Isaiah 32–34

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

2A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the storm, as streams of water in a dry place, as the shade of a large rock in a weary land.

3The eyes of those who see will not be dim, and the ears of those who hear will listen.

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

5The fool will no longer be called noble, nor the scoundrel be highly respected.

6For the fool will speak folly, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice profanity, and to utter error against Yahweh, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.

7The ways of the scoundrel are evil. He devises wicked plans to destroy the humble with lying words, even when the needy speaks right.

8But the noble devises noble things, and he will continue in noble things.

9Rise up, you women who are at ease! Hear my voice! You careless daughters, give ear to my speech!

10For days beyond a year you will be troubled, you careless women; for the vintage will fail. The harvest won’t come.

11Tremble, you women who are at ease! Be troubled, you careless ones! Strip yourselves, make yourselves naked, and put sackcloth on your waist.

12Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.

13Thorns and briers will come up on my people’s land; yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city.

14For the palace will be forsaken. The populous city will be deserted. The hill and the watchtower will be for dens forever, a delight for wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks,

15until the Spirit is poured on us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is considered a forest.

16Then justice will dwell in the wilderness; and righteousness will remain in the fruitful field.

17The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever.

18My people will live in a peaceful habitation, in safe dwellings, and in quiet resting places,

19though hail flattens the forest, and the city is leveled completely.

20Blessed are you who sow beside all waters, who send out the feet of the ox and the donkey.

1Woe to you who destroy, but you weren’t destroyed, and who betray, but nobody betrayed you! When you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betrayal, you will be betrayed.

2Yahweh, be gracious to us. We have waited for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble.

3At the noise of the thunder, the peoples have fled. When you lift yourself up, the nations are scattered.

4Your plunder will be gathered as the caterpillar gathers. Men will leap on it as locusts leap.

5Yahweh is exalted, for he dwells on high. He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.

6There will be stability in your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of Yahweh is your treasure.

7Behold, their valiant ones cry outside; the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.

8The highways are desolate. The traveling man ceases. The covenant is broken. He has despised the cities. He doesn’t respect man.

9The land mourns and languishes. Lebanon is confounded and withers away. Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel are stripped bare.

10“Now I will arise,” says Yahweh. “Now I will lift myself up. Now I will be exalted.

11You will conceive chaff. You will give birth to stubble. Your breath is a fire that will devour you.

12The peoples will be like the burning of lime, like thorns that are cut down and burned in the fire.

13Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and, you who are near, acknowledge my might.”

14The sinners in Zion are afraid. Trembling has seized the godless ones. Who among us can live with the devouring fire? Who among us can live with everlasting burning?

15He who walks righteously and speaks blamelessly, he who despises the gain of oppressions, who gestures with his hands, refusing to take a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, and shuts his eyes from looking at evil—

16he will dwell on high. His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks. His bread will be supplied. His waters will be sure.

17Your eyes will see the king in his beauty. They will see a distant land.

18Your heart will meditate on the terror. Where is he who counted? Where is he who weighed? Where is he who counted the towers?

19You will no longer see the fierce people, a people of a deep speech that you can’t comprehend, with a strange language that you can’t understand.

20Look at Zion, the city of our appointed festivals. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet habitation, a tent that won’t be removed. Its stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken.

21But there Yahweh will be with us in majesty, a place of wide rivers and streams, in which no galley with oars will go, neither will any gallant ship pass by there.

22For Yahweh is our judge. Yahweh is our lawgiver. Yahweh is our king. He will save us.

23Your rigging is untied. They couldn’t strengthen the foot of their mast. They couldn’t spread the sail. Then the prey of a great plunder was divided. The lame took the prey.

24The inhabitant won’t say, “I am sick.” The people who dwell therein will be forgiven their iniquity.

1Come near, you nations, to hear! Listen, you peoples. Let the earth and all it contains hear, the world, and everything that comes from it.

2For Yahweh is enraged against all the nations, and angry with all their armies. He has utterly destroyed them. He has given them over for slaughter.

3Their slain will also be cast out, and the stench of their dead bodies will come up. The mountains will melt in their blood.

4All of the army of the sky will be dissolved. The sky will be rolled up like a scroll, and all its armies will fade away, as a leaf fades from off a vine or a fig tree.

5For my sword has drunk its fill in the sky. Behold, it will come down on Edom, and on the people of my curse, for judgment.

6Yahweh’s sword is filled with blood. It is covered with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

7The wild oxen will come down with them, and the young bulls with the mighty bulls; and their land will be drunken with blood, and their dust made greasy with fat.

8For Yahweh has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

9Its streams will be turned into pitch, its dust into sulfur, and its land will become burning pitch.

10It won’t be quenched night or day. Its smoke will go up forever. From generation to generation, it will lie waste. No one will pass through it forever and ever.

11But the pelican and the porcupine will possess it. The owl and the raven will dwell in it. He will stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness.

12They shall call its nobles to the kingdom, but none shall be there; and all its princes shall be nothing.

13Thorns will come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in its fortresses; and it will be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches.

14The wild animals of the desert will meet with the wolves, and the wild goat will cry to his fellow. Yes, the night creature shall settle there, and shall find herself a place of rest.

15The arrow snake will make her nest there, and lay, hatch, and gather under her shade. Yes, the kites will be gathered there, every one with her mate.

16Search in the book of Yahweh, and read: not one of these will be missing. None will lack her mate. For my mouth has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them.

17He has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it to them with a measuring line. They shall possess it forever. From generation to generation they will dwell in it.