Add parallel Print Page Options

Righteous Reign of the Branch

11 Then a Shoot (the Messiah) will spring from the stock of Jesse [David’s father],
And a Branch from his roots will bear fruit.(A)

And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him—
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and strength,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the [reverential and obedient] fear of the Lord

And He will delight in the fear of the Lord,
And He will not judge by what His eyes see,
Nor make decisions by what His ears hear;

But with righteousness and justice He will judge the poor,
And decide with fairness for the downtrodden of the earth;
And He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.

And righteousness will be the belt around His loins,
And faithfulness the belt around His waist.


And the wolf will dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard will lie down with the young goat,
And the calf and the young lion and the fatted steer together;
And a little child will lead them.

And the cow and the bear will graze [together],
Their young will lie down together,
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

And the nursing child will [safely] play over the hole of the cobra,
And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den [and not be hurt].

They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain,
For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea.

10 
Then in that day
The nations will make supplications to the Root of Jesse
Who will stand as a signal for the peoples;
And His resting place will be glorious.(B)

The Restored Remnant

11 
Then it will happen on that day that the Lord
Will again acquire with His hand a second time
The remnant of His people, who will remain,
From Assyria, from [Lower] Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush (Ethiopia), from Elam [in Persia], from Shinar [Babylonia], from Hamath [in Aram],
And from the coastlands bordering the [Mediterranean] Sea.(C)
12 
And He will lift up a signal for the nations
And assemble the [a]outcasts of Israel,
And will gather the dispersed of Judah
From the four corners of the earth.
13 
Then the jealousy of [b]Ephraim will depart,
And those who harass [c]Judah will be cut off;
Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah,
And Judah will not harass Ephraim.
14 
Ephraim and Judah will [unite and] swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines toward the west;
Together they will plunder the sons (Arabs) of the east.
They will possess Edom and Moab,
And the sons of Ammon will be subject to them.
15 
And the Lord will utterly destroy
The tongue of the [d]Sea of Egypt;
And with His scorching wind
He will wave His hand over the River;
He will strike and divide it into seven channels
And make [it possible for] people [to] walk over in sandals.
16 
And there will be a highway from Assyria
For the remnant of His people who will be left,
Just as there was for Israel
In the day when they came up out of the land of Egypt.

Thanksgiving Expressed

12 And on that day you will say,
“I will give thanks to You, O Lord;
For though You were angry with me,
Your anger has turned away,
And You comfort me.

“Behold, God, my salvation!
I will trust and not be afraid,
For the Lord God is my strength and song;
Yes, He has become my salvation.”

Therefore with joy you will draw water
From the springs of salvation.

And in that day you will say,
“Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name [in prayer].
Make His deeds known among the peoples [of the earth];
Proclaim [to them] that His name is exalted!”

Sing praises to the Lord, for He has done excellent and glorious things;
Let this be known throughout the earth.

Rejoice and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion,
For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Prophecies about Babylon

13 The [mournful, inspired] oracle ([e]a burden to be carried) concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw [in a prophetic vision]:


Lift up a signal banner on the bare mountain,
Summon them [the Medes and Persians] with a loud voice,
Wave the [beckoning] hand so that they may enter the doorways of the [Babylonian] nobles.

I [the Lord] have commanded My consecrated ones,
I have even called My great warriors,
My proudly exulting ones [the Medes and the Persians who triumph for My honor]—
To execute My anger.

A sound of tumult on the mountains,
Like that of many people!
A sound of the uproar of the kingdoms,
Of nations gathered together!
The Lord of hosts is mustering an army for battle.

They are coming from a distant country,
From the end of heaven [the farthest horizon]—
The Lord and the weapons of His indignation—
To destroy the whole land.(D)

Judgment on the Day of the Lord


Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand!
It will come as [f]destruction from the [g]Almighty (All Sufficient One—Invincible God)!(E)

Therefore [h]all hands will fall limp,
And every man’s heart will melt.

They [of Babylon] will be shocked and terrified,
Pains and anguish will grip them;
They will be in pain like a woman in childbirth.
They will stare aghast and horrified at one another,
Their faces aflame [from the effects of the unprecedented warfare].

Listen carefully, the day of the Lord is coming,
Cruel, with wrath and raging anger,
To make the land a horror [of devastation];
And He shall exterminate its sinners from it.(F)
10 
For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not flash with their light;
The sun will be dark when it rises,
And the moon will not shed its light.
11 
In this way I will punish the world for its evil
And the wicked for their wickedness [their sin, their injustice, their wrongdoing];
I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud
And will abase the arrogance of the tyrant.
12 
I will make mortal man more rare than fine gold,
And mankind [scarcer] than the pure gold of Ophir.
13 
Therefore I will make the heavens tremble;
And the earth will be shaken from its place
At the wrath of the Lord of hosts
In the day of His burning anger.
14 
And like the hunted gazelle,
Or like sheep that no man gathers,
Each [foreign resident] will turn [and go back] to his own people,
And each one flee to his own land.
15 
Anyone who is found will be pierced through,
And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
16 
Their children also will be smashed to pieces
Before their eyes;
Their houses will be looted
And their wives ravished.

Babylon Will Fall to the Medes

17 
Listen carefully, I will put the Medes [in motion] against them,
Who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold [and therefore cannot be bribed].
18 
Their bows will cut down the young men [of Babylon];
They will take no pity on the fruit of the womb,
Their eyes will not look with compassion on the children.
19 
And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the [i]Chaldeans’ pride,
Will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them.
20 
Babylon will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation;
Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there,
Nor will the shepherds let their sheep lie down there.
21 
But desert creatures will lie down there,
And their houses will be full of owls;
Ostriches also will live there, and [j]wild goats will dance there.
22 
[k]Hyenas will howl in their castles,
And jackals in their luxurious palaces.
Babylon’s time has nearly come,
And her days will not be prolonged.

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 11:12 Lit scattered.
  2. Isaiah 11:13 A reference to the ten northern tribes. Israel split into two kingdoms after Rehoboam the son of Solomon became king. Jeroboam ruled from the city of Shechem in the north, and Rehoboam ruled from the city of Jerusalem in the south (1 Kin 12:1-20).
  3. Isaiah 11:13 A reference to the two southern tribes.
  4. Isaiah 11:15 The western fork of the Red Sea.
  5. Isaiah 13:1 I.e. an urgent message the prophet is under compulsion to proclaim.
  6. Isaiah 13:6 Shod in Hebrew, forming a word play with Shaddai.
  7. Isaiah 13:6 Heb Shaddai.
  8. Isaiah 13:7 Babylon was taken by surprise on the night of Belshazzar’s sacrilegious feast when Belshazzar was killed, and Darius the Mede was made king over Babylonia, the realm of the Chaldeans (Dan 5:30). The Chaldeans became the dominant people in Babylonia when Merodach-baladan declared himself king of Babylon. The words “Chaldean” and “Babylonian” are used interchangeably.
  9. Isaiah 13:19 The Chaldeans dominated and ruled Babylonia from 625 b.c., until their empire fell in 539 b.c., but they were known as early as 1000 b.c. as an aggressive, tribal people in the southern region of Babylonia. They were highly skilled in both the science of astronomy and the pseudo-science of astrology. They kept meticulous records of celestial motion and correctly calculated the length of a year to within just a few minutes. Babylon, their capital city, was the center of trade and learning in the western part of Asia. The classical literature of the Chaldeans was written in cuneiform, but the common language, both written and spoken in Babylon, was Akkadian that was increasingly influenced by Aramaic.
  10. Isaiah 13:21 Another possibility is goat demons.
  11. Isaiah 13:22 This prophecy was written well over a century before Babylon’s downfall in 539 b.c.

Bible Gateway Recommends