For this cause they will take away their wealth, and the stores they have got together, over the stream of the water-plants.

And they will send ... to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.

For this cause everyone in Moab will give cries of grief for Moab: crushed to the earth, they will be weeping for the men of Kir-hareseth.

For this cause my sorrow for the vine of Sibmah will be like the weeping for Jazer: my eyes are dropping water on you, O Heshbon and Elealeh! For they are sounding the war-cry over your summer fruits and the getting in of your grain;

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.

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

And it will be like a man cutting the growth of his grain, pulling together the heads of the grain with his arm; even as when they get in the grain in the valley of Rephaim.

In that day your towns will be like the waste places of the Hivites and the Amorites which the children of Israel took for a heritage, and they will come to destruction.

In the evening there is fear, and in the morning they are gone. This is the fate of those who take our goods, and the reward of those who violently take our property for themselves.

They will be for the birds of the mountains, and for the beasts of the earth: the birds will come down on them in the summer, and the beasts of the earth in the winter.

And I will send the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they will be fighting every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; town against town, and kingdom against kingdom.

And the spirit of Egypt will be troubled in her, and I will make her decisions without effect: and they will be turning to the false gods, and to those who make hollow sounds, and to those who have control of spirits, and to those who are wise in secret arts.

And it will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of armies in the land of Egypt: when they are crying out to the Lord because of their cruel masters, then he will send them a saviour and a strong one to make them free.

And the Lord will give the knowledge of himself to Egypt, and the Egyptians will give honour to the Lord in that day; they will give him worship with offerings and meal offerings, and will take an oath to the Lord and give effect to it.

And the Lord will send punishment on Egypt, and will make them well again; and when they come back to the Lord he will give ear to their prayer and take away their disease.

And they will be full of fear, and will no longer have faith in Ethiopia which was their hope, or in Egypt which was their glory.

They make ready the table, they put down the covers, they take food and drink. Up! you captains; put oil on your breastplates.

For they are in flight from the sharp sword, and the bent bow, and from the trouble of war.

When the news comes to Egypt they will be bitterly pained at the fate of Tyre.

And her goods and her trade will be holy to the Lord: they will not be kept back or stored up; for her produce will be for those living in the Lord's land, to give them food for their needs, and fair clothing.

But those will be making sounds of joy; they will be crying loudly from the sea for the glory of the Lord.

From the farthest part of the earth comes the sound of songs, glory to the upright. But I said, I am wasting away, wasting away, the curse is on me! The false ones go on in their false way, yes, they go on acting falsely.

And they will be got together, like prisoners in the prison-house; and after a long time they will have their punishment.

Lord, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see: let them see ... yes, your haters will be burned up in the fire.

My passion is over: if the thorns were fighting against me, I would make an attack on them, and they would be burned up together.

When its branches are dry they will be broken off; the women will come and put fire to them: for it is a foolish people; for this cause he who made them will have no mercy on them, and he whose work they are will not have pity on them.

And it will be in that day that a great horn will be sounded; and those who were wandering in the land of Assyria, and those who had been sent away into the land of Egypt, will come; and they will give worship to the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.

And further, these are uncertain through wine, and have gone out of the right way through strong drink: the priest and the prophet are uncertain through strong drink, they are overcome by wine, they have gone out of the way through strong drink; their vision is false, they go wrong in their decisions.

To whom he said, This is the rest, give rest to him who is tired; and by this you may get new strength; but they would not give ear.

For this cause the word of the Lord will be to them rule after rule, line after line, here a little, there a little; so that they may go on their way, and falling back may be broken, and taken in the net.

Because you have said, We have made death our friend, and with the underworld we have made an agreement; when the overflowing waters come through they will not come near us; for we are looking to false words for help, taking cover in what is untrue:

Whenever they come through they will overtake you; for they will come through morning after morning, by day and by night: and the news will be nothing but fear.

And they give it to one without learning, saying, Make clear to us what is in the book: and he says, I have no knowledge of writing.

But when they, the children of Jacob, see the work of my hands among them, they will give honour to my name; yes, they will give honour to the Holy One of Jacob, and go in fear of the God of Israel.

For they have all come with offerings to a people of no use to them, in whom is no help or profit, but only shame and a bad name.

The word about the Beasts of the South. Through the land of trouble and grief, the land of the she-lion and the voice of the lion, of the snake and the burning winged snake, they take their wealth on the backs of young asses, and their stores on camels, to a people in whom is no profit.

For they are an uncontrolled people, false-hearted, who will not give ear to the teaching of the Lord:

And the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times greater, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord puts oil on the wounds of his people, and makes them well from the blows they have undergone.

You will have a song, as in the night when a holy feast is kept; and you will be glad in heart, as when they go with music of the pipe to the mountain of the Lord, the Rock of Israel.

And the Lord will send out the sound of his great voice, and they will see his arm stretched out, with the heat of his wrath, and the flame of a burning fire; with a cloud-burst, and storm, and a rain of ice.

Cursed are those who go down to Egypt for help, and who put their faith in horses; looking to war-carriages for salvation, because of their numbers; and to horsemen, because they are very strong; but they are not looking to the Holy One of Israel, or turning their hearts to the Lord;

Though he is wise, and able to send evil, and his purpose will not be changed; but he will go against the house of the evil-doers, and against those to whom they are looking for help.

For in that day they will all give up their images of silver and of gold, the sin which they made for themselves.

The foolish man will no longer be named noble, and they will not say of the false man that he is a man of honour.

Ho! you who make waste those who did not make you waste; acting falsely to those who were not false to you. When you have come to an end of wasting, you will be made waste, and after your false acts, they will do the same to you.

Your eyes will see the king in his glory: they will be looking on a far-stretching land.

Your cords have become loose; they were not able to make strong the support of their sails, the sail was not stretched out: then the blind will take much property, the feeble-footed will make division of the goods of war.

The jackals will be there, and her great ones will be gone; they will say, There is no longer a kingdom there, and all her chiefs will have come to an end.

It will be flowering like the rose; it will be full of delight and songs; the glory of Lebanon will be given to it; the pride of Carmel and Sharon: they will see the glory of the Lord, the power of our God.

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.

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.

Where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim? where are the gods of Samaria? and have they kept Samaria out of my hand?

But they kept quiet and gave him no answer: for the king's order was, Give him no answer.

And they said to him, Hezekiah says, This day is a day of trouble and punishment and shame: for the children are ready to come to birth, but there is no strength to give birth to them.

And have given their gods to the fire: for they were no gods, but wood and stone, the work of men's hands; so they have given them to destruction.

This is why their townsmen had no power, they were broken and put to shame; they were like the grass of the field, or a green plant; like the grass on the house-tops, which a cold wind makes waste.

And it came about, when he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to death with the sword, and they went in flight into the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon, his son, became king in his place.

Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, What did these men say, and where did they come from? And Hezekiah said, They came from a far country, even from Babylon.

And he said, What have they seen in your house? And Hezekiah said in answer, They saw everything in my house: there is nothing among my stores which I did not let them see.

And your sons, even your offspring, will they take away to be unsexed servants in the house of the king of Babylon.

They have only now been planted, and their seed put into the earth, and they have only now taken root, when he sends out his breath over them and they become dry, and the storm-wind takes them away like dry grass.

But those who are waiting for the Lord will have new strength; they will get wings like eagles: running, they will not be tired, and walking, they will have no weariness.

Come quietly before me, O sea-lands, and let the peoples get together their strength: let them come near; then let them say what they have to say: let us put forward our cause against one another.

The sea-lands saw it, and were in fear; the ends of the earth were shaking: they came near.

They gave help everyone to his neighbour; and everyone said to his brother, Take heart!

You will make search for your haters but they will not be there; those who make war against you will be as nothing and will come to destruction.

You will send the wind over them, and it will take them away; they will go in all directions before the storm-wind: you will have joy in the Lord, and be glad in the Holy One of Israel.

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.

Let the future be made clear to us: give us news of the past things, so that we may give thought to them; or of the things to come, so that we may see if they are true.

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.

Truly they are all nothing, their works are nothing and of no value: their metal images are of no more use than wind.

See, the things said before have come about, and now I give word of new things: before they come I give you news of them.

And I will take the blind by a way of which they had no knowledge, guiding them by roads strange to them: I will make the dark places light before them, and the rough places level. These things will I do and will not give them up.

They will be turned back and be greatly shamed who put their hope in pictured images, who say to metal images, You are our gods.

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.

Who gave up Jacob to those who took away his goods, and Israel to his attackers? Did not the Lord? he against whom they did wrong, and in whose ways they would not go, turning away from his teaching.

When you go through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not go over you: when you go through the fire, you will not be burned; and the flame will have no power over you.

Send out the blind people who have eyes, and those who have ears, but they are shut.

Let all the nations come together, and let the peoples be present: who among them is able to make this clear, and give us word of earlier things? let their witnesses come forward, so that they may be seen to be true, and that they may give ear, and say, It is true.

Who sends out the war-carriages and the horses, the army with all its force; they have come down, they will not get up again; like a feebly burning light they are put out.

And they will come up like grass in a well-watered field, like water-plants by the streams.

Those who make a pictured image are all of them as nothing, and the things of their desire will be of no profit to them: and their servants see not, and have no knowledge; so they will be put to shame.

Truly, all those who make use of secret arts will be put to shame, and their words of power are only words of men: let them all come forward together; they will all be in fear and be put to shame.

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.

So that they may see from the east and from the west that there is no God but me: I am the Lord, and there is no other.

The Lord says, The workmen of Egypt, and the traders of Ethiopia, and the tall Sabaeans, will come over the sea to you, and they will be yours; they will go after you; in chains they will come over: and they will go down on their faces before you, and will make prayer to you, saying, Truly, God is among you; and there is no other God.

Come together, even come near, you nations who are still living: they have no knowledge who take up their image of wood, and make prayer to a god in whom is no salvation.

In the Lord will all the seed of Israel get their rights, and they will give glory to him.

They are bent down, they are falling together: they were not able to keep their images safe, but they themselves have been taken prisoner.

As for those who take gold out of a bag, and put silver in the scales, they give payment to a gold-worker, to make it into a god; they go down on their faces and give it worship.

They put him on their backs, and take him up, and put him in his fixed place, from which he may not be moved; if a man gives a cry for help to him, he is unable to give an answer, or get him out of his trouble.

But these two things will come on you suddenly in one day, the loss of children and of husband: in full measure they will come on you, for all your secret arts, and all your wonders.

Go on now with your secret arts, and all your wonder-working, to which you have given yourself up from your earliest days; it may be that they will be of profit to you, or by them you may put fear into your attackers.

Truly, they have become like dry stems, they have been burned in the fire; they are not able to keep themselves safe from the power of the flame: it is not a coal for warming them, or a fire by which a man may be seated.

Small profit have you had from those who, from your earliest days, got great profit out of you; they have gone in flight, every one straight before him, and you have no saviour.

For they say that they are of the holy town, and put their faith in the God of Israel: the Lord of armies is his name.

I gave word in the past of the things which came about; they came from my mouth, and I made them clear: suddenly I did them, and they came about.

They have only now been effected, and not in the past: and before this day they had not come to your ears; for fear that you might say, I had knowledge of them.

Yes, by my hand was the earth placed on its base, and by my right hand the heavens were stretched out; at my word they take up their places.