Day 214: Isaiah 48 - 52

Chapter 48

Israel Refined for God’s Glory 

1: Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the LORD and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right.
2: For they call themselves after the holy city, and stay themselves on the God of Israel; the LORD of hosts is his name.
3: “The former things I declared of old; they went out from my mouth, and I announced them; then suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.
4: Because I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass,
5: I declared them to you from of old, before they came to pass I announced them to you, lest you should say, ‘My idol did them, my carved image and my metal image commanded them.’
6: “You have heard; now see all this; and will you not declare it? From this time forth I announce to you new things, hidden things that you have not known.
7: They are created now, not long ago; before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’
8: You have never heard, you have never known, from of old your ear has not been opened. For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that from before birth you were called a rebel.
9: “For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,
that I may not cut you off.
10: Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.
11: For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.

The LORD’s Call to Israel 

12: “Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first,
and I am the last.
13: My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens;
when I call to them, they stand forth together.
14: “Assemble, all of you, and listen! Who among them has declared these things?
The LORD loves him; he shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans.
15: I, even I, have spoken and called him; I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way.
16: Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there.” And now the Lord GOD has sent me, and his Spirit.
17: Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go.
18: Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea;
19: your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.”
20: Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth; say, “The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!”
21: They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and the water gushed out.
22: “There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.”

Chapter 49

The Servant of the LORD
1: Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called me from the womb; from the body of my mother he named my name.
2: He made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away.
3: And he said to me, “You are my servant,Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
4: But I said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my right is with the LORD, and my recompense with my God.”
5: And now the LORD says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him - for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD, and my God has become my strength –
6: he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
7: Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers: “Kings shall see and arise;
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the LORD, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
The Restoration of Israel
8: Thus says the LORD: “In a time of favor I have answered you; in a day of salvation I have helped you; I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages,
9: saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’ to those who are in darkness, ‘Appear.’ They shall feed along the ways; on all bare heights shall be their pasture;
10: they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them.
11: And I will make all my mountains a road, and my highways shall be raised up.
12: Behold, these shall come from afar, and behold, these from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Syene.”
13: Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the LORD has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted.
14: But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.”
15: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
16: Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.
17: Your builders make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you.
18: Lift up your eyes around and see; they all gather, they come to you. As I live, declares the LORD, you shall put them all on as an ornament; you shall bind them on as a bride does.
19: “Surely your waste and your desolate places and your devastated land - surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
20: The children of your bereavement will yet say in your ears: ‘The place is too narrow for me; make room for me to dwell in.’
21: Then you will say in your heart: ‘Who has borne me these? I was bereaved and barren, exiled and put away, but who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone;
from where have these come?’”
22: Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and raise my signal to the peoples; and they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.
23: Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”
24: Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrantf be rescued?
25: For thus says the LORD: “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued, for I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children.
26: I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the LORD your Savior,
and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Chapter 50

Israel’s Sin and the Servant’s Obedience
1: Thus says the LORD: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce, with which I sent her away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.
2: Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert; their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst.
3: I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering.”
4: The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.
5: The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward.
6: I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.
7: But the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
8: He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together.
Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me.
9: Behold, the Lord GOD helps me; who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.
10: Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.
11: Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment.

Chapter 51

The LORD’s Comfort for Zion
1: “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.
2: Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him that I might bless him and multiply him.
3: For the LORD comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD;joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.
4: “Give attention to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation; for a law will go out from me, and I will set my justice for a light to the peoples.
5: My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands hope for me, and for my arm they wait.
6: Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner; but my salvation will be forever and my righteousness will never be dismayed.
7: “Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings.
8: For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool, but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations.”
9: Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in days of old,
the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?
10: Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?
11: And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
12: “I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass,
13: and have forgotten the LORD, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens
and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy? And where is the wrath of the oppressor?
14: He who is bowed down shall speedily be released; he shall not die and go down to the pit, neither shall his bread be lacking.
15: I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar - the LORD of hosts is his name.
16: And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’”
17: Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering.
18: There is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne; there is none to take her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up.
19: These two things have happened to you - who will console you? -
devastation and destruction, famine and sword; who will comfort you?
20: Your sons have fainted; they lie at the head of every street like an antelope in a net; they are full of the wrath of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.
21: Therefore hear this, you who are afflicted, who are drunk, but not with wine:
22: Thus says your Lord, the LORD, your God who pleads the cause of his people:
“Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more;
23: and I will put it into the hand of your tormentors, who have said to you,
‘Bow down, that we may pass over’; and you have made your back like the ground
and like the street for them to pass over.”

Chapter 52

The LORD’s Comfort for Zion
1: “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.
2: Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him that I might bless him and multiply him.
3: For the LORD comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.
4: “Give attention to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation; for a law will go out from me, and I will set my justice for a light to the peoples.
5: My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands hope for me, and for my arm they wait.
6: Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner; but my salvation will be forever and my righteousness will never be dismayed.
7: “Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law;
fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings.
8: For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool,
but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations.”
9: Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?
10: Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?
11: And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
12: “I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies,
of the son of man who is made like grass,
13: and have forgotten the LORD, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy? And where is the wrath of the oppressor?
14: He who is bowed down shall speedily be released; he shall not die and go down to the pit, neither shall his bread be lacking.
15: I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar - the LORD of hosts is his name.
16: And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand,
establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’”
17: Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering.
18: There is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne; there is none to take her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up.
19: These two things have happened to you - who will console you? - devastation and destruction, famine and sword; who will comfort you?
20: Your sons have fainted; they lie at the head of every street like an antelope in a net;
they are full of the wrath of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.
21: Therefore hear this, you who are afflicted, who are drunk, but not with wine:
22: Thus says your Lord, the LORD, your God who pleads the cause of his people: “Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more;
23: and I will put it into the hand of your tormentors, who have said to you, ‘Bow down, that we may pass over’; and you have made your back like the ground and like the street for them to pass over.”

Day 213: Isaiah 44 - 47

Chapter 44

Israel the LORD’s Chosen
1: “But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen!
2: Thus says the LORD who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you:
Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen.
3: For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.
4: They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams.
5: This one will say, ‘I am the LORD’s,’ another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, ‘The LORD’s,’ and name himself by the name of Israel.”
Besides Me There Is No God
6: Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts:
“I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.
7: Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen.
8: Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.”
The Folly of Idolatry
9: All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know that they may be put to shame.
10: Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing?
11: Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together.
12: The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint.
13: The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house.
14: He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it.
15: Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it.
16: Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!”
17: And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
18: They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand.
19: No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”
20: He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

The LORD Redeems Israel
21: Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you; you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.
22: I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.
23: Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel.
24: Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: “I am the LORD, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself,
25: who frustrates the signs of liars and makes fools of diviners, who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish,
26: who confirms the word of his servant and fulfills the counsel of his messengers,
who says of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be inhabited,’ and of the cities of Judah, ‘They shall be built, and I will raise up their ruins’;
27: who says to the deep, ‘Be dry; I will dry up your rivers’;
28: who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’

Chapter 45

Cyrus, God’s Instrument
1: Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him
that gates may not be closed:
2: “I will go before you and level the exalted places; I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron,
3: I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
4: For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen,I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me.
5: I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me,
6: that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other.
7: I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things.
8: “Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit; let the earth cause them both to sprout; I the LORD have created it.
9: “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?
10: Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?’”
11: Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him: “Ask me of things to come; will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands?
12: I made the earth and created man on it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.
13: I have stirred him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways level; he shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for price or reward,” says the LORD of hosts.

The LORD, the Only Savior 

14: Thus says the LORD: “The wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over to you and be yours; they shall follow you;
they shall come over in chains and bow down to you. They will plead with you, saying:
‘Surely God is in you, and there is no other, no god besides him.’”
15: Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior.
16: All of them are put to shame and confounded; the makers of idols go in confusion together.
17: But Israel is saved by the LORD with everlasting salvation; you shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity.
18: For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): “I am the LORD, and there is no other.
19: I did not speak in secret, in a land of darkness; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, ‘Seek me in vain.’ I the LORD speak the truth; I declare what is right.
20: “Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations!
They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save.
21: Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the LORD? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me.
22: “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.
23: By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’
24: “Only in the LORD, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength; to him shall come and be ashamed all who were incensed against him.
25: In the LORD all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory.”

Chapter 46

The Idols of Babylon and the One True God 

1: Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts.
2: They stoop; they bow down together; they cannot save the burden,but themselves go into captivity.
3: “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb;
4: even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.
5: “To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike?
6: Those who lavish gold from the purse, and weigh out silver in the scales, hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god; then they fall down and worship!
7: They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it, they set it in its place, and it stands there;
it cannot move from its place. If one cries to it, it does not answer or save him from his trouble.
8: “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors,
9: remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me,
10: declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
11: calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.
12: “Listen to me, you stubborn of heart, you who are far from righteousness:
13: I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay;
I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory.”

Chapter 47

The Humiliation of Babylon 

1: Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans! For you shall no more be called
tender and delicate.
2: Take the millstones and grind flour, put off your veil, strip off your robe, uncover your legs, pass through the rivers.
3: Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your disgrace shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will spare no one.
4: Our Redeemer—the LORD of hosts is his name— is the Holy One of Israel.
5: Sit in silence, and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for you shall no more be called the mistress of kingdoms.
6: I was angry with my people; I profaned my heritage; I gave them into your hand;
you showed them no mercy; on the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy.
7: You said, “I shall be mistress forever,” so that you did not lay these things to heart
or remember their end.
8: Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me; I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children”:
9: These two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day; the loss of children and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries
and the great power of your enchantments.
10: You felt secure in your wickedness; you said, “No one sees me”; your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, and you said in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.”
11: But evil shall come upon you, which you will not know how to charm away; disaster shall fall upon you, for which you will not be able to atone; and ruin shall come upon you suddenly, of which you know nothing.
12: Stand fast in your enchantments and your many sorceries, with which you have labored from your youth; perhaps you may be able to succeed; perhaps you may inspire terror.
13: You are wearied with your many counsels; let them stand forth and save you,
those who divide the heavens, who gaze at the stars, who at the new moons make known what shall come upon you.
14: Behold, they are like stubble; the fire consumes them; they cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. No coal for warming oneself is this,
no fire to sit before!
15: Such to you are those with whom you have labored, who have done business with you from your youth; they wander about, each in his own direction; there is no one to save you.

Day 212: Isaiah 41 - 43

Chapter 41

Fear Not, for I Am with You
1: Listen to me in silence, O coastlands; let the peoples renew their strength; let them approach, then let them speak; let us together draw near for judgment.
2: Who stirred up one from the east whom victory meets at every step? He gives up nations before him, so that he tramples kings underfoot; he makes them like dust with his sword, like driven stubble with his bow.
3: He pursues them and passes on safely, by paths his feet have not trod.
4: Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.
5: The coastlands have seen and are afraid; the ends of the earth tremble; they have drawn near and come.
6: Everyone helps his neighbor and says to his brother, “Be strong!”
7: The craftsman strengthens the goldsmith, and he who smooths with the hammer him who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, “It is good”; and they strengthen it with nails so that it cannot be moved.
8: But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
9: you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners,
saying to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
10: fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
11: Behold, all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded;
those who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish.
12: You shall seek those who contend with you, but you shall not find them; those who war against you shall be as nothing at all.
13: For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not,
I am the one who helps you.”
14: Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the LORD; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
15: Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge, new, sharp, and having teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and crush them, and you shall make the hills like chaff;
16: you shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the tempest shall scatter them. And you shall rejoice in the LORD; in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.
17: When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the LORD will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
18: I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
19: I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive. I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together,
20: that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.
The Futility of Idols
21: Set forth your case, says the LORD; bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob.
22: Let them bring them, and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome; or declare to us the things to come.
23: Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; do good, or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified.
24: Behold, you are nothing, and your work is less than nothing; an abomination is he who chooses you.
25: I stirred up one from the north, and he has come, from the rising of the sun, and he shall call upon my name; he shall trample on rulers as on mortar, as the potter treads clay.
26: Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know, and beforehand, that we might say, “He is right”? There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed, none who heard your words.
27: I was the first to say to Zion, “Behold, here they are!” and I give to Jerusalem a herald of good news.
28: But when I look, there is no one; among these there is no counselor who, when I ask, gives an answer.
29: Behold, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their metal images are empty wind.

Chapter 42

The LORD’s Chosen Servant
1: Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.
2: He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street;
3: a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.
4: He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.
5: Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it:
6: “I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations,
7: to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
8: I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.
9: Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
Sing to the LORD a New Song
10: Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants.
11: Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits; let the habitants of Sela sing for joy, let them shout from the top of the mountains.
12: Let them give glory to the LORD, and declare his praise in the coastlands.
13: The LORD goes out like a mighty man, like a man of war he stirs up his zeal; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes.
14: For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor; I will gasp and pant.
15: I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation; I will turn the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools.
16: And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.
17: They are turned back and utterly put to shame, who trust in carved idols, who say to metal images, “You are our gods.”
Israel’s Failure to Hear and See
18: Hear you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see!
19: Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the LORD?
20: He sees many things, but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear.
21: The LORD was pleased, for his righteousness’ sake, to magnify his law and make it glorious.
22: But this is a people plundered and looted; they are all of them trapped in holes and hidden in prisons; they have become plunder with none to rescue, spoil with none to say, “Restore!”
23: Who among you will give ear to this, will attend and listen for the time to come?
24: Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey?
25: So he poured on him the heat of his anger and the might of battle; it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand;it burned him up, but he did not take it to heart.

Chapter 43

 Israel’s Only Savior
1: But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.
2: When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
3: For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you.
4: Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.
5: Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you.
6: I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth,
7: everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
8: Bring out the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears!
9: All the nations gather together, and the peoples assemble. Who among them can declare this, and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right, and let them hear and say, it is true.
10: “You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.
11: I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior.
12: I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you;
and you are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and I am God.
13: Also henceforth I am he; there is none who can deliver from my hand; I work, and who can turn it back?”
14: Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “For your sake I send to Babylon and bring them all down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships in which they rejoice.
15: I am the LORD, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.”
16: Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,
17: who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise,
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
18: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.
19: Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
20: The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people,
21: the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.
22: “Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel!
23: You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings, or honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, or wearied you with frankincense.
24: You have not bought me sweet cane with money, or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me with your iniquities.
25: “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.
26: Put me in remembrance; let us argue together; set forth your case, that you may be proved right.
27: Your first father sinned, and your mediators transgressed against me.
28: Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary, and deliver Jacob to utter destruction and Israel to reviling.

Day 211: Isaiah 37 - 40

Chapter 37


Hezekiah Seeks Isaiah’s Help
1: As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD.
2: And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz.
3: They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, ‘this day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth.
4: It may be that the LORD your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’”
5: When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah,
6: Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘thus says the LORD: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the young men of the king of Assyria have reviled me.
7: Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.’”
8: The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left Lachish.
9: Now the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, “He has set out to fight against you.” And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,
10: “Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.
11: Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered?
12: Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar?
13: Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?’”

Hezekiah’s Prayer for Deliverance
14: Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.
15: And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD:
16: “O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.
17: Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God.
18: Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands,
19: and have cast their gods into the fire. For they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed.
20: So now, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the LORD.”
Sennacherib’s fall
21: Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria,
22: this is the word that the LORDhas spoken concerning him: “‘She despises you, she scorns you - the virgin daughter of Zion; she wags her head behind you - the daughter of Jerusalem.
23: “‘Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel!
24: By your servants you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, With my many chariots I have gone up the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon,
to cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses, to come to its remotest height,
its most fruitful forest.
25: I dug wells and drank waters, to dry up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt.
26: “‘Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins,
27: while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded, and have become like plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops, blighted before it is grown.
28: “‘I know your sitting down and your going out and coming in, and your raging against me.
29: Because you have raged against me and your complacency has come to my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came.’
30: “And this shall be the sign for you: this year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that. Then in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.
31: And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
32: For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
33: “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it.
34: By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the LORD.
35: For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”
36: And the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000: in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.
37: Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh.
38: And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword. And after they escaped into the land of Ararat, Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

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Chapter 38


Hezekiah’s Sickness and Recovery
1: In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover.”
2: Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD,
3: and said, “Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4: Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah:
5: “Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life.
6: I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and will defend this city.
7: “This shall be the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he has promised:
8: Behold, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps.” So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined.
9: A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:
10: I said, In the middle of my days I must depart; I am consigned to the gates of Sheol
for the rest of my years.
11: I said I shall not see the LORD, the LORD in the land of the living; I shall look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world.
12: My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd’s tent; like a weaver I have rolled up my life; he cuts me off from the loom; from day to night you bring me to an end;
13: I calmed myself until morning; like a lion he breaks all my bones; from day to night you bring me to an end.
14: Like a swallow or a crane I chirp; I moan like a dove. My eyes are weary with looking upward. O Lord, I am oppressed; be my pledge of safety!
15: What shall I say? For he has spoken to me, and he himself has done it. I walk slowly all my years because of the bitterness of my soul.
16: O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these is the life of my spirit. Oh restore me to health and make me live!
17: Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.
18: For Sheol does not thank you; death does not praise you; those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness.
19: The living, the living, he thanks you, as I do this day; the father makes known to the children your faithfulness.
20: The LORD will save me, and we will play my music on stringed instruments all the days of our lives, at the house of the LORD.
21: Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover.”
22: Hezekiah also had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?”

Chapter 39

Envoys from Babylon
1: At that time Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that he had been sick and had recovered.
2: And Hezekiah welcomed them gladly. And he showed them his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his whole armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.
3: Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” Hezekiah said, “They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon.”
4: He said, “What have they seen in your house?” Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house. There is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”
5: Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD of hosts:
6: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD.
7: And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
8: Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my days.”

Chapter 40

Comfort for God’s People
1: Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
2: Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.
3: A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4: Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.
5: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
The Word of God Stands Forever
6: A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
7: The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
8: The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
The Greatness of God
9: Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah,
“Behold your God!”
10: Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.
11: He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.
12: Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?
13: Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel?
14: Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?
15: Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
16: Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
17: All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
18: To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?
19: An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains.
20: He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move.
21: Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22: It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
23: who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
24: Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
25: To whom then will you compare me that I should be like him? Says the Holy One.
26: Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.
27: Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
28: Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
29: He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30: Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
31: but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Day 210: Isaiah 31 - 36

Chapter 31


Woe to Those Who Go Down to Egypt
1: Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the LORD!
2: And yet he is wise and brings disaster; he does not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.
3: The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD stretches out his hand, the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall,
and they will all perish together.
4: For thus the LORD said to me, “As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey, and when a band of shepherds is called out against him he is not terrified by their shouting
or daunted at their noise, so the LORD of hosts will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its hill.
5: Like birds hovering, so the LORD of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it; he will spare and rescue it.”
6: Turn to him from whom people have deeply revolted, O children of Israel.
7: For in that day everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.
8: “And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man; and a sword, not of man, shall devour him; and he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be put to forced labor.
9: His rock shall pass away in terror, and his officers desert the standard in panic,” declares the LORD, whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

Chapter 32

A King Will Reign in Righteousness
1: Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice.
2: Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.
3: Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention.
4: The heart of the hasty will understand and know, and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly.
5: The fool will no more be called noble, nor the scoundrel said to be honorable.
6: For the fool speaks folly, and his heart is busy with iniquity, to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the LORD, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied, and to deprive the thirsty of drink.
7: As for the scoundrel - his devices are evil; he plans wicked schemes to ruin the poor with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is right.
8: But he who is noble plans noble things, and on noble things he stands.
Complacent Women Warned of Disaster
9: Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech.
10: In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women;
for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come.
11: Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist.
12: Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,
13: for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers, yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city.
14: For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower
will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks;
15: until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
16: Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
17: And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.
18: My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.
19: And it will hail when the forest falls down, and the city will be utterly laid low.
20: Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.

Chapter 33

O LORD, Be Gracious to Us
1: Ah, you destroyer, who yourself have not been destroyed, you traitor, whom none has betrayed! When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betraying, they will betray you.
2: O LORD, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble.
3: At the tumultuous noise peoples flee; when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered,
4: and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers; as locusts leap, it is leapt upon.
5: The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness,
6: and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is Zion’s treasure.
7: Behold, their heroes cry in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly.
8: The highways lie waste; the traveler ceases. Covenants are broken; cities are despised; there is no regard for man.
9: The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is confounded and withers away; Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.
10: “Now I will arise,” says the LORD, “now I will lift myself up; now I will be exalted.
11: You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble; your breath is a fire that will consume you.
12: And the peoples will be as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”
13: Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my might.
14: The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”
15: He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil,
16: he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; his water will be sure.
17: Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar.
18: Your heart will muse on the terror: “Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed the tribute? Where is he who counted the towers?”
19: You will see no more the insolent people, the people of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend, stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand.
20: Behold Zion, the city of our appointed feasts! Your eyes will see Jerusalem, an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent, whose stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken.
21: But there the LORD in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams,
where no galley with oars can go, nor majestic ship can pass.
22: For the LORD is our judge; the LORD is our lawgiver; the LORD is our king; he will save us.
23: Your cords hang loose; they cannot hold the mast firm in its place or keep the sail spread out. Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided; even the lame will take the prey.
24: And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.

Chapter 34


Judgment on the Nations
1: Draw near, O nations, to hear, and give attention, O peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes from it.
2: For the LORD is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter.
3: Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise; the mountains shall flow with their blood.
4: All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree.
5: For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction.
6: The LORD has a sword; it is sated with blood; it is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7: Wild oxen shall fall with them, and young steers with the mighty bulls. Their land shall drink its fill of blood, and their soil shall be gorged with fat.
8: For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
9: And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch.
10: Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.
11: But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness.
12: Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom, and all its princes shall be nothing.
13: Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches.
14: And wild animals shall meet with hyenas; the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; indeed, there the night bird settles and finds for herself a resting place.
15: There the owl nests and lays and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow; indeed, there the hawks are gathered, each one with her mate.
16: Seek and read from the book of the LORD: Not one of these shall be missing; none shall be without her mate. For the mouth of the LORD has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them.
17: He has cast the lot for them; his hand has portioned it out to them with the line; they shall possess it forever; from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.

Chapter 35

The Ransomed Shall Return
1: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;
2: it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God.
3: Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.
4: Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God
will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”
5: Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6: then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;
7: the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
8: And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.
9: No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.
10: And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Chapter 36


Sennacherib Invades Judah
1: In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.
2: And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem, with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer’s Field.
3: And 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: And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours?
5: Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust that you have rebelled against me?
6: Behold, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh, King of Egypt to all who trust in him.
7: But if you say to me, “We trust in the LORD our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar”?
8: Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them.
9: How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
10: Moreover, is it without theLORD that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The LORD said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”
11: Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
12: But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”
13: Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!
14: Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you.
15: Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD by saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”
16: Do not listen to Hezekiah. For thus says the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern,
17: until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
18: Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying, “The LORD will deliver us.” Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his 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? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?
20: Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”
21: But they were silent and answered him not a word, for the king’s command was, “Do not answer him.”
22: Then 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 clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.

Day 209: Isaiah 28 - 30

Chapter 28

Judgment on Ephraim and Jerusalem
1: Ah, the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, and the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome with wine!
2: Behold, the Lord has one who is mighty and strong; like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest, like a storm of mighty, overflowing waters, he casts down to the earth with his hand.
3: The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden underfoot;
4: and the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley,
will be like a first-ripe fig before the summer: when someone sees it, he swallows it
as soon as it is in his hand.
5: In that day the LORD of hosts will be a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of his people,
6: and a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.
7: These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are swallowed by wine, they stagger with strong drink,
they reel in vision, they stumble in giving judgment.
8: For all tables are full of filthy vomit, with no space left.
9: “To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast?
10: For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line,
here a little, there a little.”
11: For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people,
12: to whom he has said, “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”;
yet they would not hear.
13: And the word of the LORD will be to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

A Cornerstone in Zion
14: Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scoffers, who rule this people in Jerusalem!
15: Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement, when the overwhelming whip passes through it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter”;
16: therefore thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’
17: And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plumb line; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter.”
18: Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it.
19: As often as it passes through it will take you; for morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be sheer terror to understand the message.
20: For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in.
21: For the LORD will rise up as on Mount Perazim; as in the Valley of Gibeon he will be roused; to do his deed—strange is his deed! and to work his work—alien is his work!
22: Now therefore do not scoff, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord GOD of hosts against the whole land.
23: Give ear, and hear my voice; give attention, and hear my speech.
24: Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground?
25: When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cumin, and put in wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and emmer as the border?
26: For he is rightly instructed; his God teaches him.
27: Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cart wheel rolled over cumin,
but dill is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod.
28: Does one crush grain for bread? No, he does not thresh it forever; when he drives his cart wheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it.
29: This also comes from the LORD of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel
and excellent in wisdom.

Chapter 29

The Siege of Jerusalem
1: Ah, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts run their round.
2: Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be moaning and lamentation, and she shall be to me like an Ariel.
3: And I will encamp against you all around, and will besiege you with towers and I will raise siegeworks against you.
4: And you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak, and from the dust your speech will be bowed down; your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost, and from the dust your speech shall whisper.
5: But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff. And in an instant, suddenly,
6: you will be visited by the LORD of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
7: And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her, shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.
8: As when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating, and awakes with his hunger not satisfied, or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking, and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched, so shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion.
9: Astonish yourselves and be astonished; blind yourselves and be blind! Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink!
10: For the LORD has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes (the prophets), and covered your heads (the seers).
11: And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.”
12: And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.”
13: And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
14: therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
15: Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark,
and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?” 16: You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
17: Is it not yet a very little while until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?
18: In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.
19: The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
20: For the ruthless shall come to nothing and the scoffer cease, and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off,
21: who by a word make a man out to be an offender, and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate, and with an empty plea turn aside him who is in the right.
22: Therefore thus says the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob: “Jacob shall no more be ashamed, no more shall his face grow pale.
23: For when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in his midst, they will sanctify my name; they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
24: And those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur will accept instruction.”

Chapter 30

Do Not Go Down to Egypt
1: “Ah, stubborn children,” declares the LORD, “who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin;
2: who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!
3: Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.
4: For though his officials are at Zoan and his envoys reach Hanes,
5: everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace.”
6: An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that cannot profit them.
7: Egypt’s help is worthless and empty; therefore I have called her “Rahab who sits still.”

A Rebellious People
8: And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever.
9: For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear
the instruction of the LORD;
10: who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions,
11: leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
12: Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them,
13: therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;
14: and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”
15: For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling,
16: and you said, “No! We will flee upon horses”; therefore you shall flee away; and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”; therefore your pursuers shall be swift.
17: A thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you shall flee, till you are left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain, like a signal on a hill.

The LORD Will Be Gracious
18: Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.
19: For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you.
20: And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher.
21: And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.
22: Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”
23: And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures,
24: and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork.
25: And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
26: Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the LORD binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.
27: Behold, the name of the LORD comes from afar, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke; his lips are full of fury, and his tongue is like a devouring fire;
28: his breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck; to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction, and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads astray.
29: You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel.
30: And the LORD will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and storm and hailstones.
31: The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the LORD, when he strikes with his rod.
32: And every stroke of the appointed staff that the LORD lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres. Battling with brandished arm, he will fight with them.
33: For a burning place has long been prepared; indeed, for the king it is made ready, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.