I will restore your judges to what they once were,
and your advisers to their former state.
Afterward you will be called the Righteous City,
a Faithful City.”

Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against His people.
He raised His hand against them and struck them;
the mountains quaked,
and their corpses were like garbage in the streets.
In all this, His anger is not removed,
and His hand is still raised to strike.

Seraphim were standing above Him; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

And on that day
every place where there were 1,000 vines,
worth 1,000 pieces of silver,
will become thorns and briers.

You will not go to all the hills
that were once tilled with a hoe,
for fear of the thorns and briers.
Those hills will be places for oxen to graze
and for sheep to trample.

Israel, even if your people were as numerous
as the sand of the sea,
only a remnant of them will return.
Destruction has been decreed;
justice overflows.

On that day you will say:
“I will praise You, Lord,
although You were angry with me.
Your anger has turned away,
and You have had compassion on me.

When the Lord gives you rest from your pain, torment, and the hard labor you were forced to do,

On that day their strong cities will be
like the abandoned woods and mountaintops
that were abandoned because of the Israelites;
there will be desolation.

The noisy city, the jubilant town,
is filled with revelry.
Your dead did not die by the sword;
they were not killed in battle.

All your rulers have fled together,
captured without a bow.
All your fugitives were captured together;
they had fled far away.

Your best valleys were full of chariots,
and horsemen were positioned at the gates.

You saw that there were many breaches in the walls of the city of David. You collected water from the lower pool.

As a pregnant woman about to give birth
writhes and cries out in her pains,
so we were before You, Lord.

You have turned things around,
as if the potter were the same as the clay.
How can what is made say about its maker,
“He didn’t make me”?
How can what is formed
say about the one who formed it,
“He doesn’t understand what he’s doing”?

But they kept silent; they didn’t say anything, for the king’s command was, “Don’t answer him.”

They have thrown their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but made by human hands—wood and stone. So they have destroyed them.

Then the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies!

Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and asked him, “Where did these men come from and what did they say to you?”

Hezekiah replied, “They came to me from a distant country, from Babylon.”

“I have raised up one from the north, and he has come,
one from the east who invokes My name.
He will march over rulers as if they were mud,
like a potter who treads the clay.

Who gave Jacob to the robber,
and Israel to the plunderers?
Was it not the Lord?
Have we not sinned against Him?
They were not willing to walk in His ways,
and they would not listen to His instruction.

You were secure in your wickedness;
you said, ‘No one sees me.’
Your wisdom and knowledge
led you astray.
You said to yourself,
‘I exist, and there is no one else.’

You have never heard; you have never known;
For a long time your ears have not been open.
For I knew that you were very treacherous,
and were known as a rebel from birth.

This is what the Lord says:

Where is your mother’s divorce certificate
that I used to send her away?
Or who were My creditors that I sold you to?
Look, you were sold for your iniquities,
and your mother was put away
because of your transgressions.

Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness,
you who seek the Lord:
Look to the rock from which you were cut,
and to the quarry from which you were dug.

For this is what the Lord says:
“You were sold for nothing,
and you will be redeemed without silver.”

Just as many were appalled at You—
His appearance was so disfigured
that He did not look like a man,
and His form did not resemble a human being—

We grope along a wall like the blind;
we grope like those without eyes.
We stumble at noon as though it were twilight;
we are like the dead among those who are healthy.

I trampled the winepress alone,
and no one from the nations was with Me.
I trampled them in My anger
and ground them underfoot in My fury;
their blood spattered My garments,
and all My clothes were stained.

You welcome the one who joyfully does what is right;
they remember You in Your ways.
But we have sinned, and You were angry.
How can we be saved if we remain in our sins?