In that day men will throw away to the moles and to the bats
Their idols of silver and their idols of gold,
Which they made for themselves [as objects] to worship,

Stop regarding man, whose breath [of life] is in his nostrils [for so little time];
For why should he be esteemed?

The brave man and the warrior [He is also removing],
The judge and the prophet,
The diviner and the elder,

The captain of fifty and the man of honor,
The counselor and the expert artisan,
And the skillful enchanter.

And the people will be oppressed,
Each one by another, and each one by his neighbor;
The boy will be arrogant and insolent toward the elder
And the vulgar (common) toward the honorable [person of rank].

When a man takes hold of his brother in the house of his father, saying,
“You have a robe, you shall be our judge and ruler,
And this pile of ruins will be under your control,”

“What do you mean by crushing My people
And grinding the face of the poor?”
Declares the Lord God of hosts.

Your men will fall by the sword
And your mighty men in battle.

And in that day seven women will take hold of one man, saying, “We will eat our own food and wear [and provide] our own clothes; only let us be called by your name; take away our shame [of being unmarried].”

“And now, says the Lord, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
Judge between Me and My vineyard (My people).

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house (nation) of Israel
And the men of Judah are His delightful planting [which He loves].
So He looked for justice, but in fact, [He saw] bloodshed and lawlessness;
[He looked] for righteousness, but in fact, [He heard] a cry of distress and oppression.

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.

So the common man will be bowed down and the man of importance degraded,
And the eyes of the proud (arrogant) will be degraded.

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

Then I said,

“Woe is me! For I am ruined,
Because I am a man of [ceremonially] unclean lips,
And I live among a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered,

“Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant,
And houses are without people
And the land is utterly desolate,

Then Isaiah said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too small a thing for you to try the patience of men, but will you try the patience of my God as well?

Now in that day [because of the poverty caused by the invaders] a man will keep alive only a young milk cow and two sheep;

People will come there [to hunt] with arrows and with bows because all the land will be briars and thorns.

Then the Lord said to me, “Take for yourself a large tablet [for public display] and write on it in ordinary characters: Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

“It is the Lord of hosts whom you are to regard as holy and awesome.
He shall be your [source of] fear,
He shall be your [source of] dread [not man].

You [O God] will increase the nation,
You will multiply their joy;
They will rejoice before You
Like the joy and jubilation of the harvest,
As men rejoice when they divide the spoil [of victory].

The elderly and honorable man, he is the head;
And the prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.

Therefore the Lord does not rejoice over their young men,
Nor does He have compassion on their fatherless or their widows;
For every one of them is godless and an evildoer,
And every mouth is speaking foolishness.
In spite of all this, God’s anger does not turn away
But His hand is still stretched out [in judgment].

By the wrath of the Lord of hosts the land is burned up,
And the people are like fuel for the fire;
No man spares his brother.

Is the axe able to lift itself over the one who chops with it?
Is the saw able to magnify itself over the one who wields it?
That would be like a club moving those who lift it,
Or like a staff raising him who is not [made of] wood [like itself]!

The Lord will consume the glory of Assyria’s forest and of its fruitful garden, both soul and body,
And it will be as when a sick man wastes away.

And the Lord will utterly destroy
The tongue of the Sea of Egypt;
And with His scorching wind
He will wave His hand over the River;
He will strike and divide it into seven channels
And make [it possible for] people [to] walk over in sandals.

I [the Lord] have commanded My consecrated ones,
I have even called My great warriors,
My proudly exulting ones [the Medes and the Persians who triumph for My honor]—
To execute My anger.

Therefore all hands will fall limp,
And every man’s heart will melt.

For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not flash with their light;
The sun will be dark when it rises,
And the moon will not shed its light.

I will make mortal man more rare than fine gold,
And mankind [scarcer] than the pure gold of Ophir.

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.

Their bows will cut down the young men [of Babylon];
They will take no pity on the fruit of the womb,
Their eyes will not look with compassion on the children.

“Those who see you will gaze at you,
They will consider you, saying,
‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
Who shook kingdoms,

“Let our outcasts of Moab live among you;
Be a [sheltered] hiding place to them from the destroyer.”
For the extortioner has come to an end, destruction has ceased,
Oppressors [who trample men] have completely disappeared from the land,

In that day man will have regard for his Maker,
And his eyes will regard the Holy One of Israel [with awe-inspired reverence].

Where then are your wise men?
Please let them tell you,
And let them understand what the Lord of hosts
Has purposed against Egypt [if they can].

The Lord has mixed a spirit of distortion within her;
Her leaders have caused Egypt to stagger in all that she does,
As a drunken man staggers in his vomit.

“Now look! Here comes a troop of riders, horsemen in pairs.”
And one said, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon;
And all the carved images of her gods are shattered on the ground.”

and the remainder of the number of archers, the mighty men of the sons of Kedar, will be few; for the Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken.”

The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning the Valley of Vision:

What is the matter with you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops,

‘Listen carefully, the Lord is about to hurl you away violently, O man;
And He is about to grasp you firmly

Be ashamed, O Sidon [mother-city of Tyre, now like a widow bereaved of her children];
For the sea speaks, the stronghold of the sea, saying,
“I have neither labored nor given birth [to children];
I have neither brought up young men nor reared virgins.”

The earth reels back and forth like a drunkard
And sways like a shack;
Its transgression lies heavily upon it,
And it will fall and not rise again.

Then the full moon will be embarrassed and the sun ashamed,
For the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
And His glory and brilliance will shine before His elders.

Indeed, the Lord will teach this people [in a more humiliating way]
By [men with] stammering lips and a foreign tongue,

For the bed is too short to stretch out on,
And the blanket is too narrow to wrap around oneself [and likewise all their preparations are inadequate].

It will be as when a hungry man dreams
That he is eating,
But when he awakens, his hunger is not satisfied;
Or as when a thirsty man dreams
That he is drinking,
But when he awakens, in fact, he is faint
And his thirst is not quenched.
So will the multitude of all the nations be
Who fight against Mount Zion.

The entire vision [of all these things] will be to you like the words of a scroll that is sealed, which they give to one who can read, saying, “Read this, please,” he shall say, “I cannot, for it is sealed.”

Then the Lord said,

“Because this nation approaches [Me only] with their words
And honors Me [only] with their lip service,
But they remove their hearts far from Me,
And their reverence for Me is a tradition that is learned by rote [without any regard for its meaning],

Therefore, listen carefully, I will again do marvelous and amazing things with this people, wonderful and astonishing things;
And the wisdom of their wise men will perish,
And the understanding of their discerning men will be hidden.”

The afflicted also will increase their joy in the Lord,
And the needy of mankind will rejoice and celebrate in the Holy One of Israel.

Those who cause a person to be condemned with a [false] word,
And lay a trap for him who upholds justice at the [city] gate,
And defraud the one in the right with meaningless arguments.

“Woe (judgment is coming) to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord,
“Who carry out a plan, but not Mine,
And make an alliance [by pouring out a libation], but not of My Spirit,
In order to add sin to sin;

The light of the full moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days [concentrated in one], in the day the Lord binds up the fracture of His people and heals the wound He has inflicted [because of their sins].

Now the Egyptians are men and not God,
And their horses are flesh and not spirit;
And the Lord will stretch out His hand,
And he (Egypt) who helps will stumble,
And he (Judah) who is helped will fall,
And all of them will perish together.

For in that day every man will reject and throw away his idols of silver and his idols of gold [in disgust], which your own hands have sinfully made for you.

Then the Assyrian will fall by a sword not of man,
And a sword not of man will devour him.
And he will flee from the sword [of God],
And his young men will become forced labor.

But the noble man conceives noble and magnificent things;
And he stands by what is noble and magnificent.

The highways are deserted, the traveler has ceased [to appear].
The enemy has broken the covenant, he has rejected the cities,
He has no regard for [any] man.

He will dwell on the heights,
His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks,
His bread will be given him;
His water will be permanent.

Then the lame will leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy.
For waters will break forth in the wilderness
And streams in the desert.

A highway will be there, and a roadway;
And it will be called the Holy Way.
The unclean will not travel on it,
But it will be for those who walk on the way [the redeemed];
And fools will not wander on it.

Listen carefully, you rely on the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him.

But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”

and have cast the gods [of those peoples] into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them.

I said, “I will not see the Lord
The Lord in the land of the living;
I will no longer see man among the inhabitants of the world.

“Like a swallow, like a crane, so I chirp;
I coo like a dove.
My eyes look wistfully upward;
O Lord, I am oppressed, take my side and be my security.

“O Lord, by these things men live,
And in all these is the life of my spirit;
Restore me to health and let me live!

Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and asked, “What did these men say? From where have they come to you?” And Hezekiah said, “They came to me from a far country, from Babylon.”

Scarcely have they been planted,
Scarcely have they been sown,
Scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth,
But He merely blows on them, and they wither,
And a strong wind carries them away like stubble.

Even youths grow weary and tired,
And vigorous young men stumble badly,

“Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel;
I will help you,” declares the Lord, “and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

So that they may see and know,
And consider and understand together,
That the hand of the Lord has done this,
That the Holy One of Israel has created it.

“Present your case [for idols made by men’s hands],” says the Lord.
“Produce your evidence [of divinity],”
Says the king of Jacob.

“I was first to say to Zion, ‘Listen carefully, here they are [the Jews who will be restored to their own land].’
And to Jerusalem, ‘I will provide a messenger (Isaiah) to bring the good news [that Cyrus will be stirred up and put into action to save them].’

“But when I look [on the pagan prophets and priests], there is no one [who could predict these events],
And there is no counselor among them,
Who, if I ask, can give an answer.

The Lord will go forth like a warrior,
He will stir up His zeal like a man of war;
He will shout out, yes, He will raise a war cry.
He will prevail [mightily] against His enemies.

But now, this is what the Lord, your Creator says, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel,
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you [from captivity];
I have called you by name; you are Mine!

“Because you are precious in My sight,
You are honored and I love you,
I will give other men in return for you and other peoples in exchange for your life.

“You have not bought Me sweet cane with money,
Nor have you filled Me with the fat of your sacrifices;
But you have burdened Me with your sins,
You have wearied Me with your wickedness.

In fact, all his companions will be put to shame, for the craftsmen themselves are mere men. Let them all assemble, let them stand up, let them be terrified, let them together be put to shame.

The carpenter stretches out a measuring line, he marks out the shape [of the idol] with red chalk; he works it with planes and outlines it with the compass; and he makes it like the form of a man, like the beauty of man, that it may sit in a house.

Then it becomes fuel for a man to burn, so he takes one of them and warms himself; he also kindles a fire to bake bread. He also makes a god [from the same wood] and worships it. He makes it into a carved idol [with his own hands] and falls down and worships it!

That kind of man (the idolater) feeds on ashes [and is satisfied with ashes]! A deceived mind has led him astray, so that he cannot save himself, or ask, “Is this thing [that I am holding] in my right hand not a lie?”

That people may know from the rising to the setting of the sun [the world over]
That there is no one except Me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other,

“I made the earth and created man upon it.
My hands, stretched out the heavens,
And I commanded all their host.

For this is what the Lord says,

“The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush (ancient Ethiopia)
And the Sabeans, men of stature,
Will come over to you and they will be yours;
They will walk behind you, in chains [of subjection to you] they will come over,
And they will bow down before you;
They will make supplication to you, [humbly and earnestly] saying,
‘Most certainly God is with you, and there is no other,
No other God [besides Him].’”

Calling a bird of prey from the east,
From a far country, the man (Cyrus) of My purpose.
Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass.
I have planned it, be assured I will do it.

“Your nakedness will be uncovered,
Your shame will also be exposed;
I will take vengeance and will spare no man.”

And [the Lord] said to Me, “You are My Servant, Israel,
In Whom I will show My glory.”

This is what the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, Israel’s Holy One says,
To the thoroughly despised One,
To the One hated by the nation
To the Servant of rulers,
“Kings will see and arise,
Princes shall also bow down,
Because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.”

“Why, when I came, was there no man [to greet Me]?
When I called, why was there no one to answer?
Is My hand really so short that it cannot redeem [My servants]?
Or have I no power to rescue?
Listen carefully, with My rebuke I dry up the sea,
I make the rivers into a desert;
Their fish stink because there is no water
And die of thirst.

“Listen to Me, you who know righteousness (right standing with God),
The people in whose heart is My law and instruction;
Do not fear the reproach and taunting of man,
Nor be distressed at their reviling.

“I, even I, am He who comforts you.
Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies
And of a son of man who is made [as destructible] as grass,

For the Lord says this, “You were sold for nothing and you will be redeemed, but not with money.”

Just as many were astonished and appalled at you, My people,
So His appearance was marred more than any man
And His form [marred] more than the sons of men.

He was despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and pain and acquainted with grief;
And like One from whom men hide their faces
He was despised, and we did not appreciate His worth or esteem Him.

His grave was assigned with the wicked,
But He was with a rich man in His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.