Isaiah 54-57

Isaiah 54

¹“Sing, barren, you who didn’t give birth! Break out into singing, and cry aloud, you who didn’t travail with child! For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife,” says the LORD.

²“Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your habitations; don’t spare; lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes.

³For you will spread out on the right hand and on the left; and your offspring will possess the nations and settle in desolate cities.

⁴“Don’t be afraid, for you will not be ashamed. Don’t be confounded, for you will not be disappointed. For you will forget the shame of your youth. You will remember the reproach of your widowhood no more.

⁵For your Maker is your husband; the LORD of Armies is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. He will be called the God of the whole earth.

⁶For the LORD has called you as a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, even a wife of youth, when she is cast off,” says your God.

⁷“For a small moment I have forsaken you, but I will gather you with great mercies.

⁸In overflowing wrath I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting loving kindness I will have mercy on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer.

⁹“For this is like the waters of Noah to me; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah will no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you, nor rebuke you.

¹⁰For the mountains may depart, and the hills be removed, but my loving kindness will not depart from you, and my covenant of peace will not be removed,” says the LORD who has mercy on you.

¹¹“You afflicted, tossed with storms, and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in beautiful colors, and lay your foundations with sapphires.

¹²I will make your pinnacles of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones.

¹³All your children will be taught by the LORD, and your children’s peace will be great.

¹⁴You will be established in righteousness. You will be far from oppression, for you will not be afraid, and far from terror, for it shall not come near you.

¹⁵Behold, they may gather together, but not by me. Whoever gathers together against you will fall because of you.

¹⁶“Behold, I have created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame, and forges a weapon for his work; and I have created the destroyer to destroy.

¹⁷No weapon that is formed against you will prevail; and you will condemn every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the LORD’s servants, and their righteousness is of me,” says the LORD.

Isaiah 55

¹“Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

²Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness.

³Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

⁴Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples.

⁵Behold, you shall call a nation that you don’t know; and a nation that didn’t know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he has glorified you.”

⁶Seek the LORD while he may be found. Call on him while he is near.

⁷Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon.

⁸“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways,” says the LORD.

⁹“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

¹⁰For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and doesn’t return there, but waters the earth, and makes it grow and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater;

¹¹so is my word that goes out of my mouth: it will not return to me void, but it will accomplish that which I please, and it will prosper in the thing I sent it to do.

¹²For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace. The mountains and the hills will break out before you into singing; and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.

¹³Instead of the thorn the cypress tree will come up; and instead of the brier the myrtle tree will come up. It will make a name for the LORD, for an everlasting sign that will not be cut off.”

Isaiah 56

¹The LORD says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is near and my righteousness will soon be revealed.

²Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast; who keeps the Sabbath without profaning it and keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

³Let no foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD speak, saying, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people.” Do not let the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.”

⁴For the LORD says, “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, choose the things that please me, and hold fast to my covenant,

⁵I will give them in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than of sons and of daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.

⁶Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD to serve him, and to love the LORD’s name, to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath from profaning it, and holds fast my covenant,

⁷I will bring these to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

⁸The Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, says, “I will yet gather others to him, in addition to his own who are gathered.”

⁹All you animals of the field, come to devour, all you animals in the forest.

¹⁰His watchmen are blind. They are all without knowledge. They are all mute dogs. They can’t bark— dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber.

¹¹Yes, the dogs are greedy. They can never have enough. They are shepherds who can’t understand. They have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter.

¹²“Come,” they say, “I will get wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow will be as today, great beyond measure.”

Isaiah 57

¹The righteous perish, and no one lays it to heart. Merciful men are taken away, and no one considers that the righteous is taken away from the evil.

²He enters into peace. They rest in their beds, each one who walks in his uprightness.

³“But draw near here, you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes.

⁴Whom do you mock? Against whom do you make a wide mouth and stick out your tongue? Aren’t you children of disobedience and offspring of falsehood,

⁵you who inflame yourselves among the oaks, under every green tree; who kill the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?

⁶Among the smooth stones of the valley is your portion. They, they are your lot. You have even poured a drink offering to them. You have offered an offering. Shall I be appeased for these things?

⁷On a high and lofty mountain you have set your bed. You also went up there to offer sacrifice.

⁸You have set up your memorial behind the doors and the posts, for you have exposed yourself to someone besides me, and have gone up. You have enlarged your bed and made a covenant for yourself with them. You loved what you saw on their bed.

⁹You went to the king with oil, increased your perfumes, sent your ambassadors far off, and degraded yourself even to Sheol.

¹⁰You were wearied with the length of your ways; yet you didn’t say, ‘It is in vain.’ You found a reviving of your strength; therefore you weren’t faint.

¹¹“Whom have you dreaded and feared, so that you lie, and have not remembered me, nor laid it to your heart? Haven’t I held my peace for a long time, and you don’t fear me?

¹²I will declare your righteousness; and as for your works, they will not benefit you.

¹³When you cry, let those whom you have gathered deliver you, but the wind will take them. A breath will carry them all away, but he who takes refuge in me will possess the land, and will inherit my holy mountain.”

¹⁴He will say, “Build up, build up, prepare the way! Remove the stumbling-block out of the way of my people.”

¹⁵For the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, says: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.

¹⁶For I will not contend forever, neither will I always be angry; for the spirit would faint before me, and the souls whom I have made.

¹⁷I was angry because of the iniquity of his covetousness and struck him. I hid myself and was angry; and he went on backsliding in the way of his heart.

¹⁸I have seen his ways, and will heal him. I will lead him also, and restore comforts to him and to his mourners.

¹⁹I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace, to him who is far off and to him who is near,” says the LORD; “and I will heal them.”

²⁰But the wicked are like the troubled sea; for it can’t rest and its waters cast up mire and mud.

²¹“There is no peace”, says my God, “for the wicked.”