Bible in 90 Days Plan

¹“Ah, stubborn children,” declares the LORD, “who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin;

²who 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!

³Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.

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

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

⁶An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the 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.

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

⁸And 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.

⁹For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the LORD;

¹⁰who 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,

¹¹leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”

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

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

¹⁴and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”

¹⁵For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling,

¹⁶and you said, “No! We will flee upon horses”; therefore you shall flee away; and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”; therefore your pursuers shall be swift.

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

¹⁸Therefore 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.

¹⁹For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you.

²⁰And though the Lord give 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.

²¹And your ears shall 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.

²²Then 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!”

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

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

²⁵And 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.

²⁶Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as 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.

²⁷Behold, 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;

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

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

³⁰And 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 a cloudburst and storm and hailstones.

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

³²And every stroke of the appointed staff that the LORD lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres. Battling with brandished arm, he will fight with them.

³³For 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.

¹Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the LORD!

²And yet he is wise and brings disaster; he does not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.

³The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD stretches out his hand, the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and they will all perish together.

⁴For thus the LORD said to me, “As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey, and when a band of shepherds is called out against him he is not terrified by their shouting or daunted at their noise, so the LORD of hosts will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its hill.

⁵Like birds hovering, so the LORD of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it; he will spare and rescue it.”

⁶Turn to him from whom people have deeply revolted, O children of Israel.

⁷For in that day everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.

⁸“And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man; and a sword, not of man, shall devour him; and he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be put to forced labor.

⁹His rock shall pass away in terror, and his officers desert the standard in panic,” declares the LORD, whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

¹Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice.

²Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.

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

⁴The heart of the hasty will understand and know, and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly.

⁵The fool will no more be called noble, nor the scoundrel said to be honorable.

⁶For the fool speaks folly, and his heart is busy with iniquity, to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the LORD, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied, and to deprive the thirsty of drink.

⁷As for the scoundrel — his devices are evil; he plans wicked schemes to ruin the poor with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is right.

⁸But he who is noble plans noble things, and on noble things he stands.

⁹Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech.

¹⁰In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come.

¹¹Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist.

¹²Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,

¹³for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers, yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city.

¹⁴For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks;

¹⁵until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.

¹⁶Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.

¹⁷And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.

¹⁸My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.

¹⁹And it will hail when the forest falls down, and the city will be utterly laid low.

²⁰Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.

¹Ah, you destroyer, who yourself have not been destroyed, you traitor, whom none has betrayed! When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betraying, they will betray you.

²O LORD, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble.

³At the tumultuous noise peoples flee; when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered,

⁴and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers; as locusts leap, it is leapt upon.

⁵The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness,

⁶and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is Zion's treasure.

⁷Behold, their heroes cry in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly.

⁸The highways lie waste; the traveler ceases. Covenants are broken; cities are despised; there is no regard for man.

⁹The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is confounded and withers away; Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.

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

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

¹²And the peoples will be as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”

¹³Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my might.

¹⁴The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”

¹⁵He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil,

¹⁶he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; his water will be sure.

¹⁷Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar.

¹⁸Your heart will muse on the terror: “Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed the tribute? Where is he who counted the towers?”

¹⁹You will see no more the insolent people, the people of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend, stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand.

²⁰Behold Zion, the city of our appointed feasts! Your eyes will see Jerusalem, an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent, whose stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken.

²¹But there the LORD in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor majestic ship can pass.

²²For the LORD is our judge; the LORD is our lawgiver; the LORD is our king; he will save us.

²³Your cords hang loose; they cannot hold the mast firm in its place or keep the sail spread out. Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided; even the lame will take the prey.

²⁴And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.

¹Draw near, O nations, to hear, and give attention, O peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes from it.

²For the LORD is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter.

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

⁴All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree.

⁵For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction.

⁶The LORD has a sword; it is sated with blood; it is gorged 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.

⁷Wild oxen shall fall with them, and young steers with the mighty bulls. Their land shall drink its fill of blood, and their soil shall be gorged with fat.

⁸For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

⁹And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch.

¹⁰Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.

¹¹But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness.

¹²Its nobles — there is no one there to call it a kingdom, and all its princes shall be nothing.

¹³Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches.

¹⁴And wild animals shall meet with hyenas; the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; indeed, there the night bird settles and finds for herself a resting place.

¹⁵There the owl nests and lays and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow; indeed, there the hawks are gathered, each one with her mate.

¹⁶Seek and read from the book of the LORD: Not one of these shall be missing; none shall be without her mate. For the mouth of the LORD has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them.

¹⁷He has cast the lot for them; his hand has portioned it out to them with the line; they shall possess it forever; from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.

¹The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;

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

³Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.

⁴Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”

⁵Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

⁶then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;

⁷the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

⁸And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.

⁹No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.

¹⁰And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

¹In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

²And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem, with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer's Field.

³And there came out to him Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder.

⁴And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours?

⁵Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me?

⁶Behold, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

⁷But if you say to me, “We trust in the LORD our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar”?

⁸Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them.

⁹How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master's servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

¹⁰Moreover, is it without the LORD that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The LORD said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”

¹¹Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

¹²But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”

¹³Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!

¹⁴Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you.

¹⁵Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD by saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”

¹⁶Do not listen to Hezekiah. For thus says the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern,

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

¹⁸Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying, “The LORD will deliver us.” Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?

²⁰Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”

²¹But they were silent and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, “Do not answer him.”

²²Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.

¹As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD.

²And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz.

³They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth.

⁴It may be that the LORD your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’”

⁵When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah,

⁶Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the LORD: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the young men of the king of Assyria have reviled me.

⁷Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.’”

⁸The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left Lachish.

⁹Now the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, “He has set out to fight against you.” And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

¹⁰“Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

¹¹Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered?

¹²Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar?

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

¹⁴Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.

¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD:

¹⁶“O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.

¹⁷Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God.

¹⁸Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands,

¹⁹and have cast their gods into the fire. For they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed.

²⁰So now, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the LORD.”

²¹Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria,

²²this is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him: “‘She despises you, she scorns you — the virgin daughter of Zion; she wags her head behind you — the daughter of Jerusalem.

²³“‘Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel!

²⁴By your servants you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, With my many chariots I have gone up the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon, to cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses, to come to its remotest height, its most fruitful forest.

²⁵I dug wells and drank waters, to dry up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt.

²⁶“‘Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins,

²⁷while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded, and have become like plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops, blighted before it is grown.

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

²⁹Because you have raged against me and your complacency has come to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came.’

³⁰“And this shall be the sign for you: this year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that. Then in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.

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

³²For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

³³“Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it.

³⁴By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the LORD.

³⁵For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”

³⁶And the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

³⁷Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh.

³⁸And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword. And after they escaped into the land of Ararat, Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

¹In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover.”

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

³and said, “Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah:

⁵“Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life.

⁶I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and will defend this city.

⁷“This shall be the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he has promised:

⁸Behold, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps.” So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined.

⁹A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:

¹⁰I said, In the middle of my days I must depart; I am consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years.

¹¹I said, I shall not see the LORD, the LORD in the land of the living; I shall look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world.

¹²My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd's tent; like a weaver I have rolled up my life; he cuts me off from the loom; from day to night you bring me to an end;

¹³I calmed myself until morning; like a lion he breaks all my bones; from day to night you bring me to an end.

¹⁴Like a swallow or a crane I chirp; I moan like a dove. My eyes are weary with looking upward. O Lord, I am oppressed; be my pledge of safety!

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

¹⁶O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these is the life of my spirit. Oh restore me to health and make me live!

¹⁷Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.

¹⁸For Sheol does not thank you; death does not praise you; those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness.

¹⁹The living, the living, he thanks you, as I do this day; the father makes known to the children your faithfulness.

²⁰The LORD will save me, and we will play my music on stringed instruments all the days of our lives, at the house of the LORD.

²¹Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover.”

²²Hezekiah also had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?”

¹At that time Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that he had been sick and had recovered.

²And Hezekiah welcomed them gladly. And he showed them his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his whole armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.

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

⁴He said, “What have they seen in your house?” Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house. There is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”

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

⁶Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD.

⁷And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be 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 in my days.”

¹Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

²Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins.

³A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

⁴Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

⁵And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

⁶A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

⁷The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass.

⁸The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

⁹Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”

¹⁰Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

¹¹He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

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

¹³Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel?

¹⁴Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?

¹⁵Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.

¹⁶Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

¹⁷All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

¹⁸To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?

¹⁹An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains.

²⁰He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move.

²¹Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

²²It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

²³who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

²⁴Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

²⁵To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

²⁶Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.

²⁷Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God”?

²⁸Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

²⁹He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.

³⁰Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;

³¹but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

¹Listen to me in silence, O coastlands; let the peoples renew their strength; let them approach, then let them speak; let us together draw near for judgment.

²Who stirred up one from the east whom victory meets at every step? He gives up nations before him, so that he tramples kings underfoot; he makes them like dust with his sword, like driven stubble with his bow.

³He pursues them and passes on safely, by paths his feet have not trod.

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

⁵The coastlands have seen and are afraid; the ends of the earth tremble; they have drawn near and come.

⁶Everyone helps his neighbor and says to his brother, “Be strong!”

⁷The craftsman strengthens the goldsmith, and he who smooths with the hammer him who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, “It is good”; and they strengthen it with nails so that it cannot be moved.

⁸But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend;

⁹you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”;

¹⁰fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

¹¹Behold, all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; those who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish.

¹²You shall seek those who contend with you, but you shall not find them; those who war against you shall be as nothing at all.

¹³For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”

¹⁴Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the LORD; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge, new, sharp, and having teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and crush them, and you shall make the hills like chaff;

¹⁶you shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the tempest shall scatter them. And you shall rejoice in the LORD; in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.

¹⁷When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the LORD will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

¹⁸I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.

¹⁹I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive. I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together,

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

²¹Set forth your case, says the LORD; bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob.

²²Let them bring them, and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome; or declare to us the things to come.

²³Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; do good, or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified.

²⁴Behold, you are nothing, and your work is less than nothing; an abomination is he who chooses you.

²⁵I stirred up one from the north, and he has come, from the rising of the sun, and he shall call upon my name; he shall trample on rulers as on mortar, as the potter treads clay.

²⁶Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know, and beforehand, that we might say, “He is right”? There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed, none who heard your words.

²⁷I was the first to say to Zion, “Behold, here they are!” and I give to Jerusalem a herald of good news.

²⁸But when I look, there is no one; among these there is no counselor who, when I ask, gives an answer.

²⁹Behold, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their metal images are empty wind.

¹Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.

²He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street;

³a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.

⁴He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.

⁵Thus says God, the LORD, 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 in it:

⁶“I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations,

⁷to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.

⁸I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.

⁹Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

¹⁰Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants.

¹¹Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits; let the habitants of Sela sing for joy, let them shout from the top of the mountains.

¹²Let them give glory to the LORD, and declare his praise in the coastlands.

¹³The LORD goes out like a mighty man, like a man of war he stirs up his zeal; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes.

¹⁴For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor; I will gasp and pant.

¹⁵I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation; I will turn the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools.

¹⁶And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.

¹⁷They are turned back and utterly put to shame, who trust in carved idols, who say to metal images, “You are our gods.”

¹⁸Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see!

¹⁹Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the LORD?

²⁰He sees many things, but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear.

²¹The LORD was pleased, for his righteousness' sake, to magnify his law and make it glorious.

²²But this is a people plundered and looted; they are all of them trapped in holes and hidden in prisons; they have become plunder with none to rescue, spoil with none to say, “Restore!”

²³Who among you will give ear to this, will attend and listen for the time to come?

²⁴Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey?

²⁵So he poured on him the heat of his anger and the might of battle; it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand; it burned him up, but he did not take it to heart.