Isaiah 28-30
Common English Bible
Judgment on Ephraim and Judah
28 Oh, the majestic garland of Ephraim’s drunks
and the fading flower of its splendid beauty
on the head that flows with perfume[a]
of those hammered with wine.
2 Look! The Lord has someone who is powerful and strong;
like a hailstorm, a disastrous tempest,
like a downpour of mighty, overflowing waters,
he can level them to the ground with his hand.
3 The majestic garland of Ephraim’s drunks
will be trampled underfoot.
4 The withered flower, which is a thing of beauty[b]
as it sits on the head of those bloated with fat,[c]
will be like an early fig before the summer harvest:
whoever sees it swallows it as soon as it is in hand.
5 On that day, the Lord of heavenly forces will be a splendid garland and a beautiful wreath for the people who survive, 6 and a spirit of justice for the one who sits in judgment, and a strength for those who repel the assault at the gate.
7 These also stagger from wine and stumble from beer:
priest and prophet stagger from beer;
they are confused by wine;
they stray on account of beer;
they err when receiving visions;
they stumble when making judgments.
8 All the tables are covered with vomit;
filth overruns the place.
9 To whom will God teach knowledge?
To whom will he explain the message?
To those just weaned from milk?
To those who have hardly outgrown the breast?
10 It is “tsav letsav, tsav letsav; qav leqav, qav leqav,”[d]
a little of this, a little of that.
11 With derisive speech and a foreign tongue,
he will speak to this people.
12 He has said to them,
“This is the place of rest;
give rest to the weary;
this is the place of repose”;
but they refused to listen.
13 So the Lord’s word will be for them:
“tsav letsav, tsav letsav; qav leqav, qav leqav,”
a little of this, a little of that.
So that they will go and stagger backward,
they will be broken, snared, and captured.
The covenant with death overturned
14 Therefore, hear the Lord’s word,
you scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem.
15 You said, “We’ve cut a deal with death;[e]
with the underworld[f] we made a pact.
When the overflowing flood passes through, it won’t reach us;
for we have made lies our hiding place,
and in falsehood we take shelter.”
16 Therefore, the Lord God says:
Look! I’m laying in Zion a stone,
a tested stone, a valuable cornerstone,
a sure foundation:
the one who trusts won’t tremble.
17 I will make justice the measuring line
and righteousness the plumb line.
But hail will sweep away the hiding place of lies,
and water will overflow the shelter.
18 Your deal with death[g] will be dissolved,
and your pact with the grave[h] won’t stand.
The rushing flood: when it passes through,
you will be annihilated by it.
19 Every time it passes through it will take you,
for morning by morning it will pass,
by day and by night.
It will be nothing but terror to understand the message.
20 The bed is too short to stretch out,
and the shroud is too narrow to cover oneself.
21 Just as on Mount Perazim, the Lord will rise up;
as in the Gibeon Valley he will rage to do his deed—strange is his deed!—
And to work his work—foreign is his work!
22 So now stop your scoffing,
or your chains will be tightened,
because destruction has been ordered—I have heard it!—
by the Lord God of heavenly forces against the whole land.
Plowing and threshing
23 Listen and hear my voice;
pay attention and hear my word:
24 Does the plowman plow without stopping for planting,
opening and harrowing their ground?
25 When he has smoothed its surface,
doesn’t he scatter fennel,[i] and sow cumin,
and plant wheat and barley in their places,
and spelt as a border?
26 They are properly ordered;
their God directs them.[j]
27 Fennel[k] isn’t threshed with a threshing sledge,
nor is a cart wheel rolled over cumin,
but fennel[l] is beaten with a staff,
and cumin with a rod.
28 Bread grain is crushed,
but the thresher[m] doesn’t thresh it forever.
He drives the cart wheel over it;
he spreads it out but doesn’t crush it.
29 This also comes from the Lord of heavenly forces,
who gives wondrous counsel and increases wisdom.
Ariel besieged but spared
29 Oh, Ariel, Ariel,
town where David encamped!
Year by year, let the festivals come around—
2 but I will oppress Ariel.
There will be mourning and lamentation;
she will be like an Ariel to me.
3 I will surround you like a wall,
and I will lay a siege against you with assault towers,
and I will raise up siegeworks against you.
4 You will be brought down;
from the ground you will speak;
from low in the dust your speech will come.
Your voice will be like a ghost’s from the earth;
from the dust your words will whisper.
5 But your many enemies will be like fine dust,
the terrible horde like passing chaff.
Suddenly, in an instant, 6 the Lord of heavenly forces will come to you with thunder, earthquake, and a mighty voice,
with whirlwind, tempest, and flames of devouring fire.
7 The horde of nations fighting against Ariel,
and all who make war on her and her fortress and besiege her,
will be like a dream, a vision of the night.
8 It will be like when a hungry person dreams of eating
but wakes up and the mouth is empty.
Or when a thirsty person dreams of drinking
but wakes up and has a dry throat.
So will it be for all the horde of nations
who fight against Mount Zion.
9 Be shocked and stunned;
blind yourselves; be blind!
Be drunk, but not on wine;
stagger, but not on account of beer!
10 The Lord has poured on you a spirit of deep sleep,
and has shut your eyes, you prophets,
and covered your heads, you seers.
11 This entire vision has become for you like the words of a sealed scroll. When they give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” that one will say, “I can’t, because it’s sealed.” 12 And when the scroll is given to one who can’t read, saying, “Read this,” that one will say, “I can’t read.”
The wisdom of their wise
13 The Lord says:
Since these people turn toward me with their mouths,
and honor me with lip service
while their heart is distant from me,
and their fear of me is just a human command that has been memorized,
14 I will go on doing amazing things to these people,
shocking and startling things.
The wisdom of their wise will perish,
and the discernment of their discerning will be hidden.
15 Doom to those who hide their plan deep, away from the Lord,
whose deeds are in the dark,
who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”
16 You have everything backward!
Should the potter be thought of as clay?
Should what is made say of its maker,
“He didn’t make me”?
Should what is shaped say of the one who shaped it,
“He doesn’t understand”?
17 In just a little while won’t Lebanon become farmland once again,
and the farmland be considered a forest?
18 On that day: The deaf will hear the words of a scroll and, freed from dimness and darkness, the eyes of the blind will see.
19 The poor will again find joy in the Lord,
and the neediest of people will rejoice in the holy one of Israel.
20 The tyrant will be no more,
the mocker will perish,
and all who plot evil will be eliminated:
21 all who incriminate others wrongly,
who entrap the judge in the gate,
and pointlessly postpone justice for the innocent.
22 Therefore, proclaims the Lord,
the God of[n] the house of Jacob,
who redeemed Abraham:
Jacob won’t be ashamed now,
and his face won’t grow pale now.
23 When he sees his children among them,
the work of my hands,
proclaiming my name holy,
they will make holy the holy one of Jacob,
and stand in awe of Israel’s God.
24 Those who wander in spirit will have understanding,
and those who grumble will gain insight.
Help from Egypt is futile
30 Doom to you, rebellious children, says the Lord,
who make a plan, which is not mine;
who weave a plot,[o] but not by my spirit,
piling up sin on sin;
2 setting out to go down to Egypt without consulting me,
taking refuge in Pharaoh’s refuge and hiding in Egypt’s shadow.
3 Pharaoh’s refuge will become your shame,
hiding in Egypt’s shadow your disgrace.
4 Though their officials are in Zoan,
and their messengers reach Hanes,
5 all will become shamed because of a people who can’t assist them.
They are no help; they are no profit;
rather, shame and disgrace.
6 An oracle about the beasts in the arid southern plain.
Through a land of distress and danger,
lioness and roaring[p] lion, viper and flying serpent,
they will carry their wealth on donkeys’ shoulders
and their treasures on camels’ humps to a people who won’t profit,
7 for Egypt’s help is utterly worthless.
Therefore, I call her Rahab Who Sits Still.[q]
8 Now go, write it before them on a tablet,
inscribe it on a scroll,
so in the future it will endure as a witness.
9 These are rebellious people, lying children,
children unwilling to hear the Lord’s teaching,
10 who say to the seers, “Don’t foresee,”
and to the visionaries, “Don’t report truthful visions;
tell us flattering things;
envision deceptions;
11 get out of the way;
step off the path;
let’s have no more ‘holy one of Israel.’”
12 Therefore, the holy one of Israel says:
Because you reject this word
and trust in oppression and cunning and rely on them,
13 your sin will be like a crack in a high wall; it bulges, about to fall:
suddenly, in an instant, it breaks!
14 Its breaking is like the breaking of a storage jar
that is totally shattered.
No piece from among its fragments will be large enough to take fire from a hearth,
or to dip water from a cistern.
15 Therefore, the Lord God,
the holy one of Israel, says:
In return and rest you will be saved;
quietness and trust will be your strength—
but you refused.
16 You said,
“No! We’ll flee on horses”—
therefore, you will indeed flee—
“and we’ll ride off; on swift steeds we will ride”—
therefore, your pursuers will be swift.
17 One thousand will flee at the threat of one,
and at the threat of five you will flee,
until you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
like a flag on a hill.
18 Nonetheless, the Lord is waiting to be merciful to you,
and will rise up to show you compassion.
The Lord is a God of justice;
happy are all who wait for him.
This is the way
19 People in Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. God will certainly be merciful to you. Hearing the sound of your outcry, God will answer you. 20 Though the Lord gives you the bread of distress and the water of oppression, your teacher will no longer hide, but you will see your teacher. 21 If you stray to the right or the left, you will hear a word that comes from behind you: “This is the way; walk in it.” 22 You will defile your silver-plated idols and your gold-covered priestly vest,[r] and you will scatter them like menstrual rags. “Get out,” you will say to them.
23 God will provide rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food the ground produces will be rich and abundant. On that day, your cattle will graze in large pastures. 24 The oxen and donkeys that are working the ground will eat tasty feed spread for them with shovel and fork.
25 On every lofty mountain, and on every high hill, streams will run with water on the day of the great massacre, when the towers fall. 26 The light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter—like the light of seven days—on the day that the Lord bandages the people’s brokenness and heals the wounds inflicted by his blows.
Assyria punished
27 Look there! The Lord is coming from far away;
his anger blazing, his smoke-cloud thick.
His lips are full of fury;
his tongue is like a devouring fire.
28 His breath is like a raging river that reaches up to the neck,
to shake the nations with a sieve of destruction,
and to put a misleading rein on the people’s jaws.
29 There will be singing for you
as on the night that people celebrate a festival.
The heart will be joyful as it is when one goes with a flute
to the Lord’s mountain,
to the rock of Israel.
30 The Lord will unleash his majestic voice
and display his crushing arm
in furious anger, with a flame of consuming fire,
in stormy rain and hail.
31 The Lord’s voice will terrify Assyria;
with a rod he will smite it.
32 And every crack that is made in the foundation wall,
which the Lord will bring down upon him,
will be accompanied by timbrels and lyres.
The Lord will raise his arm and fight against Assyria in battle. 33 His place for burning[s] was arranged long ago;
it is indeed made ready for a king.
God has made its wood pile wide and deep,
fire and wood in abundance.
The breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, ignites it.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 28:1 DSS (1QIsaa)
- Isaiah 28:4 Heb uncertain
- Isaiah 28:4 Or at the head of the fat valley
- Isaiah 28:10 A Hebrew version of baby talk or gibberish
- Isaiah 28:15 Heb Maveth
- Isaiah 28:15 Heb Sheol
- Isaiah 28:18 Heb Maveth
- Isaiah 28:18 Heb Sheol
- Isaiah 28:25 Or black cumin
- Isaiah 28:26 Or waters them
- Isaiah 28:27 Or black cumin
- Isaiah 28:27 Or black cumin
- Isaiah 28:28 DSS (1QIsaa)
- Isaiah 29:22 Or to
- Isaiah 30:1 Heb uncertain
- Isaiah 30:6 Or from them
- Isaiah 30:7 Or Rahab the silent
- Isaiah 30:22 Correction; Heb ephod
- Isaiah 30:33 Heb Topheth
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