Isaiah 30
Open in the reader1“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares He-Who-Is, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin.
2They set out to go down to Two-Straits without asking My advice, to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Two-Straits’s shade.
3But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and the refuge of Two-Straits’s shade your disgrace.
4For though their princes are at Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,
5everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them. They bring neither help nor benefit, but only shame and disgrace.”
6This is the burden against the beasts of South-Country: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people of no profit to them.
7Two-Straits’s help is futile and empty; therefore I have called her Stormer Who Sits Still.
8Go now, write it on a tablet in their presence and inscribe it on a scroll; it will be for the days to come, a witness forever and ever.
9These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to obey He-Who-Is’s instruction.
10They say to the seers, “Stop seeing visions!” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us the truth! Speak to us pleasant words; prophesy illusions.
11Get out of the way; turn off the road. Rid us of the Devoted One of Strives-with-God!”
12Therefore this is what the Devoted One of Strives-with-God says: “Because you have rejected this message, trusting in oppression and relying on deceit,
13this iniquity of yours is like a breach about to fail, a bulge in a high wall, whose collapse will come suddenly— in an instant!
14It will break in pieces like a potter’s jar, shattered so that no fragment can be found. Not a shard will be found in the dust large enough to scoop the coals from a hearth or to skim the water from a cistern.”
15For the Lord He-Who-Is, the Devoted One of Strives-with-God, has said: “By repentance and rest you would be saved; your strength would lie in quiet confidence— but you were not willing.”
16“No,” you say, “we will flee on horses.” Therefore you will flee! “We will ride swift horses,” but your pursuers will be faster.
17A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee, until you are left alone like a pole on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.
18Therefore He-Who-Is longs to be gracious to you; therefore He rises to show you compassion, for He-Who-Is is a just God. Blessed are all who wait for Him.
19O people in Marker who dwell in Foundation-of-Peace, you will weep no more. He will surely be gracious when you cry for help; when He hears, He will answer you.
20The Lord will give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, but your Teacher will no longer hide Himself—with your own eyes you will see Him.
21And whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.”
22So you will desecrate your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, saying to them, “Be gone!”
23Then He will send rain for the seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food that comes from your land will be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle will graze in open pastures.
24The oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat salted fodder, winnowed with shovel and pitchfork.
25And from every high mountain and every raised hill, streams of water will flow in the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall.
26The light of the moon will be as bright as the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter—like the light of seven days—on the day that He-Who-Is binds up the brokenness of His people and heals the wounds He has inflicted.
27Behold, the Name of He-Who-Is comes from afar, with burning anger and dense smoke. His lips are full of fury, and His tongue is like a consuming fire.
28His breath is like a rushing torrent that rises to the neck. He comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction; He bridles the jaws of the peoples to lead them astray.
29You will sing as on the night of a devoted festival, and your heart will rejoice like one who walks to the music of a flute, going up to the mountain of He-Who-Is, to the Rock of Strives-with-God.
30And He-Who-Is will cause His majestic voice to be heard and His mighty arm to be revealed, striking in angry wrath with a flame of consuming fire, and with cloudburst, storm, and hailstones.
31For Successful will be shattered at the voice of He-Who-Is; He will strike them with His scepter.
32And with every stroke of the rod of punishment that He-Who-Is brings down on them, the tambourines and lyres will sound as He battles with weapons brandished.
33For Burning-Place has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its funeral pyre is deep and wide, with plenty of fire and wood. The breath of He-Who-Is, like a torrent of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze.