When you lift up your hands in prayer,
I will refuse to look at you;
even if you offer countless prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are covered with blood.

“Come, let us discuss this,”
says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they will be as white as snow;
though they are as red as crimson,
they will be like wool.

If you are willing and obedient,
you will eat the good things of the land.

But if you refuse and rebel,
you will be devoured by the sword.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Therefore the Lord God of Hosts,
the Mighty One of Israel, declares:
“Ah, I will gain satisfaction from My foes;
I will take revenge against My enemies.

I will turn My hand against you
and will burn away your dross completely;
I will remove all your impurities.

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.”

Zion will be redeemed by justice,
her repentant ones by righteousness.

But both rebels and sinners will be destroyed,
and those who abandon the Lord will perish.

Indeed, they will be ashamed of the sacred trees
you desired,
and you will be embarrassed because of the gardens
you have chosen.

For you will become like an oak
whose leaves are withered,
and like a garden without water.

The strong one will become tinder,
and his work a spark;
both will burn together,
with no one to quench the flames.

In the last days
the mountain of the Lord’s house will be established
at the top of the mountains
and will be raised above the hills.
All nations will stream to it,

and many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us about His ways
so that we may walk in His paths.”
For instruction will go out of Zion
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He will settle disputes among the nations
and provide arbitration for many peoples.
They will turn their swords into plows
and their spears into pruning knives.
Nations will not take up the sword against other nations,
and they will never again train for war.

Human pride will be humbled,
and the loftiness of men will be brought low;
the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.

For a day belonging to the Lord of Hosts is coming
against all that is proud and lofty,
against all that is lifted up—it will be humbled—

So human pride will be brought low,
and the loftiness of men will be humbled;
the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.

The idols will vanish completely.

People will go into caves in the rocks
and holes in the ground,
away from the terror of the Lord
and from His majestic splendor,
when He rises to terrify the earth.

On that day people will throw
their silver and gold idols,
which they made to worship,
to the moles and the bats.

They will go into the caves of the rocks
and the crevices in the cliffs,
away from the terror of the Lord
and from His majestic splendor,
when He rises to terrify the earth.

“I will make youths their leaders,
and the unstable will govern them.”

The people will oppress one another,
man against man, neighbor against neighbor;
the youth will act arrogantly toward the elder,
and the worthless toward the honorable.

A man will even seize his brother
in his father’s house, saying:
“You have a cloak—you be our leader!
This heap of rubble will be under your control.”

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!”

Tell the righteous that it will go well for them,
for they will eat the fruit of their labor.

Woe to the wicked—it will go badly for them,
for what they have done will be done to them.

the Lord will put scabs on the heads
of the daughters of Zion,
and the Lord will shave their foreheads bare.

On that day the Lord will strip their finery: ankle bracelets, headbands, crescents,

Instead of perfume there will be a stench;
instead of a belt, a rope;
instead of beautifully styled hair, baldness;
instead of fine clothes, sackcloth;
instead of beauty, branding.

Your men will fall by the sword,
your warriors in battle.

Then her gates will lament and mourn;
deserted, she will sit on the ground.

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On that day seven women
will seize one man, saying,
“We will eat our own bread
and provide our own clothing.
Just let us be called by your name.
Take away our disgrace.”

On that day the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of Israel’s survivors.

Whoever remains in Zion and whoever is left in Jerusalem will be called holy—all in Jerusalem who are destined to live—

Then the Lord will create a cloud of smoke by day and a glowing flame of fire by night over the entire site of Mount Zion and over its assemblies. For there will be a canopy over all the glory,

and there will be a booth for shade from heat by day, and a refuge and shelter from storm and rain.

I will sing about the one I love,
a song about my loved one’s vineyard:
The one I love had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.

Now I will tell you
what I am about to do to My vineyard:
I will remove its hedge,
and it will be consumed;
I will tear down its wall,
and it will be trampled.

I will make it a wasteland.
It will not be pruned or weeded;
thorns and briers will grow up.
I will also give orders to the clouds
that rain should not fall on it.

I heard the Lord of Hosts say:

Indeed, many houses will become desolate,
grand and lovely ones without inhabitants.

For a ten-acre vineyard will yield
only six gallons,
and 10 bushels of seed will yield
only one bushel.

Lambs will graze
as if in their own pastures,
and strangers will eat
among the ruins of the rich.

Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes straw
and as dry grass shrivels in the flame,
so their roots will become like something rotten
and their blossoms will blow away like dust,
for they have rejected
the instruction of the Lord of Hosts,
and they have despised
the word of the Holy One of Israel.

On that day they will roar over it,
like the roaring of the sea.
When one looks at the land,
there will be darkness and distress;
light will be obscured by clouds.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying:

Who should I send?
Who will go for Us?

I said:

Here I am. Send me.

Though a tenth will remain in the land,
it will be burned again.
Like the terebinth or the oak
that leaves a stump when felled,
the holy seed is the stump.

This is what the Lord God says:

It will not happen; it will not occur.

The head of Aram is Damascus,
the head of Damascus is Rezin
(within 65 years
Ephraim will be too shattered to be 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.

But Ahaz replied, “I will not ask. I will not test the Lord.”

Isaiah said, “Listen, house of David! Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men? Will you also try the patience of my God?

Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel.

By the time he learns to reject what is bad and choose what is good, he will be eating butter and honey.

For before the boy knows to reject what is bad and choose what is good, the land of the two kings you dread will be abandoned.

The Lord will bring on you, your people, and the house of your father, such a time as has never been since Ephraim separated from Judah—the king of Assyria is coming.”

On that day
the Lord will whistle to the fly
that is at the farthest streams of the Nile
and to the bee that is in the land of Assyria.

All of them will come and settle
in the steep ravines, in the clefts of the rocks,
in all the thornbushes, and in all the water holes.

On that day the Lord will use a razor hired from beyond the Euphrates River—the king of Assyria—to shave the head, the hair on the legs, and to remove the beard as well.

On that day
a man will raise a young cow and two sheep,

and from the abundant milk they give
he will eat butter,
for every survivor in the land will eat butter and honey.

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

A man will go there with bow and arrows
because the whole land will be 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.

for before the boy knows how to call out father or mother, the wealth of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria will be carried off to the king of Assyria.”

the Lord will certainly bring against them
the mighty rushing waters of the Euphrates River—
the king of Assyria and all his glory.
It will overflow its channels
and spill over all its banks.

It will pour into Judah,
flood over it, and sweep through,
reaching up to the neck;
and its spreading streams
will fill your entire land, Immanuel!

Devise a plan; it will fail.
Make a prediction; it will not happen.
For God is with us.

He will be a sanctuary;
but for the two houses of Israel,
He will be a stone to stumble over
and a rock to trip over,
and a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Many will stumble over these;
they will fall and be broken;
they will be snared and captured.

I will wait for the Lord,
who is hiding His face from the house of Jacob.
I will wait for Him.

To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, there will be no dawn for them.

They will wander through the land, dejected and hungry. When they are famished, they will become enraged, and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God.

They will look toward the earth and see only distress, darkness, and the gloom of affliction, and they will be driven into thick darkness.

Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times when He humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. But in the future He will bring honor to the Way of the Sea, to the land east of the Jordan, and to Galilee of the nations.

For the trampling boot of battle
and the bloodied garments of war
will be burned as fuel for the fire.

For a child will be born for us,
a son will be given to us,
and the government will be on His shoulders.
He will be named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

The dominion will be vast,
and its prosperity will never end.
He will reign on the throne of David
and over his kingdom,
to establish and sustain it
with justice and righteousness from now on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.

All the people—
Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria—will know it.
They will say with pride and arrogance:

“The bricks have fallen,
but we will rebuild with cut stones;
the sycamores have been cut down,
but we will replace them with cedars.”

What will you do on the day of punishment
when devastation comes from far away?
Who will you run to for help?
Where will you leave your wealth?

There will be nothing to do
except crouch among the prisoners
or fall among the slain.
In all this, His anger is not removed,
and His hand is still raised to strike.

I will send him against a godless nation;
I will command him to go
against a people destined for My rage,
to take spoils, to plunder,
and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

and as I did to Samaria and its idols
will I not also do to Jerusalem and its idols?”

But when the Lord finishes all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for his arrogant acts and the proud look in his eyes.”

Therefore the Lord God of Hosts
will inflict an emaciating disease
on the well-fed of Assyria,
and He will kindle a burning fire
under its glory.

Israel’s Light will become a fire,
and its Holy One, a flame.
In one day it will burn up Assyria’s thorns and thistles.

He will completely destroy
the glory of its forests and orchards
as a sickness consumes a person.

The remaining trees of its forest
will be so few in number
that a child could count them.

On that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer depend on the one who struck them, but they will faithfully depend on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob,
to the Mighty God.

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.

In just a little while My wrath will be spent and My anger will turn to their destruction.”

And the Lord of Hosts will brandish a whip against him as He did when He struck Midian at the rock of Oreb; and He will raise His staff over the sea as He did in Egypt.

On that day
his burden will fall from your shoulders,
and his yoke from your neck.
The yoke will be broken because of fatness.

They crossed over at the ford, saying,
“We will spend the night at Geba.”
The people of Ramah are trembling;
those at Gibeah of Saul have fled.

Today he will stand at Nob,
shaking his fist at the mountain of Daughter Zion,
the hill of Jerusalem.

Look, the Lord God of Hosts
will chop off the branches with terrifying power,
and the tall trees will be cut down,
the high trees felled.

He is clearing the thickets of the forest with an ax,
and Lebanon with its majesty will fall.