Isaiah 31-34
Complete Jewish Bible
31 Woe to those going down to Egypt
expecting help — relying on horses;
trusting in chariots, because they have many,
and in the strength of their cavalrymen —
but not looking to the Holy One of Isra’el,
not consulting Adonai.
2 But he too is wise and can bring disaster,
and he does not take back his words;
he will rise against the house of evildoers
and against the help of those who do wrong.
3 Now the Egyptians are men and not God,
and their horses flesh and not spirit.
So when Adonai stretches out his hand,
both he who helps will stumble,
and he who is helped will fall;
both will perish together.
4 For here is what Adonai says to me:
“As a lion or lion cub growls at its prey
and isn’t frightened away by the shouts
of hordes of shepherds called out against him —
their voices do not upset him —
so likewise Adonai-Tzva’ot will descend
to fight on Mount Tziyon, on its hill.
5 Like hovering birds, Adonai-Tzva’ot
will protect Yerushalayim.
In protecting it, he will rescue it;
in sparing it, he will save it.
6 People of Isra’el! Return to him
to whom you have been so deeply disloyal!
7 For on that day everyone will discard
his idols of silver and idols of gold,
which you made for yourselves
with your own sinful hands.
8 Then Ashur will fall by a sword not of mortals,
a sword, not of humans, will devour him;
he will flee before the sword,
and his young men will be put to forced labor.
9 His rock, out of terror, will pass away,
and his panicked officers will desert the standard.”
So says Adonai, whose fire is in Tziyon,
whose furnace is in Yerushalayim.
32 There is coming a king who will reign justly
and princes who will rule uprightly.
2 A man will be like a refuge from the wind,
like protection from a storm,
like streams of water on arid ground,
like a rock cliff shading a weary land.
3 The eyes of those seeing will not be closed,
the ears of those hearing will pay close attention.
4 The minds of the impetuous will learn to weigh carefully,
the tongues of the stutterers will speak readily and clearly.
5 The mean person will no longer be called generous,
or the miserly said to be noble;
6 for the mean person will speak meanness,
his heart planning evil, so that he can act godlessly,
spreading error concerning Adonai,
as he lets the hungry go on starving
and deprives the thirsty of drink.
7 The mean person’s means are mean —
he devises wicked devices
to ruin the poor and needy with lies,
even when their cause is just.
8 But the generous person devises generous things,
and his generosity will keep him standing.
9 You women who are so complacent, listen to me!
Overconfident women, pay attention to my words!
10 In a year and a few days more,
you overconfident women will shudder,
because the vintage will fail,
the harvest will not come.
11 Tremble, you complacent women!
Shudder, you overconfident women!
Strip bare, wear sackcloth to cover yourselves.
12 Beat your breasts in mourning
for the pleasant fields and fruitful vines,
13 for the land of my people, producing thorns and briars,
for all the happy homes in the joyful city.
14 For the palace will be abandoned,
the crowded city deserted,
‘Ofel and fortress wastelands forever,
a delight for wild donkeys and a pasture for flocks —
15 till the Spirit is poured out on us from above,
and the desert becomes a fertile field,
with the fertile field regarded as a forest.
16 Then justice will dwell in the desert,
and righteousness abide in the fertile field.
17 The effect of righteousness will be peace;
the result of righteousness, quiet trust forever.
18 My people will live in a peaceful place,
in secure neighborhoods and tranquil dwellings.
19 Just as the forest will surely come down,
the city will surely be laid low.
20 Happy are you who sow by all streams,
letting oxen and donkeys roam freely.
33 Woe, destroyer, yourself undestroyed!
Woe, betrayer, yourself unbetrayed!
When you stop destroying, you will be destroyed;
when you tire of betraying, they will betray you.
2 Adonai, show us mercy;
we have waited for you.
Be their arm every morning,
and our salvation in time of trouble.
3 At the sound of the tumult, the peoples wander off;
when you exalt yourself, the nations are scattered.
4 Your spoil is gathered as if stripped by shearer-worms;
they run over it like a swarm of locusts.
5 Adonai is exalted, for he dwells on high;
he has filled Tziyon with justice and right.
6 He will be the stability of your times,
a wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge,
and fear of Adonai, which is his treasure.
7 Hear their brave men crying out for help!
The envoys of peace weep bitterly.
8 The highways are deserted, there are no travelers.
He has broken the covenant, despised the cities;
he has no regard for human life.
9 The land is mourning and wilting away.
The L’vanon is withering with shame.
The Sharon has become like the ‘Aravah.
Bashan and Karmel have been shaken bare.
10 “Now I will arise,” says Adonai,
“Now I will exalt and lift myself up.
11 You conceive chaff and give birth to stubble,
your breath is a fire devouring you.
12 The peoples will be as if burned into lime,
like thorns cut off to burn in the fire.
13 You living far off, hear what I have done!
You who are near, acknowledge my strength!”
14 The sinners in Tziyon are frightened;
trembling has seized the ungodly.
“Who of us can live with the devouring fire?
Who of us can live with eternal burning?”
15 He whose life is right and whose speech is straight,
he who scorns getting rich by extortion,
he who shakes his hands free of bribes,
stops his ears against talk of bloodshed
and shuts his eyes against looking at evil.
16 Such a person will live on the heights,
his refuge a fortress among the cliffs,
his food and water in steady supply.
17 Your eyes will see the king in his beauty,
they will gaze on a land stretching into the distance.
18 Your mind will meditate on the terror:
“Where is the man who did the counting?
Where is the man who did the weighing?
Where is the man who numbered the towers?”
19 You will not see the intransigent people,
that people whose language is so obscure,
whose stuttering speech you cannot understand.
20 Look at Tziyon, the city of our festivals;
your eyes will see Yerushalayim a secure abode,
a tent that will not be removed,
whose pegs will never be pulled out
and whose guy-ropes will not be cut.
21 But there in his splendor Adonai will be with us,
in a place of rivers and broad streams.
But no boat with oars will go there,
no majestic ship will pass by.
22 For Adonai is our judge, Adonai is our lawgiver,
Adonai is our king. He will save us.
23 For your ropes are hanging loose,
not holding the mast, not spreading the sail.
Then the plunder shared out is so huge
that even the lame get part of the spoil.
24 No inhabitant will say, “I am ill”;
the people living there will be forgiven their sin.
34 Come close, you nations, and listen!
Pay close attention, you peoples!
Let the earth hear, and everything in it;
the world, with all it produces.
2 For Adonai is angry at every nation,
furious with all their armies;
he has completely destroyed them,
handed them over to slaughter.
3 Their slain will be thrown out,
the stench will rise from their corpses,
the mountains will flow with their blood.
4 The whole host of heaven will decompose,
the heavens themselves be rolled up like a scroll;
all their array will wither away
like a withering grape-leaf that falls from a vine
or a withered fig from a fig tree.
5 “For my sword has drunk its fill in heaven;
now it descends on Edom to judge them,
the people I have doomed to destruction.”
6 There is a sword that belongs to Adonai.
It is filled with blood, gorged with fat,
filled with the blood of lambs and goats,
gorged with the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For Adonai has a sacrifice in Botzrah,
a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 The wild oxen will fall with them,
the young bulls with the strong, mature ones.
Their land will be drunk with blood
and their dust made greasy with fat.
8 For Adonai has a day of vengeance,
a year of requital for fighting with Tziyon.
9 Its streams will be changed to tar,
its dust to sulfur, its land burning tar
10 that will not be quenched night or day;
its smoke will rise forever.
In all generations it will lie waste;
no one will pass through it ever again.
11 Horned owl and hawk will possess it,
screech owl and raven will live there;
he will stretch over it the measuring line of confusion
and the plumbline of the empty void.
12 Of its nobles, none will be called to be king,
and all its princes will be nothing.
13 Thorns will overgrow its palaces,
nettles and thistles its fortresses;
it will become a lair for jackals,
an enclosure for ostriches.
14 Wildcats and hyenas will meet there;
and billy-goats call to each other;
Lilit [the night monster] will lurk there
and find herself a place to rest.
15 There the hoot owl will nest, lay her eggs,
hatch and gather her young in its shade.
There the vultures will assemble,
every one with its mate.
16 Consult the book of Adonai and read it:
not one of these will be missing,
none will be lacking a mate.
For by his own mouth he gave the order,
and by his Spirit he brought them together.
17 It is he who cast the lot for them,
his hand measured out their shares.
They will possess it forever,
and live there through all generations.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.
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