Your rulers are rebels
And companions of thieves;
Everyone loves bribes
And chases after gifts.
They do not defend the fatherless,
Nor does the widow’s cause come before them [instead they delay or turn a deaf ear].

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw [in a vision] the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted, with the train of His royal robe filling the [most holy part of the] temple.

“Make the heart of this people insensitive,
Their ears dull,
And their eyes dim,
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
Understand with their hearts,
And return and be healed.”

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].

So as to deprive the needy of justice
And rob the poor of My people of rightful claims,
So that widows may be their spoil
And that they may plunder the fatherless.

And like the hunted gazelle,
Or like sheep that no man gathers,
Each [foreign resident] will turn [and go back] to his own people,
And each one flee to his own land.

For the Lord of hosts has decided and planned, and who can annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?”

The land of Judah [Assyria’s ally] will become a terror to the Egyptians; everyone to whom Judah is mentioned will be in dread of it, because of the purpose of the Lord of hosts which He is planning against Egypt.

For they have fled from the swords,
From the drawn sword, from the bent bow
And from the press of battle and grief of war.

Behold, the Lord lays waste to the earth, devastates it, twists and distorts its face and scatters its inhabitants.

A spirit of justice for him who sits in judgment [administering the law],
A strength to those who drive back the battle at the gate.

You turn things upside down [with your perversity]!
Shall the potter be considered equal with the clay,
That the thing that is made would say to its maker, “He did not make me”;
Or the thing that is formed say to him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?

“Therefore the safety and protection of Pharaoh will be your shame
And the refuge in the shadow of Egypt, your humiliation and disgrace.

“Get out of the [true] way, turn aside from the path [of God],
Stop bothering us with the Holy One of Israel.”

Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left.

Each [one of them] will be like a hiding place from the wind
And a shelter from the storm,
Like streams of water in a dry land,
Like the shade of a huge rock in a parched and weary land [to those who turn to them].

“Because your raging against Me
And your arrogance has come up to My ears,
I will put My hook in your nose
And My bridle in your mouth,
And I will turn you back by the way you came.

Listen carefully, I will turn the shadow on the stairway [denoting the time of day] ten steps backward, the shadow on the stairway (sundial) of Ahaz.” And the sunlight went ten steps backward on the stairway where it had [previously] gone down.

“I will lay waste the mountains and hills
And wither all their vegetation;
I will turn the rivers into coastlands
And dry up the ponds.

“If you turn back your foot from [unnecessary travel on] the Sabbath,
From doing your own pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a [spiritual] delight, and the holy day of the Lord honorable,
And honor it, not going your own way
Or engaging in your own pleasure
Or speaking your own [idle] words,

“A Redeemer (Messiah) will come to Zion,
And to those in Jacob (Israel) who turn from transgression (sin),” declares the Lord.