Bible in 90 Days Plan

¹Woe 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.

²Without 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.

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

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

⁵everyone 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.

⁶A 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

¹⁴Its 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.”

¹⁵For 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.”

¹⁶You 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.

¹⁷One 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.

¹⁸Therefore 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.

¹⁹For 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.

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

²¹and 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.”

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

²³Then 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.

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

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

²⁶The moonlight will be as bright as the sunlight, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter  — like the light of seven days — on the day that the LORD bandages his people’s injuries and heals the wounds he inflicted.

²⁷Look there! The LORD is coming from far away, his anger burning and heavy with smoke. His lips are full of fury, and his tongue is like a consuming fire.

²⁸His breath is like an overflowing torrent that rises to the neck. He comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction and to put a bridle on the jaws of the peoples to lead them astray.

²⁹Your singing will be like that on the night of a holy festival, and your heart will rejoice like one who walks to the music of a flute, going up to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel.

³⁰And the LORD will make the splendor of his voice heard and reveal his arm striking in angry wrath and a flame of consuming fire, in driving rain, a torrent, and hailstones.

³¹Assyria will be shattered by the voice of the LORD. He will strike with a rod.

³²And every stroke of the appointed staff that the LORD brings down on him will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres; he will fight against him with brandished weapons.

³³Indeed! Topheth has been ready for the king for a long time. Its funeral pyre is deep and wide, with plenty of fire and wood. The breath of the LORD, like a torrent of burning sulfur, kindles it.

¹Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and who depend on horses! They trust in the abundance of chariots and in the large number of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel and they do not seek the LORD.

²But he also is wise and brings disaster. He does not go back on what he says; he will rise up against the house of the wicked and against the allies of evildoers.

³Egyptians are men, not God; their horses are flesh, not spirit. When the LORD raises his hand to strike, the helper will stumble and the one who is helped will fall; both will perish together.

⁴For this is what the LORD said to me: As a lion or young lion growls over its prey when a band of shepherds is called out against it, and is not terrified by their shouting or subdued by their noise, so the LORD of Armies will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its hill.

⁵Like hovering birds, so the LORD of Armies will protect Jerusalem  — by protecting it, he will rescue it, by sparing it, he will deliver it.

⁶Return to the one the Israelites have greatly rebelled against.

⁷For on that day, every one of you will reject the silver and gold idols that your own hands have sinfully made.

⁸Then Assyria will fall, but not by human sword; a sword will devour him, but not one made by man. He will flee from the sword; his young men will be put to forced labor.

⁹His rock will pass away because of fear, and his officers will be afraid because of the signal flag. This is the LORD’s declaration — whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

¹Indeed, a king will reign righteously, and rulers will rule justly.

²Each will be like a shelter from the wind, a refuge from the rain, like flowing streams in a dry land and the shade of a massive rock in an arid land.

³Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen.

⁴The reckless mind will gain knowledge, and the stammering tongue will speak clearly and fluently.

⁵A fool will no longer be called a noble, nor a scoundrel said to be important.

⁶For a fool speaks foolishness and his mind plots iniquity. He lives in a godless way and speaks falsely about the LORD. He leaves the hungry empty and deprives the thirsty of drink.

⁷The scoundrel’s weapons are destructive; he hatches plots to destroy the needy with lies, even when the poor person says what is right.

⁸But a noble person plans noble things; he stands up for noble causes.

⁹Stand up, you complacent women; listen to me. Pay attention to what I say, you overconfident daughters.

¹⁰In a little more than a year you overconfident ones will shudder, for the grapes will fail and the harvest will not come.

¹¹Shudder, you complacent ones; tremble, you overconfident ones! Strip yourselves bare and put sackcloth around your waists.

¹²Beat your breasts in mourning for the delightful fields and the fruitful vines,

¹³for the ground of my people growing thorns and briers, indeed, for every joyous house in the jubilant city.

¹⁴For the palace will be deserted, the busy city abandoned. The hill and the watchtower will become barren places forever, the joy of wild donkeys, and a pasture for flocks,

¹⁵until the Spirit from on high is poured out on us. Then the desert will become an orchard, and the orchard will seem like a forest.

¹⁶Then justice will inhabit the wilderness, and righteousness will dwell in the orchard.

¹⁷The result of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quiet confidence forever.

¹⁸Then my people will dwell in a peaceful place, in safe and secure dwellings.

¹⁹But hail will level the forest, and the city will sink into the depths.

²⁰You will be happy as you sow seed beside abundant water, and as you let oxen and donkeys range freely.

¹Woe, you destroyer never destroyed, you traitor never betrayed! When you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed. When you have finished betraying, they will betray you.

²LORD, be gracious to us! We wait for you. Be our strength every morning and our salvation in time of trouble.

³The peoples flee at the thunderous noise; the nations scatter when you rise in your majesty.

⁴Your spoil will be gathered as locusts are gathered; people will swarm over it like an infestation of locusts.

⁵The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.

⁶There will be times of security for you — a storehouse of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of the LORD is Zion’s treasure.

⁷Listen! Their warriors cry loudly in the streets; the messengers of peace weep bitterly.

⁸The highways are deserted; travel has ceased. An agreement has been broken, cities despised, and human life disregarded.

⁹The land mourns and withers; Lebanon is ashamed and wilted. Sharon is like a desert; Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.

¹⁰“Now I will rise up,” says the LORD. “Now I will lift myself up. Now I will be exalted.

¹¹You will conceive chaff; you will give birth to stubble. Your breath is fire that will consume you.

¹²The peoples will be burned to ashes, like thorns cut down and burned in a fire.

¹³You who are far off, hear what I have done; you who are near, know my strength.”

¹⁴The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling seizes the ungodly: “Who among us can dwell with a consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with ever-burning flames?”

¹⁵The one who lives righteously and speaks rightly, who refuses profit from extortion, whose hand never takes a bribe, who stops his ears from listening to murderous plots and shuts his eyes against evil schemes  —

¹⁶he will dwell on the heights; his refuge will be the rocky fortresses, his food provided, his water assured.

¹⁷Your eyes will see the King in his beauty; you will see a vast land.

¹⁸Your mind will meditate on the past terror: “Where is the accountant? Where is the tribute collector? Where is the one who spied out our defenses?”

¹⁹You will no longer see the barbarians, a people whose speech is difficult to comprehend — who stammer in a language that is not understood.

²⁰Look at Zion, the city of our festival times. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander; its tent pegs will not be pulled up nor will any of its cords be loosened.

²¹For the majestic one, our LORD, will be there, a place of rivers and broad streams where ships that are rowed will not go, and majestic vessels will not pass.

²²For the LORD is our Judge, the LORD is our Lawgiver, the LORD is our King. He will save us.

²³Your ropes are slack; they cannot hold the base of the mast or spread out the flag. Then abundant spoil will be divided, the lame will plunder it,

²⁴and none there will say, “I am sick.” The people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.

¹You nations, come here and listen; you peoples, pay attention! Let the earth and all that fills it hear, the world and all that comes from it.

²The LORD is angry with all the nations, furious with all their armies. He will set them apart for destruction, giving them over to slaughter.

³Their slain will be thrown out, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will flow with their blood.

⁴All the stars in the sky will dissolve. The sky will roll up like a scroll, and its stars will all wither as leaves wither on the vine, and foliage on the fig tree.

⁵When my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, it will then come down on Edom and on the people I have set apart for destruction.

⁶The LORD’s sword is covered with blood. It drips with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

⁷The wild oxen will be struck down with them, and young bulls with the mighty bulls. Their land will be soaked with blood, and their soil will be saturated with fat.

⁸For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a time of paying back Edom for its hostility against Zion.

⁹Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch, her soil into sulfur; her land will become burning pitch.

¹⁰It will never go out — day or night. Its smoke will go up forever. It will be desolate, from generation to generation; no one will pass through it forever and ever.

¹¹Eagle owls and herons will possess it, and long-eared owls and ravens will dwell there. The LORD will stretch out a measuring line and a plumb line over her for her destruction and chaos.

¹²No nobles will be left to proclaim a king, and all her princes will come to nothing.

¹³Her palaces will be overgrown with thorns; her fortified cities, with thistles and briers. She will become a dwelling for jackals, an abode for ostriches.

¹⁴The desert creatures will meet hyenas, and one wild goat will call to another. Indeed, the night birds will stay there and will find a resting place.

¹⁵Sand partridges will make their nests there; they will lay and hatch their eggs and will gather their broods under their shadows. Indeed, the birds of prey will gather there, each with its mate.

¹⁶Search and read the scroll of the LORD: Not one of them will be missing, none will be lacking its mate, because he has ordered it by my mouth, and he will gather them by his Spirit.

¹⁷He has cast the lot for them; his hand allotted their portion with a measuring line. They will possess it forever; they will dwell in it from generation to generation.

¹The wilderness and the dry land will be glad; the desert will rejoice and blossom like a wildflower.

²It will blossom abundantly and will also rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God.

³Strengthen the weak hands, steady the shaking knees!

⁴Say to the cowardly: “Be strong; do not fear! Here is your God; vengeance is coming. God’s retribution is coming; he will save you.”

⁵Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

⁶Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy, for water will gush in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;

⁷the parched ground will become a pool, and the thirsty land springs. In the haunt of jackals, in their lairs, there will be grass, reeds, and papyrus.

⁸A road will be there and a way; it will be called the Holy Way. The unclean will not travel on it, but it will be for the one who walks the path. Fools will not wander on it.

⁹There will be no lion there, and no vicious beast will go up on it; they will not be found there. But the redeemed will walk on it,

¹⁰and the redeemed of the LORD will return and come to Zion with singing, crowned with unending joy. Joy and gladness will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee.

¹In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

²Then the king of Assyria sent his royal spokesman, along with a massive army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. The Assyrian stood near the conduit of the upper pool, by the road to the Launderer’s Field.

³Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the court secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the court historian, came out to him.

⁴The royal spokesman said to them, “Tell Hezekiah: The great king, the king of Assyria, says this: What are you relying on?

⁵You think mere words are strategy and strength for war. Who are you now relying on that you have rebelled against me?

⁶Look, you are relying on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff that will pierce the hand of anyone who grabs it and leans on it. This is how Pharaoh king of Egypt is to all who rely on him.

⁷Suppose you say to me, ‘We rely on the LORD our God.’ Isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You are to worship at this altar’?

⁸“Now make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria. I’ll give you two thousand horses if you’re able to supply riders for them!

⁹How then can you drive back a single officer among the least of my master’s servants? How can you rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

¹⁰Have I attacked this land to destroy it without the LORD’s approval? The LORD said to me, ‘Attack this land and destroy it.’”

¹¹Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the royal spokesman, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew within earshot of the people who are on the wall.”

¹²But the royal spokesman replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men who are sitting on the wall, who are destined with you to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?”

¹³Then the royal spokesman stood and called out loudly in Hebrew: Listen to the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!

¹⁴This is what the king says: “Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot rescue you.

¹⁵Don’t let Hezekiah persuade you to rely on the LORD, saying, ‘The LORD will certainly rescue us! This city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’”

¹⁶Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: “Make peace with me and surrender to me. Then every one of you may eat from his own vine and his own fig tree and drink water from his own cistern

¹⁷until I come and take you away to a land like your own land — a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

¹⁸Beware that Hezekiah does not mislead you by saying, ‘The LORD will rescue us.’ Has any one of the gods of the nations rescued his land from the power of the king of Assyria?

¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they rescued Samaria from my power?

²⁰Who among all the gods of these lands ever rescued his land from my power? So will the LORD rescue Jerusalem from my power?”

²¹But they kept silent; they didn’t say anything, for the king’s command was, “Don’t answer him.”

²²Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the court secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the court historian, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and reported to him the words of the royal spokesman.

¹When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and went to the LORD’s temple.

²He sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the court secretary, and the leading priests, who were wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.

³They said to him, “This is what Hezekiah says: ‘Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace. It is as if children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to deliver them.

⁴Perhaps the LORD your God will hear all the words of the royal spokesman, whom his master the king of Assyria sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke him for the words that the LORD your God has heard. Therefore offer a prayer for the surviving remnant.’”

⁵So the servants of King Hezekiah went to Isaiah,

⁶who said to them, “Tell your master, ‘The LORD says this: Don’t be afraid because of the words you have heard, with which the king of Assyria’s attendants have blasphemed me.

⁷I am about to put a spirit in him and he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”

⁸When the royal spokesman heard that the king of Assyria had pulled out of Lachish, he left and found him fighting against Libnah.

⁹The king had heard concerning King Tirhakah of Cush, “He has set out to fight against you.” So when he heard this, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

¹⁰“Say this to King Hezekiah of Judah: ‘Don’t let your God, on whom you rely, deceive you by promising that Jerusalem won’t be handed over to the king of Assyria.

¹¹Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries: they completely destroyed them. Will you be rescued?

¹²Did the gods of the nations that my predecessors destroyed rescue them — Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the Edenites in Telassar?

¹³Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, or Ivvah? ’”

¹⁴Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers’ hands, read it, then went up to the LORD’s temple and spread it out before the LORD.

¹⁵Then Hezekiah prayed to the LORD:

¹⁶LORD of Armies, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you are God  — you alone  — of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.

¹⁷Listen closely, LORD, and hear; open your eyes, LORD, and see. Hear all the words that Sennacherib has sent to mock the living God.

¹⁸LORD, it is true that the kings of Assyria have devastated all these countries and their lands.

¹⁹They have thrown their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but made from wood and stone by human hands. So they have destroyed them.

²⁰Now, LORD our God, save us from his power so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, LORD, are God  — you alone.

²¹Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “The LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘Because you prayed to me about King Sennacherib of Assyria,

²²this is the word the LORD has spoken against him: Virgin Daughter Zion despises you and scorns you; Daughter Jerusalem shakes her head behind your back.

²³Who is it you have mocked and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

²⁴You have mocked the LORD through your servants. You have said, “With my many chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon. I cut down its tallest cedars, its choice cypress trees. I came to its distant heights, its densest forest.

²⁵I dug wells and drank water in foreign lands. I dried up all the streams of Egypt with the soles of my feet.”

²⁶Have you not heard? I designed it long ago; I planned it in days gone by. I have now brought it to pass, and you have crushed fortified cities into piles of rubble.

²⁷Their inhabitants have become powerless, dismayed, and ashamed. They are plants of the field, tender grass, grass on the rooftops, blasted by the east wind.

²⁸But I know your sitting down, your going out and your coming in, and your raging against me.

²⁹Because your raging against me and your arrogance have reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth; I will make you go back the way you came.

³⁰“‘This will be the sign for you: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what grows from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

³¹The surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward.

³²For a remnant will go out from Jerusalem, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD of Armies will accomplish this.’

³³“Therefore, this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: He will not enter this city, shoot an arrow here, come before it with a shield, or build up a siege ramp against it.

³⁴He will go back the way he came, and he will not enter this city. This is the LORD’s declaration.

³⁵I will defend this city and rescue it for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.”

³⁶Then the angel of the LORD went out and struck down one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning — there were all the dead bodies!

³⁷So King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and left. He returned home and lived in Nineveh.

³⁸One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. Then his son Esar-haddon became king in his place.

¹In those days Hezekiah became terminally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came and said to him, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Set your house in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.’”

²Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD.

³He said, “Please, LORD, remember how I have walked before you faithfully and wholeheartedly, and have done what pleases you.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah:

⁵“Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the LORD God of your ancestor David says: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I am going to add fifteen years to your life.

⁶And I will rescue you and this city from the grasp of the king of Assyria; I will defend this city.

⁷This is the sign to you from the LORD that he will do what he has promised:

⁸I am going to make the sun’s shadow that goes down on the stairway of Ahaz go back by ten steps.’” So the sun’s shadow went back the ten steps it had descended.

⁹A poem by King Hezekiah of Judah after he had been sick and had recovered from his illness:

¹⁰I said: In the prime of my life I must go to the gates of Sheol; I am deprived of the rest of my years.

¹¹I said: I will never see the LORD, the LORD in the land of the living; I will not look on humanity any longer with the inhabitants of what is passing away.

¹²My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up my life like a weaver; he cuts me off from the loom. By nightfall you make an end of me.

¹³I thought until the morning: He will break all my bones like a lion. By nightfall you make an end of me.

¹⁴I chirp like a swallow or a crane; I moan like a dove. My eyes grow weak looking upward. Lord, I am oppressed; support me.

¹⁵What can I say? He has spoken to me, and he himself has done it. I walk along slowly all my years because of the bitterness of my soul.

¹⁶Lord, by such things people live, and in every one of them my spirit finds life; you have restored me to health and let me live.

¹⁷Indeed, it was for my own well-being that I had such intense bitterness; but your love has delivered me from the Pit of destruction, for you have thrown all my sins behind your back.

¹⁸For Sheol cannot thank you; Death cannot praise you. Those who go down to the Pit cannot hope for your faithfulness.

¹⁹The living, only the living can thank you, as I do today; a father will make your faithfulness known to children.

²⁰The LORD is ready to save me; we will play stringed instruments all the days of our lives at the house of the LORD.

²¹Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of pressed figs and apply it to his infected skin, so that he may recover.”

²²And Hezekiah had asked, “What is the sign that I will go up to the LORD’s temple?”

¹At that time Merodach-baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah since he heard that he had been sick and had recovered.

²Hezekiah was pleased with the letters, and he showed the envoys his treasure house — the silver, the gold, the spices, and the precious oil — and all his armory, and everything that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his palace and in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.

³Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and asked him, “What did these men say, and where did they come to you from?” Hezekiah replied, “They came to me from a distant country, from Babylon.”

⁴Isaiah asked, “What have they seen in your palace?” Hezekiah answered, “They have seen everything in my palace. There isn’t anything in my treasuries that I didn’t show them.”

⁵Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD of Armies:

⁶‘Look, the days are coming when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until today will be carried off to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the LORD.

⁷‘Some of your descendants — who come from you, whom you father — will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”

⁸Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good,” for he thought: There will be peace and security during my lifetime.

¹“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God.

²“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and announce to her that her time of forced labor is over, her iniquity has been pardoned, and she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.”

³A voice of one crying out: Prepare the way of the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert.

⁴Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be leveled; the uneven ground will become smooth and the rough places, a plain.

⁵And the glory of the LORD will appear, and all humanity together will see it, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

⁶A voice was saying, “Cry out!” Another said, “What should I cry out?” “All humanity is grass, and all its goodness is like the flower of the field.

⁷The grass withers, the flowers fade when the breath of the LORD blows on them; indeed, the people are grass.

⁸The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God remains forever.”

⁹Zion, herald of good news, go up on a high mountain. Jerusalem, herald of good news, raise your voice loudly. Raise it, do not be afraid! Say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”

¹⁰See, the Lord GOD comes with strength, and his power establishes his rule. His wages are with him, and his reward accompanies him.

¹¹He protects his flock like a shepherd; he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them in the fold of his garment. He gently leads those that are nursing.

¹²Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or marked off the heavens with the span of his hand? Who has gathered the dust of the earth in a measure or weighed the mountains on a balance and the hills on the scales?

¹³Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or who gave him counsel?

¹⁴Who did he consult? Who gave him understanding and taught him the paths of justice? Who taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding?

¹⁵Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are considered as a speck of dust on the scales; he lifts up the islands like fine dust.

¹⁶Lebanon’s cedars are not enough for fuel, or its animals enough for a burnt offering.

¹⁷All the nations are as nothing before him; they are considered by him as empty nothingness.

¹⁸With whom will you compare God? What likeness will you set up for comparison with him?

¹⁹An idol? — something that a smelter casts and a metalworker plates with gold and makes silver chains for?

²⁰A poor person contributes wood for a pedestal that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not fall over.

²¹Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not considered the foundations of the earth?

²²God is enthroned above the circle of the earth; its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like thin cloth and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

²³He reduces princes to nothing and makes judges of the earth like a wasteland.

²⁴They are barely planted, barely sown, their stem hardly takes root in the ground when he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind carries them away like stubble.

²⁵“To whom will you compare me, or who is my equal?” asks the Holy One.

²⁶Look up and see! Who created these? He brings out the stars by number; he calls all of them by name. Because of his great power and strength, not one of them is missing.

²⁷Jacob, why do you say, and, Israel, why do you assert: “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my claim is ignored by my God”?

²⁸Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth. He never becomes faint or weary; there is no limit to his understanding.

²⁹He gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless.

³⁰Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall,

³¹but those who trust in the LORD will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.

¹“Be silent before me, coasts and islands! And let peoples renew their strength. Let them approach; let them testify; let’s come together for the trial.

²Who has stirred up someone from the east? In righteousness he calls him to serve. The LORD hands nations over to him, and he subdues kings. He makes them like dust with his sword, like wind-driven stubble with his bow.

³He pursues them, going on safely, hardly touching the path with his feet.

⁴Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I am the LORD, the first and with the last  — I am he.”

⁵The coasts and islands see and are afraid, the whole earth trembles. They approach and arrive.

⁶Each one helps the other, and says to another, “Take courage!”

⁷The craftsman encourages the metalworker; the one who flattens with the hammer encourages the one who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, “It is good.” He fastens it with nails so that it will not fall over.

⁸But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, descendant of Abraham, my friend  —

⁹I brought you from the ends of the earth and called you from its farthest corners. I said to you: You are my servant; I have chosen you; I haven’t rejected you.

¹⁰Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with my righteous right hand.

¹¹Be sure that all who are enraged against you will be ashamed and disgraced; those who contend with you will become as nothing and will perish.

¹²You will look for those who contend with you, but you will not find them. Those who war against you will become absolutely nothing.

¹³For I am the LORD your God, who holds your right hand, who says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you.

¹⁴Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel. I will help you’ — this is the LORD’s declaration. Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵See, I will make you into a sharp threshing board, new, with many teeth. You will thresh mountains and pulverize them and make hills into chaff.

¹⁶You will winnow them and a wind will carry them away, a whirlwind will scatter them. But you will rejoice in the LORD; you will boast in the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁷The poor and the needy seek water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. I will answer them. I am the LORD, the God of Israel. I will not abandon them.

¹⁸I will open rivers on the barren heights, and springs in the middle of the plains. I will turn the desert into a pool and dry land into springs.

¹⁹I will plant cedars, acacias, myrtles, and olive trees in the wilderness. I will put juniper trees, elms, and cypress trees together in the desert,

²⁰so that all may see and know, consider and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.

²¹“Submit your case,” says the LORD. “Present your arguments,” says Jacob’s King.

²²“Let them come and tell us what will happen. Tell us the past events, so that we may reflect on them and know the outcome, or tell us the future.

²³Tell us the coming events, then we will know that you are gods. Indeed, do something good or bad, then we will be in awe when we see it.

²⁴Look, you are nothing and your work is worthless. Anyone who chooses you is detestable.

²⁵“I have stirred up one from the north, and he has come, one from the east who invokes my name. He will march over rulers as if they were mud, like a potter who treads the clay.

²⁶Who told about this from the beginning, so that we might know, and from times past, so that we might say, ‘He is right’? No one announced it, no one told it, no one heard your words.

²⁷I was the first to say to Zion, ‘Look! Here they are!’ And I gave Jerusalem a herald with good news.

²⁸When I look, there is no one; there is no counselor among them; when I ask them, they have nothing to say.

²⁹Look, all of them are a delusion; their works are nonexistent; their images are wind and emptiness.

¹“This is my servant; I strengthen him, this is my chosen one; I delight in him. I have put my Spirit on him; he will bring justice to the nations.

²He will not cry out or shout or make his voice heard in the streets.

³He will not break a bruised reed, and he will not put out a smoldering wick; he will faithfully bring justice.

⁴He will not grow weak or be discouraged until he has established justice on earth. The coasts and islands will wait for his instruction.”

⁵This is what God, the LORD, says — who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk on it  —

⁶“I am the LORD. I have called you for a righteous purpose, and I will hold you by your hand. I will watch over you, and I will appoint you to be a covenant for the people and a light to the nations,

⁷in order to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, and those sitting in darkness from the prison house.

⁸I am the LORD. That is my name, and I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.

⁹The past events have indeed happened. Now I declare new events; I announce them to you before they occur.”

¹⁰Sing a new song to the LORD; sing his praise from the ends of the earth, you who go down to the sea with all that fills it, you coasts and islands with your inhabitants.

¹¹Let the desert and its cities shout, the settlements where Kedar dwells cry aloud. Let the inhabitants of Sela sing for joy; let them cry out from the mountaintops.

¹²Let them give glory to the LORD and declare his praise in the coasts and islands.

¹³The LORD advances like a warrior; he stirs up his zeal like a soldier. He shouts, he roars aloud, he prevails over his enemies.

¹⁴“I have kept silent from ages past; I have been quiet and restrained myself. But now, I will groan like a woman in labor, gasping breathlessly.

¹⁵I will lay waste mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation. I will turn rivers into islands and dry up marshes.

¹⁶I will lead the blind by a way they did not know; I will guide them on paths they have not known. I will turn darkness to light in front of them and rough places into level ground. This is what I will do for them, and I will not abandon them.

¹⁷They will be turned back and utterly ashamed — those who trust in an idol and say to a cast image, ‘You are our gods! ’

¹⁸“Listen, you deaf! Look, you blind, so that you may see.

¹⁹Who is blind but my servant, or deaf like my messenger I am sending? Who is blind like my dedicated one, or blind like the servant of the LORD?

²⁰Though seeing many things, you pay no attention. Though his ears are open, he does not listen.”

²¹Because of his righteousness, the LORD was pleased to magnify his instruction and make it glorious.

²²But this is a people plundered and looted, all of them trapped in holes or imprisoned in dungeons. They have become plunder with no one to rescue them and loot, with no one saying, “Give it back!”

²³Who among you will hear this? Let him listen and obey in the future.

²⁴Who gave Jacob to the robber, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the LORD? Have we not sinned against him? They were not willing to walk in his ways, and they would not listen to his instruction.

²⁵So he poured out his furious anger and the power of war on Jacob. It surrounded him with fire, but he did not know it; it burned him, but he didn’t take it to heart.