“The ox [instinctively] knows its owner,
And the donkey its master’s feeding trough,
But Israel does not know [Me as Lord],
My people do not understand.”

Your land lies desolate [because of your disobedience],
Your cities are burned with fire,
Your fields—strangers are devouring them in your very presence;
It is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

“Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be like wool.

“And I will turn My hand against you,
And will [thoroughly] purge away your dross as with lye
And remove all your tin (impurity).

“Then I will restore your judges as at the first,
And your counselors as at the beginning;
Afterward you will be called the city of righteousness,
The faithful city.”

Now it will come to pass that
In the last days
The mountain of the house of the Lord
Will be [firmly] established as the highest of the mountains,
And will be exalted above the hills;
And all the nations will stream to it.

Stop regarding man, whose breath [of life] is in his nostrils [for so little time];
For why should he be esteemed?

Their partiality testifies against them,
They display their sin like Sodom;
They do not even hide it.
Woe (judgment is coming) to them!
For they have brought evil on themselves [as a reward].

O My people! Children are their oppressors,
And women rule over them.
O My people! Your leaders lead you astray
And confuse (destroy, swallow up) the direction of your paths.

Therefore the Lord will afflict the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion with scabs [making them bald],
And the Lord will expose their foreheads (send them into captivity).”

And Jerusalem’s gates will lament (cry out in grief) and mourn [as those who wail for the dead];
And she, being ruined and desolate, will sit upon the ground.

Now let me sing for my greatly Beloved [Lord]
A song of my Beloved about His vineyard (His chosen people).
My greatly Beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile slope (the promised land, Canaan).

Then the lambs will graze [among the ruins] as in their own pasture,
And strangers will eat in the desolate places of the [exiled] wealthy.

Therefore, as the tongue of fire consumes the stubble [from straw]
And the dry grass collapses into the flame,
So their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away like fine dust;
Because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts
And despised and discarded the word of the Holy One of Israel.

He will lift up a flag to [call] the distant nations [to bring His judgment on Judah],
And will whistle for them from the ends of the earth;
And indeed, they will come with great speed swiftly.

When the house of David (Judah) was told, “Aram is allied with Ephraim (Israel),” the hearts of Ahaz and his people trembled as the trees of the forest tremble in the wind.

“Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God [one that will convince you that God has spoken and will keep His word]; make your request as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven.”

But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!”

The Lord will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim (the ten northern tribes) separated from Judah—[He will call for] the king of Assyria.”

As for all the hills which used to be cultivated with the pick and the hoe, you will no longer go there for fear of briars and thorns; but they will become a place where oxen are pastured and where sheep tread.

So I approached [my wife] the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. Then the Lord said to me, “Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz [to remind the people of the prophecy];

“It is the Lord of hosts whom you are to regard as holy and awesome.
He shall be your [source of] fear,
He shall be your [source of] dread [not man].

You [O God] will increase the nation,
You will multiply their joy;
They will rejoice before You
Like the joy and jubilation of the harvest,
As men rejoice when they divide the spoil [of victory].

For You will break the yoke of Israel’s burden and the staff (goad) on their shoulders,
The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian.

For every boot of the marching warrior in the battle tumult,
And [every soldier’s] garment rolled in blood, will be used for burning, fuel for the fire.

Yet the people do not turn back [in repentance] to Him who struck them,
Nor do they seek the Lord of hosts [as their most essential need].

“As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols,
Whose carved images were greater and more feared than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

Shall I not do to Jerusalem and her images
Just as I have done to Samaria and her idols?” [declares Assyria].

“My hand has found the wealth of the people like a nest,
And as one gathers eggs that are abandoned, so I have gathered all the earth;
And there was not one that flapped its wing, or that opened its beak and chirped.”

Is the axe able to lift itself over the one who chops with it?
Is the saw able to magnify itself over the one who wields it?
That would be like a club moving those who lift it,
Or like a staff raising him who is not [made of] wood [like itself]!

The Lord will consume the glory of Assyria’s forest and of its fruitful garden, both soul and body,
And it will be as when a sick man wastes away.

Now in that day the remnant of Israel, and those of the house of Jacob who have escaped, will never again rely on the one who struck them, but will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

For though your people, O Israel, may be as the sand of the sea,
Only a remnant within them will return;
The destruction is determined [it is decided and destined for completion], overflowing with justice (righteous punishment).

Therefore, the Lord God of hosts says this, “O My people who dwell in Zion, do not be afraid of the Assyrian who strikes you with a rod and lifts up his staff against you, as [the king of] Egypt did.

The Lord of hosts will brandish a whip against them like the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb; and His staff will be over the [Red] Sea and He will lift it up the way He did in [the flight from] Egypt.

And the nursing child will [safely] play over the hole of the cobra,
And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den [and not be hurt].

They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain,
For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea.

Then in that day
The nations will make supplications to the Root of Jesse
Who will stand as a signal for the peoples;
And His resting place will be glorious.

And there will be a highway from Assyria
For the remnant of His people who will be left,
Just as there was for Israel
In the day when they came up out of the land of Egypt.

Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand!
It will come as destruction from the Almighty (All Sufficient One—Invincible God)!

They [of Babylon] will be shocked and terrified,
Pains and anguish will grip them;
They will be in pain like a woman in childbirth.
They will stare aghast and horrified at one another,
Their faces aflame [from the effects of the unprecedented warfare].

The peoples will take them along and bring them to their own place (Judea), and the house of Israel will possess them as an inheritance in the land of the Lord as male and female servants; and they will take captive those whose captives they have been, and they will rule over their [former] oppressors.

“All of them will respond [tauntingly] and say to you,
‘You have become as weak as we are.
You have become like us.

The Lord of hosts has sworn [an oath], saying, “Just as I have intended, so it has certainly happened, and just as I have planned, so it will stand—

This is the plan [of God] decided for the whole earth [regarded as conquered and put under tribute by Assyria]; and this is the hand [of God] that is stretched out over all the nations.

They have gone up to the temple and to Dibon, to the high places to weep.
Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba;
Everyone’s head is shaved, and every beard is cut off [in mourning].

But now the Lord speaks, saying, “Within three years, as the years of a hired man [who will not serve longer than the agreed time], the glory of Moab will be degraded along with all the great population, and the remnant [that survives] will be very small and of no account.”

“And it will be like the reaper gathering the standing grain,
As his arm harvests the ears of grain;
Yes, it will be like one gleaning ears of grain
In the [fertile] Valley of Rephaim.

“Yet gleanings will be left in the land [of Israel] like the shaking of the olive tree,
Two or three olives on the topmost branch,
Four or five on the [outermost] branches of the fruitful tree,”
Declares the Lord, the God of Israel.

In that day the strong cities of Aram and Israel will be like deserted places in the forest,
Or like branches which they abandoned before the children of Israel;
And the land will be a desolation.

In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in,
And in the morning you bring your seed to blossom;
Yet [promising as it is] the harvest will be a heap [of ruins that passes away]
In the day of sickness and incurable pain.

The Lord has mixed a spirit of distortion within her;
Her leaders have caused Egypt to stagger in all that she does,
As a drunken man staggers in his vomit.

And the Lord said, “Even as My servant Isaiah has walked stripped and barefoot for three years as a sign and forewarning concerning Egypt and Cush (Ethiopia),

The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning the Desert of the Sea (the seasonally flooded plains just south of Babylon):

As windstorms in the Negev (the South) sweep through,
So it (God’s judgment) comes from the desert, from [the hostile armies of] a terrifying land.

This is what the Lord says to me,

“Go, station the lookout, let him report what he sees.

All your leaders have fled together [with your king],
And have been captured without the bow [which they had thrown away];
All of you who were found were taken captive together,
Though they had fled far away.

But the Lord of hosts revealed Himself in my ears,
“This sin absolutely will not be forgiven you
Until you die,” says the Lord God of hosts.

Cross over to Tarshish [to seek safety as exiles];
Wail, O inhabitants of the coastland [of Tyre].

Now in that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the prostitute’s song:

And the people will be like the priest, the servant like his master, the maid like her mistress, the buyer like the seller, the lender like the borrower, the creditor like the debtor [as God’s impartial judgment of sin comes on all].

For so it will be in the midst of the earth among the peoples,
As the shaking of an olive tree,
As the gleanings when the grape harvest is over [and only a little of the fruit remains].

Then it will be that he who flees at the sound of terror will fall into the pit,
And he who comes up out of the pit will be caught in the snare;
For the windows of heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.

They will be gathered together
As prisoners [are gathered] in a dungeon;
They will be shut up in prison,
And after many days they will be visited and punished.

Like heat in a dry land, You will subdue the noise of foreigners [rejoicing over their enemies];
Like heat in the shadow of a cloud, the song of the tyrants is silenced.

For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain [Zion],
And Moab will be trampled down in his place
As straw is trampled down in the [filthy] water of a manure pile.

And Moab will spread out his hands in the middle of the filth
As a swimmer spreads out his hands to swim,
But the Lord will humiliate his pride in spite of the [skillful] movements of his hands.

In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

“We have a strong city;
He sets up salvation as walls and ramparts.

As a woman with child approaches the time to give birth,
She is in pain and struggles and cries out in her labor,
So we were before You, O Lord.

We have been with child, we have twisted and struggled in labor;
We gave birth, as it seems, only to wind.
We could not accomplish salvation for the earth,
Nor were inhabitants of the world born.

Like the striking by Him who has struck them, has He struck them?
Or like the slaughter of His slain, have they been slain?

You contended with them by exile, by driving them away [from Canaan];
He has expelled them with His fierce wind on the day of the east wind.

They say “To whom would He teach knowledge?
And to whom would He explain the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just taken from the breast?

“As often as it passes through, it will seize you;
For morning after morning it will pass through, by day and by night,
And it will be sheer terror to understand what it means.”

For the Lord will rise up as at Mount Perazim,
He will be stirred up as in the Valley of Gibeon,
To do His work, His unusual and incredible work,
And to accomplish His work, His extraordinary work.

When he has leveled its surface,
Does he not sow [the seed of] dill and scatter cumin,
And plant wheat in rows,
And barley in its [intended] place and rye within its border?

Then you [Jerusalem] will be brought low,
You will speak from the earth,
And from the dust where you lie face down
Your muffled words will come.
Your voice will also be like that of a spirit from the earth [like one produced by a medium],
And your speech will whisper and squeak from the dust.

And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel (Jerusalem),
Even all who fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her,
Will be like a dream, a vision of the night.

It will be as when a hungry man dreams
That he is eating,
But when he awakens, his hunger is not satisfied;
Or as when a thirsty man dreams
That he is drinking,
But when he awakens, in fact, he is faint
And his thirst is not quenched.
So will the multitude of all the nations be
Who fight against Mount Zion.

Then the Lord said,

“Because this nation approaches [Me only] with their words
And honors Me [only] with their lip service,
But they remove their hearts far from Me,
And their reverence for Me is a tradition that is learned by rote [without any regard for its meaning],

Is it not yet a very little while
Until Lebanon will be turned into a fertile field,
And the fertile field regarded as a forest?

For the tyrant will come to an end and the scorner will be finished,
Indeed all who are intent on doing evil will be cut off—

Now, go, write it on a tablet before them
And inscribe it on a scroll,
So that it may serve in the time to come
As a witness [against them] forevermore.

“Whose collapse is like the smashing of a potter’s jar,
Crushed so savagely
that there cannot be found among its pieces a potsherd [large enough]
To take [coals of] fire from a fireplace,
Or to scoop water from a cistern.”

And you will defile your carved images overlaid with silver, and your cast images plated with gold. You will scatter them like a bloodstained cloth, and will say to them, “Be gone!”

You will have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept,
And joy of heart as when one marches [in procession] with a flute,
To go to the [temple on the] mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.

For so the Lord says to me,

“As the lion or the young lion growls over his prey,
And though a large group of shepherds is called out against him
He will not be terrified at their voice nor cringe at their noise,
So the Lord of hosts will come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill.”

Until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high,
And the wilderness becomes a fertile field,
And the fertile field is valued as a forest.

Your spoil [of Israel’s foe] is gathered [by the people of Jerusalem] as the caterpillar gathers;
As locusts swarming so people swarm on it.

“The peoples will be burned to lime,
Like thorns cut down which are burned in the fire.

Did the gods of the nations which my fathers destroyed rescue them—Gozan, Haran [of Mesopotamia], Rezeph, and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar?

It came to pass as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons killed him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat [in Armenia]. And Esarhaddon his son became king in his place.

“My dwelling (body) is pulled up and removed from me like a shepherd’s tent;
I have rolled up my life as a weaver [rolls up the finished web].
He cuts me free from the warp [of the loom];
From day to night You bring me to an end.

“Like a swallow, like a crane, so I chirp;
I coo like a dove.
My eyes look wistfully upward;
O Lord, I am oppressed, take my side and be my security.

“What shall I say?
For He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it;
I will wander aimlessly all my years because of the bitterness of my soul.

“It is the living who give praise and thanks to You, as I do today;
A father tells his sons about Your faithfulness.

A voice says, “Call out [prophesy].”
Then he answered, “What shall I call out?”
[The voice answered:] All humanity is [as frail as] grass, and all that makes it attractive [its charm, its loveliness] is [momentary] like the flower of the field.

Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord,
Or has taught Him as His counselor?

In fact, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
And are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales;
Now look, He lifts up the islands like fine dust.

All the nations are as nothing before Him,
They are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless.

It is He who reduces dignitaries to nothing,
Who makes the judges (rulers) of the earth meaningless (useless).