The Daily Audio Bible
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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!
10 I plead with you—yes, I, Paul—and I plead gently, as Christ himself would do. Yet some of you are saying, “Paul’s letters are bold enough when he is far away, but when he gets here he will be afraid to raise his voice!”
2 I hope I won’t need to show you when I come how harsh and rough I can be. I don’t want to carry out my present plans against some of you who seem to think my deeds and words are merely those of an ordinary man. 3 It is true that I am an ordinary, weak human being, but I don’t use human plans and methods to win my battles. 4 I use God’s mighty weapons, not those made by men, to knock down the devil’s strongholds. 5 These weapons can break down every proud argument against God and every wall that can be built to keep men from finding him. With these weapons I can capture rebels and bring them back to God and change them into men whose hearts’ desire is obedience to Christ. 6 I will use these weapons against every rebel who remains after I have first used them on you yourselves and you surrender to Christ.
7 The trouble with you is that you look at me and I seem weak and powerless, but you don’t look beneath the surface. Yet if anyone can claim the power and authority of Christ, I certainly can. 8 I may seem to be boasting more than I should about my authority over you—authority to help you, not to hurt you—but I shall make good every claim. 9 I say this so that you will not think I am just blustering when I scold you in my letters.
10 “Don’t bother about his letters,” some say. “He sounds big, but it’s all noise. When he gets here you will see that there is nothing great about him, and you have never heard a worse preacher!” 11 This time my personal presence is going to be just as rough on you as my letters are!
12 Oh, don’t worry, I wouldn’t dare say that I am as wonderful as these other men who tell you how good they are! Their trouble is that they are only comparing themselves with each other and measuring themselves against their own little ideas. What stupidity!
13 But we will not boast of authority we do not have. Our goal is to measure up to God’s plan for us, and this plan includes our working there with you. 14 We are not going too far when we claim authority over you, for we were the first to come to you with the Good News concerning Christ. 15 It is not as though we were trying to claim credit for the work someone else has done among you. Instead, we hope that your faith will grow and that, still within the limits set for us, our work among you will be greatly enlarged.
16 After that, we will be able to preach the Good News to other cities that are far beyond you, where no one else is working; then there will be no question about being in someone else’s field. 17 As the Scriptures say, “If anyone is going to boast, let him boast about what the Lord has done and not about himself.” 18 When someone boasts about himself and how well he has done, it doesn’t count for much. But when the Lord commends him, that’s different!
52 Written by David to protest against his enemy Doeg (1 Samuel 22), who later slaughtered eighty-five priests and their families.
You call yourself a hero, do you? You boast about this evil deed of yours against God’s people. 2 You are sharp as a tack in plotting your evil tricks. 3 How you love wickedness—far more than good! And lying more than truth! 4 You love to slander—you love to say anything that will do harm, O man with the lying tongue.
5 But God will strike you down, pull you from your home, and drag you away from the land of the living. 6 The followers of God will see it happen. They will watch in awe. Then they will laugh and say, 7 “See what happens to those who despise God and trust in their wealth, and become ever more bold in their wickedness.”[a]
8 But I am like a sheltered olive tree protected by the Lord himself. I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever. 9 O Lord, I will praise you forever and ever for your punishment.[b] And I will wait for your mercies—for everyone knows what a merciful God you are.
26-27 Unless you have the extra cash on hand, don’t countersign a note. Why risk everything you own? They’ll even take your bed!
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.