I opened to my love,
but my love had turned and gone away.
I was crushed that he had left.
I sought him, but did not find him.
I called him, but he did not answer.

Your teeth are like a flock of ewes
coming up from washing,
each one having a twin,
and not one missing.

Come, my love,
let’s go to the field;
let’s spend the night among the henna blossoms.

Young women of Jerusalem, I charge you:
do not stir up or awaken love
until the appropriate time.

The ox knows its owner,
and the donkey its master’s feeding trough,
but Israel does not know;
My people do not understand.”

From the sole of the foot even to the head,
no spot is uninjured—
wounds, welts, and festering sores
not cleansed, bandaged,
or soothed with oil.

If the Lord of Hosts
had not left us a few survivors,
we would be like Sodom,
we would resemble Gomorrah.

When you lift up your hands in prayer,
I will refuse to look at you;
even if you offer countless prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are covered with blood.

Your rulers are rebels,
friends of thieves.
They all love graft
and chase after bribes.
They do not defend the rights of the fatherless,
and the widow’s case never comes before them.

He will settle disputes among the nations
and provide arbitration for many peoples.
They will turn their swords into plows
and their spears into pruning knives.
Nations will not take up the sword against other nations,
and they will never again train for war.

So humanity is brought low,
and man is humbled.
Do not forgive them!

On that day he will cry out, saying:
“I’m not a healer.
I don’t even have food or clothing in my house.
Don’t make me the leader of the people!”

The look on their faces testifies against them,
and like Sodom, they flaunt their sin.
They do not conceal it.
Woe to them,
for they have brought evil on themselves.

Then the Lord will create a cloud of smoke by day and a glowing flame of fire by night over the entire site of Mount Zion and over its assemblies. For there will be a canopy over all the glory,

I will make it a wasteland.
It will not be pruned or weeded;
thorns and briers will grow up.
I will also give orders to the clouds
that rain should not fall on it.

At their feasts they have lyre, harp,
tambourine, flute, and wine.
They do not perceive the Lord’s actions,
and they do not see the work of His hands.

Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against His people.
He raised His hand against them and struck them;
the mountains quaked,
and their corpses were like garbage in the streets.
In all this, His anger is not removed,
and His hand is still raised to strike.

And He replied:

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

This took place during the reign of Ahaz, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah king of Judah: Rezin king of Aram, along with Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, waged war against Jerusalem, but he could not succeed.

This is what the Lord God says:

It will not happen; it will not occur.

the head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.
If you do not stand firm in your faith,
then you will not stand at all.

But Ahaz replied, “I will not ask. I will not test the Lord.”

Isaiah said, “Listen, house of David! Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men? Will you also try the patience of my God?

You will not go to all the hills
that were once tilled with a hoe,
for fear of the thorns and briers.
Those hills will be places for oxen to graze
and for sheep to trample.

Devise a plan; it will fail.
Make a prediction; it will not happen.
For God is with us.

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

To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, there will be no dawn for them.

Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times when He humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. But in the future He will bring honor to the Way of the Sea, to the land east of the Jordan, and to Galilee of the nations.

Aram from the east and Philistia from the west
have consumed Israel with open mouths.
In all this, His anger is not removed,
and His hand is still raised to strike.

The people did not turn to Him who struck them;
they did not seek the Lord of Hosts.

Therefore the Lord does not rejoice
over Israel’s young men
and has no compassion
on its fatherless and widows,
for everyone is a godless evildoer,
and every mouth speaks folly.
In all this, His anger is not removed,
and His hand is still raised to strike.

They carve meat on the right,
but they are still hungry;
they have eaten on the left,
but they are still not satisfied.
Each one eats the flesh of his own arm.

Manasseh is with Ephraim,
and Ephraim with Manasseh;
together, both are against Judah.
In all this, His anger is not removed,
and His hand is still raised to strike.

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There will be nothing to do
except crouch among the prisoners
or fall among the slain.
In all this, His anger is not removed,
and His hand is still raised to strike.

But this is not what he intends;
this is not what he plans.
It is his intent to destroy
and to cut off many nations.

and as I did to Samaria and its idols
will I not also do to Jerusalem and its idols?”

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.

They crossed over at the ford, saying,
“We will spend the night at Geba.”
The people of Ramah are trembling;
those at Gibeah of Saul have fled.

His delight will be in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge
by what He sees with His eyes,
He will not execute justice
by what He hears with His ears,

Ephraim’s envy will cease;
Judah’s harassment will end.
Ephraim will no longer be envious of Judah,
and Judah will not harass Ephraim.

Indeed, God is my salvation;
I will trust Him and not be afraid,
for Yah, the Lord,
is my strength and my song.
He has become my salvation.”

Indeed, the stars of the sky and its constellations
will not give their light.
The sun will be dark when it rises,
and the moon will not shine.

Their bows will cut young men to pieces.
They will have no compassion on little ones;
they will not look with pity on children.

It will never be inhabited
or lived in from generation to generation;
a nomad will not pitch his tent there,
and shepherds will not let their flocks rest there.

who turned the world into a wilderness,
who destroyed its cities
and would not release the prisoners to return home?”

You will not join them in burial,
because you destroyed your land
and slaughtered your own people.
The offspring of evildoers
will never be remembered.

An oracle against Moab:

Ar in Moab is devastated,
destroyed in a night.
Kir in Moab is devastated,
destroyed in a night.

Give us counsel and make a decision.
Shelter us at noonday
with shade that is as dark as night.
Hide the refugees;
do not betray the one who flees.

They will not look to the altars they made with their hands or to the Asherahs and incense altars they made with their fingers.

Then the lookout reported,
“Lord, I stand on the watchtower all day,
and I stay at my post all night.

An oracle against Dumah:

One calls to me from Seir,
“Watchman, what is left of the night?
Watchman, what is left of the night?”

The watchman said,
“Morning has come, and also night.
If you want to ask, ask!
Come back again.”

An oracle against Arabia:

In the desert brush
you will camp for the night,
you caravans of Dedanites.

The noisy city, the jubilant town,
is filled with revelry.
Your dead did not die by the sword;
they were not killed in battle.

Therefore I said,
“Look away from me! Let me weep bitterly!
Do not try to comfort me
about the destruction of my dear people.”

You made a reservoir between the walls for the waters of the ancient pool, but you did not look to the One who made it, or consider the One who created it long ago.

Be ashamed Sidon, the stronghold of the sea,
for the sea has spoken:
“I have not been in labor or given birth.
I have not raised young men
or brought up young women.”

He said,
“You will not rejoice anymore,
ravished young woman, daughter of Sidon.
Get up and cross over to Cyprus—
even there you will have no rest!”

But her profits and wages will be dedicated to the Lord. They will not be stored or saved, for her profit will go to those who live in the Lord’s presence, to provide them with ample food and sacred clothing.

I long for You in the night;
yes, my spirit within me diligently seeks You,
for when Your judgments are in the land,
the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

But if the wicked man is shown favor,
he does not learn righteousness.
In a righteous land he acts unjustly
and does not see the majesty of the Lord.

Lord, Your hand is lifted up to take action,
but they do not see it.
They will see Your zeal for Your people,
and they will be put to shame.
The fire for Your adversaries will consume them!

The dead do not live;
departed spirits do not rise up.
Indeed, You have visited and destroyed them;
You have wiped out all memory of them.

We became pregnant, we writhed in pain;
we gave birth to wind.
We have won no victories on earth,
and the earth’s inhabitants have not fallen.

I, Yahweh, watch over it;
I water it regularly.
I guard it night and day
so that no one disturbs it.

I am not angry,
but if it produces thorns and briers for Me,
I will fight against it, trample it,
and burn it to the ground.

When its branches dry out, they will be broken off.
Women will come and make fires with them,
for they are not a people with understanding.
Therefore their Maker will not have compassion on them,
and their Creator will not be gracious to them.

He had said to them:
“This is the place of rest,
let the weary rest;
this is the place of repose.”
But they would not listen.

For you said, “We have cut a deal with Death,
and we have made an agreement with Sheol;
when the overwhelming scourge passes through,
it will not touch us,
because we have made falsehood our refuge
and have hidden behind treachery.”

Your deal with Death will be dissolved,
and your agreement with Sheol will not last.
When the overwhelming scourge passes through,
you will be trampled.

Every time it passes through,
it will carry you away;
it will pass through every morning—
every day and every night.
Only terror will cause you
to understand the message.

So now, do not mock,
or your shackles will become stronger.
Indeed, I have heard from the Lord God of Hosts
a decree of destruction for the whole land.

When he has leveled its surface,
does he not then scatter black cumin and sow cumin?
He plants wheat in rows and barley in plots,
with spelt as their border.

Certainly black cumin is not threshed
with a threshing board,
and a cart wheel is not rolled over the cumin.
But black cumin is beaten out with a stick,
and cumin with a rod.

Bread grain is crushed,
but is not threshed endlessly.
Though the wheel of the farmer’s cart rumbles,
his horses do not crush it.

All the many nations
going out to battle against Ariel—
all the attackers, the siege works against her,
and those who oppress her—
will then be like a dream, a vision in the night.

Stop and be astonished;
blind yourselves and be blind!
They are drunk, but not with wine;
they stagger, but not with beer.

Woe to the rebellious children!
This is the Lord’s declaration.
They carry out a plan, but not Mine;
they make an alliance,
but against My will,
piling sin on top of sin.

An oracle about the animals of the Negev:

Through a land of trouble and distress,
of lioness and lion,
of viper and flying serpent,
they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys
and their treasures on the humps of camels,
to a people who will not help them.

They are a rebellious people,
deceptive children,
children who do not want to obey the Lord’s instruction.

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.

Its collapse will be like the shattering
of a potter’s jar, crushed to pieces,
so that not even a fragment of pottery
will be found among its shattered remains—
no fragment large enough to take fire from a hearth
or scoop water from a cistern.”

For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said:
“You will be delivered by returning and resting;
your strength will lie in quiet confidence.
But you are not willing.”

The Lord will give you meager bread and water during oppression, but your Teacher will not hide Himself any longer. Your eyes will see your Teacher,

Your singing will be like that
on the night of a holy festival,
and your heart will rejoice
like one who walks to the music of a flute,
going up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the Rock of Israel.

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help
and who depend on horses!
They trust in the abundance of chariots
and in the large number of horsemen.
They do not look to the Holy One of Israel
and they do not seek the Lord’s help.

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.

Egyptians are men, not God;
their horses are flesh, not spirit.
When the Lord raises His hand to strike,
the helper will stumble
and the one who is helped will fall;
both will perish together.

For this is what the Lord said to me:

As a lion or young lion growls over its prey
when a band of shepherds is called out against it,
and is not terrified by their shouting
or subdued by their noise,
so the Lord of Hosts will come down
to fight on Mount Zion
and on its hill.

Then Assyria will fall,
but not by human sword;
a sword will devour him,
but not one made by man.
He will flee from the sword;
his young men will be put to forced labor.

Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed,
and the ears of those who hear will listen.

In a little more than a year
you overconfident ones will shudder,
for the vintage will fail
and the harvest will not come.

You will no longer see the barbarians,
a people whose speech is difficult to comprehend—
who stammer in a language that is not understood.

Look at Zion, the city of our festival times.
Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
a peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander;
its tent pegs will not be pulled up
nor will any of its cords be loosened.

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.

It will never go out—day or night.
Its smoke will go up forever.
It will be desolate, from generation to generation;
no one will pass through it forever and ever.

Search and read the scroll of the Lord:
Not one of them will be missing,
none will be lacking its mate,
because He has ordered it by my mouth,
and He will gather them by His Spirit.

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.”

A road will be there and a way;
it will be called the Holy Way.
The unclean will not travel on it,
but it will be for the one who walks the path.
Even the fool will not go astray.

There will be no lion there,
and no vicious beast will go up on it;
they will not be found there.
But the redeemed will walk on it,