Isaiah 23-27
Holman Christian Standard Bible
An Oracle against Tyre
23 An oracle(A) against Tyre:(B)
Wail, ships of Tarshish,(C)
for your haven has been destroyed.
Word has reached them from the land of Cyprus.[a](D)
2 Mourn, inhabitants of the coastland,
you merchants of Sidon;(E)
your agents have crossed the sea[b]
3 on many waters.
Tyre’s revenue was the grain from Shihor—
the harvest of the Nile.
She was the merchant among the nations.(F)
4 Be ashamed Sidon, the stronghold of the sea,
for the sea has spoken:
“I have not been in labor or given birth.
I have not raised young men
or brought up young women.”
5 When the news reaches Egypt,
they will be in anguish over the news about Tyre.(G)
6 Cross over to Tarshish;
wail, inhabitants of the coastland!
7 Is this your jubilant city,
whose origin was in ancient times,
whose feet have taken her
to settle far away?
8 Who planned this against Tyre,
the bestower of crowns,
whose traders are princes,
whose merchants are the honored ones of the earth?
9 The Lord of Hosts planned it,
to desecrate all its glorious beauty,
to disgrace all the honored ones of the earth.
10 Overflow[c] your land like the Nile, daughter of Tarshish;
there is no longer anything to restrain you.[d]
11 He stretched out His hand over the sea;(H)
He made kingdoms tremble.
The Lord has commanded
that the Canaanite fortresses be destroyed.
12 He said,
“You will not rejoice anymore,
ravished young woman, daughter of Sidon.
Get up and cross over to Cyprus(I)—
even there you will have no rest!”
13 Look at the land of the Chaldeans—
a people who no longer exist.
Assyria destined it for desert creatures.
They set up their siege towers
and stripped its palaces.
They made it a ruin.
14 Wail, ships of Tarshish,
because your fortress is destroyed!
15 On that day Tyre will be forgotten for 70 years—the life span of one king. At the end of 70 years, what the song says about the prostitute will happen to Tyre:
16 Pick up your lyre,
stroll through the city,
prostitute forgotten by men.
Play skillfully,
sing many a song,
and you will be thought of again.
17 And at the end of the 70 years,(J) the Lord will restore Tyre(K) and she will go back into business, prostituting herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth. 18 But her profits and wages will be dedicated to the Lord. They will not be stored or saved, for her profit will go to those who live in the Lord’s presence, to provide them with ample food and sacred clothing.
The Earth Judged
24 Look, the Lord is stripping the earth bare
and making it desolate.
He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants:
2 people and priest alike,
servant and master,
female servant and mistress,
buyer and seller,
lender and borrower,
creditor and debtor.
3 The earth will be stripped completely bare
and will be totally plundered,
for the Lord has spoken this message.(L)
4 The earth mourns and withers;
the world wastes away and withers;
the exalted people of the earth waste away.
5 The earth is polluted by its inhabitants,(M)
for they have transgressed teachings,
overstepped decrees,
and broken the everlasting covenant.(N)
6 Therefore a curse has consumed the earth,(O)
and its inhabitants have become guilty;
the earth’s inhabitants have been burned,
and only a few survive.
7 The new wine mourns;(P)
the vine withers.
All the carousers now groan.
8 The joyful tambourines(Q) have ceased.
The noise of the jubilant has stopped.
The joyful lyre has ceased.
9 They no longer sing and drink wine;
beer is bitter to those who drink it.
10 The city of chaos is shattered;(R)
every house is closed to entry.(S)
11 In the streets they cry[e] for wine.
All joy grows dark;
earth’s rejoicing goes into exile.
12 Only desolation remains in the city;
its gate has collapsed in ruins.
13 For this is how it will be on earth
among the nations:
like a harvested olive tree,
like a gleaning after a grape harvest.(T)
14 They raise their voices, they sing out;
they proclaim in the west
the majesty of the Lord.
15 Therefore, in the east honor the Lord!
In the islands of the west
honor the name of Yahweh,
the God of Israel.
16 From the ends of the earth we hear songs:
The Splendor of the Righteous One.(U)
But I said, “I waste away! I waste away![f]
Woe is me.”
The treacherous act treacherously;
the treacherous deal very treacherously.(V)
17 Panic, pit, and trap await you(W)
who dwell on the earth.(X)
18 Whoever flees at the sound of panic
will fall into a pit,
and whoever escapes from the pit
will be caught in a trap.
For the windows are opened from heaven,(Y)
and the foundations of the earth are shaken.(Z)
19 The earth is completely devastated;
the earth is split open;
the earth is violently shaken.
20 The earth staggers like a drunkard(AA)
and sways like a hut.
Earth’s rebellion weighs it down,
and it falls, never to rise again.
21 On that day(AB) the Lord will punish
the host of heaven above
and kings of the earth below.
22 They will be gathered together
like prisoners in a pit.(AC)
They will be confined to a dungeon;(AD)
after many days they will be punished.
23 The moon will be put to shame
and the sun disgraced,
because the Lord of Hosts will reign as king
on Mount Zion in Jerusalem,
and He will display His glory
in the presence of His elders.(AE)
Salvation and Judgment on That Day
25 Yahweh, You are my God;(AF)
I will exalt You. I will praise Your name,
for You have accomplished wonders,
plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness.
2 For You have turned the city into a pile of rocks,(AG)
a fortified city, into ruins;
the fortress of barbarians(AH) is no longer a city;
it will never be rebuilt.
3 Therefore, a strong people will honor You.
The cities of violent nations will fear You.
4 For You have been a stronghold for the poor,
a stronghold for the needy(AI) person in his distress,
a refuge from the rain, a shade from the heat.(AJ)
When the breath of the violent
is like rain against a wall,
5 like heat in a dry land,
You subdue the uproar of barbarians.
As[g] the shade of a cloud cools the heat of the day,
so He silences the song of the violent.
6 The Lord of Hosts will prepare a feast(AK)
for all the peoples on this mountain[h](AL)—
a feast of aged wine, choice meat,[i] finely aged wine.
7 On this mountain
He will destroy the burial shroud,
the shroud over all the peoples,
the sheet covering all the nations;(AM)
8 He will destroy death forever.(AN)
The Lord God will wipe away the tears
from every face(AO)
and remove His people’s disgrace(AP)
from the whole earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
9 On that day it will be said,
“Look, this is our God;
we have waited for Him, and He has saved us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for Him.
Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”(AQ)
10 For the Lord’s power will rest on this mountain.
But Moab(AR) will be trampled in his place[j]
as straw is trampled in a dung pile.
11 He will spread out his arms in the middle of it,
as a swimmer spreads out his arms to swim.
His pride will be brought low,
along with the trickery of his hands.(AS)
12 The high-walled fortress will be brought down,
thrown to the ground, to the dust.(AT)
The Song of Judah
26 On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strong city.
Salvation is established as walls and ramparts.(AU)
2 Open the gates
so a righteous nation can come in—
one that remains faithful.
3 You will keep the mind that is dependent on You
in perfect peace,(AV)
for it is trusting in You.
4 Trust in the Lord forever,
because in Yah, the Lord, is an everlasting rock!(AW)
5 For He has humbled those who live in lofty places—
an inaccessible city.(AX)
He brings it down; He brings it down to the ground;
He throws it to the dust.
6 Feet trample it,
the feet of the humble,
the steps of the poor.
God’s People Vindicated
7 The path of the righteous is level;(AY)
You clear a straight path for the righteous.
8 Yes, Yahweh, we wait for You
in the path of Your judgments.
Our desire is for Your name and renown.(AZ)
9 I long for You in the night;(BA)
yes, my spirit within me diligently seeks You,
for when Your judgments are in the land,
the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
10 But if the wicked man is shown favor,
he does not learn righteousness.
In a righteous land he acts unjustly
and does not see the majesty of the Lord.
11 Lord, Your hand is lifted up to take action,
but they do not see it.
They will see Your zeal for Your people,
and they will be put to shame.
The fire for Your adversaries will consume them!
12 Lord, You will establish peace for us,
for You have also done all our work for us.
13 Yahweh our God, lords other than You have ruled over us,
but we remember Your name alone.(BB)
14 The dead do not live;
departed spirits do not rise up.
Indeed, You have visited and destroyed them;
You have wiped out all memory of them.(BC)
15 You have added to the nation, Lord.(BD)
You have added to the nation; You are honored.
You have expanded all the borders of the land.(BE)
16 Lord, they went to You in their distress;(BF)
they poured out whispered prayers
because Your discipline fell on them.[k]
17 As a pregnant woman about to give birth
writhes and cries out in her pains,(BG)
so we were before You, Lord.
18 We became pregnant, we writhed in pain;
we gave birth to wind.
We have won no victories on earth,
and the earth’s inhabitants have not fallen.
19 Your dead will live; their bodies[l] will rise.(BH)
Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust!
For you will be covered with the morning dew,[m]
and the earth will bring out the departed spirits.
20 Go, my people, enter your rooms
and close your doors behind you.
Hide for a little while until the wrath has passed.(BI)
21 For look, the Lord is coming from His place(BJ)
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.(BK)
The earth will reveal the blood shed on it
and will no longer conceal her slain.
Leviathan Slain
27 On that day the Lord with His harsh, great, and strong sword, will bring judgment on Leviathan,(BL) the fleeing serpent—Leviathan, the twisting serpent. He will slay the monster that is in the sea.(BM)
The Lord’s Vineyard
2 On that day
sing about a desirable vineyard:(BN)
3 I, Yahweh, watch over it;
I water it regularly.
I guard it night and day
so that no one disturbs it.
4 I am not angry,
but if it produces thorns and briers(BO) for Me,
I will fight against it, trample it,
and burn it to the ground.
5 Or let it take hold of My strength;
let it make peace with Me—
make peace with Me.
6 In days to come, Jacob will take root.(BP)
Israel will blossom and bloom(BQ)
and fill the whole world with fruit.
7 Did the Lord strike Israel
as He struck the one who struck Israel?(BR)
Was he killed like those killed by Him?
8 You disputed with her
by banishing and driving her away.[n]
He removed her with His severe storm
on the day of the east wind.
9 Therefore Jacob’s iniquity(BS) will be purged in this way,
and the result of the removal of his sin will be this:(BT)
when he makes all the altar stones
like crushed bits of chalk,
no Asherah poles or incense altars will remain standing.
10 For the fortified city will be deserted,
pastures abandoned and forsaken like a wilderness.
Calves will graze there,
and there they will spread out and strip its branches.
11 When its branches dry out, they will be broken off.
Women will come and make fires with them,
for they are not a people with understanding.(BU)
Therefore their Maker(BV) will not have compassion on them,
and their Creator will not be gracious to them.
12 On that day(BW)
the Lord will thresh grain from the Euphrates River
as far as the Wadi of Egypt,(BX)
and you Israelites will be gathered one by one.
13 On that day
a great trumpet(BY) will be blown,
and those lost in the land of Assyria will come,
as well as those dispersed in the land of Egypt;
and they will worship the Lord
at Jerusalem on the holy mountain.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 23:1 Hb Kittim
- Isaiah 23:2 DSS; MT reads Sidon, whom the seafarers have filled
- Isaiah 23:10 DSS, LXX read Work
- Isaiah 23:10 Or longer any harbor
- Isaiah 24:11 Lit streets she cries
- Isaiah 24:16 Hb obscure
- Isaiah 25:5 Lit In
- Isaiah 25:6 = Mount Zion
- Isaiah 25:6 Lit wine, fat full of marrow
- Isaiah 25:10 Or trampled under Him
- Isaiah 26:16 Hb obscure
- Isaiah 26:19 Lit live; my body they
- Isaiah 26:19 Lit For your dew is a dew of lights
- Isaiah 27:8 Hb obscure
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