Isaiah 29

Woe to David's City

1 Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel,
the city where David settled!
Add year to year
and let your cycle of festivals go on.

2 Yet I will besiege Ariel;
she will mourn and lament,
she will be to me like an altar hearth.

3 I will encamp against you all around;
I will encircle you with towers
and set up my siege works against you.

4 Brought low, you will speak from the ground;
your speech will mumble out of the dust.
Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth;
out of the dust your speech will whisper.

5 But your many enemies will become like fine dust,
the ruthless hordes like blown chaff.
Suddenly, in an instant,

6 the Lord Almighty will come
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire.

7 Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
that attack her and her fortress and besiege her,
will be as it is with a dream,
with a vision in the night—

8 as when a hungry man dreams that he is eating,
but he awakens, and his hunger remains;
as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking,
but he awakens faint, with his thirst unquenched.
So will it be with the hordes of all the nations
that fight against Mount Zion.

9 Be stunned and amazed,
blind yourselves and be sightless;
be drunk, but not from wine,
stagger, but not from beer.

10 The Lord has brought over you a deep sleep:
He has sealed your eyes (the prophets);
he has covered your heads (the seers).
11 For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, “Read this, please,” he will answer, “I can't; it is sealed.”

12 Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, “Read this, please,” he will answer, “I don't know how to read.”

13 The Lord says:
“These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is made up only of rules taught by men.

14 Therefore once more I will astound these people
with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”

15 Woe to those who go to great depths
to hide their plans from the Lord,
who do their work in darkness and think,
“Who sees us? Who will know?”

16 You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,
“He did not make me”?
Can the pot say of the potter,
“He knows nothing”?

17 In a very short time, will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field
and the fertile field seem like a forest?

18 In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll,
and out of gloom and darkness
the eyes of the blind will see.

19 Once more the humble will rejoice in the Lord;
the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

20 The ruthless will vanish,
the mockers will disappear,
and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down—

21 those who with a word make a man out to be guilty,
who ensnare the defender in court
and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.

22 Therefore this is what the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, says to the house of Jacob:
“No longer will Jacob be ashamed;
no longer will their faces grow pale.

23 When they see among them their children,
the work of my hands,
they will keep my name holy;
they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob,
and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.

24 Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding;
those who complain will accept instruction.”

ISAIAH 29

Jerusalem Will Suffer

The [Lord] said:

1 Jerusalem, city of David,
the place of my altar, t
you are in for trouble!
Celebrate your festivals
year after year.

2 I will still make you suffer,
and your people will cry
when I make an altar of you.t

3 I will surround you and prepare
to attack from all sides.t

4 From deep in the earth,
you will call out for help
with only a faint whisper.

5 Then your cruel enemies
will suddenly be swept away
like dust in a windstorm.

6 I, the [Lord] All-Powerful,
will come to your rescue
with a thundering earthquake
and a fiery whirlwind.

7 Every brutal nation
that attacks Jerusalem
and makes it suffer
will disappear like a dream
when night is over.

8 Those nations that attack
Mount Zion
will suffer from hunger
and thirst.
They will dream of food and drink
but wake up weary and hungry
and thirsty as ever.

Prophets //Who Fool Themselves

9 Be shocked and stunned,
you prophets!
Refuse to see.
Get drunk and stagger,
but not from wine.

10  t The [Lord] has made you drowsy;
he put you into a deep sleep
and covered your head.
11 Now his message is like a sealed letter to you. Some of you say, “We can't read it, because it's sealed.”

12 Others say, “We can't read it, because we don't know how to read.”

13  t The Lord has said:
“These people praise me
with their words,
but they never really
think about me.
They worship me by repeating
rules made up by humans.

14  t So once again I will do things
that shock and amaze them,
and I will destroy the wisdom
of those who claim to know
and understand.”

15 You are in for trouble,
if you try to hide your plans
from the [Lord]!
Or if you think what you do
in the dark can't be seen.

16  t You have it all backwards.
A clay dish doesn't say
to the potter,
“You didn't make me.
You don't even know how.”

Hope for the Future

17 Soon the forest of Lebanon
will become a field with crops,
thick as a forest.t

18 The deaf will be able to hear
whatever is read to them;
the blind will be freed
from a life of darkness.

19 The poor and the needy
will celebrate and shout
because of the [Lord],
the holy God of Israel.

20 All who are cruel and arrogant
will be gone forever.
Those who live by crime
will disappear,

21 together with everyone
who tells lies in court
and keeps innocent people
from getting a fair trial.

22 The [Lord] who rescued Abraham
has this to say
about Jacob's descendants:
“They will no longer
be ashamed and disgraced.

23 When they see how great
I have made their nation,
they will praise and honor me,
the holy God of Israel.

24 Everyone who is confused
will understand,
and all who have complained
will obey my teaching.”