In my ears the Lord of hosts said, “Be assured that many houses will become desolate,
Even great and beautiful ones will be unoccupied.

Bind up the testimony, seal the law and the teaching among my (Isaiah’s) disciples.

A remnant will return, a remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.

Therefore [continues Isaiah] my loins are filled with anguish;
Pains have seized me like the pains of a woman in childbirth;
I am so bent and bewildered that I cannot hear, I am so terrified that I cannot see.

Listen and hear my voice;
Listen carefully and hear my words.

Rise up, you women who are carefree,
And hear my voice,
You confident and unsuspecting daughters!
Listen to what I am saying.

He who is too impoverished for such an offering [to give to his god]
Chooses a tree that will not rot;
He seeks out for himself a skillful craftsman
To [carve and] set up an idol that will not totter.

After oppression and judgment He was taken away;
And as for His generation [His contemporaries], who [among them] concerned himself with the fact
That He was cut off from the land of the living [by His death]
For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke [of death] was due?