Linger ye, and wonder; delight yourselves, and be ye blinded; they were drunken and not with wine; they reeled and not with strong drink.

You have turned things around,
as if the potter were the same as the clay.
How can what is made say about its maker,
“He didn’t make me”?
How can what is formed
say about the one who formed it,
“He doesn’t understand what he’s doing”?

For the terrible one ceased, the mocker was consumed, and they watching vanity were cut off:

Those whose hearts were turned away from him will get knowledge, and those who made an outcry against him will give attention to his teaching.

For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes.

They were all ashamed of a people that did not profit them, nor were a help or profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.

For the Lord Yahweh, the holy one of Israel, said this: "In returning and rest you shall be saved; your strength shall be in quietness and in trust." But you were not willing,

One thousand from before the rebuke of one; from before the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye were left as a mast upon the head of the mountain, and as a signal upon the hill.

You will desecrate your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away as if they were a menstrual rag, saying to them, "Get out!"

Moreover 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, in the day that the LORD binds up the fracture of his people, and heals the wound they were struck with.

Behold, the name of Jehovah coming from far off, burning his wrath, and its lifting up heavy: his lips they were full of anger, and his tongue as consuming fire:

Wo to those going down to Egypt for help; and they will look upon horses, and trust upon chariots, because they are many; and upon horsemen because they were strong greatly; and they looked not upon the Holy One of Israel, and sought not Jehovah.

And his rock shall pass through from fear, and his chiefs were terrified from the signal, says Jehovah whose light to him in Zion, and furnace to him in Jerusalem.

Woe to you that plunder, and you were not plundered; and deal treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with you! when you shall cease to plunder, you shall be plundered; and when you shall make an end of dealing treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with you.

At the noise of the tumult the peoples fled; at the lifting up of thyself the nations were scattered.

Your plunder disappears as if locusts were eating it; they swarm over it like locusts!

And peoples were the burnings of lime; thorns cut down, in fire shall they be burnt

Your heart will give thought to the cause of your fear: where is the scribe, where is he who made a record of the payments, where is he by whom the towers were numbered?

Your cords have become loose; they were not able to make strong the support of their sails, the sail was not stretched out: then the blind will take much property, the feeble-footed will make division of the goods of war.

There the arrow-snake nested, and she will lay eggs and hatch, and brood in her shadow: also there the falcons were collected, the female with her companion.

But they were silent and did not answer him a word, for the command of the king was, "You must not answer him."

Did the gods of the nations that my {predecessors} destroyed deliver them--Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the sons of Eden who [were] in Telassar?

to {set} their gods in the fire, for they [were] not gods, but [the] work of human hands, wood and stone, and they destroyed them.

And their inhabitants were powerless, they were dismayed and put to shame; they were as the grass of the field and the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and grain blighted before it be grown up.

Because you were enraged {against} me, and your noise has come up to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle on your lips, and I will turn you back on the way [by] which you came.

And the angel of Yahweh set out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When they rose in the morning, look! All of them [were] dead corpses.

Look! Bitterness was bitter to me for peace. And you were the one who loved my life from [the] pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.

Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and asked him, “Where did these men come from and what did they say to you?”

Hezekiah replied, “They came to me from a distant country, from Babylon.”

And from thy sons that shall come forth from thee which thou shalt beget, they shall take; and they were eunuchs in the temple of the king of Babel.

Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales. He lifts the coastlands as if they were dust.

All the nations as nothing before him; they were reckoned to him from nothing, and vanity.

Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you since the very beginning? Have you not understood from the time the earth's foundations were made?

Also they were not planted: also they were not sown: also their stock took not root in the earth: and he also blew upon them and they will be dried up, and the storm will lift them up as straw.

The coastlands saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came.

Behold, all they that were incensed against you shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with you shall perish.

Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen: let them show the former things, what they were, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare to us things to come.

“I have raised up one from the north, and he has come,
one from the east who invokes My name.
He will march over rulers as if they were mud,
like a potter who treads the clay.

They were turned back, they will be ashamed with shame, trusting in the carved image, saying to the molten image, Thou our God.

They are like, as if thou understoodest much, and keptest nothing: or if one heard well, but were not obedient.

And this is a people seized and spoiled, Snared in holes -- all of them, And in houses of restraint they were hidden, They have been for a prey, And there is no deliverer, A spoil, and none is saying, 'Restore.'

Who gave Jacob to a plunderer and Israel to those who plunder? [Was it] not Yahweh, against whom we have sinned? And they were not willing to walk in his ways, and they would not {obey} his law.

Since you were precious in my sight, you have been honorable, and I have loved you: therefore will I give men for you, and people for your life.

All nations gather together, the peoples assemble. Who among them announced this? Who predicted earlier events for us? Let them produce their witnesses to testify they were right; let them listen and affirm, 'It is true.'

Bringing forth the chariot and the horse, the strength and the might together, they shall fall down, they shall not rise: they went out; they were quenched as tow.

I remove the guilt of your rebellious deeds as if they were a cloud, the guilt of your sins as if they were a cloud. Come back to me, for I protect you."

They were ashamed and also disgraced, all of them: together they went in shame the workmen of images.

'Only in Yahweh,' one shall say to me, '[are] righteousness and strength.' He shall come to him, and all those who were angry with him shall be ashamed.

Bel bows down, Nebo stoops, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy laden; they are a burden to the weary beast.

They are bent down, they are falling together: they were not able to keep their images safe, but they themselves have been taken prisoner.

Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all ye that remain yet of the household of Israel, whom I have borne from your mother's womb, and brought you up from your birth, till ye were grown:

To whom will you liken me, and count as equal, and compare with me, as though we were alike?

declaring the end from the beginning, and from the past things which were not done, saying, My purpose shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure;

I was angry with my people, I put shame on my heritage, and gave them into your hands: you had no mercy on them; you put a cruel yoke on those who were old;

You were secure in your wickedness;
you said, ‘No one sees me.’
Your wisdom and knowledge
led you astray.
You said to yourself,
‘I exist, and there is no one else.’

Behold, they were as straw; the fire burnt them; they shall not deliver their soul from the hand of the flame:. not a coal for warming, light to sit before it

For they were called of the holy city, and rested themselves upon the God of Israel; Jehovah of armies his name.

“Because I know that you are obstinate,
And your neck is an iron tendon
And your brow is bronze [both unyielding],

Now were they created and not from then; and before the day and thou heardest them not; lest thou shalt say, Behold, I knew them.

Yea, you heard not; yea, you knew not; yea, from of old your ear was not opened: for I knew that you would deal very treacherously, and were called a transgressor from the womb.

Yes, by my hand was the earth placed on its base, and by my right hand the heavens were stretched out; at my word they take up their places.

And [when] he led them through the deserts, they were not thirsty; he made water flow from [the] rock for them, and he split [the] rock, and [the] water gushed out.

Can a woman forget her baby who nurses at her breast? Can she withhold compassion from the child she has borne? Even if mothers were to forget, I could never forget you!

Look all around you! All of them gather to you. As surely as I live," says the Lord, "you will certainly wear all of them like jewelry; you will put them on as if you were a bride.

For thy wastes and thy desolations, and the land of thy destruction, for now it shall press for the inhabitants, and they swallowing thee up were far away.

Yet the children {born when you were bereaved} will say in your {hearing}, "The place is [too] cramped for me; {make room} for me so that I can dwell."

And thou shalt say in thy heart, Who hath borne me these, seeing I had lost my children and was desolate, an exile, and driven about? and who hath brought up these? behold, I was left alone; these, where were they?

And kings were thy supporters, and princesses thy nurses: their faces to the earth they shall worship to thee, and the dust of thy feet shall they lick up; and thou knewest that I Jehovah, that they shall not be ashamed waiting for me.

I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will get drunk on their own blood, as if it were wine. Then all humankind will recognize that I am the Lord, your deliverer, your protector, the powerful ruler of Jacob."

Thus says Yahweh: "Where [is] this divorce document of your mother's divorce, [with] which I dismissed her? or to whom of my creditors did I sell you? Look! you were sold because of your sin, and your mother was dismissed because of your transgressions.

As for heaven, I clothe it with darkness, and put as it were a sack upon it.

I was offering my back to those who gave me blows, and my face to those who were pulling out my hair: I did not keep my face covered from marks of shame.

"Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, who seek Yahweh. Look to [the] rock [from which] you were hewn, and to [the] excavation of [the] pit [from which] you were quarried.

For worms shall eat them as a garment, and moths shall devour them as it were wool. But my righteousness shall continue ever, and my salvation from generation to generation.

And forget the LORD your maker, that has stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; you have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?

But I will put it into the hand of thy tormentors, Who said to thy soul, Bow down thus we may pass over, - And so thou didst place as the ground, thy back, Yea as the street to such as were passing along.

For thus says Yahweh: "You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money."

And now what to me here, says Jehovah, that my people were taken gratuitously? ruling, they will cause to give a sharp sound, says Jehovah; and continually all the day my name being despised.

Just as many were appalled at you-- such [was] his appearance beyond human disfigurement, and his form beyond the sons of mankind--

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

But it was our pain he took, and our diseases were put on him: while to us he seemed as one diseased, on whom God's punishment had come.

But he [was] pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace [was] upon him, and by his wounds {we were healed}.

Men were cruel to him, but he was gentle and quiet; as a lamb taken to its death, and as a sheep before those who take her wool makes no sound, so he said not a word.

"Sing, you barren woman, even the one who never bore a child! Burst into song and shout for joy, even you who were never in labor! For the children of the desolate woman will be more than the children of her that is married," says the LORD.

For the LORD has called you as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when you were refused, says your God.

As the heavens were high above the earth, so my ways were high above your ways, and my purposes above your purposes.

You are wearied in the length of your way; yet you said not, There is no hope: you have found the life of your own hand; therefore you were not grieved.

And of whom were you afraid and feared, that you deceived and did not remember me? Did you not place [it] on your heart? [Have] I not been silent, even from long ago, and [so] you do not fear me?

But if I may see his right way again, I make him whole, I lead him and restore him unto them whom he maketh joyful, and that were sorry for him.

“Yet they seek Me day by day and delight [superficially] to know My ways,
As [if they were in reality] a nation that has done righteousness
And has not abandoned (turned away from) the ordinance of their God.
They ask of Me righteous judgments,
They delight in the nearness of God.

And from thee the old wastes were built; the foundations of generation and generation thou shalt raise them up, and it was called to thee, Walling the breach, Turning back the beaten paths to dwell in.

But your iniquities were separating between you and between your God, and your sins caused to hide;the face from you from hearing.

For your hands were polluted with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips spake falsehood, your tongue will mutter evil.

We grope along a wall like the blind;
we grope like those without eyes.
We stumble at noon as though it were twilight;
we are like the dead among those who are healthy.

For our transgressions were multiplied before thee, and our sins answered against us: for our transgressions are with us, and our iniquities we knew them.

And thy gates were opened continually; day and night they shall not be shut; to bring to thee the strength of the nations, and their kings being led on.

And the sons of those who were cruel to you will come before you with bent heads; and those who made sport of you will go down on their faces at your feet; and you will be named, The Town of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

And though you were turned away from, and hated, and had no helper, I will make you a pride for ever, a joy from generation to generation.

Thy sun shall no more go down, and thy moon shall not withdraw, for Jehovah shall be to thee for an eternal light, and the days of thy mourning were finished.

They will rebuild the perpetual ruins and restore the places that were desolate; they will reestablish the ruined cities, the places that have been desolate since ancient times.

As they had twice as much grief, and marks of shame were their heritage, so in their land they will be rewarded twice over, and will have eternal joy.