Isaiah 30-32

Isaiah 30

¹Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin:

²that walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!

³Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion.

⁴For his princes are at Zoan, and his ambassadors are come to Hanes.

⁵They shall all be ashamed of a people that cannot profit them, that are not an help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.

⁶The burden of the beasts of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.

⁷For Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I called her Rahab that sitteth still.

⁸Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.

⁹For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD:

¹⁰which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:

¹¹get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.

¹²Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon;

¹³therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.

¹⁴And he shall break it as a potter’s vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing; so that there shall not be found among the pieces thereof a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the cistern.

¹⁵For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.

¹⁶but ye said, No, for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.

¹⁷One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill.

¹⁸And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment; blessed are all they that wait for him.

¹⁹For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more; he will surely be gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear, he will answer thee.

²⁰And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be hidden any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers:

²¹and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it; when ye turn to the right hand and when e turn to the left.

²²And ye shall defile the overlaying of thy graven images of silver, and the plating of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as an unclean thing; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence.

²³And he shall give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal; and bread of the increase of the ground, and it shall be fat and plenteous: in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures.

²⁴the oxen likewise and the young asses that till the ground shall eat savoury provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan.

²⁵And there shall be upon every lofty mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.

²⁶Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the hurt of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.

²⁷Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue is as a devouring fire:

²⁸and his breath is as an overflowing stream, that reacheth even unto the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity: and a bridle that causeth to err shall be in the jaws of the peoples.

²⁹Ye shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe to come into the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel.

³⁰And the LORD shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall shew the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and the flame of a devouring fire, with a blast, and tempest, and hailstones.

³¹For through the voice of the LORD shall the Assyrian be broken in pieces, which smote with a rod.

³²And every stroke of the appointed staff, which the LORD shall lay upon him, shall be with tabrets and harps: and in battles of shaking will he fight with them.

³³For a Topheth is prepared of old; yea, for the king it is made ready; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.

Isaiah 31

¹Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, and stay on horses; and trust in chariots, because they are many, and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the LORD!

²Yet he also is wise, and will bring evil, and will not call back his words: but will arise against the house of the evil-doers, and against the help of them that work iniquity.

³Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit: and when the LORD shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall stumble, and he that is holpen shall fall, and they all shall fail together.

⁴For thus saith the LORD unto me, Like as when the lion growleth and the young lion over his prey, if a multitude of shepherds be called forth against him, he will not be dismayed at their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so shall the LORD of hosts come down to fight upon mount Zion, and upon the hill thereof.

⁵As birds flying, so will the LORD of hosts protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it, he will pass over and preserve it.

⁶Turn ye unto him from whom ye have deeply revolted, O children of Israel.

⁷For in that day they shall cast away every man his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your own hands have made unto you for a sin.

⁸Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword, not of man; and the sword, not of men, shall devour him: and he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall become tributary.

⁹And his rock shall pass away by reason of terror, and his princes shall be dismayed at the ensign, saith the LORD, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.

Isaiah 32

¹Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.

²And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

³And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken.

⁴The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.

⁵The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.

⁶For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise profaneness, and to utter error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.

⁷The instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the meek with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right.

⁸But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and in liberal things shall he continue.

⁹Rise up, ye women that are at ease, and hear my voice; ye careless daughters, give ear unto my speech.

¹⁰For days beyond a year shall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the ingathering shall not come.

¹¹Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones: strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins.

¹²They shall smite upon the breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.

¹³Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city:

¹⁴For the palace shall be forsaken; the populous city shall be deserted; the hill and the watch-tower shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks;

¹⁵until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest.

¹⁶Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness shall abide in the fruitful field.

¹⁷And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and confidence for ever.

¹⁸And my people shall abide in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.

¹⁹But it shall hail, in the downfall of the forest; and the city shall be utterly laid low.

²⁰Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth the feet of the ox and the ass.