,+ and I proceeded to bless him and to make him many.+ 3 For Jehovah will certainly comfort Zion.+ He will for certain comfort all her devastated places,+ and he will make her wilderness like Eden+ and her desert plain like the garden* of Jehovah.+ Exultation and rejoicing themselves will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.+

4 “Pay attention to me, O my people; and you national group of mine,+ to me give ear. For from me a law itself* will go forth,+ and my judicial decision I shall cause to repose even as a light to the peoples.*+ 5 My righteousness is near.+ My salvation+ will certainly go forth, and my own arms will judge even the peoples.+ In me the islands themselves will hope,+ and for my arm they will wait.+

6 “Raise YOUR eyes to the heavens themselves,+ and look at the earth beneath. For the very heavens must be dispersed in fragments just like smoke,+ and like a garment the earth itself will wear out,+ and its inhabitants themselves will die like a mere gnat. But as for my salvation, it will prove to be even to time indefinite,+ and my own righteousness will not be shattered.+

7 “Listen to me, YOU the ones knowing righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law.+ Do not be afraid of the reproach of mortal men,* and do not be struck with terror just because of their abusive words.+ 8 For the moth* will eat them up just as if a garment, and the clothes moth* will eat them up just as if wool.+ But as for my righteousness, it will prove to be even to time indefinite, and my salvation to unnumbered generations.”*+

9 Awake, awake, clothe yourself with strength,+ O arm of Jehovah!+ Awake as in the days of long ago, as during the generations of times long past.+ Are you* not the one that broke Rahab*+ to pieces, that pierced the sea monster?*+ 10 Are you not the one that dried up the sea, the waters of the vast deep?*+ The one that made the depths of the sea a way for the repurchased ones to go across?+ 11 Then the redeemed ones of Jehovah themselves will return and must come to Zion with a joyful outcry,+ and rejoicing to time indefinite will be upon their head.+ To exultation and rejoicing they will attain.+ Grief and sighing will certainly flee away.+

12 “I—I myself am the One that is comforting YOU people.+

“Who are you* that you should be afraid of a mortal man that will die,+ and of a son of mankind* that will be rendered as mere green grass?+ 13 And that you should forget Jehovah your* Maker,+ the One stretching out the heavens+ and laying the foundation of the earth,+ so that you were in dread constantly the whole day long on account of the rage of the one hemming [you] in,+ as though he was all set to bring [you] to ruin?+ And where is the rage of the one hemming [you] in?+

14 “The one stooping in chains will certainly be loosened speedily,+ that he may not go in death to the pit+ and that his bread may not be lacking.+

15 “But I, Jehovah, am your God,* the One stirring up the sea that its waves may be boisterous.+ Jehovah of armies is his name.+ 16 And I shall put my words in your mouth,+ and with the shadow of my hand I shall certainly cover you,+ in order to plant the heavens+ and lay the foundation of the earth+ and say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’+

17 “Rouse yourself, rouse yourself, rise up, O Jerusalem,+ you who have drunk at the hand of Jehovah his cup of rage.+ The goblet, the cup causing reeling, you have drunk, you have drained out.+ 18 There was none of all the sons+ that she brought to birth conducting her, and there was none of all the sons that she brought up taking hold of her hand.+ 19 Those two things were befalling you.+ Who will sympathize with you?+ Despoiling and breakdown, and hunger and sword!+ Who will* comfort you?+ 20 Your own sons have swooned away.+ They have lain down at the head of all the streets like the wild sheep in the net,+ as those who are full of the rage of Jehovah,+ the rebuke of your God.”+

21 Therefore listen to this, please, O woman+ afflicted and drunk, but not with wine.+ 22 This is what your Lord,* Jehovah, even your God, who contends+ for his people, has said: “Look! I will take away from your hand the cup causing reeling.+ The goblet, my cup of rage—you will not repeat the drinking of it anymore.+ 23 And I will put it in the hand of the ones irritating you,+ who have said to your soul, ‘Bow down that we may cross over,’ so that you used to make your back just like the earth, and like the street for those crossing over.”+

52 Wake up, wake up, put on your strength,+ O Zion! Put on your beautiful garments,+ O Jerusalem, the holy city!+ For no more will there come again into you the uncircumcised and unclean one.+ 2 Shake yourself free from the dust,+ rise up, take a seat, O Jerusalem. Loosen for yourself the bands on your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.+

3 For this is what Jehovah has said: “It was for nothing that YOU people were sold,+ and it will be without money that YOU will be repurchased.”+

4 For this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said: “It was to Egypt that my people went down in the first instance to reside there as aliens;+ and without cause Assyria, for its part, oppressed them.”

5 “And now, what interest do I have here?” is the utterance of Jehovah. “For my people were taken for nothing.+ The very ones ruling over them kept howling,”*+ is the utterance of Jehovah, “and constantly, all day long, my name was being treated with disrespect.+ 6 For that reason my people will know my name,+ even for that reason in that day, because I am the One that is speaking.+ Look! It is I.”

7 How comely upon the mountains are the feet+ of the one bringing good news,+ the one publishing peace,+ the one bringing good news of something better,+ the one publishing salvation,+ the one saying to Zion: “Your God* has become king!”+

8 Listen!* Your* own watchmen+ have raised [their] voice.+ In unison they keep crying out joyfully; for it will be eye into eye+ that they will see when Jehovah gathers back Zion.+

9 Become cheerful, cry out joyfully in unison, YOU devastated places of Jerusalem,+ for Jehovah has comforted his people;+ he has repurchased Jerusalem.+ 10 Jehovah has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations;+ and all the ends of the earth must see the salvation of our God.+

11 Turn away, turn away, get out of there,+ touch nothing unclean;+ get out from the midst of her,+ keep yourselves clean, YOU who are carrying the utensils of Jehovah.+ 12 For YOU people will get out in no panic, and YOU will go in no flight.+ For Jehovah will be going even before YOU,+ and the God of Israel will be YOUR rear guard.*+

13 Look! My servant+ will act with insight.+ He will be in high station and will certainly be elevated and exalted very much.+ 14 To the extent that many have stared at him* in amazement+—so much was the disfigurement as respects his appearance+ more than that of any other man* and as respects his stately form+ more than that of the sons of mankind* 15 he will likewise startle many nations.+ At him kings will shut their mouth,+ because what had not been recounted to them they will actually see, and to what they had not heard they must turn their consideration.+

53 Who has put faith in the thing heard* by us?+ And as for the arm of Jehovah,+ to whom has it been revealed?+ 2 And he will come up like a twig+ before one,* and like a root out of waterless land. No stately form does he have, nor any splendor;+ and when we shall see him, there is not the appearance so that we should desire him.+

3 He was despised and was avoided by men,*+ a man meant for pains and for having acquaintance with sickness.+ And there was as if the concealing of one’s face from us.*+ He was despised, and we held him as of no account.+ 4 Truly our sicknesses were what he himself carried;+ and as for our pains, he bore them.+ But we ourselves accounted him as plagued,+ stricken by God*+ and afflicted.*+ 5 But he was being pierced+ for our transgression;+ he was being crushed for our errors.+ The chastisement meant for our peace was upon him,+ and because of his wounds+ there has been a healing for us.+ 6 Like sheep* we have all of us wandered about;+ it was each one to his own way that we have turned; and Jehovah himself has caused the error of us all to meet up with that one.+ 7 He was hard pressed,+ and he was letting himself be afflicted;+ yet he would not open his mouth. He was being brought just like a sheep* to the slaughtering;+ and like a ewe that before her shearers has become mute, he also would not open his mouth.+

8 Because of restraint* and of judgment he was taken away;*+ and who will concern himself even with [the details of] his generation?*+ For he was severed+ from the land of the living ones.+ Because of the transgression+ of my people he had the stroke.*+ 9 And he* will make* his burial place even with the wicked ones,+ and with the rich class* in his death,+ despite the fact that he had done no violence+ and there was no deception in his mouth.+

10 But Jehovah himself took delight in crushing him;+ he made him sick.+ If you will set his soul* as a guilt offering,+ he will see his offspring,+ he will prolong [his] days,+ and in his hand what is the delight+ of Jehovah will succeed.+11 Because of the trouble of his soul he will see,*+ he will be satisfied.+ By means of his knowledge* the righteous one, my servant,+ will bring a righteous standing to many people;+ and their errors he himself will bear.+ 12 For that reason I shall deal him a portion among the many,+ and it will be with the mighty ones that he will apportion the spoil,+ due to the fact that he poured out his soul to the very death,+ and it was with the transgressors that he was counted in;+ and he himself carried the very sin of many people,+ and for the transgressors he proceeded to interpose.+

54  “Cry out joyfully, you barren woman that did not give birth!+ Become cheerful with a joyful outcry and cry shrilly,+ you that had no childbirth pains,+ for the sons of the desolated one are more numerous than the sons of the woman with a husbandly owner,”+ Jehovah has said. 2 “Make the place of your tent more spacious.+ And let them stretch out* the tent cloths of your grand tabernacle.* Do not hold back. Lengthen out your tent cords, and make those tent pins of yours strong.+ 3 For to the right and to the left you will break forth,+ and your own offspring* will take possession even of nations,+ and they will inhabit even the desolated cities.+ 4 Do not be afraid,+ for you will not be put to shame;+ and do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disappointed.+ For you will forget even the shame of your time of youth,+ and the reproach of your continuous widowhood* you will remember no more.”

5 “For your Grand Maker*+ is your husbandly owner,*+ Jehovah of armies being his name;+ and the Holy One of Israel is your Repurchaser.+ The God of the whole earth* he will be called.+ 6 For Jehovah called you as if you were a wife* left entirely and hurt in spirit,+ and as a wife of the time of youth+ who was then rejected,”+ your God has said.

7 “For a little moment* I left you entirely,+ but with great mercies I shall collect you together.+ 8 With a flood of indignation I concealed my face from you for but a moment,+ but with loving-kindness* to time indefinite I will have mercy upon you,”+ your Repurchaser,+ Jehovah, has said.

9 “This is just as the days of Noah to me.+ Just as I have sworn that the waters of Noah shall no more pass over the earth,+ so I have sworn that I will not become indignant toward you nor rebuke you.+ 10 For the mountains themselves may be removed, and the very hills may stagger,+ but my loving-kindness itself will not be removed from you,+ nor will my covenant of peace itself stagger,”+ Jehovah, the One having mercy upon you,+ has said.

11 “O woman afflicted,+ tempest-tossed,+ uncomforted,+ here I am laying with hard mortar your stones,+ and I will lay your foundation+ with sapphires.+ 12 And I will make your battlements of rubies, and your gates of fiery glowing stones,+ and all your boundaries of delightsome stones. 13 And all your sons+ will be persons taught* by Jehovah,+ and the peace of your sons will be abundant.+ 14 You will prove to be firmly established in righteousness itself.+ You will be far away* from oppression+—for you will fear none—and from anything terrifying, for it will not come near you.+ 15 If anyone should at all make an attack, it will not be at my orders.+ Whoever is making an attack upon you will fall even on account of you.”+

16 “Look! I myself have created the craftsman, the one blowing+ upon the fire of charcoal+ and bringing forth a weapon as his workmanship. I myself, too, have created the ruinous man+ for wrecking work. 17 Any weapon whatever that will be formed against you will have no success,+ and any tongue at all that will rise up against you in the judgment you will condemn.*+ This is the hereditary possession of the servants of Jehovah,+ and their righteousness is from me,” is the utterance of Jehovah.+

55 Hey there, all YOU thirsty ones!+ Come to the water.+ And the ones that have no money! Come, buy and eat.+ Yes, come, buy wine+ and milk+ even without money and without price.+ 2 Why do YOU people keep paying out money for what is not bread, and why is YOUR toil for what results in no satisfaction?+ Listen intently to me, and eat what is good,+ and let YOUR soul find its exquisite delight in fatness itself.+ 3 Incline YOUR ear+ and come to me.+ Listen, and YOUR soul will keep alive,+ and I shall readily conclude with YOU people an indefinitely lasting covenant+ respecting the loving-kindnesses* to David that are faithful.*+ 4 Look! As a witness+ to the national groups*+ I have given him,+ as a leader+ and commander+ to the national groups.

5 Look! A nation that you* do not know you will call,+ and those of a nation who have not known you will run even to you,+ for the sake of Jehovah your God,*+ and for the Holy One of Israel,+ because he will have beautified you.+

6 Search for Jehovah, YOU people, while he may be found.+ Call to him while he proves to be near.+ 7 Let the wicked man leave his way,+ and the harmful man his thoughts;+ and let him return to Jehovah, who will have mercy upon him,+ and to our God, for he will forgive in a large way.+

8 “For the thoughts of YOU people are not my thoughts,+ nor are my ways YOUR ways,”+ is the utterance of Jehovah. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,+ so my ways are higher than YOUR ways,+ and my thoughts than YOUR thoughts.+ 10 For just as the pouring rain descends, and the snow, from the heavens and does not return to that place, unless it actually saturates the earth and makes it produce and sprout,+ and seed is actually given to the sower and bread to the eater,+ 11 so my word that goes forth from my mouth will prove to be.+ It will not return to me without results,+ but it will certainly do that in which I have delighted,+ and it will have certain success in that for which I have sent it.+

12 “For with rejoicing YOU people will go forth,+ and with peace YOU will be brought in.+ The mountains and the hills themselves will become cheerful before YOU with a joyful outcry,+ and the very trees of the field will all clap their hands.+ 13 Instead of the thicket of thorns the juniper tree will come up.+ Instead of the stinging nettle the myrtle tree will come up.+ And it must become for Jehovah something famous,*+ a sign to time indefinite+ that will not be cut off.”

56  This is what Jehovah has said: “Keep justice,*+ YOU people, and do what is righteous.+ For my salvation is at hand to come in,+ and my righteousness to be revealed.+ 2 Happy is the mortal man* that does this,+ and the son of mankind* that lays hold of it,+ keeping the sabbath in order not to profane it,+ and keeping his hand in order not to do any kind of badness.+ 3 And let not the foreigner* that has joined himself to Jehovah say,+ ‘Without doubt Jehovah will divide me off from his people.’+ Neither let the eunuch+ say, ‘Look! I am a dry tree.’”

4 For this is what Jehovah has said to the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths and that have chosen what I have delighted in+ and that are laying hold of my covenant:+ 5 “I will even give to them in my house+ and within my walls a monument*+ and a name,+ something better than sons and daughters.+ A name to time indefinite I shall give them,*+ one that will not be cut off.+

6 “And the foreigners that have joined themselves to Jehovah to minister to him+ and to love the name of Jehovah,+ in order to become servants to him, all those keeping the sabbath in order not to profane it and laying hold of my covenant,+ 7 I will also bring them to my holy mountain+ and make them rejoice inside my house of prayer.+ Their whole burnt offerings+ and their sacrifices+ will be for acceptance upon my altar.+ For my own house will be called even a house of prayer for all the peoples.”+

8 The utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, who is collecting together the dispersed ones of Israel,+ is: “I shall collect together to him others besides those already collected together of his.”+

9 All YOU wild animals of the open field, come to eat, all YOU wild animals in the forest.+ 10 His watchmen are blind.+ None of them have taken note.+ All of them are speechless dogs; they are not able to bark,+ panting, lying down, loving to slumber.+ 11 They are even dogs strong in soul[ful desire];+ they have known no satisfaction.+ They are also shepherds that have not known how to understand.+ They have all of them turned to their own way, each one for his unjust gain from his own border:+ 12 “Come, men! Let me take some wine; and let us drink intoxicating liquor to the limit.+ And tomorrow will certainly turn out just as today, great in a very much larger way.”+

57 The righteous one himself has perished,+ but there is no one taking [it] to heart.+ And men of loving-kindness* are being gathered [to the dead],+ while no one discerns that it is because of the calamity that the righteous one has been gathered away.+ 2 He enters into peace;+ they take rest+ upon their beds,+ [each] one that is walking straightforwardly.+

3 “As for YOU men, come up close here,+ YOU sons of a soothsaying woman,+ the seed of an adulterous person and of a woman that commits prostitution:+ 4 Over whom is it that YOU have a jolly good time?+ Against whom do YOU keep opening wide the mouth, keep sticking out the tongue?+ Are YOU not the children of transgression, the seed of falsehood,+ 5 those who are working up passion among big trees,+ under every luxuriant tree,+ slaughtering the children in the torrent valleys under the clefts of the crags?+

6 “With the smooth stones of the torrent valley was your* portion.+ They—they were your lot.+ Moreover, to them you poured out a drink offering,+ you offered up a gift. For these things shall I comfort myself?+ 7 Upon a mountain high and lifted up you set your bed.+ There also you went up to offer sacrifice.+ 8 And behind the door and the doorpost you set your memorial.*+ For apart from me you uncovered [yourself] and proceeded to go up; you made your bed spacious.+ And for yourself you went concluding a covenant with them. You loved a bed with them.+ The male organ* you beheld. 9 And you proceeded to descend toward Melech* with oil, and kept making your ointments abundant.+ And you continued sending your envoys far off, so that you lowered matters to Sheol.+ 10 In the multitude of your ways you have toiled.+ You have not said, ‘It is hopeless!’ You have found a revival of your own power.*+ That is why you have not grown sick.+

11 “Whom did you* become frightened at and begin to fear,+ so that you took up lying?+ But I was not the one that you remembered.+ You took nothing to your heart.+ Was I not keeping silent and hiding matters?*+ So you were in no fear even of me.+ 12 I myself shall tell forth your righteousness+ and your works,+ that they will not benefit you.+ 13 When you cry for aid your collection of things* will not deliver you,+ but a wind* will carry even all of them away.+ An exhalation will take them away, but the one taking refuge in me+ will inherit the land and will take possession of my holy mountain.+ 14 And one will certainly say,* ‘Bank up, YOU people, bank up! Clear the way.+ Remove any obstacle from the way of my people.’”+

15 For this is what the High and Lofty One,+ who is residing forever+ and whose name is holy,+ has said: “In the height and in the holy place is where I reside,+ also with the one crushed and lowly in spirit,*+ to revive the spirit of the lowly ones and to revive the heart of the ones being crushed.+ 16 For it will not be to time indefinite that I shall contend, nor perpetually that I shall be indignant;+ for because of me the spirit itself would grow feeble,+ even the breathing creatures* that I myself have made.+

17 “At the erroneousness of his unjust gain+ I grew indignant, and I proceeded to strike him, concealing [my face],+ while I was indignant. But he kept walking as a renegade+ in the way of his heart. 18 I have seen his very ways; and I began to heal him+ and conduct him+ and make compensation with comfort+ to him and to his mourning ones.”+

19 “I am creating the fruit of the lips.+ Continuous peace* there will be to the one that is far away and to the one that is near,”+ Jehovah has said, “and I will heal him.”+

20 “But the wicked are like the sea that is being tossed, when it is unable to calm down, the waters of which keep tossing up seaweed and mire. 21 There is no peace,” my God* has said, “for the wicked ones.”+

58 “Call out full-throated; do not hold back.+ Raise your voice just like a horn,* and tell my people their revolt,+ and the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet day after day it was I whom they kept seeking, and it was in the knowledge of my ways that they would express delight,+ like a nation that carried on righteousness itself and that had not left the very justice of their God,+ in that they kept asking me for righteous judgments, drawing near to God* in whom they had delight,+

3 “‘For what reason did we fast and you did not see,+ and did we afflict our soul+ and you would take no note?’+

“Indeed YOU people were finding delight in the very day of YOUR fasting, when there were all YOUR toilers that YOU kept driving to work.+ 4 Indeed for quarreling and struggle YOU would fast,+ and for striking with the fist of wickedness.+ Did YOU not keep fasting as in the day for making YOUR voice to be heard in the height? 5 Should the fast that I choose become like this, as a day for earthling man to afflict his soul?+ For bowing down his head just like a rush, and that he should spread out mere sackcloth and ashes as his couch?+ Is it this that you call a fast and a day acceptable to Jehovah?+

6 “Is not this the fast that I choose? To loosen the fetters of wickedness,+ to release the bands of the yoke bar,+ and to send away the crushed ones free,+ and that YOU people should tear in two every yoke bar?+ 7 Is it not the dividing of your bread out to the hungry one,+ and that you should bring the afflicted, homeless people into [your] house?+ That, in case you should see someone naked, you must cover him,+ and that you should not hide yourself from your own flesh?+

8 “In that case your light would break forth just like the dawn;+ and speedily would recuperation spring up for you.+ And before you your righteousness would certainly walk;+ the very glory of Jehovah would be your rear guard.+ 9 In that case you would call, and Jehovah himself would answer; you would cry for help,+ and he would say, ‘Here I am!’

“If you will remove from your midst the yoke bar,+ the poking out of the finger+ and the speaking of what is hurtful;+ 10 and you will grant to the hungry one your own soul[ful desire],+ and you will satisfy the soul that is being afflicted, your light also will certainly flash up even in the darkness, and your gloom will be like midday.+ 11 And Jehovah will be bound to lead+ you constantly+ and to satisfy your soul even in a scorched land,+ and he will invigorate your very bones;+ and you must become like a well-watered garden,+ and like the source of water, the waters of which do not lie. 12 And at your instance men will* certainly build up the places devastated a long time;*+ you will raise up even the foundations of continuous generations.+ And you will actually be called the repairer of [the] gap,+ the restorer of roadways by which to dwell.*

13 “If in view of the sabbath you will turn back your foot as regards doing your own delights on my holy day,+ and will actually call the sabbath an exquisite delight, a holy [day] of Jehovah, one being glorified,+ and will actually glorify it rather than doing your own ways, rather than finding what delights you and speaking a word; 14 you will in that case find your exquisite delight in Jehovah,+ and I will make you ride upon the high places of the earth;+ and I will cause you to eat from the hereditary possession of Jacob your forefather,+ for the mouth of Jehovah itself has spoken [it].”+

59 Look! The hand of Jehovah has not become too short that it cannot save,+ nor has his ear become too heavy that it cannot hear.+ 2 No, but the very errors of YOU people have become the things causing division between YOU and YOUR God,*+ and YOUR own sins have caused the concealing of [his] face from YOU to keep from hearing.+ 3 For YOUR own palms have become polluted with blood,+ and YOUR fingers with error. YOUR own lips have spoken falsehood.+ YOUR own tongue kept muttering sheer unrighteousness.+ 4 There is no one calling out in righteousness,+ and no one at all has gone to court in faithfulness. There has been a trusting in unreality,+ and a speaking of worthlessness.+ There has been a conceiving of trouble, and a bringing of what is hurtful to birth.+

5 The eggs of a poisonous snake are what they have hatched, and they kept weaving the mere cobweb of a spider.+ Anyone eating some of their eggs would die, and the [egg] that was smashed would be hatched into a viper.+ 6 Their mere cobweb will not serve as a garment, nor will they cover themselves with their works.+ Their works are hurtful works, and the activity of violence is in their palms.+ 7 Their own feet keep running to sheer badness,+ and they are in a hurry to shed innocent blood.+ Their thoughts are hurtful thoughts;+ despoiling and breakdown are in their highways.*+ 8 The way of peace+ they have ignored, and there is no justice in their tracks.+ Their roadways they have made crooked for themselves.+ No one at all treading in them* will actually know peace.+

9 That is why justice has come to be far away from us, and righteousness does not catch up with us. We keep hoping for light, but, look! darkness; for brightness, [but] in continuous gloom we kept walking.+ 10 We keep groping for the wall just like blind men, and like those without eyes we keep groping.+ We have stumbled at high noon just as in evening darkness; among the stout ones [we are] just like dead people.+ 11 We keep groaning, all of us, just like bears; and like doves we mournfully keep cooing.+ We kept hoping for justice,+ but there was none; for salvation, [but] it has stayed far away from us.+ 12 For our revolts have become many in front of you;+ and as for our sins, each one has testified against us.+ For our revolts are with us; and as for our errors, we well know them.+ 13 There have been transgressing and a denying of Jehovah;+ and there was a moving back from our God,* a speaking of oppression and revolt,+ a conceiving and a muttering of words of falsehood from the very heart.+ 14 And justice was forced to move back,+ and righteousness itself kept standing simply far off.+ For truth has stumbled even in the public square, and what is straightforward is unable to enter.+ 15 And the truth proves to be missing,+ and anyone turning away from badness is being despoiled.+

And Jehovah got to see, and it was bad in his eyes that there was no justice.+ 16 And when he saw that there was no man,* he began to show himself astonished that there was no one interposing.+ And his arm proceeded to save for him, and his own righteousness was the thing that supported him.+ 17 Then he put on righteousness as a coat of mail,+ and the helmet of salvation upon his head.+ Furthermore, he put on the garments of vengeance as raiment+ and enwrapped himself with zeal as if a sleeveless coat.+ 18 In accordance with the dealings he will reward correspondingly,+ rage to his adversaries, due treatment to his enemies.+ To the islands* he will recompense due treatment.+ 19 And from the sunset they will begin to fear the name of Jehovah,+ and from the rising of the sun the glory of him,+ for he will come in like a distressing river,* which the very spirit* of Jehovah has driven along.+

20 “And to Zion+ the Repurchaser+ will certainly come, and to those turning from transgression* in Jacob,”+ is the utterance of Jehovah.
    21 “And as for me, this is my covenant with them,”+ Jehovah has said.
   “My spirit that is upon you*+ and my words that I have put in your mouth+—they will not be removed from your mouth or from the mouth of your offspring* or from the mouth of the offspring of your offspring,” Jehovah has said, “from now on even to time indefinite.”+

60 “Arise,+ O woman,* shed forth light,+ for your light has come+ and upon you the very glory of Jehovah has shone forth.+ 2 For, look! darkness+ itself will cover the earth, and thick gloom the national groups; but upon you Jehovah will shine forth, and upon you his own glory will be seen.+ 3 And nations will certainly go to your light,+ and kings+ to the brightness of your shining forth.+

4 “Raise your* eyes all around and see! They have all of them been collected together;+ they have come to you.+ From far away your own sons keep coming, and your daughters who will be taken care of on the flank.+ 5 At that time you will see* and certainly become radiant,+ and your heart will actually quiver and expand, because to you the wealthiness of the sea will direct itself; the very resources of the nations will come to you.+ 6 The heaving mass of camels itself will cover you, the young male camels of Midian and of Ephah.+ All those from Sheba+—they will come. Gold and frankincense they will carry. And the praises of Jehovah they will announce.+ 7 All the flocks of Kedar+—they will be collected together to you. The rams of Nebaioth+—they will minister to you.*+ With approval they will come up upon my altar,+ and I shall beautify my own house of beauty.+

8 “Who are these that come flying just like a cloud,+ and like doves to their birdhouse holes? 9 For in me the islands themselves will keep hoping,+ the ships of Tarshish+ also as at the first, in order to bring your sons from far away,+ their silver and their gold being with them,+ to the name+ of Jehovah your God* and to the Holy One of Israel,+ for he will have beautified you.+ 10 And foreigners* will actually build your walls,+ and their own kings will minister* to you;+ for in my indignation I shall have struck you,+ but in my goodwill I shall certainly have mercy upon you.+

11 “And your gates will actually be kept open* constantly;+ they will not be closed even by day or by night, in order to bring to you the resources of the nations,+ and their kings will be taking the lead.+ 12 For any nation and any kingdom that will not serve you will perish; and the nations themselves will without fail come to devastation.+

13 “To you the very glory of Lebanon will come, the juniper tree, the ash tree and the cypress at the same time,+ in order to beautify the place of my sanctuary;+ and I shall glorify the very place of my feet.+

14 “And to you the sons of those afflicting you must go, bowing down;+ and all those treating you disrespectfully must bend down at the very soles of your feet,+ and they will have to call you the city of Jehovah, Zion+ of the Holy One of Israel.

15 “Instead of your proving to be one left entirely and hated, with nobody passing through,+ I will even set you as a thing of pride to time indefinite, an exultation for generation after generation.+ 16 And you will actually suck the milk of nations,+ and the breast of kings you will suck;+ and you will be certain to know that I, Jehovah,+ am your Savior,+ and the Powerful One+ of Jacob is your Repurchaser.*+ 17 Instead of the copper I shall bring in gold,+ and instead of the iron I shall bring in silver, and instead of the wood, copper, and instead of the stones, iron; and I will appoint peace as your overseers*+ and righteousness as your task assigners.+

18 “No more will violence be heard in your land, despoiling or breakdown within your boundaries.+ And you will certainly call your own walls Salvation+ and your gates Praise. 19 For you the sun will no more prove to be a light by day, and for brightness the moon itself will no more give you light. And Jehovah must become to you an indefinitely lasting light,+ and your God* your beauty.+ 20 No more will your sun set, nor will your moon go on the wane; for Jehovah himself will become for you an indefinitely lasting light,+ and the days of your mourning will have come to completion.+ 21 And as for your people, all of them will be righteous;+ to time indefinite they will hold possession of the land,+ the sprout of my* planting,+ the work of my hands,+ for [me] to be beautified.+ 22 The little one himself will become a thousand, and the small one a mighty nation.+ I myself, Jehovah, shall speed it up in its own time.”+

61 The spirit of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah is upon me,+ for the reason that Jehovah has anointed me+ to tell good news to the meek ones.+ He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,+ to proclaim liberty* to those taken captive+ and the wide opening [of the eyes] even to the prisoners;+ 2 to proclaim the year of goodwill on the part of Jehovah+ and the day of vengeance on the part of our God;*+ to comfort all the mourning ones;+ 3 to assign to those mourning over Zion, to give them a headdress instead of ashes,+ the oil of exultation+ instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of the downhearted spirit;+ and they must be called big trees of righteousness,+ the planting of Jehovah,+ for [him] to be beautified.+ 4 And they must rebuild the long-standing devastated places;+ they will raise up even the desolated places of former times,+ and they will certainly make anew the devastated cities,+ the places desolate for generation after generation.

5 “And strangers will actually stand and shepherd the flocks of YOU people,+ and the foreigners*+ will be YOUR farmers and YOUR vinedressers.+6 And as for YOU, the priests of Jehovah YOU will be called;+ the ministers*+ of our God* YOU will be said to be.+ The resources of the nations YOU people will eat,+ and in their glory YOU will speak elatedly about yourselves.+ 7 Instead of YOUR shame there will be a double portion,+ and instead of humiliation they will cry out joyfully over their share.+ Therefore in their land they will take possession of even a double portion.+ Rejoicing to time indefinite is what will come to be theirs.+ 8 For I, Jehovah, am loving justice,+ hating robbery along with unrighteousness.*+ And I will give their wages in trueness,+ and an indefinitely lasting covenant I shall conclude toward them.+ 9 And their offspring* will actually be known even among the nations,+ and their descendants in among the peoples. All those seeing them will recognize them,+ that they are the offspring whom Jehovah has blessed.”+

10 Without fail I shall exult in Jehovah.+ My soul will be joyful in my God.+ For he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;+ with the sleeveless coat of righteousness he has enwrapped me,+ like the bridegroom who, in a priestly way, puts on a headdress,+ and like the bride who decks herself with her ornamental things.+ 11 For as the earth itself brings forth its sprout, and as the garden itself makes the things that are sown in it sprout,+ in like manner the Sovereign Lord Jehovah* will cause the sprouting of righteousness+ and of praise in front of all the nations.+

62 For the sake of Zion I shall not keep still,+ and for the sake of Jerusalem+ I shall not stay quiet until her righteousness goes forth just like the brightness,+ and her salvation like a torch that burns.+

2 “And the nations will certainly see your* righteousness,+ [O woman,]*+ and all kings your glory.+ And you will actually be called by a new name,+ which the very mouth of Jehovah will designate. 3 And you must become a crown of beauty in the hand of Jehovah,+ and a kingly turban in the palm of your God.* 4 No more will you be said to be a woman left entirely;+ and your own land will no more be said to be desolate;+ but you yourself will be called My Delight Is in Her,*+ and your land Owned as a Wife.* For Jehovah will have taken delight in you, and your own land will be owned as a wife.+ 5 For just as a young man takes ownership of a virgin as his wife, your sons will take ownership of you as a wife.+ And with the exultation of a bridegroom over a bride,+ your God will exult even over you.+ 6 Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have commissioned watchmen.+ All day long and all night long, constantly, let them not keep still.+

“YOU who are making mention of Jehovah,+ let there be no silence on YOUR part,+ 7 and do not give him any silence until he fixes solidly, yes, until he sets Jerusalem as a praise in the earth.”+

8 Jehovah has sworn with his right hand+ and with his strong arm:+ “I will no more give your* grain as food to your enemies,+ nor will foreigners* drink your new wine,+ for which you have toiled. 9 But the very ones gathering it will eat it, and they will be certain to praise Jehovah; and the very ones collecting it will drink it in my holy courtyards.”+

10 Pass out, pass out through the gates, YOU men. Clear the way of the people.+ Bank up, bank up the highway. Rid [it] of stones.+ Raise up a signal* for the peoples.+

11 Look! Jehovah himself has caused [it] to be heard to the farthest part* of the earth:+ “Say, YOU people, to the daughter of Zion,+ ‘Look! Your salvation is coming.+ Look! The reward he gives is with him,+ and the wages he pays are before him.’”+

12 And men will certainly call them the holy people,+ those repurchased by Jehovah;+ and you yourself will be called Searched For,* a City Not Left Entirely.+

63 Who is this one coming from Edom,+ the one with garments of glowing colors from Bozrah,+ this one who is honorable in his clothing, marching in the abundance of his power?

“I, the One speaking in righteousness,+ the One abounding [in power] to save.”+

2 Why is it that your clothing is red, and your garments are like those of one treading in the winepress?+

3 “The wine trough I have trodden by myself,+ while there was no man* with me from the peoples. And I kept treading them in my anger,+ and I kept trampling them down in my rage.+ And their spurting blood kept spattering upon my garments,+ and all my clothing I have polluted. 4 For the day of vengeance is in my heart,+ and the very year of my repurchased ones has come. 5 And I kept looking, but there was no helper; and I began to show myself astonished, but there was no one offering support.+ So my arm furnished me salvation,+ and my rage+ was what supported me. 6 And I kept stamping down peoples in my anger, and I proceeded to make them drunk* with my rage+ and to bring down to the earth their spurting blood.”+

7 The loving-kindnesses* of Jehovah I shall mention,+ the praises of Jehovah, according to all that Jehovah has rendered to us,+ even the abundant goodness to the house of Israel+ that he has rendered to them according to his mercies+ and according to the abundance of his loving-kindnesses. 8 And he went on to say: “Surely they are my people,+ sons that will not prove false.”+ So it was to them that he came to be a Savior.+ 9 During all their distress it was distressing to him.*+ And his own personal messenger* saved them.+ In his love and in his compassion he himself repurchased them,+ and he proceeded to lift them up and carry them all the days of long ago.+

10 But they themselves rebelled+ and made his holy spirit feel hurt.+ He now was changed into an enemy+ of theirs; he himself warred against them.+ 11 And one* began to remember the days of long ago, Moses his servant:* “Where is the One that brought them up out of the sea+ with the shepherds* of his flock?+ Where is the One that put within him His own holy spirit?+ 12 The One making His beautiful arm+ go at the right hand of Moses; the One splitting the waters from before them+ in order to make an indefinitely lasting name for his own self;+ 13 the One making them walk through the surging waters* so that, like a horse in the wilderness, they did not stumble?+ 14 Just as when a beast itself goes down into the valley plain, the very spirit of Jehovah proceeded to make them rest.”+

Thus you led your people in order to make a beautiful name for your own self.+

15 Look from heaven+ and see out of your lofty abode of holiness and beauty.+ Where are your zeal+ and your full might, the commotion of your inward parts,+ and your mercies?+ Toward me they have restrained themselves.*+ 16 For you are our Father;+ although Abraham himself may not have known us and Israel himself may not recognize us, you, O Jehovah, are our Father. Our Repurchaser* of long ago is your name.+ 17 Why do you, O Jehovah, keep making us wander from your ways? Why do you make our heart hard against the fear of you?+ Come back for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your hereditary possession.+ 18 For a little while your holy people+ had possession. Our own adversaries have stamped down your sanctuary.+ 19 We have for a long time become as those over whom you did not rule, as those upon whom your name had not been called.+

64 O if only you had ripped the heavens apart, that you had come down,+ that on account of you the very mountains had quaked,*+ 2 as when a fire ignites the brushwood, [and] the fire makes the very water boil up, in order to make your name known to your adversaries,+ that on account of you the nations might be agitated!+ 3 When you did fear-inspiring things+ for which we could not hope, you came down. On account of you the mountains themselves quaked.+ 4 And from time long ago none have heard,+ nor have any given ear, nor has an eye itself seen a God,* except you,+ that acts for the one that keeps in expectation of him.+ 5 You have met up with the one exulting and doing righteousness,+ those who keep remembering you in your own ways.+

Look! You yourself became indignant,+ while we kept sinning+—in them a long time, and should we be saved?+ 6 And we become like someone unclean, all of us, and all our acts of righteousness are like a garment for periods of menstruation;+ and we shall fade away like leafage,+ all of us, and our errors themselves* will carry us away just like a wind.+ 7 And there is no one calling upon your name,+ no one rousing himself to lay hold on you; for you have concealed your face from us,+ and you cause us to melt+ by the power of our error.

8 And now, O Jehovah, you are our Father.+ We are the clay,+ and you are our Potter;*+ and all of us are the work of your hand.+ 9 Do not be indignant, O Jehovah, to the extreme,+ and do not forever remember [our] error.+ Look, now, please: we are all your people.+ 10 Your own holy cities+ have become a wilderness. Zion+ itself has become a sheer wilderness, Jerusalem a desolate waste.+ 11 Our house of holiness and beauty,+ in which our forefathers praised you,+ has itself become something for burning in the fire;+ and every one of our desirable things+ has become a devastation. 12 In the face of these things will you continue keeping yourself in check,+ O Jehovah? Will you stay still and let us be afflicted to the extreme?+

65 “I have let myself be searched for+ by those who had not asked [for me].*+ I have let myself be found by those who had not looked for me.*+ I have said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’+ to a nation that was not calling* upon my name.+

2 “I have spread out my hands all day long to a stubborn+ people, those who are walking in the way that is not good,+ after their thoughts;+ 3 the people [made up of] those offending+ me right to my face constantly, sacrificing in the gardens+ and making sacrificial smoke+ upon the bricks,* 4 seating themselves among the burial places,+ who also pass the night even in the watch huts,* eating the flesh of the pig,+ even the broth of foul things+ being in their vessels; 5 those who are saying, ‘Keep close to yourself. Do not approach me, for I shall certainly convey holiness to you.’*+ These are a smoke in my nostrils,+ a fire burning all day long.*+

6 “Look! It is written before me.+ I shall not keep still,+ but I will render a reward; I will even render the reward+ into their own bosom,*+ 7 for their* own errors and for the errors of their forefathers at the same time,”+ Jehovah has said. “Because they have made sacrificial smoke upon the mountains, and upon the hills+ they have reproached me,+ I will also measure out their wages first of all into their own bosom.”+

8 This is what Jehovah has said: “In the same way that the new wine+ is found in the cluster and someone has to say, ‘Do not ruin it,+ because there is a blessing in it,’+ so I shall do for the sake of my servants* in order not to bring everybody to ruin.+ 9 And I will bring forth out of Jacob an offspring*+ and out of Judah the hereditary possessor of my mountains;+ and my chosen ones must take possession of it,*+ and my own servants will reside there.+ 10 And Sharon+ must become a pasture ground for sheep+ and the low plain of Achor+ a resting-place for cattle, for my people who will have looked for me.+

11 “But YOU men are those leaving Jehovah,+ those forgetting my holy mountain,+ those setting in order a table for the god of Good Luck*+ and those filling up mixed wine for the god of Destiny.*+ 12 And I will destine YOU men to the sword,+ and YOU will all of YOU bow down to being slaughtered;+ for the reason that I called,+ but YOU did not answer; I spoke, but YOU did not listen;+ and YOU kept doing what was bad in my eyes,+ and the thing in which I took no delight YOU chose.”+

13 Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said: “Look! My own servants will eat,+ but YOU yourselves will go hungry.+ Look! My own servants will drink,+ but YOU yourselves will go thirsty.+ Look! My own servants will rejoice,+ but YOU yourselves will suffer shame.+ 14 Look! My own servants will cry out joyfully because of the good condition of the heart,+ but YOU yourselves will make outcries because of the pain of heart and YOU will howl because of sheer breakdown of spirit.+ 15 And YOU men will certainly lay up YOUR name for an oath* by my chosen ones, and the Sovereign Lord Jehovah will actually put [YOU] individually* to death,*+ but his own servants he will call by another name;+ 16 so that anyone blessing himself in the earth will bless himself by the God* of faith,*+ and anyone making a sworn statement in the earth will swear by the God of faith;+ because the former distresses will actually be forgotten and because they will actually be concealed from my eyes.+

17 “For here I am creating new heavens+ and a new earth;+  1Pet.3:13; Rev.21:1 and the former things will not be called to mind,+ neither will they come up into the heart.+ 18 But exult, YOU people,+ and be joyful forever in what I am creating.+ For here I am creating Jerusalem a cause for joyfulness and her people a cause for exultation.+ 19 And I will be joyful in Jerusalem and exult in my people;+ and no more will there be heard in her the sound of weeping or the sound of a plaintive cry.”+

20 “No more will there come to be a suckling a few days old from that place,+ neither an old man that does not fulfill his days;+ for one will die as a mere boy, although a hundred years of age; and as for the sinner, although a hundred years of age he will have evil called down upon him.+  21 And they will certainly build houses and have occupancy;+ and they will certainly plant vineyards and eat [their] fruitage.+ 22 They will not build and someone else have occupancy; they will not plant and someone else do the eating. For like the days of a tree will the days of my people be;+ and the work of their own hands my chosen ones will use to the full.+ 23 They will not toil for nothing,+ nor will they bring to birth for disturbance;+ because they are the offspring made up of the blessed ones of Jehovah,+ and their descendants with them.+ 24 And it will actually occur that before they call out I myself shall answer;+ while they are yet speaking, I myself shall hear.+

25 The wolf+ and the lamb themselves will feed as one,+ and the lion will eat straw just like the bull;+ and as for the serpent, his food will be dust.+ They will do no harm+ nor cause any ruin in all my holy mountain,”+ Jehovah has said.

66 This is what Jehovah has said: “The heavens are my throne,+ and the earth is my footstool.+ Where, then, is the house that YOU people can build for me,+ and where, then, is the place as a resting-place for me?”+

2 “Now all these things my own hand has made, so that all these came to be,”*+ is the utterance of Jehovah. “To this one, then, I shall look, to the one afflicted and contrite in spirit+ and trembling at* my word.+

3 “The one slaughtering the bull is as one striking down a man.*+ The one sacrificing the sheep is as one breaking the neck of a dog.+ The one offering up a gift—the blood of a pig!+ The one presenting a memorial of frankincense+ is as one saying a blessing with uncanny words.*+ They are also the ones that have chosen their own ways, and in their disgusting things their very soul has taken a delight.+ 4 I myself, in turn, shall choose ways of ill-treating them;+ and the things frightful to them I shall bring upon them;+ for the reason that I called, but there was no one answering; I spoke, but there were none that listened;+ and they kept on doing what was bad in my eyes, and the thing in which I took no delight they chose.”+

5 Hear the word of Jehovah, YOU men who are trembling at his word:+ “YOUR brothers that are hating YOU,+ that are excluding YOU by reason of my name,+ said, ‘May Jehovah be glorified!’+ He must also appear with rejoicing on YOUR part,+ and they are the ones that will be put to shame.”+

6 There is a sound of uproar out of the city, a sound out of the temple!+ It is the sound of Jehovah repaying what is deserved to his enemies.+

7 Before she began to come into labor pains she gave birth.+ Before birth pangs could come to her, she even gave deliverance to a male child.+ 8 Who has heard of a thing like this?+ Who has seen things like these?+ Will a land+ be brought forth with labor pains in one day?+ Or will a nation+ be born at one time?*+ For Zion has come into labor pains as well as given birth to her sons. ACTS2:1-4

9 “As for me, shall I cause the breaking through and not cause the giving birth?”+ says Jehovah. “Or am I causing a giving birth and do I actually cause a shutting up?” your* God* has said.

10 Rejoice with Jerusalem and be joyful with her,+ all YOU lovers of her.+ Exult greatly with her, all YOU keeping yourselves in mourning over her;+ 11 for the reason that YOU will suck and certainly get satisfaction from the breast of full consolation by her;* for the reason that YOU will sip and experience exquisite delight from the teat of her glory.+ 12 For this is what Jehovah has said: “Here I am extending to her peace just like a river+ and the glory of nations just like a flooding torrent,+ and YOU will certainly suck.+ Upon the flank YOU will be carried, and upon the knees YOU will be fondled.+ 13 Like a man* whom his own mother keeps comforting, so I myself shall keep comforting YOU people;+ and in the case of Jerusalem YOU will be comforted.+ 14 And YOU will certainly see, and YOUR heart will be bound to exult,+ and YOUR very bones+ will sprout just like tender grass.+ And the hand of Jehovah will certainly be made known to his servants,+ but he will actually denounce his enemies.”+

15 “For here Jehovah himself comes as a very fire,+ and his chariots are like a storm wind,+ in order to pay back his anger with sheer rage and his rebuke with flames of fire.+ 16 For as fire Jehovah himself will for a fact take up the controversy, yes, with his sword,+ against all flesh; and the slain of Jehovah will certainly become many.+ 17 Those sanctifying themselves and cleansing themselves for the gardens+ behind one* in the center, eating the flesh of the pig+ and the loathsome thing, even the jumping rodent,*+ they will all together reach their end,” is the utterance of Jehovah. 18 “And as regards their works+ and their thoughts,+ I am coming in order to collect all the nations and tongues together;+ and they will have to come and see my glory.”+

19 “And I will set among them a sign,*+ and I will send some of those who are escaped to the nations,+ [to] Tarshish,+ Pul,* and Lud,+ those drawing the bow,* Tubal and Javan,+ the faraway islands,*+ who have not heard a report about me or seen my glory;+ and they will for certain tell about my glory among the nations.+ 20 And they will actually bring all YOUR brothers out of all the nations+ as a gift to Jehovah,+ on horses and in chariots and in covered wagons and on mules and on swift she-camels,+ up to my holy mountain,*+ Jerusalem,” Jehovah has said, “just as when the sons of Israel bring the gift in a clean vessel into the house of Jehovah.”+

21 “And from them also I shall take some for the priests, for the Levites,”* Jehovah has said.

22 “For just as the new heavens+ and the new earth+ that I am making are standing before me,”+ is the utterance of Jehovah, “so the offspring* of YOU people+ and the name of YOU people will keep standing.”+

23 “And it will certainly occur that from new moon to new moon* and from sabbath to sabbath* all flesh will come in to bow down before me,”+ Jehovah has said. 24 “And they will actually go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men* that were transgressing against me;+ for the very worms upon them* will not die and their fire itself will not be extinguished,+ and they must become something repulsive to all flesh.”+