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Isaiah 28
Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley of them that are overcome with wine! 2 Behold Yahweh has a mighty and strong one; as a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, as a tempest of mighty waters overflowing, will he cast down to the earth with the hand. 3 The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden under foot: 4 and the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be as the first-ripe fig before the summer; which when he that looks upon it sees, while it is yet in his hand he eats it up. 5 In that day will Yahweh of hosts become a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, to the residue of his people; 6 and a spirit of justice to him that sits in judgment, and strength to them that turn back the battle at the gate. 7 And even these reel with wine, and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they stagger with strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. 8 For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.
9 Whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts? 10 For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little.
11 Nay, but by men of strange lips and with another tongue will he speak to this people; 12 to whom he said, This is the rest, give you rest to him that is weary; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear. 13 Therefore shall the word of Yahweh be to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little; that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
14 Therefore hear the word of Yahweh, you scoffers, that rule this people that is in Jerusalem: 15 Because you have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: 16 therefore thus says the Sovereign Yahweh, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone of sure foundation: he that believes shall not be in haste. 17 And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place. 18 And your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then you shall be trodden down by it. 19 As often as it passes through, it shall take you; for morning by morning shall it pass through, by day and by night: and it shall be nothing but terror to understand the message. 20 For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. 21 For Yahweh will rise up as in mount Perazim, he will be angry as in the valley of Gibeon; that he may do his work, his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his strange act. 22 Now therefore be not scoffers, lest your bonds be made strong; for a decree of destruction have I heard from the Sovereign, Yahweh of hosts, upon the whole earth.
23 Give you ear, and hear my voice; listen, and hear my speech. 24 Does he that plows to sow plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground? 25 When he has levelled the face of it, does he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and put in the wheat in rows, and the barley in the appointed place, and the spelt in the border of it? 26 For his Elohim does instruct him aright, and does teach him. 27 For the fitches are not threshed with a sharp threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. 28 Bread grain is ground; for he will not be always threshing it: and though the wheel of his cart and his horses scatter it, he does not grind it. 29 This also comes forth from Yahweh of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom.
Isaiah 29
Ho Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts come round: 2 then will I distress Ariel, and there shall be mourning and lamentation; and she shall be to me as Ariel. 3 And I will encamp against you all around, and will lay siege against you with posted troops, and I will raise siege works against you. 4 And you shall be brought down, and shall speak out of the ground, and your speech shall be low out of the dust; and your voice shall be as of one that has a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and your speech shall whisper out of the dust.
5 But the multitude of your foes shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones as chaff that passes away: yes, it shall be in an instant suddenly. 6 She shall be visited of Yahweh of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire. 7 And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her stronghold, and that distress her, shall be as a dream, a vision of the night. 8 And it shall be as when a hungry man dreams, and, behold, he eats; but he awakes, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreams, and, behold, he drinks; but he awakes, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul has appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion.
9 Wait and wonder; take your pleasure and be blind: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. 10 For Yahweh has poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets; and your heads, the seers, has he covered. 11 And all vision has become to you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray you; and he says, I cannot, for it is sealed: 12 and the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray you; and he says, I am not learned.
13 And Yahweh said, Since this people draws near to me, and with their mouth and with their lips honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment of men which has been taught them; 14 therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.
15 Woe to them that hide deep their counsel from Yahweh, and whose works are in the dark, and that say, Who sees us? And who knows us? 16 You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be esteemed as clay; that the thing made should say of him that made it, he made me not; or the thing formed say of him that formed it, He has no understanding?
17 Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest? 18 And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. 19 The meek also shall increase their joy in Yahweh, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. 20 For the terrible one is brought to nothing, and the scoffer ceases, and all they that watch for iniquity are cut off; 21 that make a man an offender in his cause, and lay a snare for him that reproves in the gate, and turn aside the just with a thing of nothing.
22 Therefore thus says Yahweh, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob: Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now become pale. 23 But when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in the middle of him, they shall sanctify my name; yes, they shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall stand in awe of the Elohim of Israel. 24 They also that err in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmur shall receive instruction.
Isaiah 30
Woe to the rebellious children, says Yahweh, that take counsel, but not of me; and that make a league, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; 2 that set out to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to take refuge in the shadow of Egypt! 3 Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt your confusion. 4 For their princes are at Zoan, and their ambassadors have come to Hanes. 5 They shall all be ashamed because of a people that cannot profit them, that are not a help nor profit, but a shame and also a reproach.
6 The burden of the beasts of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the humps of camels, to a people that shall not profit them. 7 For Egypt helps in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I called her Rahab that sits still.
8 Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come forever and ever. 9 For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of Yahweh: 10 that say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not to us right things, speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits, 11 get out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. 12 Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely on it; 13 therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant. 14 And he shall break it as a potter’s vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing; so that there shall not be found among the pieces of it a sherd with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.
15 For thus said the Sovereign Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and you would not. 16 But you said, No, for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall you flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift. 17 One thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five shall you flee: till you be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on a hill.
18 And therefore will Yahweh wait, that he may be gracious to you; and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for Yahweh is an Elohim of justice; blessed are all they that wait for him. 19 For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; you shall weep no more; he will surely be gracious to you at the voice of your cry; when he shall hear, he will answer you. 20 And though Yahweh give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet shall not your teachers be hidden any more, but your eyes shall see your teachers; 21 and your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way, walk in it; when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left. 22 And you shall defile the overlaying of your carved images of silver, and the plating of your molten images of gold: you shall cast them away as an unclean thing; you shall say to it, Go away!
23 And he will give the rain for your seed, with which you shall saw the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground, and it shall be fat and plenteous: in that day shall your cattle feed in large pastures. 24 The oxen likewise and the young asses that till the ground shall eat savory fodder, which has been winnowed with the shovel and with the fork. 25 And there shall be upon every lofty mountain, and upon every high hill, brooks and streams of waters, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that Yahweh binds up the hurt of his people, and heals the stroke of their wound.
27 Behold, the name of Yahweh comes from far, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue is as a devouring fire; 28 and his breath is as an overflowing stream, that reaches even to the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction: and a bridle that causes to err shall be in the jaws of the peoples. 29 You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goes with a pipe to come to the mountain of Yahweh, to the Rock of Israel. 30 And Yahweh will cause his glorious voice to be heard, and will show the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and the flame of a devouring fire, with a blast, and tempest, and hailstones. 31 For through the voice of Yahweh shall the Assyrian be dismayed; with his rod will he strike him. 32 And every stroke of the appointed staff, which Yahweh shall lay upon him, shall be with the sound of tabrets and harps; and in battles with the brandishing of his arm will he fight with them. 33 For a Topheth is prepared of old; yes, for the king it is made ready; he has made it deep and large; the pile of it is fire and much wood; the breath of Yahweh, like a stream of brimstone, kindles it.
