Day 220: Jeremiah 7 - 9

Chapter 7

Evil in the Land

1: The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

2: “Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the LORD.
3: Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place.
4: Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’
5: “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another,
6: if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm,
7: then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.
8: “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail.
9: Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known,
10: and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations?
11: Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the LORD.
12: Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel.
13: And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer,
14: therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.
15: And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim.
16: “As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.
17: Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18: The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.
19: Is it I whom they provoke? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves, to their own shame?
20: Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.”
21: Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.
22: For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.
23: But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’
24: But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.
25: From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day.
26: Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.
27: “So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you.
28: And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of theLORD their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.
29: “‘Cut off your hair and cast it away; raise a lamentation on the bare heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.’


The Valley of Slaughter
30: “For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the LORD. They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name, to defile it.
31: And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.
32: Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere.
33: And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away.
34: And I will silence in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the land shall become a waste.

Chapter 8

1: “At that time, declares the LORD, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs.

2: And they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped. And they shall not be gathered or buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground.
3: Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them, declares the LORD of hosts.
Sin and Treachery
4: “You shall say to them, Thus says the LORD: When men fall, do they not rise again? If one turns away, does he not return?
5: Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return.
6: I have paid attention and listened, but they have not spoken rightly; no man relents of his evil, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turns to his own course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
7: Even the stork in the heavens knows her times, and the turtledove, swallow, and crane
keep the time of their coming, but my people know not the rules of the LORD.
8: “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.
9: The wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken; behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?
10: Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to conquerors, because from the least to the greatest, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely.
11: They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.
12: Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the LORD.
13: When I would gather them, declares the LORD, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree; even the leaves are withered, and what I gave them has passed away from them.”
14: Why do we sit still? Gather together; let us go into the fortified cities and perish there, for the LORD our God has doomed us to perish and has given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.
15: We looked for peace, but no good came; for a time of healing, but behold, terror.
16: “The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan; at the sound of the neighing of their stallions the whole land quakes. They come and devour the land and all that fills it, the city and those who dwell in it.
17: For behold, I am sending among you serpents, adders that cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah Grieves for His People
18: My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick within me.
19: Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people from the length and breadth of the land: “Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” “Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images and with their foreign idols?”
20: “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”
21: For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded; I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.
22: Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?

Chapter 9

1: Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

2: Oh that I had in the desert a travelers’ lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a company of treacherous men.
3: They bend their tongue like a bow; falsehood and not truth has grown strong in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, declares the LORD.
4: Let everyone beware of his neighbor, and put no trust in any brother, for every brother is a deceiver, and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer.
5: Everyone deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves committing iniquity.
6: Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit, they refuse to know me, declares the LORD.
7: Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: “Behold, I will refine them and test them, for what else can I do, because of my people?
8: Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceitfully; with his mouth each speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he plans an ambush for him.
9: Shall I not punish them for these things? declares the LORD, and shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?
10: “I will take up weeping and wailing for the mountains, and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are laid waste so that no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard; both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled and are gone.
11: I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of jackals, and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
12: Who is the man so wise that he can understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?
13: And the LORD says: “Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it,
14: but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them.
15: Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will feed this people with bitter food, and give them poisonous water to drink.
16: I will scatter them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”
17: Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Consider, and call for the mourning women to come;
send for the skillful women to come;
18: let them make haste and raise a wailing over us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids flow with water.
19: For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How we are ruined! We are utterly shamed, because we have left the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.’”
20: Hear, O women, the word of the LORD, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; teach to your daughters a lament, and each to her neighbor a dirge.
21: For death has come up into our windows; it has entered our palaces, cutting off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares.
22: Speak: “Thus declares the LORD, ‘The dead bodies of men shall fall like dung upon the open field, like sheaves after the reaper, and none shall gather them.’”
23: Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches,
24: but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.”
25: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh
26: Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”

Day 219: Jeremiah 4 - 6

Chapter 4



1: “If you return, O Israel, declares the LORD, to me you should return. If you remove your detestable things from my presence, and do not waver,
2: and if you swear, ‘As the LORD lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness,
then nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.”
3: For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.
4: Circumcise yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.”

Disaster from the North
5: Declare in Judah, and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say, Blow the trumpet through the land; cry aloud and say, ‘Assemble, and let us go into the fortified cities!’
6: Raise a standard toward Zion, flee for safety, stay not, for I bring disaster from the north, and great destruction.
7: A lion has gone up from his thicket, a destroyer of nations has set out; he has gone out from his place to make your land a waste; your cities will be ruins without inhabitant.
8: For this put on sackcloth, lament and wail, for the fierce anger of the LORD
has not turned back from us.”
9: “In that day, declares the LORD, courage shall fail both king and officials. The priests shall be appalled and the prophets astounded.”
10: Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD, surely you have utterly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘It shall be well with you,’ whereas the sword has reached their very life.”
11: At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A hot wind from the bare heights in the desert toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow or cleanse,
12:a wind too full for this comes for me. Now it is I who speak in judgment upon them.”
13: Behold, he comes up like clouds; his chariots like the whirlwind; his horses are swifter than eagles - woe to us, for we are ruined!
14: O Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil, that you may be saved. How long shall your wicked thoughts lodge within you?
15: For a voice declares from Dan and proclaims trouble from Mount Ephraim.
16: Warn the nations that he is coming; announce to Jerusalem, “Besiegers come from a distant land; they shout against the cities of Judah.
17: Like keepers of a field are they against her all around, because she has rebelled against me, declares the LORD.
18: Your ways and your deeds have brought this upon you. This is your doom, and it is bitter; it has reached your very heart.”

Anguish over Judah’s Desolation
19: My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh the walls of my heart! My heart is beating wildly; I cannot keep silent, for I hear the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
20: Crash follows hard on crash; the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are laid waste, my curtains in a moment.
21: How long must I see the standard and hear the sound of the trumpet?
22: “For my people are foolish; they know me not; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are ‘wise’—in doing evil! But how to do good they know not.”
23: I looked on the earth, and behold, it was without form and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light.
24: I looked on the mountains, and behold, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro.
25: I looked, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the air had fled.
26: I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger.
27: For thus says the LORD, “The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.
28: “For this the earth shall mourn,
and the heavens above be dark;
for I have spoken; I have purposed;
I have not relented, nor will I turn back.”
29: At the noise of horseman and archer every city takes to flight; they enter thickets; they climb among rocks; all the cities are forsaken, and no man dwells in them.
30: And you, O desolate one, what do you mean that you dress in scarlet, that you adorn yourself with ornaments of gold, that you enlarge your eyes with paint? In vain you beautify yourself. Your lovers despise you; they seek your life.
31: For I heard a cry as of a woman in labor, anguish as of one giving birth to her first child, the cry of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands, “Woe is me! I am fainting before murderers.”

Chapter 5

Jerusalem Refused to Repent
1: Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look and take note! Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her.
2: Though they say, “As the LORD lives,” yet they swear falsely.
3: O LORD, do not your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent.
4: Then I said, “These are only the poor; they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.
5: I will go to the great and will speak to them, for they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.” But they all alike had broken the yoke; they had burst the bonds.
6: Therefore a lion from the forest shall strike them down; a wolf from the desert shall devastate them. A leopard is watching their cities; everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are great.
7: “How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me and have sworn by those who are no gods. When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery
and trooped to the houses of whores.
8: They were well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor’s wife.
9: Shall I not punish them for these things? declares the LORD; and shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?
10: “Go up through her vine rows and destroy, but make not a full end; strip away her branches, for they are not the LORD’s.
11: For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly treacherous to me, declares the LORD.
12: They have spoken falsely of the LORD and have said, ‘He will do nothing;
no disaster will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine.
13: The prophets will become wind; the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them!’”

The LORD Proclaims Judgment
14: Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of hosts: “Because you have spoken this word, behold, I am making my words in your mouth a fire, and this people wood and the fire shall consume them.
15: Behold, I am bringing against you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, declares the LORD. It is an enduring nation; it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say.
16: Their quiver is like an open tomb; they are all mighty warriors.
17: They shall eat up your harvest and your food; they shall eat up your sons and your daughters; they shall eat up your flocks and your herds; they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees; your fortified cities in which you trust
they shall beat down with the sword.”
18: “But even in those days, declares the LORD, I will not make a full end of you.
19: And when your people say, ‘Why has the LORD our God done all these things to us?’ you shall say to them, ‘As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve foreigners in a land that is not yours.’”
20: Declare this in the house of Jacob; proclaim it in Judah:
21: “Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not.
22: Do you not fear me? declares the LORD. Do you not tremble before me? I placed the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass;
though the waves toss, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot pass over it.
23: But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away.
24: They do not say in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rain in its season, the autumn rain and the spring rain, and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest.’
25: Your iniquities have turned these away, and your sins have kept good from you.
26: For wicked men are found among my people; they lurk like fowlers lying in wait. They set a trap; they catch men.
27: Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; therefore they have become great and rich;
28: they have grown fat and sleek. They know no bounds in deeds of evil; they judge not with justice the cause of the fatherless, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy.
29: Shall I not punish them for these things? declares the LORD, and shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?”
30: An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land:
31: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?

Chapter 6

Impending Disaster for Jerusalem
1: Flee for safety, O people of Benjamin, from the midst of Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise a signal on Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms out of the north, and great destruction.
2: The lovely and delicately bred I will destroy, the daughter of Zion.
3: Shepherds with their flocks shall come against her; they shall pitch their tents around her; they shall pasture each in his place.
4: “Prepare war against her; arise, and let us attack at noon! Woe to us, for the day declines, for the shadows of evening lengthen!
5: Arise, and let us attack by night and destroy her palaces!”
6: For thus says the LORD of hosts: “Cut down her trees; cast up a siege mound against Jerusalem. This is the city that must be punished; there is nothing but oppression within her.
7: As a well keeps its water fresh, so she keeps fresh her evil; violence and destruction are heard within her; sickness and wounds are ever before me.
8: Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I turn from you in disgust, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.”
9: Thus says the LORD of hosts: “They shall glean thoroughly as a vine the remnant of Israel; like a grape gatherer pass your hand again over its branches.”
10: To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised, they cannot listen; behold, the word of the LORD is to them an object of scorn; they take no pleasure in it.
11: Therefore I am full of the wrath of the LORD; I am weary of holding it in. “Pour it out upon the children in the street, and upon the gatherings of young men, also; both husband and wife shall be taken, the elderly and the very aged.
12: Their houses shall be turned over to others, their fields and wives together, for I will stretch out my hand against the inhabitants of the land,” declares the LORD.
13: “For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely.
14: They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.
15: Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,” says the LORD.
16: Thus says the LORD: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
17: I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Pay attention to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not pay attention.’
18: Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what will happen to them.
19: Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.
20: What use to me is frankincense that comes from Sheba, or sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing to me.
21: Therefore thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I will lay before this people tumbling blocks against which they shall stumble; fathers and sons together, neighbor and friend shall perish.’”
22: Thus says the LORD: “Behold, a people is coming from the north country, a great nation is stirring from the farthest parts of the earth.
23: They lay hold on bow and javelin; they are cruel and have no mercy; the sound of them is like the roaring sea; they ride on horses, set in array as a man for battle, against you, O daughter of Zion!”
24: We have heard the report of it; our hands fall helpless; anguish has taken hold of us, pain as of a woman in labor.
25: Go not out into the field, nor walk on the road, for the enemy has a sword; terror is on every side.
26: O daughter of my people, put on sackcloth, and roll in ashes; make mourning as for an only son, most bitter lamentation, for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us.
27: “I have made you a tester of metals among my people, that you may know and test their ways.
28: They are all stubbornly rebellious, going about with slanders; they are bronze and iron; all of them act corruptly.
29: The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed by the fire; in vain the refining goes on, for the wicked are not removed.
30: Rejected silver they are called, for the LORD has rejected them.”

Day 218: Jeremiah 1 - 3

Chapter 1

1: The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin,
2: to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.
3: It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.

The Call of Jeremiah
4: Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
6: : Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.”
7: But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak.
8: Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD.”
9: Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.
10: See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”
11: And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see an almond branch.”
12: Then the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.”
13: The word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north.”
14: Then the LORD said to me, “Out of the north disaster shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land.
15: For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, declares the LORD, and they shall come, and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls all around and against all the cities of Judah.
16: And I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands.
17: But you, dress yourself for work; arise, and say to them everything that I command you. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them.
18: And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land.
19: They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the LORD, to deliver you.”

Chapter 2

Israel Forsakes the LORD
1: The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
2: “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the LORD, “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.
3: Israel was holy to the LORD, the first fruits of his harvest. All who ate of it incurred guilt; disaster came upon them, declares the LORD.”
4: Hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel.
5: Thus says the LORD: “What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?
6: They did not say, ‘Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that none passes through, where no man dwells?’
7: And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination.
8: The priests did not say, ‘Where is the LORD?’ Those who handle the law did not know me; the shepherds transgressed against me; the prophets prophesied by Baal and went after things that do not profit.
9: “Therefore I still contend with you, declares the LORD, and with your children’s children I will contend.
10: For cross to the coasts of Cyprus and see, or send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has been such a thing.
11: Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.
12: Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD,
13: for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
14: “Is Israel a slave? Is he a home born servant? Why then has he become a prey?
15: The lions have roared against him; they have roared loudly. They have made his land a waste; his cities are in ruins, without inhabitant.
16: Moreover, the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have shaved the crown of your head.
17: Have you not brought this upon yourself by forsaking the LORD your God, when he led you in the way?
18: And now what do you gain by going to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile?
Or what do you gain by going to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
19: Your evil will chastise you, and your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the LORD your God; the fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord GOD of hosts.
20: “For long ago I broke your yoke and burst your bonds; but you said, ‘I will not serve.’ Yes, on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed down like a whore.
21: Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine?
22: Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, declares the Lord GOD.
23: How can you say, ‘I am not unclean, I have not gone after the Baals’? Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done - a restless young camel running here and there,
24: a wild donkey used to the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind! Who can restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves; in her month they will find her.
25: Keep your feet from going unshod and your throat from thirst. But you said, ‘It is hopeless, for I have loved foreigners, and after them I will go.’
26: “As a thief is shamed when caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed: they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets,
27: who say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
For they have turned their back to me, and not their face. But in the time of their trouble they say, ‘Arise and save us!’
28: But where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you, in your time of trouble; for as many as your cities are your gods, O Judah.
29: “Why do you contend with me? You have all transgressed against me, declares the LORD.
30: In vain have I struck your children; they took no correction; your own sword devoured your prophets like a ravening lion.
31: And you, O generation, behold the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of thick darkness? Why then do my people say, ‘We are free, we will come no more to you’?
32: Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number.
33: “How well you direct your course to seek love! So that even to wicked women
you have taught your ways.
34: Also on your skirts is found the lifeblood of the guiltless poor; you did not find them breaking in. Yet in spite of all these things
35: you say, ‘I am innocent; surely his anger has turned from me.’ Behold, I will bring you to judgment for saying, ‘I have not sinned.’
36: How much you go about, changing your way! You shall be put to shame by Egypt as you were put to shame by Assyria.
37: From it too you will come away with your hands on your head, for the LORD has rejected those in whom you trust, and you will not prosper by them.

Chapter 3

1: “If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man’s wife, will he return to her? Would not that land be greatly polluted? You have played the whore with many lovers; and would you return to me? Declares the LORD.
2: Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been ravished? By the waysides you have sat awaiting lovers like an Arab in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your vile whoredom.
3: Therefore the showers have been withheld, and the spring rain has not come;
yet you have the forehead of a whore; you refuse to be ashamed.
4: Have you not just now called to me, ‘My father, you are the friend of my youth-
5: will he be angry forever, will he be indignant to the end?’ Behold, you have spoken, but you have done all the evil that you could.”

Faithless Israel Called to Repentance
6: The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore?
7 : And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
8: She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.
9: Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.
10: Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the LORD.”
11: And the LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.
12: Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, “‘Return, faithless Israel, declares the LORD. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful,
declares the LORD; I will not be angry forever.
13: Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the LORD your God
and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, declares the LORD.
14: Return, O faithless children, declares the LORD; for I am your master; I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.
15: “‘And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.
16: And when you have multiplied and been fruitful in the land, in those days, declares the LORD, they shall no more say, “The ark of the covenant of the LORD.” It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again.
17: At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the LORD, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart.
18: In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers for a heritage.
19: “I said, How I would set you among my sons, and give you a pleasant land,
a heritage most beautiful of all nations. And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me.
20: Surely, as a treacherous wife leaves her husband, so have you been treacherous to me, O house of Israel, declares the LORD.’”
21: A voice on the bare heights is heard, the weeping and pleading of Israel’s sons
because they have perverted their way; they have forgotten the LORD their God.
22: “Return, O faithless sons; I will heal your faithlessness.” “Behold, we come to you, for you are the LORD our God.
23: Truly the hills are a delusion, the orgies on the mountains. Truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.
24: “But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our fathers labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.
25: Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us. For we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.”

Day 217:Isaiah 63 - 66

Chapter 63

The LORD’s Day of Vengeance
1: Who is this who comes from Edom, in crimsoned garments from Bozrah, he who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength? “It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.”
2: Why is your apparel red, and your garments like his who treads in the winepress?
3: “I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me; I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath; their lifeblood spattered on my garments, and stained all my apparel.
4: For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come.
5: I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold;
so my own arm brought me salvation, and my wrath upheld me.
6: I trampled down the peoples in my anger; I made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”
The LORD’s Mercy Remembered
7: I will recount the steadfast love of the LORD, the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel that he has granted them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
8: For he said, “Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely.” And he became their Savior.
9: In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
10: But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their enemy,
and himself fought against them.
11: Then he remembered the days of old, of Moses and his people. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit,
12: who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name,
13: who led them through the depths? Like a horse in the desert, they did not stumble.
14: Like livestock that go down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD gave them rest.
So you led your people, to make for yourself a glorious name.
Prayer for Mercy
15: Look down from heaven and see, from your holy and beautiful habitation. Where are your zeal and your might? The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion are held back from me.
16: For you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.
17: O LORD, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart, so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.
18: Your holy people held possession for a little while; our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.
19: We have become like those over whom you have never ruled, like those who are not called by your name.

Chapter 64

1: Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence –
2: as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil - to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence!
3: When you did awesome things that we did not look for, you came down, the ountains quaked at your presence.
4: From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.
5: You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways. Behold, you were angry, and we sinned; in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?
6: We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7: There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us, and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.
8: But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.
9: Be not so terribly angry, O LORD, and remember not iniquity forever. Behold, please look, we are all your people.
10: Your holy cities have become a wilderness; Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
11: Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised you, has been burned by fire,
and all our pleasant places have become ruins.
12: Will you restrain yourself at these things, O LORD? Will you keep silent, and afflict us so terribly?

Chapter 65

Judgment and Salvation
1: I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am, here I am,” to a nation that was not called by my name.
2: I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices;
3: a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and making offerings on bricks;
4: who sit in tombs, and spend the night in secret places; who eat pig’s flesh, and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels;
5: who say, “Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.” These are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all the day.
6: Behold, it is written before me: “I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will indeed repay into their lap
7: both your iniquities and your fathers’ iniquities together, says the LORD; because they made offerings on the mountains and insulted me on the hills, I will measure into their lap payment for their former deeds.”
8: Thus says the LORD: “As the new wine is found in the cluster, and they say, ‘Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it,’so I will do for my servants’ sake, and not destroy them all.
9: I will bring forth offspring from Jacob, and from Judah possessors of my mountains;
my chosen shall possess it, and my servants shall dwell there.
10: Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down, for my people who have sought me.
11: But you who forsake the LORD, who forget my holy mountain, who set a table for Fortune and fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny,
12: I will destine you to the sword, and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter,
because, when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not listen, but you did what was evil in my eyes and chose what I did not delight in.”
13: Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame;
14: behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart and shall wail for breaking of spirit.
15: You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse, and the Lord GOD will put you to death, but his servants he will call by another name,
16: so that he who blesses himself in the land shall bless himself by the God of truth, and he who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten and are hidden from my eyes.

New Heavens and a New Earth
17: “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.
18: But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.
19: I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.
20: No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.
21: They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22: They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23: They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD, and their descendants with them.
24: Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.
25: The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the LORD.

 

Chapter 66

The Humble and Contrite in Spirit
1: Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?
2: All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.
3: “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog’s neck; he who presents a grain offering, like one who offers pig’s blood; he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like one who blesses an idol.
These have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations;
4: I also will choose harsh treatment for them and bring their fears upon them, because when I called, no one answered, when I spoke, they did not listen; but they did what was evil in my eyes and chose that in which I did not delight.”
5: Hear the word of the LORD, you who tremble at his word: “Your brothers who hate you and cast you out for my name’s sake have said, ‘Let the LORD be glorified, that we may see your joy’; but it is they who shall be put to shame.
6: “The sound of an uproar from the city! A sound from the temple! The sound of the LORD, rendering recompense to his enemies!

Rejoice with Jerusalem
7: “Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she delivered a son.
8: Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor
she brought forth her children.
9: Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?” says the LORD;
“shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?” says your God.
10: “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her;
11: that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance.”
12: For thus says the LORD: “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees.
13: As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
14: You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice; your bones shall flourish like the grass; and the hand of the LORD shall be known to his servants, and he shall show his indignation against his enemies.

Final Judgment and Glory of the LORD
15: “For behold, the LORD will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16: For by fire will the LORD enter into judgment, and by his sword, with all flesh;
and those slain by the LORD shall be many.
17: “Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one in the midst, eating pig’s flesh and the abomination and mice, shall come to an end together, declares the LORD.
18: “For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory,
19: and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations.
20: And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the LORD, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the LORD, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD.
21: And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the LORD.
22: “For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the LORD, so shall your offspring and your name remain.
23: From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the LORD.
24: “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

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 208: Isaiah 23 - 27

Chapter 23

An Oracle Concerning Tyre and Sidon
1: The oracle concerning Tyre. Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for Tyre is laid waste, without house or harbor! From the land of Cyprus it is revealed to them.
2: Be still, O inhabitants of the coast; the merchants of Sidon, who cross the sea, have filled you.
3: And on many waters your revenue was the grain of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile;
you were the merchant of the nations.
4: Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying: “I have neither labored nor given birth; I have neither reared young men nor brought up young women.”
5: When the report comes to Egypt, they will be in anguishb over the report about Tyre.
6: Cross over to Tarshish; wail, O inhabitants of the coast!
7: Is this your exultant city whose origin is from days of old, whose feet carried her
to settle far away?
8: Who has purposed this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth?
9: The LORD of hosts has purposed it, to defile the pompous pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth.
10: Cross over your land like the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish; there is no restraint anymore.
11: He has stretched out his hand over the sea; he has shaken the kingdoms; the LORD has given command concerning Canaan to destroy its strongholds.
12: And he said: “You will no more exult, O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon;
arise, cross over to Cyprus, even there you will have no rest.”
13: Behold the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people that was not;d Assyria destined it for wild beasts. They erected their siege towers, they stripped her palaces bare, they made her a ruin.
14: Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is laid waste.
15: In that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the dayse of one king. At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:
16: “Take a harp; go about the city, O forgotten prostitute! Make sweet melody; sing many songs, that you may be remembered.”
17: At the end of seventy years, the LORD will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.
18: Her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the LORD. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the LORD.

Chapter 24

 Judgment on the Whole Earth
1: Behold, the LORD will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.
2: And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller;
as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the debtor.
3: The earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered; for the LORD has spoken this word.
4: The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and withers; the highest people of the earth languish.
5: The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.
6: Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched, and few men are left.
7: The wine mourns, the vine languishes, all the merry-hearted sigh.
8: The mirth of the tambourines is stilled, the noise of the jubilant has ceased, the mirth of the lyre is stilled.
9: No more do they drink wine with singing; strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.
10: The wasted city is broken down; every house is shut up so that none can enter.
11: There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine; all joy has grown dark; the gladness of the earth is banished.
12: Desolation is left in the city; the gates are battered into ruins.
13: For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done.
14: They lift up their voices, they sing for joy; over the majesty of the LORD they shout from the west.
15: Therefore in the east give glory to the LORD; in the coastlands of the sea, give glory to the name of the LORD, the God of Israel.
16: From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise, of glory to the Righteous One. But I say, “I waste away, I waste away. Woe is me! For the traitors have betrayed, with betrayal the traitors have betrayed.”
17: Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth!
18: He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit, and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.
19: The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken.
20: The earth staggers like a drunken man; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again.
21: On that day the LORD will punish the host of heaven, in heaven, and the kings of the earth, on the earth.
22: They will be gathered together as prisoners in a pit; they will be shut up in a prison,
and after many days they will be punished.
23: Then the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed, for the LORD of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and his glory will be before his elders.

Chapter 25

God Will Swallow Up Death Forever
1: O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you; I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.
2: For you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the foreigners’ palace is a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.
3: Therefore strong peoples will glorify you; cities of ruthless nations will fear you.
4: For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat; for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,
5: like heat in a dry place. You subdue the noise of the foreigners; as heat by the shade of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless is put down.
6: On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
7: And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.
8: He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.
9: It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
10: For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain, and Moab shall be trampled down in his place, as straw is trampled down in a dunghill.
11: And he will spread out his hands in the midst of it as a swimmer spreads his hands out to swim, but the LORD will lay low his pompous pride together with the skill of his hands.
12: And the high fortifications of his walls he will bring down, lay low, and cast to the ground, to the dust.

Chapter 26

You Keep Him in Perfect Peace
1: In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: “We have a strong city;
he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks.
2: Open the gates that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.
3: You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you,because he trusts in you.
4: Trust in the LORD forever,for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.
5: For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust.
6: The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor,the steps of the needy.”
7: The path of the righteous is level;you make level the way of the righteous.
8: In the path of your judgments,O LORD, we wait for you;your name and remembrance
are the desire of our soul.
9: My soul yearns for you in the night;my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
10: If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the LORD.
11: O LORD, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed. Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.
12: O LORD, you will ordain peace for us, for you have indeed done for us all our works.
13: O LORD our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
14: They are dead, they will not live; they are shades, they will not arise; to that end you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them.
15: But you have increased the nation, O LORD, you have increased the nation; you are glorified; you have enlarged all the borders of the land.
16: O LORD, in distress they sought you; they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them.
17: Like a pregnant woman who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, so were we because of you, O LORD;
18: we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind. We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
19: Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You, who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.
20: Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by.
21: For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, nd will no more cover its slain.

Chapter 27

The Redemption of Israel
1: In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
2: In that day, “A pleasant vineyard, sing of it!
3: I, the LORD, am its keeper; every moment I water it. Lest anyone punish it, I keep it night and day;
4: I have no wrath. Would that I had thorns and briers to battle! I would march against them, I would burn them up together.
5: Or let them lay hold of my protection, let them make peace with me, let them make peace with me.”
6: In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots
and fill the whole world with fruit.
7: Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them? Or have they been slain as their slayers were slain?
8: Measure by measure, by exile you contended with them; he removed them with his fierce breath in the day of the east wind.
9: Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for, and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin: when he makes all the stones of the altars like chalkstones crushed to pieces, no Asherim or incense altars will remain standing.
10: For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness; there the calf grazes; there it lies down and strips its branches.
11: When its boughs are dry, they are broken; women come and make a fire of them.
For this is a people without discernment; therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them; he who formed them will show them no favor.
12: In that day from the river Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt the LORD will thresh out the grain, and you will be gleaned one by one, O people of Israel.
13: And in that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.