But those who are decent plan noble things, and by noble deeds they stand."

Rise up, ye women that are at ease, hear my voice; ye careless daughters, give ear unto my speech.

In not much more than a year, you, who are not looking for evil, will be troubled: for the produce of the vine-gardens will be cut off, and there will be no getting in of the grapes.

Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones; strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth on your loins!

For breasts they are lamenting, For fields of desire, for the fruitful vine.

For the fortress is neglected; the once-crowded city is abandoned. Hill and watchtower are permanently uninhabited. Wild donkeys love to go there, and flocks graze there.

Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
And righteousness will live in the fertile field.

Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth the feet of the ox and the ass.

The destroyer is as good as dead, you who have not been destroyed! The deceitful one is as good as dead, the one whom others have not deceived! When you are through destroying, you will be destroyed; when you finish deceiving, others will deceive you!

At the noise of the tumult the peoples are fled; at the lifting up of thyself the nations are scattered.

Your spoil will be gathered as locusts are gathered;
people will swarm over it like an infestation of locusts.

The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high;
He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.

Let truth and faithfulness be in her time: power, health, wisdom, knowledge and the fear of God are her treasure.

See, the men of war are sorrowing outside the town: those who came looking for peace are weeping bitterly.

The highways are desolate, the wayfaring man ceaseth. He hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man.

The land mourneth, it languisheth; Lebanon is ashamed, is withered; the Sharon is become as a desert, and Bashan and Carmel are stripped.

And [the] peoples will be burning [to] lime-- they are burned [like] thorns [that have been] cut down in the fire.

[You who are] far away, hear what I have done; and [you who are] near, know my might!"

Sinners are afraid in Zion; trembling has seized [the] godless: "Who of us can {live} [with] devouring fire? Who of us can {live} [with] everlasting consuming hearths?"

He whose ways are true, and whose words are upright; he who gives no thought to the profits of false acts, whose hands have not taken rewards, who will have no part in putting men to death, and whose eyes are shut against evil;

He high places doth inhabit, Strongholds of rock are his high tower, His bread hath been given, his waters stedfast.

See Zion, the city of our meetings, Thine eyes see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, A tent not taken down, Not removed are its pins for ever, And none of its cords are broken.

For the majestic One, our Lord, will be there,
a place of rivers and broad streams
where ships that are rowed will not go,
and majestic vessels will not pass.

Thy tacklings are loosed; they strengthen not the socket of their mast, they cannot spread the sail: then is the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame take the prey.

And their wounded are cast out, And their carcases cause their stench to ascend, And melted have been mountains from their blood.

Of her nobles who should proclaim the kingdom, none are there; and all her princes shall be nought.

And gone up her palaces have thorns, Nettle and bramble are in her fortresses, And it hath been a habitation of dragons, A court for daughters of an ostrich.

It shall blossom abundantly, and it shall rejoice indeed with rejoicing and exulting. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. {They are the ones who} shall see the glory of Yahweh, the majesty of our God.

Say to those who are hasty of heart, "Be strong; you must not fear! Look! your God will come [with] vengeance, [with] {divine retribution}. He {is the one who} will come and save you."

Then the eyes of the blind will see, and the ears which are stopped will be open.

And the Rab-shakeh said to them, Say now to Hezekiah, These are the words of the great king, the king of Assyria: In what are you placing your hope?

I say, thy counsel and strength for the war are but vain words: now on whom dost thou trust, that thou hast rebelled against me?

See, you are basing your hope on that broken rod of Egypt, which will go into a man's hand if he makes use of it for a support; for so is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who put their faith in him.

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’?

And now please make a wager with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, [that is,] if you are able {put} riders for yourself on them!

How, then, can you repulse even one officer from the least of my master's officials, when you are depending for yourselves on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

And Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to Rabshakeh, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we can understand [it], and you must not speak to us in Judean in the {hearing} of the people who [are] on the wall."

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 Arpad? Where [are] the gods of Sepharvaim? Indeed, [have] they delivered Samaria from my hand?

Who [are there] among all the gods of these countries who have saved their land from my hand, that Yahweh should save Jerusalem from my hand?" '"

And they said to him, Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of reviling; for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.

The LORD thy God, no doubt, hath well considered the words of Rabshakeh, whom his lord the king of the Assyrians hath sent, to defy and blaspheme the living God: with such words as the LORD thy God hath heard right well. And therefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that yet are left.'"

And Isaiah said to them, This is what you are to say to your master: The Lord says, Be not troubled by the words which the servants of the king of Assyria have said against me in your hearing.

This is what you are to say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Let not your God, in whom is your faith, give you a false hope, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.

Did the gods of the nations deliver them whom my fathers destroyed -- Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the sons of Eden, who are in Telassar?

Where are the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the kings of Lair, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?'"

"Yahweh of hosts, God of Israel {who is enthroned on} the cherubim, you [are] the one, God by yourself, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you are the one who made the heavens and the earth.

so as to put their gods into fire -- for they are no gods, but work of the hands of man, wood and stone -- and they destroy them.

So now, Yahweh, our God, save us from his hand so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you [are] Yahweh, you alone!"

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.

Have you not heard from afar? I made it from days of old, even I have formed it. Now I have caused it to come, and you are to cause fortified cities to crash into heaps, ruins.

And their inhabitants [are] {weak}; they are dismayed, and they are ashamed; they have become [like] plants of [the] field, and [like] greens of grass, [like] grass on [the] roofs and a cultivated field {before} the standing grain.

And those of Judah who are still living will again take root in the earth, and give fruit.

For from Jerusalem those who have been kept safe will go out, and those who are still living will go out of Mount Zion: by the fixed purpose of the Lord of armies this will be done.

And a messenger of Jehovah goeth out, and smiteth in the camp of Asshur a hundred and eighty and five thousand; and men rise early in the morning, and lo, all of them are dead corpses.

In those days, Hezekiah became sick to death, and Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet, came to him and said to him, "Thus says Yahweh: 'Order your house, for you [are] about to die, and you shall not recover.'"

I said, In the quiet of my days I am going down into the underworld: the rest of my years are being taken away from me.

Like a horse or a crane, so I chirp; I moan like dove. My eyes are weak toward the height. Lord, I have oppression; lend me support!

Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon.

'Look! days [are] coming, and all that [is] in your house and that which your ancestors have stored up to this day shall be carried off [to] Babylon. Nothing shall be left,' says Yahweh.

‘And some of your own sons (descendants) who will come from you, whom you will father, will be taken away, and they will become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”

“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
And call out to her, that her time of compulsory service in warfare is finished,
That her wickedness has been taken away [since her punishment is sufficient],
That she has received from the Lord’s hand
Double [punishment] for all her sins.”

A voice [is] saying, "Call!" And he said, "What shall I call?" All {humankind} [are] grass, and all his loyalty [is] like the flowers of the field.

Grass withers; [the] flower withers when the breath of Yahweh blows on it. Surely the people [are] grass.

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.

He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.

Look! [The] nations [are] like a drop from a bucket, and they are counted like dust of [the] balances! Look! He weighs [the] islands like a thin covering.

Lebanon is not sufficient to minister fire for his offering, and all the beasts thereof are not enough to one sacrifice.

All the nations [are] like nothing before him; they are counted by him as nothing and emptiness.

Do you [who worship idols] not know? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told to you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth [the omnipotence of God and the stupidity of bowing to idols]?

[He is] the one who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants [are] like grasshoppers; the one who stretches out [the] heavens like a veil and spreads them out like tent to live [in],

He makes rulers come to nothing; the judges of the earth are of no value.

Indeed, hardly are they planted; indeed, hardly [are they] sown; indeed, hardly has their shoot taken root in the earth when he blows on them and they wither, and [the] tempest carries them like stubble.

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.

Why do you say, O Jacob, such words as these, O Israel, The Lord's eyes are not on my way, and my God gives no attention to my cause?

He gives strength to those who are tired; to the ones who lack power, he gives renewed energy.

Even youths are wearied and fatigued, And young men utterly stumble,

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.

Who hath wrought and performed, Calling the generations, in advance? I, Yahweh, who am First, And with them who are last, I, am the Same!

[The] coastlands have seen and are afraid; the ends of the earth tremble. They have drawn near, and they have come.

But you, Israel, are my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the descendant of Abraham my friend.

you whom I grasped from the ends of the earth and called from its remotest parts and told, "You [are] my servant; I have chosen you and I have not rejected you."

Look! All those who are angry with you shall be ashamed and humiliated; {your opponents} shall be like nothing and shall become lost.

Thou seekest them, and findest them not, The men who debate with thee, They are as nothing, yea, as nothing, The men who war with thee.

The poor and the needy [are] seeking water and [there is] none; their tongue is dried up with thirst. I, Yahweh, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

Let them bring [them], and let them tell us what will happen. Tell us what the former things [are] {so that} we may take [them to] our heart and know their outcome. Declare to us the things to come;

tell [us] the things coming {hereafter}, that we may know that you [are] gods. Indeed, do good or do evil, that we may be afraid and see together.

Look! you [are] nothing, and your work [is] something worthless; whoever chooses you [is] an abomination.

"You are stirring up one from the north, and they are coming from the rising of the sun; and he will be called by his name. Rulers will arrive like mud; just like a potter, he will trample the clay.

I was the first to say to Zion:
Look! Here they are!
And I gave a herald of good news to Jerusalem.

Look! All of them [are] deception; their works [are] nothing; their images [are] wind and emptiness.

To give eyes to the blind, to make free the prisoners from the prison, to let out those who are shut up in the dark.

Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth will I cause you to hear them.

Sing to Jehovah a new song, His praise from the end of the earth, Ye who are going down to the sea, and its fulness, Isles, and their inhabitants.

And I will lead the blind by a road they do not know; I will cause [them] to tread on paths they have not known. I will make darkness {in their presence} into light and rough places into level ground. These [are] the things I will do, and I will not forsake them.

They shall turn back; they shall be {greatly ashamed}, those who trust in an image, who say to a cast image, "You [are] our gods."

Give ear, you whose ears are shut; and let your eyes be open, you blind, so that you may see.

You see many [things], but you do not observe. [His] ears are open, but he does not hear.

But this [is] a people plundered and looted; all of them are trapped in holes, and they are kept hidden in houses of imprisonment. They have become like plunder, and there is no one who saves; [like] booty, and there is no one who says, "Restore!"

But now thus says Yahweh, he who created you, Jacob, and he who formed you, Israel: "You must not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called [you] by your name; {you are mine}.