Isaiah 10:1-4 - Woes On The Wicked

¹ Woe to those enacting crooked statutes
and writing oppressive laws
² to keep the poor from getting a fair trial
and to deprive the afflicted among my people of justice,
so that widows can be their spoil
and they can plunder the fatherless.
³ What will you do on the day of punishment
when devastation comes from far away?
Who will you run to for help?
Where will you leave your wealth?
⁴ There will be nothing to do
except crouch among the prisoners
or fall among the slain.
In all this, His anger is not removed,
and His hand is still raised to strike.

⁸ Woe to those who add house to house
and join field to field
until there is no more room
and you alone are left in the land.

⁹ I heard the Lord of Hosts say:

Indeed, many houses will become desolate,
grand and lovely ones without inhabitants.
¹⁰ For a ten-acre vineyard will yield
only six gallons,
and 10 bushels of seed will yield
only one bushel.

¹¹ Woe to those who rise early in the morning
in pursuit of beer,
who linger into the evening,
inflamed by wine.
¹² At their feasts they have lyre, harp,
tambourine, flute, and wine.
They do not perceive the Lord’s actions,
and they do not see the work of His hands.

¹³ Therefore My people will go into exile
because they lack knowledge;
her dignitaries are starving,
and her masses are parched with thirst.
¹⁴ Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat
and opens wide its enormous jaws,
and down go Zion’s dignitaries, her masses,
her crowds, and those who carouse in her!
¹⁵ Humanity is brought low, man is humbled,
and haughty eyes are humbled.
¹⁶ But the Lord of Hosts is exalted by His justice,
and the holy God is distinguished by righteousness.
¹⁷ Lambs will graze
as if in their own pastures,
and strangers will eat
among the ruins of the rich.

¹⁸ Woe to those who drag wickedness
with cords of deceit
and pull sin along with cart ropes,
¹⁹ to those who say:
“Let Him hurry up and do His work quickly
so that we can see it!
Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel take place
so that we can know it!”
²⁰ Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who substitute darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who substitute bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.
²¹ Woe to those who are wise in their own opinion
and clever in their own sight.
²² Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine,
who are fearless at mixing beer,
²³ who acquit the guilty for a bribe
and deprive the innocent of justice.

²⁴ Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes straw
and as dry grass shrivels in the flame,
so their roots will become like something rotten
and their blossoms will blow away like dust,
for they have rejected
the instruction of the Lord of Hosts,
and they have despised
the word of the Holy One of Israel.
²⁵ Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against His people.
He raised His hand against them and struck them;
the mountains quaked,
and their corpses were like garbage in the streets.
In all this, His anger is not removed,
and His hand is still raised to strike.