Bible in 90 Days

1 These are the messages that came to Isaiah, son of Amoz, in the visions he saw during the reigns of King Uzziah, King Jotham, King Ahaz, and King Hezekiah—all kings of Judah. In these messages God showed him what was going to happen to Judah and Jerusalem in the days ahead.

² Listen, O heaven and earth, to what the Lord is saying:

The children I raised and cared for so long and tenderly have turned against me. ³ Even the animals—the donkey and the ox—know their owner and appreciate his care for them, but not my people Israel. No matter what I do for them, they still don’t care.

⁴ Oh, what a sinful nation they are! They walk bent-backed beneath their load of guilt. Their fathers before them were evil too. Born to be bad, they have turned their backs upon the Lord and have despised the Holy One of Israel. They have cut themselves off from his help.

^5-6 Oh, my people, haven’t you had enough of punishment? Why will you force me to whip you again and again? Must you forever rebel? From head to foot you are sick and weak and faint, covered with bruises and welts and infected wounds, unanointed and unbound. ⁷ Your country lies in ruins; your cities are burned; while you watch, foreigners are destroying and plundering everything they see. ⁸ You stand there helpless and abandoned like a watchman’s shanty in the field when the harvesttime is over—or when the crop is stripped and robbed.

⁹ If the Lord Almighty had not stepped in to save a few of us, we would have been wiped out as Sodom and Gomorrah were. ¹⁰ An apt comparison!^[a] Listen, you leaders of Israel, you men of Sodom and Gomorrah, as I call you now. Listen to the Lord. Hear what he is telling you! ¹¹ I am sick of your sacrifices. Don’t bring me any more of them. I don’t want your fat rams; I don’t want to see the blood from your offerings. ^12-13 Who wants your sacrifices when you have no sorrow for your sins? The incense you bring me is a stench in my nostrils. Your holy celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath, and your special days for fasting—even your most pious meetings—all are frauds! I want nothing more to do with them. ¹⁴ I hate them all; I can’t stand the sight of them. ¹⁵ From now on, when you pray with your hands stretched out to heaven, I won’t look or listen. Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear, for your hands are those of murderers; they are covered with the blood of your innocent victims.

¹⁶ Oh, wash yourselves! Be clean! Let me no longer see you doing all these wicked things; quit your evil ways. ¹⁷ Learn to do good, to be fair, and to help the poor, the fatherless, and widows.

¹⁸ Come, let’s talk this over, says the Lord; no matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can take it out and make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you white as wool! ¹⁹ If you will only let me help you, if you will only obey, then I will make you rich! ²⁰ But if you keep on turning your backs and refusing to listen to me, you will be killed by your enemies; I, the Lord, have spoken.

²¹ Jerusalem, once a faithful wife! And now a prostitute! Running after other gods! Once “The City of Fair Play,” but now a gang of murderers. ²² Once like sterling silver; now mixed with worthless alloy! Once so pure, but now diluted like watered-down wine! ²³ Your leaders are rebels, companions of thieves; all of them take bribes and won’t defend the widows and orphans. ²⁴ Therefore the Lord, the Mighty One of Israel, says: I will pour out my anger on you, my enemies! ²⁵ I myself will melt you in a smelting pot and skim off your slag.

²⁶ And afterwards I will give you good judges and wise counselors like those you used to have. Then your city shall again be called “The City of Justice” and “The Faithful Town.”

²⁷ Those who return to the Lord, who are just and good, shall be redeemed. ²⁸ (But all sinners shall utterly perish, for they refuse to come to me.) ²⁹ Shame will cover you, and you will blush to think of all those times you sacrificed to idols in your groves of “sacred” oaks. ³⁰ You will perish like a withered tree or a garden without water. ³¹ The strongest among you will disappear like burning straw; your evil deeds are the spark that sets the straw on fire, and no one will be able to put it out.

2 This is another message to Isaiah from the Lord concerning Judah and Jerusalem:

² In the last days Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord will become the world’s greatest attraction,^[b] and people from many lands will flow there to worship the Lord.

³ “Come,” everyone will say, “let us go up the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Israel; there he will teach us his laws, and we will obey them.” For in those days the world will be ruled from Jerusalem. ⁴ The Lord will settle international disputes; all the nations will convert their weapons of war into implements of peace.^[c] Then at the last all wars will stop and all military training will end. ⁵ O Israel, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord and be obedient to his laws!^[d]

⁶ The Lord has rejected you because you welcome foreigners from the East who practice magic and communicate with evil spirits, as the Philistines do.

⁷ Israel has vast treasures of silver and gold, and great numbers of horses and chariots ⁸ and idols—the land is full of them! They are man-made, and yet you worship them! ⁹ Small and great, all bow before them; God will not forgive you for this sin.

¹⁰ Crawl into the caves in the rocks and hide in terror from his glorious majesty, ¹¹ for the day is coming when your proud looks will be brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted. ¹² On that day the Lord Almighty will move against the proud and haughty and bring them to the dust. ¹³ All the tall cedars of Lebanon and all the mighty oaks of Bashan shall bend low, ¹⁴ and all the high mountains and hills, ¹⁵ and every high tower and wall, ¹⁶ and all the proud ocean ships and trim harbor craft—all shall be crushed before the Lord that day. ¹⁷ All the glory of mankind will bow low; the pride of men will lie in the dust, and the Lord alone will be exalted. ¹⁸ And all idols will be utterly abolished and destroyed.

¹⁹ When the Lord stands up from his throne to shake up the earth, his enemies will crawl with fear into the holes in the rocks and into the caves because of the glory of his majesty. ²⁰ Then at last they will abandon their gold and silver idols to the moles and bats ²¹ and crawl into the caverns to hide among the jagged rocks at the tops of the cliffs, to try to get away from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty when he rises to terrify the earth. ²² Puny man! Frail as his breath! Don’t ever put your trust in him!

3 The Lord will cut off Jerusalem’s and Judah’s food and water supplies ² and kill her leaders; he will destroy her armies, judges, prophets, elders, ³ army officers, businessmen, lawyers, magicians, and politicians. ⁴ Israel’s kings will be like babies, ruling childishly. ⁵ And the worst sort of anarchy will prevail—everyone stepping on someone else, neighbors fighting neighbors, youths revolting against authority, criminals sneering at honorable men.

⁶ In those days a man will say to his brother, “You have some extra clothing, so you be our king and take care of this mess.”

⁷ “No!” he will reply. “I cannot be of any help! I have no extra food or clothes. Don’t get me involved!”

⁸ Israel’s civil government will be in utter ruin because the Jews have spoken out against their Lord and will not worship him; they offend his glory. ⁹ The very look on their faces gives them away and shows their guilt. And they boast that their sin is equal to the sin of Sodom; they are not even ashamed. What a catastrophe! They have doomed themselves.

¹⁰ But all is well for the godly man. Tell him, “What a reward you are going to get!” ¹¹ But say to the wicked, “Your doom is sure. You too shall get your just deserts. Your well-earned punishment is on the way.”

¹² O my people! Can’t you see what fools your rulers are? Weak as women! Foolish as little children playing king. True leaders? No, misleaders! Leading you down the garden path to destruction.

¹³ The Lord stands up! He is the great Prosecuting Attorney presenting his case against his people! ¹⁴ First to feel his wrath will be the elders and the princes, for they have defrauded the poor. They have filled their barns with grain extorted from the helpless peasants.

¹⁵ “How dare you grind my people in the dust like that?” the Lord Almighty will demand of them.

¹⁶ Next he will judge the haughty Jewish women, who mince along, noses in the air, tinkling bracelets on their ankles, with wanton eyes that rove among the crowds to catch the glances of the men. ¹⁷ The Lord will send a plague of scabs to ornament their heads! He will expose their nakedness for all to see. ¹⁸ No longer shall they tinkle with self-assurance as they walk. For the Lord will strip away their artful beauty and their ornaments, ¹⁹ their necklaces and bracelets and veils of shimmering gauze. ²⁰ Gone shall be their scarves and ankle chains, headbands, earrings, and perfumes; ²¹ their rings, jewels, ²² party clothes, negligees, capes, ornate combs, and purses; ²³ their mirrors, lovely lingerie, beautiful dresses, and veils. ²⁴ Instead of smelling of sweet perfume, they’ll stink; for sashes they’ll use ropes; their well-set hair will all fall out; they’ll wear sacks instead of robes.

All their beauty will be gone; all that will be left to them is shame and disgrace. ^25-26 Their husbands shall die in battle; the women, ravaged, shall sit crying on the ground.

4 At that time so few men will be left alive that seven women will fight over each of them and say, “Let us all marry you! We will furnish our own food and clothing; only let us be called by your name so that we won’t be mocked as old maids.”

^2-4 Those whose names are written down to escape the destruction of Jerusalem will be washed and rinsed of all their moral filth by the horrors and the fire. They will be God’s holy people.^[e] And the land will produce for them its lushest bounty and its richest fruit. ⁵ Then the Lord will provide shade on all Jerusalem—over every home and all its public grounds—a canopy of smoke and cloud throughout the day, and clouds of fire at night, covering the Glorious Land, ⁶ protecting it from daytime heat and from rains and storms.

5 Now I will sing a song about his vineyard to the one I love. My Beloved has a vineyard on a very fertile hill. ² He plowed it and took out all the rocks and planted his vineyard with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower and cut a winepress in the rocks. Then he waited for the harvest, but the grapes that grew were wild and sour and not at all the sweet ones he expected.

³ Now, men of Jerusalem and Judah, you have heard the case! You be the judges! ⁴ What more could I have done? Why did my vineyard give me wild grapes instead of sweet? ⁵ I will tear down the fences and let my vineyard go to pasture to be trampled by cattle and sheep. ⁶ I won’t prune it or hoe it, but let it be overgrown with briars and thorns. I will command the clouds not to rain on it anymore.

⁷ I have given you the story of God’s people. They are the vineyard that I spoke about. Israel and Judah are his pleasant acreage! He expected them to yield a crop of justice, but found bloodshed instead. He expected righteousness, but the cries of deep oppression met his ears.^{[f] 8} You buy up property so others have no place to live. Your homes are built on great estates so you can be alone in the midst of the earth! ⁹ But the Lord Almighty has sworn your awful fate—with my own ears I heard him say, “Many a beautiful home will lie deserted, their owners killed or gone. ¹⁰ An acre of vineyard will not produce a gallon of juice! Ten bushels of seed will yield a one-bushel crop!”

¹¹ Woe to you who get up early in the morning to go on long drinking bouts that last till late at night—woe to you drunken bums. ¹² You furnish lovely music at your grand parties; the orchestras are superb! But for the Lord you have no thought or care. ¹³ Therefore I will send you into exile far away because you neither know nor care that I have done so much for you. Your great and honored men will starve, and the common people will die of thirst.

¹⁴ Hell is licking its chops in anticipation of this delicious morsel, Jerusalem. Her great and small shall be swallowed up, and all her drunken throngs. ¹⁵ In that day the haughty shall be brought down to the dust; the proud shall be humbled; ¹⁶ but the Lord Almighty is exalted above all, for he alone is holy, just, and good. ¹⁷ In those days flocks will feed among the ruins. Lambs and calves and kids will pasture there!

¹⁸ Woe to those who drag their sins behind them like a bullock on a rope.^{[g] 19} They even mock the Holy One of Israel and dare the Lord to punish them.^[h] “Hurry up and punish us, O Lord,” they say. “We want to see what you can do!” ²⁰ They say that what is right is wrong and what is wrong is right; that black is white and white is black; bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.

²¹ Woe to those who are wise and shrewd in their own eyes! ²² Woe to those who are “heroes” when it comes to drinking and boast about the liquor they can hold. ²³ They take bribes to pervert justice, letting the wicked go free and putting innocent men in jail. ²⁴ Therefore God will deal with them and burn them. They will disappear like straw on fire. Their roots will rot and their flowers wither, for they have thrown away the laws of God and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. ²⁵ That is why the anger of the Lord is hot against his people; that is why he has reached out his hand to smash them. The hills will tremble, and the rotting bodies of his people will be thrown as refuse in the streets. But even so, his anger is not ended; his hand is heavy on them still.

²⁶ He will send a signal to the nations far away, whistling to those at the ends of the earth, and they will come racing toward Jerusalem. ²⁷ They never weary, never stumble, never stop; their belts are tight, their bootstraps strong; they run without stopping for rest or for sleep. ²⁸ Their arrows are sharp; their bows are bent; sparks fly from their horses’ hoofs, and the wheels of their chariots spin like the wind. ²⁹ They roar like lions and pounce upon the prey. They seize my people and carry them off into captivity with none to rescue them. ³⁰ They growl over their victims like the roaring of the sea. Over all Israel lies a pall of darkness and sorrow, and the heavens are black.

6 The year King Uzziah died I saw the Lord! He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the Temple was filled with his glory. ² Hovering about him were mighty, six-winged angels of fire. With two of their wings they covered their faces, with two others they covered their feet, and with two they flew. ³ In a great antiphonal chorus they sang, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is filled with his glory.” ⁴ Such singing it was! It shook the Temple to its foundations, and suddenly the entire sanctuary was filled with smoke.

⁵ Then I said, “My doom is sealed, for I am a foul-mouthed sinner, a member of a sinful, foul-mouthed race; and I have looked upon the King, the Lord of heaven’s armies.”

⁶ Then one of the mighty angels flew over to the altar and with a pair of tongs picked out a burning coal. ⁷ He touched my lips with it and said, “Now you are pronounced ‘not guilty’ because this coal has touched your lips. Your sins are all forgiven.”

⁸ Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom shall I send as a messenger to my people? Who will go?”

And I said, “Lord, I’ll go! Send me.”

⁹ And he said, “Yes, go. But tell my people this: ‘Though you hear my words repeatedly, you won’t understand them. Though you watch and watch as I perform my miracles, still you won’t know what they mean.’ ¹⁰ Dull their understanding, close their ears, and shut their eyes. I don’t want them to see or to hear or to understand, or to turn to me to heal them.”^[i]

¹¹ Then I said, “Lord, how long will it be before they are ready to listen?”

And he replied, “Not until their cities are destroyed—without a person left—and the whole country is an utter wasteland, ¹² and they are all taken away as slaves to other countries far away, and all the land of Israel lies deserted! ¹³ Yet a tenth—a remnant—will survive; and though Israel is invaded again and again and destroyed, yet Israel will be like a tree cut down, whose stump still lives to grow again.”

7 During the reign of Ahaz (the son of Jotham and grandson of Uzziah), Jerusalem was attacked by King Rezin of Syria and King Pekah of Israel (the son of Remaliah). But it was not taken; the city stood. ² However, when the news came to the royal court, “Syria is allied with Israel against us!” the hearts of the king and his people trembled with fear as the trees of a forest shake in a storm.

³ Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet King Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub, your son. You will find him at the end of the aqueduct that leads from Gihon Spring to the upper reservoir, near the road that leads down to the bleaching field. ⁴ Tell him to quit worrying. Tell him he needn’t be frightened by the fierce anger of those two has-beens, Rezin and Pekah. ⁵ Yes, the kings of Syria and Israel are coming against you.

“They say, ⁶ ‘We will invade Judah and throw her people into panic. Then we’ll fight our way into Jerusalem and install the son of Tabeel as their king.’

⁷ “But the Lord God says: This plan will not succeed, ⁸ for Damascus will remain the capital of Syria alone, and King Rezin’s kingdom will not increase its boundaries. And within sixty-five years Ephraim, too, will be crushed and broken.^{[j] 9} Samaria is the capital of Ephraim alone, and King Pekah’s power will not increase. You don’t believe me? If you want me to protect you, you must learn to believe what I say.”

¹⁰ Not long after this, the Lord sent this further message to King Ahaz:

¹¹ “Ask me for a sign, Ahaz, to prove that I will indeed crush your enemies as I have said. Ask anything you like, in heaven or on earth.”^[k]

¹² But the king refused. “No,” he said, “I’ll not bother the Lord with anything like that.”

¹³ Then Isaiah said: O House of David, you aren’t satisfied to exhaust my patience; you exhaust the Lord’s as well! ¹⁴ All right then, the Lord himself will choose the sign—a child shall be born to a virgin!^[l] And she shall call him Immanuel (meaning, “God is with us”). ^15-16 By the time this child is weaned^[m] and knows right from wrong, the two kings you fear so much—the kings of Israel and Syria—will both be dead.

¹⁷ But later on,^[n] the Lord will bring a terrible curse on you and on your nation and your family. There will be terror such as has not been known since the division of Solomon’s empire into Israel and Judah—the mighty king of Assyria will come with his great army!

¹⁸ At that time the Lord will whistle for the army of Upper Egypt,^[o] and of Assyria too, to swarm down upon you like flies and destroy you, like bees to sting and to kill. ¹⁹ They will come in vast hordes, spreading across the whole land, even into the desolate valleys, caves, and thorny parts, as well as to all your fertile acres. ²⁰ In that day the Lord will take this “razor”—these Assyrians you have hired to save you^[p]—and use it on you to shave off everything you have: your land, your crops, your people.

^21-22 When they finally stop plundering, the whole nation will be a pastureland; whole flocks and herds will be destroyed, and a farmer will be fortunate to have a cow and two sheep left. But the abundant pastureland will yield plenty of milk, and everyone left will live on curds and wild honey. ²³ At that time the lush vineyards will become patches of briars. ²⁴ All the land will be one vast thornfield, a hunting ground overrun by wildlife. ²⁵ No one will go to the fertile hillsides where once the gardens grew, for thorns will cover them; cattle, sheep, and goats will graze there.

8 Again the Lord sent me a message: “Make a large signboard and write on it the birth announcement of the son I am going to give you. Use capital letters! His name will be Maher-shalal-hash-baz, which means ‘Your enemies will soon be destroyed.’”^{[q] 2} I asked Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah, both known as honest men, to watch me as I wrote so they could testify that I had written it before the child was even on the way.^{[r] 3} Then I had sexual intercourse with my wife and she conceived and bore me a son. And the Lord said, “Call him Maher-shalal-hash-baz. ⁴ This name prophesies that within a couple of years, before this child is even old enough to say ‘Daddy’ or ‘Mommy,’ the king of Assyria will invade both Damascus and Samaria and carry away their riches.”

⁵ Then the Lord spoke to me again and said:

⁶ “Since the people of Jerusalem are planning to refuse my gentle care^[s] and are enthusiastic about asking King Rezin and King Pekah to come and aid them, ^7-8 therefore I will overwhelm my people with Euphrates’ mighty flood; the king of Assyria and all his mighty armies will rage against them. This flood will overflow all its channels and sweep into your land of Judah, O Immanuel, submerging it from end to end.”

^9-10 Do your worst, O Syria and Israel,^[t] our enemies, but you will not succeed—you will be shattered. Listen to me, all you enemies of ours: Prepare for war against us—and perish! Yes! Perish! Call your councils of war, develop your strategies, prepare your plans of attacking us, and perish! For God is with us.

¹¹ The Lord has said in strongest terms: Do not under any circumstances go along with the plans of Judah to surrender to Syria and Israel. ¹² Don’t let people call you a traitor for staying true to God. Don’t you panic as so many of your neighbors are doing when they think of Syria and Israel attacking you. ¹³ Don’t fear anything except the Lord of the armies of heaven! If you fear him, you need fear nothing else. ^14-15 He will be your safety; but Israel and Judah have refused his care and thereby stumbled against the Rock of their salvation and lie fallen and crushed beneath it: God’s presence among them has endangered them! ¹⁶ Write down all these things I am going to do, says the Lord, and seal them up for the future. Entrust them to some godly man to pass on down to godly men of future generations.

¹⁷ I will wait for the Lord to help us, though he is hiding now. My only hope is in him. ¹⁸ I and the children God has given me have symbolic names that reveal the plans of the Lord of heaven’s armies for his people: Isaiah means “Jehovah will save (his people),” Shear-jashub means “A remnant shall return,” and Maher-shalal-hash-baz means “Your enemies will soon be destroyed.” ¹⁹ So why are you trying to find out the future by consulting witches and mediums? Don’t listen to their whisperings and mutterings. Can the living find out the future from the dead? Why not ask your God?

²⁰ “Check these witches’ words against the Word of God!” he says. “If their messages are different than mine, it is because I have not sent them; for they have no light or truth in them. ²¹ My people will be led away captive, stumbling, weary and hungry. And because they are hungry, they will rave and shake their fists at heaven and curse their King and their God. ²² Wherever they look there will be trouble and anguish and dark despair. And they will be thrust out into the darkness.”

9 Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair shall not go on forever. Though soon the land of Zebulun and Naphtali will be under God’s contempt and judgment, yet in the future these very lands, Galilee and northern Transjordan, where lies the road to the sea, will be filled with glory. ² The people who walk in darkness shall see a great Light—a Light that will shine on all those who live in the land of the shadow of death. ³ For Israel will again be great, filled with joy like that of reapers when the harvesttime has come, and like that of men dividing up the plunder they have won. ⁴ For God will break the chains that bind his people and the whip that scourges them, just as he did when he destroyed the vast host of the Midianites by Gideon’s little band. ⁵ In that glorious day of peace there will no longer be the issuing of battle gear; no more the bloodstained uniforms of war; all such will be burned.

⁶ For unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder. These will be his royal titles: “Wonderful,” “Counselor,” “The Mighty God,” “The Everlasting Father,” “The Prince of Peace.” ⁷ His ever-expanding, peaceful government will never end. He will rule with perfect fairness and justice from the throne of his father David. He will bring true justice and peace to all the nations of the world. This is going to happen because the Lord of heaven’s armies has dedicated himself to do it!

^8-10 The Lord has spoken out against that braggart Israel who says that though our land lies in ruins now, we will rebuild it better than before. The sycamore trees are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars! ^11-12 The Lord’s reply to your bragging is to bring your enemies^[u] against you—the Syrians on the east and the Philistines on the west. With bared fangs they will devour Israel. And even then the Lord’s anger against you will not be satisfied—his fist will still be poised to smash you. ¹³ For after all this punishment you will not repent and turn to him, the Lord of heaven’s armies. ^14-15 Therefore the Lord, in one day, will destroy the leaders of Israel and the lying prophets. ¹⁶ For the leaders of his people have led them down the paths of ruin.

¹⁷ That is why the Lord has no joy in their young men and no mercy upon even the widows and orphans, for they are all filthy-mouthed, wicked liars. That is why his anger is not yet satisfied, but his fist is still poised to smash them all. ¹⁸ He will burn up all this wickedness, these thorns and briars; and the flames will consume the forests too, and send a vast cloud of smoke billowing up from their burning. ^19-20 The land is blackened by that fire, by the wrath of the Lord of heaven’s armies. The people are fuel for the fire. Each fights against his brother to steal his food but will never have enough. Finally they will even eat their own children! ²¹ Manasseh against Ephraim and Ephraim against Manasseh—and both against Judah. Yet even after all of this, God’s anger is not yet satisfied. His hand is still heavy upon them to crush them.

10 Woe to unjust judges and to those who issue unfair laws, says the Lord, ² so that there is no justice for the poor, the widows, and orphans. Yes, it is true that they even rob the widows and fatherless children.

³ Oh, what will you do when I visit you in that day when I send desolation upon you from a distant land? To whom will you turn then for your help? Where will your treasures be safe? ⁴ I will not help you; you will stumble along as prisoners or lie among the slain. And even then my anger will not be satisfied, but my fist will still be poised to strike you. ^5-6 Assyria is the whip of my anger; his military strength is my weapon upon this godless nation, doomed and damned; he will enslave them and plunder them and trample them like dirt beneath his feet. ⁷ But the king of Assyria will not know that it is I who sent him. He will merely think he is attacking my people as part of his plan to conquer the world. ⁸ He will declare that every one of his princes will soon be a king, ruling a conquered land.

⁹ “We will destroy Calno just as we did Carchemish,” he will say, “and Hamath will go down before us as Arpad did; and we will destroy Samaria just as we did Damascus. ¹⁰ Yes, we have finished off many a kingdom whose idols were far greater than those in Jerusalem and Samaria, ¹¹ so when we have defeated Samaria and her idols, we will destroy Jerusalem with hers.”

¹² After the Lord has used the king of Assyria to accomplish his purpose, then he will turn upon the Assyrians and punish them too—for they are proud and haughty men.

¹³ They boast, “We in our own power and wisdom have won these wars. We are great and wise. By our own strength we broke down the walls and destroyed the people and carried off their treasures. ¹⁴ In our greatness we have robbed their nests of riches and gathered up kingdoms as a farmer gathers eggs, and no one can move a finger or open his mouth to peep against us!”

¹⁵ But the Lord says, “Shall the ax boast greater power than the man who uses it? Is the saw greater than the man who saws? Can a rod strike unless a hand is moving it? Can a cane walk by itself?”

¹⁶ Because of all your evil boasting, O king of Assyria, the Lord of Hosts will send a plague among your proud troops and strike them down. ¹⁷ God, the Light and Holy One of Israel, will be the fire and flame that will destroy them. In a single night he will burn those thorns and briars, the Assyrians who destroyed the land of Israel.^{[v] 18} Assyria’s vast army is like a glorious forest, yet it will be destroyed. The Lord will destroy them, soul and body, as when a sick man wastes away. ¹⁹ Only a few from all that mighty army will be left; so few a child could count them!

²⁰ Then at last those left in Israel and in Judah will trust the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, instead of fearing the Assyrians. ²¹ A remnant of them will return to the mighty God. ²² But though Israel be now as many as the sands along the shore, yet only a few of them will be left to return at that time; God has rightly decided to destroy his people. ²³ Yes, it has already been decided by the Lord God to consume them.

²⁴ Therefore the Lord God says, “O my people in Jerusalem, don’t be afraid of the Assyrians when they oppress you just as the Egyptians did long ago. ²⁵ It will not last very long; in a little while my anger against you will end, and then it will rise against them to destroy them.”

²⁶ The Lord Almighty will send his angel to slay them in a mighty slaughter like the time when Gideon triumphed over Midian at the rock of Oreb or the time God drowned the Egyptian armies in the sea. ²⁷ On that day God will end the bondage of his people. He will break the yoke of slavery off their necks and destroy it as decreed.^[w]

^28-29 Look, the mighty armies of Assyria are coming! Now they are at Aiath, now at Migron; they are storing some of their equipment at Michmash and crossing over the pass; they are staying overnight at Geba. Fear strikes the city of Ramah; all the people of Gibeah—the city of Saul—are running for their lives. ³⁰ Well may you scream in terror, O people of Gallim. Shout out a warning to Laish, for the mighty army comes. O poor Anathoth, what a fate is yours! ³¹ There go the people of Madmenah, all fleeing, and the citizens of Gebim are preparing to run. ³² But the enemy stops at Nob for the remainder of that day. He shakes his fist at Jerusalem on Mount Zion.

³³ Then, look, look! The Lord, the Lord of the armies of heaven, is chopping down the mighty tree! He is destroying all of that vast army, great and small alike, both officers and men. ³⁴ He, the Mighty One, will cut down the enemy as a woodsman’s ax cuts down the forest trees in Lebanon.

11 The royal line of David^[x] will be cut off, chopped down like a tree; but from the stump will grow a Shoot—yes, a new Branch from the old root. ² And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, and might; the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. ³ His delight will be obedience to the Lord. He will not judge by appearance, false evidence, or hearsay, ⁴ but will defend the poor and the exploited. He will rule against the wicked who oppress them. ⁵ For he will be clothed with fairness and with truth.

⁶ In that day the wolf and the lamb will lie down together, and the leopard and goats will be at peace. Calves and fat cattle will be safe among lions, and a little child shall lead them all. ⁷ The cows will graze among bears; cubs and calves will lie down together, and lions will eat grass like the cows. ⁸ Babies will crawl safely among poisonous snakes, and a little child who puts his hand in a nest of deadly adders will pull it out unharmed. ⁹ Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so shall the earth be full of the knowledge of the Lord.

¹⁰ In that day he who created the royal dynasty of David^[y] will be a banner of salvation to all the world. The nations will rally to him, for the land where he lives will be a glorious place. ¹¹ At that time the Lord will bring back a remnant of his people for the second time, returning them to the land of Israel from Assyria, Upper and Lower Egypt, Ethiopia, Elam, Babylonia, Hamath, and all the distant coastal lands. ¹² He will raise a flag among the nations for them to rally to; he will gather the scattered Israelites from the ends of the earth. ¹³ Then at last the jealousy between Israel and Judah will end; they will not fight each other anymore. ¹⁴ Together they will fly against the nations possessing their land on the east and on the west, uniting forces to destroy them, and they will occupy the nations of Edom and Moab and Ammon.

¹⁵ The Lord will dry a path through the Red Sea^[z] and wave his hand over the Euphrates, sending a mighty wind to divide it into seven streams that can easily be crossed. ¹⁶ He will make a highway from Assyria for the remnant there, just as he did for all of Israel long ago when they returned from Egypt.

12 On that day you will say, “Praise the Lord! He was angry with me, but now he comforts me. ² See, God has come to save me! I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord is my strength and song; he is my salvation. ³ Oh, the joy of drinking deeply from the Fountain of Salvation!”

⁴ In that wonderful day you will say, “Thank the Lord! Praise his name! Tell the world about his wondrous love.^[aa] How mighty he is!” ⁵ Sing to the Lord, for he has done wonderful things. Make known his praise around the world. ⁶ Let all the people of Jerusalem shout his praise with joy. For great and mighty is the Holy One of Israel, who lives among you.

13 This is the vision God showed Isaiah (son of Amoz) concerning Babylon’s doom.

² See the flags waving as their enemy attacks. Shout to them, O Israel, and wave them on as they march against Babylon to destroy the palaces of the rich and mighty. ³ I, the Lord, have set apart these armies for this task; I have called those rejoicing in their strength to do this work, to satisfy my anger. ⁴ Hear the tumult on the mountains! Listen as the armies march! It is the tumult and the shout of many nations. The Lord Almighty has brought them here, ⁵ from countries far away. They are his weapons against you, O Babylon. They carry his anger with them and will destroy your whole land.

⁶ Scream in terror, for the Lord’s time has come, the time for the Almighty to crush you. ⁷ Your arms lie paralyzed with fear; the strongest hearts melt ⁸ and are afraid. Fear grips you with terrible pangs, like those of a woman in labor. You look at one another, helpless, as the flames of the burning city reflect upon your pallid faces. ⁹ For see, the day of the Lord is coming, the terrible day of his wrath and fierce anger. The land shall be destroyed and all the sinners with it. ¹⁰ The heavens will be black above them. No light will shine from stars or sun or moon.

¹¹ And I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sin; I will crush the arrogance of the proud man and the haughtiness of the rich. ¹² Few will live when I have finished up my work.

Men will be as scarce as gold—of greater value than the gold of Ophir. ¹³ For I will shake the heavens in my wrath and fierce anger, and the earth will move from its place in the skies.

¹⁴ The armies of Babylon will run until exhausted, fleeing back to their own land like deer chased by dogs, wandering like sheep deserted by their shepherd. ¹⁵ Those who don’t run will be butchered. ¹⁶ Their little children will be dashed to death against the pavement right before their eyes; their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes. ¹⁷ For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. ¹⁸ The attacking armies will have no mercy on the young people of Babylon or the babies or the children.

¹⁹ And so Babylon, the most glorious of kingdoms, the flower of Chaldean culture, will be as utterly destroyed as Sodom and Gomorrah were when God sent fire from heaven; ²⁰ Babylon will never rise again. Generation after generation will come and go, but the land will never again be lived in.^[ab] The nomads will not even camp there. The shepherds won’t let their sheep stay overnight. ²¹ The wild animals of the desert will make it their home. The houses will be haunted by howling creatures. Ostriches will live there, and the demons will come there to dance. ²² Hyenas and jackals will den within the palaces. Babylon’s days are numbered; her time of doom will soon be here.