Isaiah 22
Living Bible
22 This is God’s message concerning Jerusalem:[a]
What is happening? Where is everyone going? Why are they running to the rooftops? What are they looking at? 2 The whole city is in terrible uproar. What’s the trouble in this busy, happy city?[b] Bodies! Lying everywhere, slain by plague and not by sword. 3 All your leaders flee; they surrender without resistance. The people slip away but they are captured too. 4 Leave me alone to weep. Don’t try to comfort me—let me cry for my people as I watch them being destroyed. 5 Oh, what a day of crushing trouble! What a day of confusion and terror from the Lord God of heaven’s armies! The walls of Jerusalem are breached, and the cry of death echoes from the mountainsides. 6-7 Elamites are the archers; Syrians drive the chariots; the men of Kir hold up the shields. They fill your choicest valleys and crowd against your gates.
8 God has removed his protecting care. You run to the armory for your weapons! 9-11 You inspect the walls of Jerusalem to see what needs repair! You check over the houses and tear some down for stone for fixing walls. Between the city walls, you build a reservoir for water from the lower pool! But all your feverish plans will not avail, for you never ask for help from God, who lets this come upon you. He is the one who planned it long ago. 12 The Lord God called you to repent, to weep and mourn, to shave your heads in sorrow for your sins, and to wear clothes made of sackcloth to show your remorse. 13 But instead, you sing and dance and play, and feast and drink. “Let us eat, drink, and be merry,” you say: “What’s the difference, for tomorrow we die.” 14 The Lord Almighty has revealed to me that this sin will never be forgiven you until the day you die.
15-16 Furthermore, the same Lord God of the armies of heaven has told me this: Go and say to Shebna, the palace administrator: “And who do you think you are, building this beautiful sepulchre in the rock for yourself? 17 For the Lord who allowed you to be clothed so gorgeously will hurl you away, sending you into captivity, O strong man! 18 He will wad you up in his hands like a ball and toss you away into a distant, barren land; there you will die, O glorious one—you who disgrace your nation!
19 “Yes, I will drive you out of office,” says the Lord, “and pull you down from your high position. 20 And then I will call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, to replace you. 21 He shall have your uniform and title and authority, and he will be a father to the people of Jerusalem and all Judah. 22 I will give him responsibility over all my people; whatever he says will be done; none will be able to stop him. 23-24 I will make of him a strong and steady peg to support my people; they will load him with responsibility, and he will be an honor to his family name.” 25 But the Lord will pull out that other peg that seems to be so firmly fastened to the wall! It will come out and fall to the ground, and everything it supports will fall with it, for the Lord has spoken.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 22:1 Jerusalem, literally, “the Valley of Vision.”
- Isaiah 22:2 happy city and slain by plague, implied.
Isaiah 22
Revised Standard Version
A Warning of Destruction of Jerusalem
22 The oracle concerning the valley of vision.
What do you mean that you have gone up,
all of you, to the housetops,
2 you who are full of shoutings,
tumultuous city, exultant town?
Your slain are not slain with the sword
or dead in battle.
3 All your rulers have fled together,
without the bow they were captured.
All of you who were found were captured,
though they had fled far away.[a]
4 Therefore I said:
“Look away from me,
let me weep bitter tears;
do not labor to comfort me
for the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
5 For the Lord God of hosts has a day
of tumult and trampling and confusion
in the valley of vision,
a battering down of walls
and a shouting to the mountains.
6 And Elam bore the quiver
with chariots and horsemen,[b]
and Kir uncovered the shield.
7 Your choicest valleys were full of chariots,
and the horsemen took their stand at the gates.
8 He has taken away the covering of Judah.
In that day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest, 9 and you saw that the breaches of the city of David were many, and you collected the waters of the lower pool, 10 and you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. 11 You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you did not look to him who did it, or have regard for him who planned it long ago.
12 In that day the Lord God of hosts
called to weeping and mourning,
to baldness and girding with sackcloth;
13 and behold, joy and gladness,
slaying oxen and killing sheep,
eating flesh and drinking wine.
“Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.”
14 The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears:
“Surely this iniquity will not be forgiven you
till you die,”
says the Lord God of hosts.
Denunciation of Self-Seeking Officials
15 Thus says the Lord God of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him: 16 What have you to do here and whom have you here, that you have hewn here a tomb for yourself, you who hew a tomb on the height, and carve a habitation for yourself in the rock? 17 Behold, the Lord will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you, 18 and whirl you round and round, and throw you like a ball into a wide land; there you shall die, and there shall be your splendid chariots, you shame of your master’s house. 19 I will thrust you from your office, and you will be cast down from your station. 20 In that day I will call my servant Eli′akim the son of Hilki′ah, 21 and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. 22 And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. 23 And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house. 24 And they will hang on him the whole weight of his father’s house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons. 25 In that day, says the Lord of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a sure place will give way; and it will be cut down and fall, and the burden that was upon it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken.”
Footnotes
- Isaiah 22:3 Gk Syr Vg: Heb from far away
- Isaiah 22:6 The Hebrew of this line is obscure
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.