The chaotic city lies broken down; every house is closed up so that no one can enter them.

The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies so heavy upon it, that it falls, never to rise again.

"And it will come about at that time, the LORD will punish the armies of the exalted ones in the heavens, and the rulers of the earth on earth.

And on this mountain, he will swallow up the burial shroud that enfolds all nations, the veil that is spread over all nations

"And you will say at that time, "Look! It's the LORD! This is our God! We waited for him, and he saved us. This is the LORD! We waited for him, so let us rejoice, and we will be glad that he has saved us."

At that time, people will sing this song in the land of Judah: "We have a strong city; God crafts victory, its walls and ramparts.

Open your gates, so the righteous nation that safeguards its faith may enter.

The dead won't live, and the departed spirits won't rise to that end, you punished and destroyed them, then locked away all memory of them.

For see, the LORD is coming from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their sins; the earth will reveal the blood that has been shed on it, and will no longer conceal its slain."

At that time, with his fierce, mighty, and powerful sword, the LORD will punish the gliding serpent Leviathan the coiling serpent Leviathan and he will kill the dragon that's in the sea.

At that time, "A fermenting vineyard sing about it!

By this, then, Jacob's guilt will be atoned for, and this will be the full harvest that comes from the removal of his sin: when he makes all the altar stones like pulverized chalkstones, no Asherah poles or incense altars will be left standing.

When its branches are dry, they are broken off, and women come and kindle fires with them, since this is a people who show no consideration. That is why the One who made them shows them no compassion; the One who created them shows them no mercy.

At that time, the LORD will winnow grain from the Euphrates River channel to the Wadi of Egypt, and you will be gathered in one by one, O people of Israel.

Furthermore, at that time, a great trumpet will be sounded, and those who were perishing in the land of Assyria and those who had been expelled to the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD on his holy mountain at Jerusalem.

How terrible it will be for that arrogant garland the drunks of Ephraim! How terrible it will be for that fading flower of his glorious beauty, which sits on the heads of people bloated with food, of people overcome with wine!

With hands and feet, that proud garland those drunks of Ephraim will be trampled.

And that fading flower, his glorious beauty, which sits on the heads of people bloated with food, will be like an early fig before summer whenever someone sees it, he swallows it as soon as it's in his hand.

At that time, the LORD of the Heavenly Armies will become a glorious crown, a beautiful diadem for the remnant of his people,

For it is: "Do this and do that, do this and do that, Line upon line, line upon line, a little here, a little there."

So, then, the message from the LORD to them will become: "Do this and do that, do this and do that, line upon line, line upon line, a little here, a little there," so that they will go, but fall backward, and be injured, snared, and captured.

"Therefore hear the message from the LORD, you scoffers who rule this people that are in Jerusalem.

Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Aruel, all that attack her and her fortification and besiege her, will become like a dream, with its visions in the night

as when a hungry man dreams he eats, but wakes up still hungry; or when a thirsty man dreams he drinks, but wakes up faint, with his thirst unquenched. So will it be with the hordes of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion.

On that day the deaf will hear the words of a scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.

And it will turn out that his officials are at Zoan, and his envoys will reach Hanes.

There is only loathsome destruction through a people that cannot benefit them, who bring neither help nor profit, but only shame and disgrace."

An oracle about the animals of the Negev: "Through a land of trouble, dryness, and distress, of lionesses and roaring lions, where there is no water, a land of vipers and darting snakes, he carries their riches on donkeys' backs, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a nation that cannot benefit them,

to Egypt, which gives help that is worthless and useless. Therefore I call her, "Rahab, who just sits still.'"

"Go now, and write it down on a tablet in their presence, inscribing it in a book, so that for times to come it may be an everlasting witness.

therefore, for you this sin will become like a breach in a high wall that is about to collapse, bulging out, and whose crash comes suddenly in an instant.

Its breaking will be like when potters' vessels are broken, shattered so ruthlessly that among its fragments not even a broken sliver will be found for taking fire from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern."

Then you will defile your carved idols that are overlaid with silver and your images plated with gold. You'll throw them away like disgusting objects and say to them, "Away with you!"

He will also provide rain for your seed that you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the ground will be rich and abundant. At that time, your cattle will graze in broad meadows,

and oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder that workers will winnow with shovels and forks.

His breath is like an overflowing torrent, and it rises right up to the neck, to shake the nations in the sieve of destruction, and to place in the jaws of the nations a bit that leads them astray.

And every stroke of his punishing rod that the LORD brings down on them will be to the sound of tambourines and harps, as he fights against her in battle with a brandished arm.

For at that time, everyone will throw away their idols of silver and their idols of gold that your hands have sinfully made for yourselves.

"Then Assyria will fall by a sword that is not from human beings only a sword not wielded by mortal beings will devour them. They will flee from the sword, and their young men will be put to forced labor.

You conceive dried grass, you give birth to stubble; your breath is a fire that will consume you.

"Those who are far away have heard what I've done; and those that are near have acknowledged my power.

"Your eyes will see the king in his elegance, and will view a land that stretches afar.

Your mind will ponder at that time of terror: "Where is the king's accountant? Where is the one who weighed the revenue? Where is the officer who supervises the towers?'

"Come near, you nations, to listen, and pay attention, you nations! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes out of it.

"Study and read from the book of the LORD: And not one will be missing, each will not long for its mate. For it is the mouth of the LORD that has issued the order, and it is his Spirit that has gathered them.

"A highway will be there yes, there and people will call it "The Holy Way'. As for unclean people, they will not journey on it, but it will be for whomever is traveling on that Way not even fools will get lost.

"Tell Hezekiah, king of Judah, "This is what the mighty king, the king of Assyria, has to say: What is this "guarantee" that makes you yourself rely on it? Do you really think that guarantees alone can withstand strategy and military strength? On whom are you now depending, that you're rebelling against me?

Take note: you're relying on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces the palm of anyone who leans on it. This is what Pharaoh king of Egypt is like to everybody who depends on him!

But the field commander asked, "Was it only to all of you and to your master that my master sent me to speak these things? Wasn't it also to the men sitting on the wall who, like you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?"

Perhaps the LORD your God will hear the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, sent to mock the living God, and perhaps he will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard. So lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives in this city."

That's why King Hezekiah's officials came to Isaiah.

Watch this! I'm going to place an attitude within him, so that when he hears a certain report, he'll return to his own country. Then I'll have him cut down by the sword in his own land."

So the field commander returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, since he had heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish.

Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my ancestors save them the nations of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden, who were in Tel-assar?

It is true, LORD, that Assyrian kings have devastated all these countries,

So now, LORD our God, save us from his oppressive hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God."

This is the message that the LORD has spoken in opposition to him: ""The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem she tosses her head behind you as you flee.

""Didn't you hear how in the distant past I decided to do it, how I planned from days of old? Now I've made it happen that fortified cities become devastated, besieged heaps.

"And this will be your sign, Hezekiah: Eat this year what grows on its own, and in the second year what springs from that. But in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.

By the same way that he came, he will return; he won't enter this city,' declares the LORD,

During that time, Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. Then Amoz's son Isaiah the prophet came to him and told him, "This is what the LORD says: "Put your house in order, because you are going to die. You won't recover.'"

This is the LORD's sign to you that the LORD will carry out this thing he has promised:

Watch! I will make the shadow on the steps of the upper dial of Ahaz that marks the sun go ten steps backwards."'" Then the sunlight turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had gone down.

Yes, it was for my own good that I suffered extreme anguish. But in love you have held back my life from the Pit in which it has been confined; you have tossed all my sins behind your back.

Now Isaiah had said, "Let them prepare a poultice of figs and apply it to the boil, so that he may recover."

At that time Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, when he heard he had been sick and had survived.

Hezekiah was delighted with them, and showed them everything in his treasure-houses the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oils, his entire armory, and everything found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.

"What did they see in your palace?" he asked. "They saw everything in my palace," Hezekiah replied. "There is nothing in my treasuries that I did not show them."

"The days are surely coming when everything in your palace and all that your ancestors have stored up to this day will be carried off to Babylon. They will come in, and nothing will be left,' says the LORD.

"The message from the LORD that you have spoken is good," Hezekiah replied to Isaiah, since he was thinking, ""at least there will be peace and security in my lifetime."

"Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her heavy service has been completed, that her penalty has been paid, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins."

To the impoverished person? He prepares an offering wood that won't rot Or to the one who chooses a skilled craftsman and seeks to erect an idol that won't topple?"

And who pursues them and moves on unscathed by a path that his feet don't know?

The craftsman encourages the goldsmith, and the hammersmith encourages the one who strikes the anvil. He says about the welding, "It's good!' and he reinforces it with nails so that it won't topple."

all so that people may see and recognize, perceive, consider, and comprehend at the same time, that the hand of the LORD has done this, and that the Holy One of Israel has created it."

Let them approach and ask us, "What will happen? As to the former things, what were they? Tell us, so that we may consider them and know. Or the latter things or the things to come let us hear.

Tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods! Yes, do something good or something bad, so we may hear and gaze at it together.'"

The LORD was pleased, for the sake of his vindication, that he should magnify his Law and make it glorious.

so he drenched him with the heat that is his anger, the violence of war. It enveloped him in flames, but still he had no insight. It burned him up, but he didn't take it to heart."

"You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and trust me and understand that I am the One. Before me no God was formed, nor will there be one after me.

the people whom I formed for myself and so that they may speak my praise."

Recount the brief! Let's argue the matter together; Present your case, so that you may be proved right.

Who would shape a god or cast an image that profits nothing?

Half the wood he burns in the fire, and over that half he places meat so he can eat. He sits by its coals, warms himself, and says, "Ah! I am warm in front of the fire."

"This is what the LORD says, your Redeemer and the one who formed you in the womb: "I am the LORD, who has made everything, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth Who was with me at that time?

who says about Cyrus, "He's my shepherd, and he'll carry out everything that I please: He'll say of Jerusalem, "Let it be rebuilt,' and of my Temple, "Let its foundations be laid again.'"'"

This is what the LORD says to his anointed, Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him, as I strip kings of their armor, to open doors before him and gates that cannot keep closed:

I'll give you concealed treasures and riches hidden in secret places, so that you'll know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who calls you by name.

so that from the sun's rising to the west people may know that there is none besides me. "I am the LORD, and there is no other."

"Gather together and come; draw near and enter, your fugitives from the nations. Those who carry around their wooden idols know nothing, nor do those who keep praying to a god that cannot save.

By myself I have sworn from my mouth has gone out integrity, a promise that won't be revoked: "To me every knee will bow, and every tongue will swear.'

"To whom will you compare me, count me equal, or liken me, so that I may be compared?

And they lift it on their shoulders, carry it, set it up in its place, and there it stands. It cannot move from that spot. One may even call to it, but it cannot answer nor save him from his distress.

I declare from the beginning things to follow, and from ancient times things that have not yet been done; saying, "My purpose will stand, and he will accomplish everything that I please.'

"But disaster will come upon you, and you will not know how to charm it away. A calamity will befall you that you will not be able to ward off; and devastation will come upon you suddenly, and you won't anticipate it.

Because I knew that you are obstinate, and because your neck is an iron sinew, and your forehead is bronze,

I told you these things long ago; I announced them to you before they happened so that you couldn't say, "My idol did them; my carved image or metal idol ordained them.'

"You have heard now look at them all! How can you not admit them? From now on, I'll make you hear new things, hidden things that you have not known.

And neither had you heard, nor did you understand, nor did you open your ear long ago. Indeed, I knew that you would act very deceitfully, and they would call you a rebel from birth.

Let all of them come together and listen: Who is there among them that could declare these things? "The LORD loves me, and he will accomplish my purpose against Babylon; his arm will be against the Chaldeans.