The word about Moab. For in a night Ar of Moab has become waste, and is seen no longer; for in a night Kir of Moab has become waste, and is seen no longer.

The daughter of Dibon has gone up to the high places, weeping: Moab is sounding her cry of sorrow over Nebo, and over Medeba: everywhere the hair of the head and of the face is cut off.

For the cry has gone round the limits of Moab; as far as to Eglaim and Beer-elim.

Let those who have been forced out of Moab have a resting-place with you; be a cover to them from him who is making waste their land: till the cruel ones are cut off, and wasting has come to an end, and those who take pleasure in crushing the poor are gone from the land.

And all joy is gone; no longer are they glad for the fertile field; and in the vine-gardens there are no songs or sounds of joy: the crushing of grapes has come to an end, and its glad cry has been stopped.

But now the Lord has said, In three years, the years of a servant working for payment, the glory of Moab, all that great people, will be turned to shame, and the rest of Moab will be very small and without honour.

The word about Damascus. See, they have made Damascus a town no longer; it has become a waste place.

The strong tower has gone from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: the rest of Aram will come to destruction, and be made like the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of armies.

For this is what the Lord has said to me: I will be quiet, watching from my place; like the clear heat when the sun is shining, like a mist of dew in the heat of summer.

For before the time of getting in the grapes, after the opening of the bud, when the flower has become a grape ready for crushing, he will take away the small branches with knives, cutting down and taking away the wide-stretching branches.

The Lord has sent among them a spirit of error: and by them Egypt is turned out of the right way in all her doings, as a man overcome by wine is uncertain in his steps.

Because of the blessing of the Lord of armies which he has given them, saying, A blessing on Egypt my people, and on Assyria the work of my hands, and on Israel my heritage.

And the Lord said, As my servant Isaiah has gone unclothed and without shoes for three years as a sign and a wonder to Egypt and Ethiopia,

My mind is wandering, fear has overcome me: the evening of my desire has been turned into shaking for me.

For so has the Lord said to me, Go, let a watchman be placed; let him give word of what he sees:

The watchman says, The morning has come, but night is still to come: if you have questions to put, put them, and come back again.

For so has the Lord said to me, In a year, by the years of a servant working for payment, all the glory of Kedar will come to an end:

And the rest of the bowmen, the men of war of the children of Kedar, will be small in number: for the Lord, the God of Israel, has said it.

The Lord, the Lord of armies, says, Go to this person in authority, this Shebna, who is over the house; who has made himself a resting-place on high, cutting out a place for himself in the rock, and say,

In that day, says the Lord of armies, will the nail fixed in a safe place give way; and it will be cut down, and in its fall the weight hanging on it will be cut off, for the Lord has said it.

Be shamed, O Zidon: for the sea, the strong place of the sea has said, I have not been with child, or given birth; I have not taken care of young men, or kept watch over the growth of virgins

His hand is stretched out over the sea, the kingdoms are shaking: the Lord has given orders about Canaan, to make waste its strong places.

Take an instrument of music, go about the town, O loose woman who has gone out from the memory of man; make sweet melody with songs, so that you may come back to men's minds.

The earth has been made unclean by those living in it; because the laws have not been kept by them, the orders have been changed, and the eternal agreement has been broken.

The pleasing sound of all instruments of music has come to an end, and the voices of those who are glad.

For you have made a town a waste place: a strong town a mass of broken walls; the tower of the men of pride has come to an end; it will never be put up again.

As heat by the shade of a cloud, the noise of the men of pride has been made quiet by you; as heat by the shade of a cloud, the song of the cruel ones has been stopped.

He has put an end to death for ever; and the Lord God will take away all weeping; and he will put an end to the shame of his people in all the earth: for the Lord has said it.

And the strong tower of your walls has been broken by him, made low, and crushed even to the dust.

For he has made low those who are lifted up, all the people of the town of pride: he makes it low, crushing it down to the earth; he makes it low in the dust.

In the night the desire of my soul has been for you; early will my spirit be searching for you; for when your punishments come on the earth, the people of the world will get the knowledge of righteousness.

We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have given birth to wind; no salvation has come to the earth through us, and no children have come into the world.

Your anger against her has been made clear by driving her away; he has taken her away with his storm-wind in the day of his east wind.

For the strong town is without men, an unpeopled living-place; and she has become a waste land: there the young ox will take his rest, and its branches will be food for him.

See, the Lord has a strong and cruel one; like a rain of ice, a storm of destruction, like the overflowing of a strong river, he will violently overcome them.

For this cause says the Lord God, See, I am placing in Zion as a base, a stone, a tested stone, an angle-stone which is certain and of great value: and he who has faith will not give way.

When the face of the earth has been levelled, does he not put in the different sorts of seed, and the grain in lines, and the barley in its place, and the spelt at the edge?

For the Lord has sent on you a spirit of deep sleep; and by him your eyes, the prophets, are shut, and your heads, the seers, are covered.

And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book which is shut, which men give to one who has knowledge of writing, saying, Make clear to us what is in the book: and he says, I am not able to, for the book is shut:

Cursed are those who go deep to keep their designs secret from the Lord, and whose works are in the dark, and who say, Who sees us? and who has knowledge of our acts?

You are turning things upside down! Is the wet earth the same to you as the one who is forming it? will the thing made say of him who made it, He made me not: or the thing formed say of him who gave it form, He has no knowledge?

For the cruel one has come to nothing; and those who make sport of the Lord are gone; and those who are watching to do evil are cut off:

For there is no use or purpose in the help of Egypt: so I have said about her, She is Rahab, who has come to an end.

And the oxen and the young asses which are used for ploughing, will have salted grain which has been made free from the waste with fork and basket.

For a place of fire has long been ready; yes, it has been made ready for the king; he has made it deep and wide: it is massed with fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of fire, puts a light to it.

For the Lord has said to me, As a lion, or a young lion, makes an angry noise over his food, and if a band of herdsmen come out against him, he will not be in fear of their voices, or give up his food for their noise: so the Lord of armies will come down to make war against Mount Zion and its hill.

Come back to him who has been so deeply sinned against by the children of Israel.

But the noble-hearted man has noble purposes, and by these he will be guided.

The Lord is lifted up; his place is on high: he has made Zion full of righteousness and true religion.

The highways are waste, no man is journeying there: the agreement is broken, he has made sport of the towns, he has no thought for man.

The earth is sorrowing and wasting away; Lebanon is put to shame and has become waste; Sharon is like the Arabah; and in Bashan and Carmel the leaves are falling.

Never again will you see the cruel people, a people whose tongue has no sense for you; whose language is strange to you.

For the Lord is angry with all the nations, and his wrath is burning against all their armies: he has put them to the curse, he has given them to destruction.

The sword of the Lord is full of blood, it is fat with the best of the meat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the best parts of the sheep: for the Lord has a feast in Bozrah, and much cattle will be put to death in the land of Edom.

See what is recorded in the book of the Lord: all these will be there, not one without the other: the mouth of the Lord has given the order, and his spirit has made them come together.

And he has given them their heritage, and by his hand it has been measured out to them: it will be theirs for ever, their resting-place from generation to generation.

No lion will be there, or any cruel beast; they will not be seen there; but those for whom the Lord has given a price,

Even those whom he has made free, will come back again; they will come with songs to Zion; on their heads will be eternal joy; delight and joy will be theirs, and sorrow and sounds of grief will be gone for ever.

And if you say to me, Our hope is in the Lord our God; is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away, saying to Judah and Jerusalem that worship may only be given before this altar?

But the Rab-shakeh said, Is it to your master or to you that my master has sent me to say these words? has he not sent me to the men seated on the wall? for they are the people who will be short of food with you when the town is shut in.

Give no attention to Hezekiah when he says to you, The Lord will keep us safe. Has any one of the gods of the nations kept his land from falling into the hands of the king of Assyria?

It may be that the Lord your God will give ear to the words of the Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his master, has sent to say evil things against the living God, and will make his words come to nothing: so make your prayer for the rest of the people.

No doubt the story has come to your ears of what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, putting them to the curse: and will you be kept safe from their fate?

Let your ear be turned to us, O Lord; let your eyes be open, O Lord, and see: take note of all the words of Sennacherib who has sent men to say evil against the living God.

Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, The Lord, the God of Israel, says, The prayer you have made to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, has come to my ears.

This is the word which the Lord has said about him: In the eyes of the virgin daughter of Zion you are shamed and laughed at; the daughter of Jerusalem has made sport of you.

Against whom have you said evil and bitter things? and against whom has your voice been loud and your eyes lifted up? even against the Holy One of Israel.

Has it not come to your ears how I did it long before, purposing it in times long past? Now I have given effect to my design, so that by you strong towns might be turned into masses of broken walls.

Go to Hezekiah, and say, The Lord, the God of David, your father, says, Your prayer has come to my ears, and I have seen your weeping: see, I will give you fifteen more years of life.

And Isaiah said, This is the sign the Lord will give you, that he will do what he has said:

See, I will make the shade which has gone down on the steps of Ahaz with the sun, go back ten steps. So the shade went back the ten steps by which it had gone down.

What am I to say? seeing that it is he who has done it: all my time of sleeping I am turning from side to side without rest.

Say kind words to the heart of Jerusalem, crying out to her that her time of trouble is ended, that her punishment is complete; that she has been rewarded by the Lord's hand twice over for all her sins.

And the glory of the Lord will be made clear, and all flesh will see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has said it.

See, the Lord God will come as a strong one, ruling in power: see, those made free by him are with him, and those whom he has made safe go before him.

In the hollow of whose hand have the waters been measured? and who is able to take the heavens in his stretched-out fingers? who has got together the dust of the earth in a measure? who has taken the weight of the mountains, or put the hills into the scales?

By whom has the spirit of the Lord been guided, or who has been his teacher?

Have you no knowledge of it? has it not come to your ears? has not news of it been given to you from the first? has it not been clear to you from the time when the earth was placed on its base?

Let your eyes be lifted up on high, and see: who has made these? He who sends out their numbered army: who has knowledge of all their names: by whose great strength, because he is strong in power, all of them are in their places.

Have you no knowledge of it? has it not come to your ears? The eternal God, the Lord, the Maker of the ends of the earth, is never feeble or tired; there is no searching out of his wisdom.

He gives power to the feeble, increasing the strength of him who has no force.

So that they may see and be wise and give their mind to it, and that it may be clear to them all that the hand of the Lord has done this, and that the Holy One of Israel has made it.

I have sent for one from the north, and from the dawn he has come; in my name he will get rulers together and go against them; they will be like dust, even as the wet earth is stamped on by the feet of the potter.

Who has given knowledge of it from the first, so that we may be certain of it? and from the start, so that we may say, His word is true? There is no one who gives news, or says anything, or who gives ear to your words.

His light will not be put out, and he will not be crushed, till he has given the knowledge of the true God to the earth, and the sea-lands will be waiting for his teaching.

Who is blind, but my servant? who has his ears stopped, but he whom I send? who is blind as my true one, or who has his ears shut like the Lord's servant?

But this is a people whose property has been taken away from them by force; they are all taken in holes, and shut up in prisons: they are made prisoners, and no one makes them free; they are taken by force and no one says, Give them back.

Every one who is named by my name, and whom I have made for my glory, who has been formed and designed by me.

The Lord, who has taken up your cause, the Holy One of Israel, says, Because of you I have sent to Babylon, and made all their seers come south, and the Chaldaeans whose cry is in the ships.

The Lord, the King of Israel, even the Lord of armies who has taken up his cause, says, I am the first and the last, and there is no God but me.

If there is one like me, let him come forward and say it, let him make it clear and put it in order before me: who has made clear in the past the things to come? let him make clear the future to me.

He has cedars cut down for himself, he takes an oak and lets it get strong among the trees of the wood; he has an ash-tree planted, and the rain gives it growth.

Then it will be used to make a fire, so that a man may get warm; he has the oven heated with it and makes bread: he makes a god with it, to which he gives worship: he makes a pictured image out of it, and goes down on his face before it.

They have no knowledge or wisdom; for he has put a veil over their eyes, so that they may not see; and on their hearts, so that they may not give attention.

And no one takes note, no one has enough knowledge or wisdom to say, I have put part of it in the fire, and made bread on it; I have had a meal of the flesh cooked with it: and am I now to make the rest of it into a false god? am I to go down on my face before a bit of wood?

As for him whose food is the dust of a dead fire, he has been turned from the way by a twisted mind, so that he is unable to keep himself safe by saying, What I have here in my hand is false.

Make a song, O heavens, for the Lord has done it: give a loud cry, you deep parts of the earth: let your voices be loud in song, you mountains, and you woods with all your trees: for the Lord has taken up the cause of Jacob, and will let his glory be seen in Israel.

The Lord, who has taken up your cause, and who gave you life in your mother's body, says, I am the Lord who makes all things; stretching out the heavens by myself, and giving the earth its limits; who was with me?

Cursed is he who has an argument with his Maker, the pot which has an argument with the Potter! Will the wet earth say to him who is working with it, What are you doing, that your work has nothing by which it may be gripped?

Give the word, put forward your cause, let us have a discussion together: who has given news of this in the past? who made it clear in early times? did not I, the Lord? and there is no God but me; a true God and a saviour; there is no other.