Even the ox has knowledge of its owner, and the ass of the place where its master puts its food: but Israel has no knowledge, my people give no thought to me.

Your country has become waste; your towns are burned with fire; as for your land, it is overturned before your eyes, made waste and overcome by men from strange lands.

Come now, and let us have an argument together, says the Lord: how may your sins which are red like blood be white as snow? how may their dark purple seem like wool?

And my hand will again be on you, washing away what is unclean as with soap, and taking away all your false metal;

And I will give you judges again as at the first, and wise guides as in the past; then you will be named, The Town of Righteousness, the true town.

And the strong will be as food for the fire, and his work as a flame; and they will be burned together, with no one to put out the fire.

As for my people, their ruler is acting like a child, and those who have authority over them are women. O my people, your guides are the cause of your wandering, turning your footsteps out of the right way.

The Lord is ready to take up his cause against his people, and is about to come forward as their judge.

For this cause my people are taken away as prisoners into strange countries for need of knowledge: and their rulers are wasted for need of food, and their loud-voiced feasters are dry for need of water.

But the Lord of armies is lifted up as judge, and the Holy God is seen to be holy in righteousness.

Then the lambs will get food as in their grass-lands, and the fat cattle will be feasting in the waste places.

For this cause, as the waste of the grain is burned up by tongues of fire, and as the dry grass goes down before the flame, so their root will be like the dry stems of grain, and their flower will go up in dust: because they have gone against the law of the Lord of armies, and have given no honour to the word of the Holy One of Israel.

And he will let a flag be lifted up as a sign to a far-off nation, whistling to them from the ends of the earth: and they will come quickly and suddenly.

The Lord is about to send on you, and on your people, and on your father's house, such a time of trouble as there has not been from the days of the separating of Ephraim from Judah; even the coming of the king of Assyria.

In that day will the Lord take away the hair of the head and of the feet, as well as the hair of the face, with a blade got for a price from the other side of the River; even with the king of Assyria.

You have made them very glad, increasing their joy. They are glad before you as men are glad in the time of getting in the grain, or when they make division of the goods taken in war.

For by your hand the yoke on his neck and the rod on his back, even the rod of his cruel master, have been broken, as in the day of Midian.

Will not the fate of Calno be like that of Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?

As my hand has come on the kingdoms of the images, whose pictured images were more in number than those of Jerusalem and Samaria;

So, as I have done to Samaria and her images, I will do to Jerusalem and her images.

And I have put my hands on the wealth of the peoples, as on the place where a bird has put her eggs; and as a man may take the eggs from which a bird has gone, so I have taken all the earth for myself: and not a wing was moved, and not a mouth gave out a sound.

Will the axe say high-sounding words against him who is using it, or the blade be full of pride against him who is cutting with it? As if a rod had the power of shaking him who is using it, or as if a stick might take up him who is not wood.

And he will put an end to the glory of his woods and of his planted fields, soul and body together; and it will be as when a man is wasted by disease.

For though your people, O Israel, are as the sand of the sea, only a small number will come back: for the destruction is fixed, overflowing in righteousness.

For this cause the Lord, the Lord of armies, says, O my people living in Zion, have no fear of the Assyrian, even if his rod comes on your back, and his stick is lifted up as in Egypt.

And the Lord of armies will be shaking a whip against him, as when he overcame Midian at the rock of Oreb: and his rod will be lifted up against them as it was against the Egyptians.

There will be no cause of pain or destruction in all my holy mountain: for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is covered by the waters.

And in that day, the eyes of the nations will be turned to the root of Jesse which will be lifted up as the flag of the peoples; and his resting-place will be glory.

And he will put up a flag as a sign to the nations, and he will get together those of Israel who had been sent away, and the wandering ones of Judah, from the four ends of the earth.

And there will be a highway for the rest of his people from Assyria; as there was for Israel in the day when he came up out of the land of Egypt.

Send out a cry of grief; for the day of the Lord is near; it comes as destruction from the Most High.

And the people will take them with them to their place: and the children of Israel will give them a heritage in the Lord's land as men-servants and women-servants, making them prisoners whose prisoners they were; and they will be rulers over their masters.

They all make answer and say to you, Have you become feeble like us? have you been made even as we are?

As for your fathers, you will not be united with them in their resting-place, because you have been the cause of destruction to your land, and of death to your people; the seed of the evil-doer will have no place in the memory of man.

For the cry has gone round the limits of Moab; as far as to Eglaim and Beer-elim.

Give wise directions, make a decision; let your shade be as night in full day: keep safe those who are in flight; do not give up the wandering ones.

For the fields of Heshbon are waste, the vine of Sibmah is dead; the lords of nations were overcome by the produce of her vines; her vine-plants went as far as Jazer, and came even to the waste land; her branches were stretched out to the sea.

And it will be like a man cutting the growth of his grain, pulling together the heads of the grain with his arm; even as when they get in the grain in the valley of Rephaim.

The Lord has sent among them a spirit of error: and by them Egypt is turned out of the right way in all her doings, as a man overcome by wine is uncertain in his steps.

And the Lord said, As my servant Isaiah has gone unclothed and without shoes for three years as a sign and a wonder to Egypt and Ethiopia,

The word about the waste land. As storm-winds in the South go rushing through, it comes from the waste land, from the land greatly to be feared.

And it will be in that day that Tyre will go out of mind for seventy years, that is, the days of one king: after the end of seventy years it will be for Tyre as in the song of the loose woman.

And it will be after the end of seventy years, that the Lord will have mercy on Tyre, and she will go back to her trade, acting as a loose woman with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.

And it will be the same for the people as for the priest; for the servant as for his master; and for the woman-servant as for her owner; the same for the one offering goods for a price as for him who takes them; the same for him who gives money at interest and for him who takes it; the same for him who lets others have the use of his property as for those who make use of it.

For this cause the earth is given up to the curse, and those in it are judged as sinners: for this cause those living on the earth are burned up, and the rest are small in number.

For it will be in the heart of the earth among the peoples, like the shaking of an olive-tree, as the last of the grapes after the getting-in is done.

As heat by the shade of a cloud, the noise of the men of pride has been made quiet by you; as heat by the shade of a cloud, the song of the cruel ones has been stopped.

For in this mountain will the hand of the Lord come to rest, and Moab will be crushed down in his place, even as the dry stems of the grain are crushed under foot in the waste place.

As a woman with child, whose time is near, is troubled, crying out in her pain; so have we been before you, O Lord.

Is his punishment like the punishment of those who overcame him? or are his dead as great in number as those he put to the sword?

For this cause says the Lord God, See, I am placing in Zion as a base, a stone, a tested stone, an angle-stone which is certain and of great value: and he who has faith will not give way.

For the Lord will come up as on Mount Perazim, he will be moved to wrath as in the valley of Gibeon; so that he may do his work--strange is his work; and give effect to his act--unnatural is his act.

And I will send trouble on Ariel, and there will be weeping and cries of grief; and she will be to me as Ariel.

You are turning things upside down! Is the wet earth the same to you as the one who is forming it? will the thing made say of him who made it, He made me not: or the thing formed say of him who gave it form, He has no knowledge?

And he will let it be broken as a potter's vessel is broken: it will be smashed to bits without mercy; so that there will not be a bit in which one may take fire from the fireplace, or water from the spring.

And you will make unclean what is covering your pictured images of silver, and the plating of your images of gold: you will send them away as an unclean thing, saying, Be gone!

And the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times greater, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord puts oil on the wounds of his people, and makes them well from the blows they have undergone.

And his breath is as an overflowing stream, coming up even to the neck, shaking the nations for their destruction, like the shaking of grain in a basket: and he will put a cord in the mouths of the people, turning them out of their way.

You will have a song, as in the night when a holy feast is kept; and you will be glad in heart, as when they go with music of the pipe to the mountain of the Lord, the Rock of Israel.

For the Lord has said to me, As a lion, or a young lion, makes an angry noise over his food, and if a band of herdsmen come out against him, he will not be in fear of their voices, or give up his food for their noise: so the Lord of armies will come down to make war against Mount Zion and its hill.

And a man will be as a safe place from the wind, and a cover from the storm; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shade of a great rock in a waste land.

Happy are you who are planting seed by all the waters, and sending out the ox and the ass.

And the peoples will be like the burning of chalk: as thorns cut down, which are burned in the fire.

But the birds of the waste land will have their place there; it will be a heritage for the bittern and the raven: and it will be measured out with line and weight as a waste land.

Then Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothing parted as a sign of grief, and gave him an account of what the Rab-shakeh had said.

I am crying out with pain till the morning; it is as if a lion was crushing all my bones.

The living, the living man, he will give you praise, as I do this day: the father will give the story of your mercy to his children.

See, the Lord God will come as a strong one, ruling in power: see, those made free by him are with him, and those whom he has made safe go before him.

All the nations are as nothing before him; even less than nothing, a thing of no value.

Whom then is God like, in your opinion? or what will you put forward as a comparison with him?

It is he who is seated over the arch of the earth, and the people in it are as small as locusts; by him the heavens are stretched out like an arch, and made ready like a tent for a living-place.

Why do you say, O Jacob, such words as these, O Israel, The Lord's eyes are not on my way, and my God gives no attention to my cause?

Who sent out from the east one who is right wherever he goes? he gives the nations into his hands, and makes him ruler over kings; he gives them as the dust to his sword, as dry stems before the wind to his bow.

But as for you, Israel, my servant, and you, Jacob, whom I have taken for myself, the seed of Abraham my friend:

You will make search for your haters but they will not be there; those who make war against you will be as nothing and will come to destruction.

I have sent for one from the north, and from the dawn he has come; in my name he will get rulers together and go against them; they will be like dust, even as the wet earth is stamped on by the feet of the potter.

The Lord will go out as a man of war, he will be moved to wrath like a fighting-man: his voice will be strong, he will give a loud cry; he will go against his attackers like a man of war.

Who is blind, but my servant? who has his ears stopped, but he whom I send? who is blind as my true one, or who has his ears shut like the Lord's servant?

For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your saviour; I have given Egypt as a price for you, Ethiopia and Seba for you.

Those who make a pictured image are all of them as nothing, and the things of their desire will be of no profit to them: and their servants see not, and have no knowledge; so they will be put to shame.

He has cedars cut down for himself, he takes an oak and lets it get strong among the trees of the wood; he has an ash-tree planted, and the rain gives it growth.

As for him whose food is the dust of a dead fire, he has been turned from the way by a twisted mind, so that he is unable to keep himself safe by saying, What I have here in my hand is false.

For this is the word of the Lord who made the heavens; he is God; the maker and designer of the earth; who made it not to be a waste, but as a living-place for man: I am the Lord, and there is no other.

As for those who take gold out of a bag, and put silver in the scales, they give payment to a gold-worker, to make it into a god; they go down on their faces and give it worship.

If only you had given ear to my orders, then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea:

It is not enough for one who is my servant to put the tribes of Jacob again in their place, and to get back those of Israel who have been sent away: my purpose is to give you as a light to the nations, so that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth.

Let your eyes be lifted up round about, and see: they are all coming together to you. By my life, says the Lord, truly you will put them all on you as an ornament, and be clothed with them like a bride.

And the flesh of your attackers will be taken by themselves for food; and they will take their blood for drink, as if it was sweet wine: and all men will see that I the Lord am your saviour, even he who takes up your cause, the Strong One of Jacob.

Awake! awake! put on strength, O arm of the Lord, awake! as in the old days, in the generations long past. Was it not by you that Rahab was cut in two, and the dragon Wounded?

I, even I, am your comforter: are you so poor in heart as to be in fear of man who will come to an end, and of the son of man who will be like grass?

As peoples were surprised at him, And his face was not beautiful, so as to be desired: his face was so changed by disease as to be unlike that of a man, and his form was no longer that of the sons of men.

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.

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.

For this is like the days of Noah to me: for as I took an oath that the waters of Noah would never again go over the earth, so have I taken an oath that I will not again be angry with you, or say bitter words to you.

See, I have given him as a witness to the peoples, a ruler and a guide to the nations.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and does not go back again, but gives water to the earth, and makes it fertile, giving seed to the planter, and bread for food;

For the Lord says, As for the unsexed who keep my Sabbaths, and give their hearts to pleasing me, and keep their agreement with me:

And as for those from a strange country, who are joined to the Lord, to give worship to him and honour to his name, to be his servants, even everyone who keeps the Sabbath holy, and keeps his agreement with me:

And you went to Melech with oil and much perfume, and you sent your representatives far off, and went as low as the underworld.