I say to the Lord, “You are my God.”
Listen, Lord, to my cry for help.

I cry to You, Lord;
I say, “You are my shelter,
my portion in the land of the living.”

If they say—“Come with us!
Let’s set an ambush and kill someone.
Let’s attack some innocent person just for fun!

rescuing you from the way of evil—
from the one who says perverse things,

Don’t say to your neighbor, “Go away! Come back later.
I’ll give it tomorrow”—when it is there with you.

and you will say, “How I hated discipline,
and how my heart despised correction.

Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
and call understanding your relative.

She grabs him and kisses him;
she brazenly says to him,

Listen, for I speak of noble things,
and what my lips say is right.

“Whoever is inexperienced, enter here!”
To the one who lacks sense, she says,

“Whoever is inexperienced, enter here!”
To the one who lacks sense, she says,

Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure;
I am cleansed from my sin”?

“It’s worthless, it’s worthless!” the buyer says,
but after he is on his way, he gloats.

Don’t say, “I will avenge this evil!”
Wait on the Lord, and He will rescue you.

The slacker says, “There’s a lion outside!
I’ll be killed in the public square!”

for it’s like someone calculating inwardly.
“Eat and drink,” he says to you,
but his heart is not with you.

My innermost being will cheer
when your lips say what is right.

Your eyes will see strange things,
and you will say absurd things.

If you say, “But we didn’t know about this,”
won’t He who weighs hearts consider it?
Won’t He who protects your life know?
Won’t He repay a person according to his work?

Whoever says to the guilty, “You are innocent”—
people will curse him, and tribes will denounce him;

Don’t say, “I’ll do to him what he did to me;
I’ll repay the man for what he has done.”

for it is better for him to say to you, “Come up here!”
than to demote you in plain view of a noble.

The slacker says, “There’s a lion in the road—
a lion in the public square!”

so is the man who deceives his neighbor
and says, “I was only joking!”

The one who robs his father or mother
and says, “That’s no sin,”
is a companion to a man who destroys.

The leech has two daughters: “Give, Give!”
Three things are never satisfied;
four never say, “Enough!”:

Sheol; a childless womb;
earth, which is never satisfied with water;
and fire, which never says, “Enough!”

This is the way of an adulteress:
she eats and wipes her mouth
and says, “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

What should I say, my son?
What, son of my womb?
What, son of my vows?

“Absolute futility,” says the Teacher.
“Absolute futility. Everything is futile.”

Can one say about anything,
“Look, this is new”?
It has already existed in the ages before us.

Do not let your mouth bring guilt on you, and do not say in the presence of the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry with your words and destroy the work of your hands?

A man may father a hundred children and live many years. No matter how long he lives, if he is not satisfied by good things and does not even have a proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.

Don’t say, “Why were the former days better than these?”
since it is not wise of you to ask this.

Don’t pay attention to everything people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you,

“Look,” says the Teacher, “I have discovered this by adding one thing to another to find out the explanation,

For the king’s word is authoritative, and who can say to him, “What are you doing?”

There is a futility that is done on the earth: there are righteous people who get what the actions of the wicked deserve, and there are wicked people who get what the actions of the righteous deserve. I say that this too is futile.

So remember your Creator in the days of your youth:

Before the days of adversity come,
and the years approach when you will say,
“I have no delight in them”;

“Absolute futility,” says the Teacher. “Everything is futile.”

“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.

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.

Why do you crush My people
and grind the faces of the poor?”
This is the declaration
of the Lord God of Hosts.

The Lord also says:

Because the daughters of Zion are haughty,
walking with heads held high
and seductive eyes,
going along with prancing steps,
jingling their ankle bracelets,

to those who say:
“Let Him hurry up and do His work quickly
so that we can see it!
Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel take place
so that we can know it!”

And He replied:

Go! Say to these people:
Keep listening, but do not understand;
keep looking, but do not perceive.

Say to him: Calm down and be quiet. Don’t be afraid or cowardly because of these two smoldering stubs of firebrands, the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram, and the son of Remaliah.

For Aram, along with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has plotted harm against you. They say,

This is what the Lord God says:

It will not happen; it will not occur.

Do not call everything an alliance
these people say is an alliance.
Do not fear what they fear;
do not be terrified.

When they say to you, “Consult the spirits of the dead and the spiritists who chirp and mutter,” shouldn’t a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?

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

For he says,
“Aren’t all my commanders kings?

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 says this: “My people who dwell in Zion, do not fear Assyria, though he strikes you with a rod and raises his staff over you as the Egyptians did.

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.

and on that day you will say:
“Give thanks to Yahweh; proclaim His name!
Celebrate His works among the peoples.
Declare that His name is exalted.

you will sing this song of contempt about the king of Babylon and say:

How the oppressor has quieted down,
and how the raging has become quiet!

And now the Lord says, “In three years, as a hired worker counts years, Moab’s splendor will become an object of contempt, in spite of a very large population. And those who are left will be few and weak.”

The princes of Zoan are complete fools;
Pharaoh’s wisest advisers give stupid advice!
How can you say to Pharaoh,
“I am one of the wise,
a student of eastern kings”?

And the inhabitants of this coastland will say on that day, ‘Look, this is what has happened to those we relied on and fled to for help to rescue us from the king of Assyria! Now, how will we escape?’”

The Lord God of Hosts said: “Go to Shebna, that steward who is in charge of the palace, and say to him:

On that day Tyre will be forgotten for 70 years—the life span of one king. At the end of 70 years, what the song says about the prostitute will happen to Tyre:

For he says: “Law after law, law after law,
line after line, line after line,
a little here, a little there.”

Listen and hear my voice.
Pay attention and hear what I say.

For you the entire vision will be like the words of a sealed document. If it is given to one who can read and he is asked to read it, he will say, “I can’t read it, because it is sealed.”

And if the document is given to one who cannot read and he is asked to read it, he will say, “I can’t read.”

Woe to those who go to great lengths
to hide their plans from the Lord.
They do their works in darkness,
and say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”

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”?

Therefore, the Lord who redeemed Abraham says this about the house of Jacob:

Jacob will no longer be ashamed
and his face will no longer be pale.

They say to the seers, “Do not see,”
and to the prophets,
“Do not prophesy the truth to us.
Tell us flattering things.
Prophesy illusions.

Therefore the Holy One of Israel says:
“Because you have rejected this message
and have trusted in oppression and deceit,
and have depended on them,

You say, “No!
We will escape on horses”—
therefore you will escape!—
and, “We will ride on fast horses”—
but those who pursue you will be faster.

But He also is wise and brings disaster.
He does not go back on what He says;
He will rise up against the house of wicked men
and against the allies of evildoers.

Stand up, you complacent women;
listen to me.
Pay attention to what I say,
you overconfident daughters.

“Now I will rise up,” says the Lord.
“Now I will lift Myself up.
Now I will be exalted.

and none there will say, “I am sick.”
The people who dwell there
will be forgiven their iniquity.

Say to the cowardly:
“Be strong; do not fear!
Here is your God; vengeance is coming.
God’s retribution is coming; He will save you.”

The Rabshakeh said to them, “Tell Hezekiah:

The great king, the king of Assyria, says this: What are you relying on?

I say that your strategy and military preparedness are mere words. What are you now relying on that you have rebelled against me?

Suppose you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God.’ Isn’t He the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You are to worship at this altar’?

This is what the king says: “Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot deliver you.

Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: “Make peace with me and surrender to me. Then every one of you may eat from his own vine and his own fig tree and drink water from his own cistern

They said to him, “This is what Hezekiah says: ‘Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace, for children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to deliver them.

who said to them, “Tell your master this, ‘The Lord says: Don’t be afraid because of the words you have heard, which the king of Assyria’s attendants have blasphemed Me with.

“Say this to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Don’t let your God, whom you trust, deceive you by promising that Jerusalem won’t be handed over to the king of Assyria.

Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “The Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Because you prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria,

“Therefore, this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria:

He will not enter this city
or shoot an arrow there
or come before it with a shield
or build up an assault ramp against it.

In those days Hezekiah became terminally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came and said to him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Put your affairs in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.’”

“Go and tell Hezekiah that this is what the Lord God of your ancestor David says: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I am going to add 15 years to your life.

What can I say?
He has spoken to me,
and He Himself has done it.
I walk along slowly all my years
because of the bitterness of my soul,

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.”

‘The time will certainly come when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until this day will be carried off to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord.

“Comfort, comfort My people,”
says your God.

Zion, herald of good news,
go up on a high mountain.
Jerusalem, herald of good news,
raise your voice loudly.
Raise it, do not be afraid!
Say to the cities of Judah,
“Here is your God!”

Jacob, why do you say,
and Israel, why do you assert:
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my claim is ignored by my God”?

Each one helps the other,
and says to another, “Take courage!”

For I, Yahweh your God,
hold your right hand
and say to you: Do not fear,
I will help you.

“Submit your case,” says the Lord.
“Present your arguments,” says Jacob’s King.

Who told about this from the beginning,
so that we might know,
and from times past,
so that we might say: He is right?
No one announced it,
no one told it,
no one heard your words.