Isaiah 30:1-25 ▼

1 Woe to the rebellious children! This is the LORD’s declaration. They carry out a plan, but not mine; they make an alliance, but against my will, piling sin on top of sin.

2 Without asking my advice they set out to go down to Egypt in order to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shadow.

3 But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and refuge in Egypt’s shadow your humiliation.

4 For though his princes are at Zoan and his messengers reach as far as Hanes,

5 everyone will be ashamed because of a people who can’t help. They are of no benefit, they are no help; they are good for nothing but shame and disgrace.

6 A pronouncement concerning the animals of the Negev: Through a land of trouble 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 who will not help them.

7 Egypt’s help is completely worthless; therefore, I call her: Rahab Who Just Sits.

8 Go now, write it on a tablet in their presence and inscribe it on a scroll; it will be for the future, forever and ever.

9 They are a rebellious people, deceptive children, children who do not want to listen to the LORD’s instruction.

10 They say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy the truth to us. Tell us flattering things. Prophesy illusions.

11 Get out of the way! Leave the pathway. Rid us of the Holy One of Israel.”

12 Therefore the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message and have trusted in oppression and deceit, and have depended on them,

13 this iniquity of yours will be like a crumbling gap, a bulge in a high wall whose collapse will come in an instant—suddenly!

14 Its collapse will be like the shattering of a potter’s jar, crushed to pieces, so that not even a fragment of pottery will be found among its shattered remains — no fragment large enough to take fire from a hearth or scoop water from a cistern.”

15 For the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “You will be delivered by returning and resting; your strength will lie in quiet confidence. But you are not willing.”

16 You say, “No! We will escape on horses” — therefore you will escape! — and, “We will ride on fast horses” — but those who pursue you will be faster.

17 One thousand will flee at the threat of one, at the threat of five you will flee, until you remain like a solitary pole on a mountaintop or a banner on a hill.

18 Therefore the LORD is waiting to show you mercy, and is rising up to show you compassion, for the LORD is a just God. All who wait patiently for him are happy.

19 For people will live on Zion in Jerusalem. You will never weep again; he will show favor to you at the sound of your outcry; as soon as he hears, he will answer you.

20 The Lord will give you meager bread and water during oppression, but your Teacher will not hide any longer. Your eyes will see your Teacher,

21 and whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.”

22 Then you will defile your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, and call them filth.

23 Then he will send rain for your seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food, the produce of the ground, will be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle will graze in open pastures.

24 The oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat salted fodder scattered with winnowing shovel and fork.

25 Streams flowing with water will be on every high mountain and every raised hill on the day of great slaughter when the towers fall.