Isaiah - The Old Testament

¹ Woe to you, destroying though not yourself destroyed, betraying though not yourself betrayed; when you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed, when you have stopped betraying, you will be betrayed.

² Yahweh, show us your mercy, we hope in you. Be our arm every morning and our salvation in time of distress.

³ At the sound of tumult the peoples flee, when you stand up the nations scatter.

⁴ Your spoil is gathered in as a grasshopper gathers in, like a swarm of locusts people descend on it.

⁵ Yahweh is exalted, for he is enthroned above, he has filled Zion with fair judgement and saving justice.

⁶ You can count on this all your days: wisdom and knowledge are the riches that save, the fear of Yahweh is his treasure.

⁷ Look, Ariel is lamenting in the streets, the ambassadors of peace are weeping bitterly.

⁸ The highways are deserted, no travellers any more on the roads. Agreements are broken, witnesses held in contempt, there is respect for no one.

⁹ The land pines away in mourning, the Lebanon is withering with shame, Sharon has become like the wasteland, Bashan and Carmel are shuddering.

¹⁰ 'Now I shall stand up,' says Yahweh, 'now I shall rise, now draw myself up.

¹¹ You conceive chaff, you give birth to straw: like fire, my breath will devour you.

¹² The peoples will be burnt up as though by quicklime, like cut thorns they will be burnt on the fire.

¹³ You who are far away, listen to what I have done, and you who are near, realise my strength.'

¹⁴ The sinners in Zion are panic-stricken and fear seizes on the godless, 'Which of us can survive the devouring fire, which of us survive everlasting burning?'

¹⁵ The one who acts uprightly and speaks honestly, who scorns to get rich by extortion, who rejects bribes out of hand, who refuses to listen to plans involving bloodshed and shuts his eyes rather than countenance crime:

¹⁶ such a man will live on the heights, the craggy rocks will be his refuge, he will be fed, he will not want for water.

¹⁷ Your eyes will gaze on the king in his beauty, they will look on a country stretching far and wide.

¹⁸ Your heart will meditate on past terrors, 'Where is the man who did the counting? Where is the man who did the weighing? Where is the man who counted off the towers?'

¹⁹ No more will you see that insolent people, that people of unintelligible speech, of barbarous and meaningless tongue.

²⁰ Gaze at Zion, city of our feasts; your eyes will see Jerusalem as a home that is secure, a tent not to be moved, none of its tent-pegs ever to be pulled out, none of its guy-ropes ever to be broken.

²¹ There it is that Yahweh shows us his power, like a place of rivers and very wide canals on which will row no galley, over which will pass no majestic ship.

²² (For Yahweh is our judge, Yahweh our lawgiver, Yahweh is our king and our Saviour.)

²³ Your tackle has given way, it cannot support the mast, it cannot hoist the pennon. And so there is much booty to be shared out; the lame fall to plundering,

²⁴ and no one living there will say, 'I am sickly'; the people living there will find their guilt forgiven.