Isaiah 33-36

New King James Version

A Prayer in Deep Distress

33 Woe to you ^(A)who plunder, though you have not been plundered;
And you who deal treacherously, though they have not dealt treacherously with you!
^(B)When you cease plundering,
You will be ^(C)plundered;
When you make an end of dealing treacherously,
They will deal treacherously with you.

²O Lord, be gracious to us;
^(D)We have waited for You.
Be ^[a]their arm every morning,
Our salvation also in the time of trouble.
³At the noise of the tumult the people ^(E)shall flee;
When You lift Yourself up, the nations shall be scattered;
⁴And Your plunder shall be gathered
Like the gathering of the caterpillar;
As the running to and fro of locusts,
He shall run upon them.

⁵^(F)The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high;
He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.
⁶Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times,
And the strength of salvation;
The fear of the Lord is His treasure.

⁷Surely their valiant ones shall cry outside,
^(G)The ambassadors of peace shall weep bitterly.
⁸^(H)The highways lie waste,
The traveling man ceases.
^(I)He has broken the covenant,
^[b]He has despised the ^[c]cities,
He regards no man.
⁹^(J)The earth mourns and languishes,
Lebanon is shamed and shriveled;
Sharon is like a wilderness,
And Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits.

Impending Judgment on Zion

¹⁰“Now^(K) I will rise,” says the Lord;
“Now I will be exalted,
Now I will lift Myself up.
¹¹^(L)You shall conceive chaff,
You shall bring forth stubble;
Your breath, as fire, shall devour you.
¹²And the people shall be like the burnings of lime;
^(M)Like thorns cut up they shall be burned in the fire.
¹³Hear, ^(N)you who are afar off, what I have done;
And you who are near, acknowledge My might.”

¹⁴The sinners in Zion are afraid;
Fearfulness has seized the hypocrites:
“Who among us shall dwell with the devouring ^(O)fire?
Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”
¹⁵He who ^(P)walks righteously and speaks uprightly,
He who despises the gain of oppressions,
Who gestures with his hands, refusing bribes,
Who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed,
And ^(Q)shuts his eyes from seeing evil:
¹⁶He will dwell on ^[d]high;
His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks;
Bread will be given him,
His water will be sure.

The Land of the Majestic King

¹⁷Your eyes will see the King in His ^(R)beauty;
They will see the land that is very far off.
¹⁸Your heart will meditate on terror:
^(S)“Where is the scribe?
Where is he who weighs?
Where is he who counts the towers?”
¹⁹^(T)You will not see a fierce people,
^(U)A people of obscure speech, beyond perception,
Of a ^[e]stammering tongue that you cannot understand.

²⁰^(V)Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts;
Your eyes will see ^(W)Jerusalem, a quiet home,
A tabernacle that will not be taken down;
^(X)Not one of ^(Y)its stakes will ever be removed,
Nor will any of its cords be broken.
²¹But there the majestic Lord will be for us
A place of broad rivers and streams,
In which no ^[f]galley with oars will sail,
Nor majestic ships pass by
²²(For the Lord is our ^(Z)Judge,
The Lord is our ^(AA)Lawgiver,
^(AB)The Lord is our King;
He will save us);
²³Your tackle is loosed,
They could not strengthen their mast,
They could not spread the sail.

Then the prey of great plunder is divided;
The lame take the prey.
²⁴And the inhabitant will not say, “I am sick”;
^(AC)The people who dwell in it will be forgiven their iniquity.

Judgment on the Nations

34 Come ^(AD)near, you nations, to hear;
And heed, you people!
^(AE)Let the earth hear, and all that is in it,
The world and all things that come forth from it.
²For the indignation of the Lord is against all nations,
And His fury against all their armies;
He has utterly destroyed them,
He has given them over to the ^(AF)slaughter.
³Also their slain shall be thrown out;
^(AG)Their stench shall rise from their corpses,
And the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
⁴^(AH)All the host of heaven shall be dissolved,
And the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll;
^(AI)All their host shall fall down
As the leaf falls from the vine,
And as ^(AJ)fruit falling from a fig tree.

⁵“For ^(AK)My sword shall be bathed in heaven;
Indeed it ^(AL)shall come down on Edom,
And on the people of My curse, for judgment.
⁶The ^(AM)sword of the Lord is filled with blood,
It is made ^[g]overflowing with fatness,
With the blood of lambs and goats,
With the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For ^(AN)the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
⁷The wild oxen shall come down with them,
And the young bulls with the mighty bulls;
Their land shall be soaked with blood,
And their dust ^[h]saturated with fatness.”

⁸For it is the day of the Lord’s ^(AO)vengeance,
The year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
⁹^(AP)Its streams shall be turned into pitch,
And its dust into brimstone;
Its land shall become burning pitch.
¹⁰It shall not be quenched night or day;
^(AQ)Its smoke shall ascend forever.
^(AR)From generation to generation it shall lie waste;
No one shall pass through it forever and ever.
¹¹^(AS)But the ^[i]pelican and the ^[j]porcupine shall possess it,
Also the owl and the raven shall dwell in it.
And ^(AT)He shall stretch out over it
The line of confusion and the stones of emptiness.
¹²They shall call its nobles to the kingdom,
But none shall be there, and all its princes shall be nothing.

¹³And ^(AU)thorns shall come up in its palaces,
Nettles and brambles in its fortresses;
^(AV)It shall be a habitation of jackals,
A courtyard for ostriches.
¹⁴The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the ^[k]jackals,
And the wild goat shall bleat to its companion;
Also ^[l]the night creature shall rest there,
And find for herself a place of rest.
¹⁵There the arrow snake shall make her nest and lay eggs
And hatch, and gather them under her shadow;
There also shall the hawks be gathered,
Every one with her mate.

¹⁶“Search from ^(AW)the book of the Lord, and read:
Not one of these shall fail;
Not one shall lack her mate.
For My mouth has commanded it, and His Spirit has gathered them.
¹⁷He has cast the lot for them,
And His hand has divided it among them with a measuring line.
They shall possess it forever;
From generation to generation they shall dwell in it.”

The Future Glory of Zion

35 The ^(AX)wilderness and the ^[m]wasteland shall be glad for them,
And the ^(AY)desert^[n] shall rejoice and blossom as the rose;
²^(AZ)It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice,
Even with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
The excellence of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the ^(BA)glory of the Lord,
The excellency of our God.

³^(BB)Strengthen the ^[o]weak hands,
And make firm the ^[p]feeble knees.
⁴Say to those who are fearful-hearted,
“Be strong, do not fear!
Behold, your God will come with ^(BC)vengeance,
With the recompense of God;
He will come and ^(BD)save you.”

⁵Then the ^(BE)eyes of the blind shall be opened,
And ^(BF)the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
⁶Then the ^(BG)lame shall leap like a deer,
And the ^(BH)tongue of the dumb sing.
For ^(BI)waters shall burst forth in the wilderness,
And streams in the desert.
⁷The parched ground shall become a pool,
And the thirsty land springs of water;
In ^(BJ)the habitation of jackals, where each lay,
There shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

⁸A ^(BK)highway shall be there, and a road,
And it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.
^(BL)The unclean shall not pass over it,
But it shall be for others.
Whoever walks the road, although a fool,
Shall not go astray.
⁹^(BM)No lion shall be there,
Nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it;
It shall not be found there.
But the redeemed shall walk there,
¹⁰And the ^(BN)ransomed of the Lord shall return,
And come to Zion with singing,
With everlasting joy on their heads.
They shall obtain joy and gladness,
And ^(BO)sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Sennacherib Boasts Against the Lord^(BP)

36 Now ^(BQ)it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. ²Then the king of Assyria sent the ^[q]Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool, on the highway to the Fuller’s Field. ³And ^(BR)Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, ^(BS)Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to him.

⁴^(BT)Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: “What confidence is this in which you trust? ⁵I say you speak of having plans and power for war; but they are ^[r]mere words. Now in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me? ⁶Look! You are trusting in the ^(BU)staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who ^(BV)trust in him.

⁷“But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?” ’ ⁸Now therefore, I urge you, give a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses—if you are able on your part to put riders on them! ⁹How then will you repel one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen? ¹⁰Have I now come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’ ”

¹¹Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak to us in ^[s]Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

¹²But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat and drink their own waste with you?”

¹³Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in Hebrew, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! ¹⁴Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you; ¹⁵nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, “The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ’ ¹⁶Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make peace with me by a present and come out to me; ^(BW)and every one of you eat from his own vine and every one from his own fig tree, and every one of you drink the waters of his own cistern; ¹⁷until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. ¹⁸Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” Has any one of the ^(BX)gods of the nations delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Indeed, have they delivered ^(BY)Samaria from my hand? ²⁰Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’ ”

²¹But they ^[t]held their peace and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.” ²²Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.