Isaiah 30

¹ "Woe to the rebellious children," declares the LORD,
"who carry out a plan, but not mine,
and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit,
adding sin to sin;

² who set out to go down to Egypt
without asking for my direction,
to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh
and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!

³ Therefore the protection of Pharaoh will be your shame,
and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt your humiliation.

⁴ For though his officials are at Zoan
and his envoys reach Hanes,

⁵ everyone comes to shame
through a people that cannot profit them,
that brings neither help nor profit,
but shame and disgrace.

⁶ An oracle concerning the animals of the Negeb.
Through a land of trouble and anguish,
of lioness and lion, viper and flying fiery serpent,
they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys
and their treasures on the humps of camels,
to a people that cannot profit them.

⁷ Egypt's help is worthless and empty;
therefore I have called her:
Rahab who sits still.

⁸ And now, go, write it before them on a tablet
and inscribe it in a book,
that it may be for the time to come
as a witness forever.

⁹ For they are a rebellious people,
lying children,
children who will not hear
the instruction of the LORD;

¹⁰ who say to the seers, "Do not see,"
and to the prophets, "Do not prophesy to us what is right;
speak to us smooth things,
prophesy illusions,

¹¹ leave the way, turn aside from the path,
let the Holy One of Israel cease from before us."

¹² Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel,
"Because you despise this word
and trust in oppression and perverseness
and rely on them,

¹³ therefore this iniquity will be to you
like a breach in a high wall,
swelling out and bulging,
whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;

¹⁴ and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel
that is smashed so ruthlessly
that among its fragments not a sherd is found
for taking fire from the hearth,
or dipping water from the cistern."

¹⁵ For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel:
"In returning and rest you will be saved;
in quietness and trust will be your strength."
But you were not willing,

¹⁶ and you said, "No! We will flee upon horses"—
therefore you shall flee!—
"and, 'We will ride upon swift horses'"—
therefore your pursuers will be swift.

¹⁷ A thousand will flee at the threat of one;
at the threat of five you will flee,
till you are left
like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
like a signal on a hill.

¹⁸ Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the LORD is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.

¹⁹ For a people will dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem.
You will weep no more.
He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry;
when he hears it, he will answer you.

²⁰ And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity
and the water of affliction,
yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore,
but your eyes shall see your Teacher.

²¹ And your ears will hear a word behind you saying,
"This is the way, walk in it,"
when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.

²² Then you will defile your carved idols
overlaid with silver
and your gold-plated metal images.
You will scatter them as unclean things.
You will say to them, "Be gone!"

²³ And he will give rain for the seed
that you sow in the ground,
and bread, the produce of the ground,
which will be rich and plenteous.
In that day your livestock will graze
in broad pastures,

²⁴ and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground
will eat seasoned fodder,
which has been winnowed with shovel and fork.

²⁵ And on every lofty mountain
and every high hill
there will be brooks running with water,
in the day of the great slaughter,
when the towers fall.

²⁶ Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun,
and the light of the sun will be sevenfold,
like the light of seven days,
in the day when the LORD binds up the brokenness of his people,
and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.

²⁷ Behold, the name of the LORD comes from afar,
burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke;
his lips are full of fury,
and his tongue is like a devouring fire;

²⁸ his breath is like an overflowing stream
that reaches up to the neck,
to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction,
and to place in the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads them astray.

²⁹ You will have a song as in the night
when a holy feast is kept,
and gladness of heart, as when one marches with a flute
to go to the mountain of the LORD,
to the Rock of Israel.

³⁰ And the LORD will cause his majestic voice to be heard
and the descending blow of his arm to be seen,
in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire,
with cloudburst and storm and hailstones.

³¹ The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the LORD,
when he strikes with his rod.

³² And every stroke of the appointed staff
that the LORD lays on him will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres.
Fighting with brandished arm, he will battle against him.

³³ For a burning place has long been prepared;
indeed, for the king it is made ready,
its pyre made deep and wide,
with fire and wood in abundance;
the breath of the LORD, like a stream of sulfur,
kindles it.