Isaiah 30:1-13 ▼

1 “Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the LORD {YHWH}, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will {ruahi}, heaping up sin upon sin.

2 They set out to go down to Egypt (land of bondage) without asking My advice, to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s (great house) protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shade.

3 But Pharaoh’s (great house) protection will become your⁺ shame, and the refuge of Egypt’s (land of bondage) shade your disgrace.

4 For though their princes are at Zoan (place of departure) and their envoys have arrived in Hanes (grace has fled),

5 everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them. They bring neither help nor benefit, but only shame and disgrace.”

6 This is the burden (burden) against the beasts of the Negev (southland): 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.

7 Egypt’s (land of bondage) help is futile and empty; therefore I have called her Rahab Who Sits Still {Rahab-hem-shebeth}.

8 Go 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.

9 These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to obey the LORD’s {YHWH} instruction.

10 They 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.

11 Get out of the way; turn off the road. Rid us of the Holy One of Israel (he wrestles with God)!”

12 Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel (he wrestles with God) says: “Because you⁺ have rejected this message, trusting in oppression and relying on deceit,

13 this iniquity of yours⁺ is like a breach about to fail, a bulge in a high wall, whose collapse will come suddenly—in an instant!