"Oh, you sinful nation! You people burdened down by iniquity! You offspring of those who keep practicing what is evil! You corrupt children! "They've abandoned the LORD; they've despised the Holy One of Israel; in their estrangement, they've walked away from me.

Wherefore are ye stricken any more? Ye do add apostasy! Every head is become diseased, and every heart is sick.

From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

If the Lord of armies had not kept some at least of us safe, we would have been like Sodom, and the fate of Gomorrah would have been ours.

"Listen to what the LORD says, you rulers of Sodom, and pay attention to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.

When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?

Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.

Your new moons and your regular feasts are a grief to my soul: they are a weight in my spirit; I am crushed under them.

And when you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I [will] not be listening. Your hands are full of blood.

"Wash yourselves, and make yourselves clean; remove your evil behavior from my presence; stop practicing what is evil.

Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

Therefore this is what the Lord GOD of the Heavenly Armies, the one who is Israel's Mighty One, declares: "Now I'll get relief from his enemies and avenge myself on his foes.

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 restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellers as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city.

Surely you will be ashamed of the oaks which you have desired,
And you will be embarrassed at the gardens which you have chosen.

For ye shall be as an oak the leaf withering, and as a garden which there no water to it.

And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.

This is what Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

For thou hast cast off thy people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with what comes from the east, and use auguries like the Philistines, and ally themselves with the children of foreigners.

And its land is full of idols, To the work of its hands it boweth itself, To that which its fingers have made,

The haughty looks of mankind will be brought low, the lofty pride of human beings will be humbled, and the LORD alone will be exalted at that time.

For there shall be a day of Jehovah of hosts upon all that is proud and haughty, and upon all that is lifted up; and it shall be brought low;

And it will be against all the cedars of Lebanon that are lofty and lifted up,
Against all the oaks of Bashan,

And it shall bring down the pride of man, and lay man's presumptuousness full low, and the LORD shall only have the victory in that day.

But the Idols shall utterly be rooted out.

And men will go into cracks of the rocks, and into holes of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and before the glory of his power, when he comes out of his place, shaking the earth with his strength.

On that day humanity will throw away its idols of silver and its idols of gold, which they made for it to worship, to the rodents and to the bats--

To take cover in the cracks of the rocks, and in the holes of the hills, for fear of the Lord, and before the glory of his power, when he comes out of his place, shaking the earth with his strength.

Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for what account is to be made of him?

People will oppress one another It will be man against man and neighbor against neighbor. The young will be disrespectful to the old, and the worthless to the honorable.

On that day he will cry out, saying:
“I’m not a healer.
I don’t even have food or clothing in my house.
Don’t make me the leader of the people!”

"For Jerusalem has stumbled, and Judah has fallen, because what they say and do opposes the LORD; they keep defying him.

The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.

Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.

Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.

My people -- its exactors are sucklings, And women have ruled over it. My people -- thy eulogists are causing to err, And the way of thy paths swallowed up.

Jehovah will enter into judgment with the elders of his people, and the princes thereof: It is ye that have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses:

What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord GOD of hosts.

And Jehovah said, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched-out neck and wanton eyes, and go along mincing, and making a tinkling with their feet;

"At that time, the LORD will take away the finery of the ankle bracelets, headbands, crescents,

the goodly flowered wide and broidered raiment, brushes and headbands,

The feast-day dresses, and the robes, and the wide skirts, and the handbags,

And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.

At that time shall their gates mourn and complain, and they shall sit as desolate folk upon the earth.

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

"At that time, the LORD's branch will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel and Judah.

And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem:

when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have scoured out the blood of Jerusalem from its midst, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

and it will be a shelter for shade from [the] heat by day, and a refuge and a hiding place from rainstorm and from rain.

And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?

And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:

And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

Indeed Israel is the vineyard of the Lord who commands armies, the people of Judah are the cultivated place in which he took delight. He waited for justice, but look what he got -- disobedience! He waited for fairness, but look what he got -- cries for help!

Woe unto them that add house to house, that join field to field, until there is no more room, and that ye dwell yourselves alone in the midst of the land!

The LORD of the Heavenly Armies has declared this so I could hear it: "Surely many houses will become desolate, great and beautiful houses, without occupants.

“For ten acres of vineyard will yield [only] one bath of wine,
And a homer (six bushels) of seed will produce [only] one ephah of grain.”

"How terrible it will be for those who rise at dawn in order to grab a stiff drink, for those who stay up late at night as wine inflames them!

They have lyre and harp, tambourine and flute, and wine at their feasts;
But they do not regard nor even pay attention to the deeds of the Lord,
Nor do they consider the work of His hands.

Therefore My people go into exile because they lack knowledge [of God];
And their honorable men are famished,
And their common people are parched with thirst.

Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.

Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat.

Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:

That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!

Cursed are those who give the name of good to evil, and of evil to what is good: who make light dark, and dark light: who make bitter sweet, and sweet bitter!

"How terrible it will be for those who are wise in their own opinion, and clever in their own reckoning!

Woe (judgment is coming) to those who are heroes at drinking wine
And men of strength in mixing intoxicating drinks,

Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

And he will lift up a banner to the nations afar off, and will hiss for one from the end of the earth; and behold, it will come rapidly and lightly.

There is none weary, nor stumbling in it, It doth not slumber, nor sleep, Nor opened hath been the girdle of its loins, Nor drawn away the latchet of its sandals.

Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it.

And it howleth against it in that day as the howling of a sea, And it hath looked attentively to the land, And lo, darkness -- distress, And light hath been darkened by its abundance!

In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord seated in his place, high and lifted up, and the Temple was full of the wide skirts of his robe.

Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

And they continued crying out one to another, and said, Holy - holy - holy, is Yahweh of hosts, - the fulness of the whole earth, is his glory.

And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

"How terrible it will be for me!" I cried, "because I am ruined! I'm a man with unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips! And my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of the Heavenly Armies!"

And flee unto me doth one of the seraphs, and in his hand a burning coal, (with tongs he hath taken it from off the altar,)

And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

Declare fat the heart of this people, And its ears declare heavy, And its eyes declare dazzled, Lest it see with its eyes, And with its ears hear, and its heart consider, And it hath turned back, and hath health.'

And the Lord has taken men far away, and there are wide waste places in the land.

But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.

And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.

Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field;

and say to him, ‘Take care and be calm, do not fear and be weak-hearted because of these two stumps of smoldering logs, on account of the fierce anger of [King] Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah (Pekah, usurper of the throne of Israel).

Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:

Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.

For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.

the head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.
If you do not stand firm in your faith,
then you will not stand at all.

And Jehovah will add to speak to Ahaz, saying,