The prophet complains of the sins of Juda and Jerusalem: and exhorts them to a sincere conversion.
THE vision of Isaias the son of Amos I which he saw concerning Juda and Jerusalem in the days of Ozias, Joathan, Achaz, and Ezechias, kings of Juda2 Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have brought up children, and exalted them: but they have despised me.
3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood.
4 Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they are gone away backwards.
5 For what shall I strike you any more, you that increase transgression? the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is sad.
6 From the sole of the foot unto the top of the head, there is no soundness therein: wounds and bruises and swelling sores: they are not bound up, nor dressed, nor fomented with oil.
7 Your land is desolate, your cities are burnt with fire: your country strangers devour before your face, and it shall be desolate as when wasted by enemies.
8 And the daughter of Sion shall be left as a covert in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and as a city that is laid waste.
9 Except the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we had been as Sodom, and we should have been like to Gomorrha.
10 Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrha.
11 To what purpose do you offer me the multitude of your victims, saith the Lord? I am full, I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck goats.
12 When you came to appear before me, who required these things at your hands, that you should walk in my courts?
13 Offer sacrifice no more in vain: incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, and the sabbaths, and other festivals I will not abide, your assemblies are wicked.
14 My soul hateth your new moons, and your solemnities: they are become troublesome to me, I am weary of bearing them.
15 And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away my eyes from you: and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: for your hands are full of blood.
16 Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your devices from my eyes: cease to do perversely,
17 Learn to do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow.
18 And then come, and accuse me, saith the Lord: if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.
19 If you be willing, and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land.
20 But if you will not, and will provoke me to wrath: the sword shall devour you because the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
21 How is the faithful city, that was full of judgment, become a harlot? justice dwelt in it, but now murderers.
22 Thy silver is turned into dress: thy wine is mingled with water.
23 Thy princes are faithless, companions of thieves: they all love bribes, they run after rewards. They judge not for the fatherless: and the widow's cause cometh not in to them.
24 Therefore saith the Lord the God of hosts, the mighty one of Israel: Ah! I will comfort myself over my adversaries: and I will be revenged of my enemies.
25 And I will turn my hand to thee, and I will clean purge away thy dross, and I will take away all thy tin.
26 And I will restore thy judges as they were before, and thy counsellors as of old. After this thou shalt be called the city of the just, a faithful city.
27 Sion shall be redeemed in judgment, and they shall bring her back in justice.
28 And he shall destroy the wicked, and the sinners together: and they that have forsaken the Lord, shall be consumed.
29 For they shall be confounded for the idols, to which they have sacrificed: and you shall be ashamed of the gardens which you have chosen.
30 When you shall be as an oak with the leaves falling off, and as a garden without water.
31 And your strength shall be as the ashes of tow, and your work as a spark: and both shall burn together, and there shall be none to quench it.
All nations shall flow to the church of Christ. The Jews shall be rejected for their sins. Idolaatry shall be destroyed.
THE word that Isaias the son of Amos saw, concerning Juda and Jerusalem.
2 And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.
3 And many people shall go, and say: Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall come forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 And he shall judge the Gentiles, and rebuke many people: and they shall turn their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into sickles: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they be exercised any more to war.
5 O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.
6 For thou hast cast off thy people, the house of Jacob: because they are filled as in times past, and have had soothsayers as the Philistines, and have adhered to strange children.
7 Their land is filled with silver and gold: and there is no end of their treasures.
8 And their land is filled with horses: and their chariots are innumerable. Their land also is full of idols: they have adored the work of their own hands, which their own fingers have made.
9 And man hath bowed himself down, and man hath been debased: therefore forgive them not.
10 Enter thou into the rock, and hide thee in the pit from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty.
11 The lofty eyes of man are humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be made to stoop: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.
12 Because the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and highminded, and upon every one that is arrogant, and he shall be humbled.
13 And upon all the tall and lofty cedars of Libanus, and upon all the oaks of Basan.
14 And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the elevated hills.
15 And upon every high tower, and every fenced wall.
16 And upon all the ships of Tharsis, and upon all that is fair to behold.
17 And the loftiness of men shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.
18 And idols shall be utterly destroyed.
19 And they shall go into the holes of rocks, and into the caves of the earth from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when he shall rise up to strike the earth.
20 In that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which he had made for himself to adore, moles and bats.
21And he shall go into the clefts of rocks, and into the holes of stones from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when he shall rise up to strike the earth.
22 Cease ye therefore from the man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for he is reputed high.
The confussion and other evils shall come upon the Jews for their sins. The pride of their women shall be punished.
FOR behold the sovereign the Lord of hosts shall take away from Jerusalem, and from Juda the valiant and the strong, the whole strength of bread, and the whole strength of water.
2 The strong man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the cunning man, and the ancient.
3 The captain over fifty, and the honourable in countenance, and the counsellor, and the architect, and the skilful in eloquent speech.
4 And I will give children to be their princes, and the effeminate shall rule over them.
5 And the people shall rush one upon another, and every man against his neighbour: the child shall make it tumult against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.
6 For a man shall take hold or his brother, one of the house of his father, saying: Thou hast a garment, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand.
7 In that day he shall answer, saying: I am no healer, and in my house there is no bread, nor clothing: make me not ruler of the people.
8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Juda is fallen: because their tongue, and their devices are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his majesty.
9 The shew of their countenance hath answered them: and they have proclaimed abroad their sin as Sodom, and they have not hid it: woe to their souls, for evils are rendered to them.
10 Say to the just man that it is well, for he shall eat the fruit of his doings.
11 Woe to the wicked unto evil: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.
12 As for my people, their oppressors have stripped them, and women have ruled over them. O my people, they that call thee blessed, the same deceive thee, and destroy the way of thy steps.
13 The Lord standeth up to judge, and he standeth to judge the people.
14 The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and its princes: for you have devoured the vineyard, and the spoil of the poor is in your house.
15 Why do you consume my people, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord the God of hosts.
16 And the Lord said: Because the daughters of Sion are haughty, and have walked with stretched out necks, and wanton glances of their eyes, and made a noise as they walked with their feet and moved in a set pace:
17 The Lord will make bald the crown of the head of the daughters of Sion, and the Lord will discover their hair.
18 In that day the Lord will take away the ornaments of shoes, end little moons,
19 And chains and necklaces, and bracelets, and bonnets,
20 And bodkins, and ornaments of the legs, and tablets, and sweet balls, and earrings,
21 And rings, and jewels hanging on the forehead,
22 And changes of apparel, and short cloaks, and fine linen, and crisping pins,
23 And looking-glasses, and lawns, and headbands, and fine veils.
24 And instead of a sweet smell there shall be stench, and instead of a girdle, a cord, and instead of curled hair, baldness, and instead of a stomacher, haircloth.
25 Thy fairest men also shall fall by the sword, and thy valiant ones in battle.
26 And her gates shall lament and mourn, and she shall sit desolate on the ground.
After an extremity of evils that shall fall upon the Jews, a remnant shall be comforted by Christ.
AND in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying: We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, take away our reproach.
2 In that day the bud of the Lord shall be in magnificence and glory, and the fruit of the earth shall be high, and a great joy to them that shall have escaped of Israel.
3 And it shall come to pass, that every one that shall be left in Sion, and that shall remain in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, every one that is written in life in Jerusalem.
4 If the Lord shall wash away the filth of the daughters of Sion, and shall wash away the blood of Jerusalem out of the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.
5 And the Lord will create upon every place of mount Sion, and where he is called upon, a cloud by day, and a smoke and the brightness of a flaming fire in the night: for over all the glory shall be a protection.
6 And there shall be a tabernacle for a shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a security and covert from the whirlwind, and from rain.
The reprobation of the Jews is foreshewn under the parable of a vineyard. A woe is pronounced against sinners: the army God shall send against them.
I WILL sing to my beloved the canticle of my cousin concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a hill in a fruitful place.
2 And he fenced it in, and picked the stones out of it, and planted it with the choicest vines, and built a tower in the midst thereof, and set up a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.
3 And now, O ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and ye men of Juda, judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? was it that I looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it hath brought forth wild grapes?
5 And now I will shew you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted: I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down.
6 And I will make it desolate: it shall not be pruned, and it shall not be digged: but briers and thorns shall come up: and I will command the clouds to rain no rain upon it.
7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel: and the man of Juda, his pleasant plant: and I looked that he should do judgment, and behold iniquity: and do justice, and behold a cry.
8 Woe to you that join house to house and lay field to field, even to the end of the place: shall you alone dwell in the midst of the earth?
9 These things are in my ears, saith the Lord of hosts: Unless many great and fair houses shall become desolate, without an inhabitant.
10 For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one little measure, and thirty bushels of seed shall yield three bushels.
11 Woe to you that rise up early in the morning to follow drunkenness, and to drink till the evening, to be inflamed with wine.
12 The harp, and the lyre, and the timbrel, and the pipe, and wine are in your feasts: and the work of the Lord you regard not, nor do you consider the works of his hands.
13 Therefore is my people led away captive, because they had not knowledge, and their nobles have perished with famine, and their multitude were dried up with thirst.
14 Therefore hath hell enlarged her soul, and opened her mouth without any bounds, and their strong ones, and their people, and their high and glorious ones shall go down into it.
15 And man shall be brought down, and man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be brought low.
16 And the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy God shall be sanctified in justice.
17 And the lambs shall feed according to their order, and strangers shall eat the deserts turned into fruitfulness.
18 Woe to you that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as the rope of a cart.
19 That say: Let him make haste, and let his work come quickly, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know it.
20 Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.
21 Woe to you that rue wise in your own eyes, and prudent in your own conceits.
22 Woe to you that are mighty to drink wine, and stout men at drunkenness.
23 That justify the wicked for gifts, and take away the justice of the just from him.
24 Therefore as the tongue of the fire devoureth the stubble, and the heat of the dame consumeth it: so shall their root be as ashes, and their bud shall go up se dust: for they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25 Therefore is the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched out his hand upon them, and struck them: and the mountains were troubled, and their carcasses became as dung in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
26 And he will lift up a sign to the nations afar off, and will whistle to them from the ends of the earth: and behold they shall come with speed swiftly.
27 There is none that shall faint, nor labour among them: they shall not slumber nor sleep, neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken.
28 Their arrows are sharp, and all their bows are bent. The hoofs of their horses shall be like the hint, and their wheels like the violence of a tempest.
29 Their roaring like that of a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea they shall roar, and take hold of the prey, and they shall keep fast hold of it, and there shall be none to deliver it.
30 And they shall make a noise against them that day, like the roaring of the sea; we shall look towards the land, and behold darkness of tribulation, and the light is darkened with the mist thereof.
A glorious vision, in which the prophet's lips are cleansed: he foretelleth the obstinacy of the Jews.
IN the year that king Ozias died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated: and his train filled the temple.
2 Upon it stood the seraphims: the one had six wings, and the other had six wings: with two they covered his face, and with two they covered his feet, and with two they hew.
3 And they cried one to another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is full of his glory.
4 And the lintels of the doors were moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
5 And I said: Woe is me, because I have held my peace; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people that hath unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King the Lord of hosts.
6 And one of the seraphims flew to me, and in his hand was a live coal, which he had taken with the tongs off the altar.
7 And he touched my mouth, and said: Behold this hath touched thy lips, and thy iniquities shall be taken away, and thy sin shall be cleansed.
8 And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send? and who shall go for us? And I said: Lo, here am I, send me.
9 And he said: Go, and thou shalt say to this people: Hearing, hear, and understand not: and see the vision, and know it not.
10 Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes: lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and I heal them.
11 And I said: How long, O Lord? And he said: Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land shall be left desolate.
12 And the Lord shall remove men far away, and she shall be multiplied that was left in the midst of the earth.
13 And there shall be still a tithing therein, and she shall turn, and shall be made a show as a turpentine tree, and as an oak that spreadeth its branches: that which shall stand therein, shall be a holy seed.
The prophet assures king Achas that the two kings his enemies shall not take Jerusalem. A virgin shall conceive and bear a son.
AND it came to pass in the days of Achaz the son of Joathan, the son of Ozias, king of Juda, that Basin king of Syria, and Phacee the son of Romelia king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem, to fight against it: but they could not prevail over it.
2 And they told the house of David, saying: Syria hath rested upon Ephraim, and his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind.
3 And the Lord said to Isaias: Go forth to meet Achaz, thou and Jasub thy son that is left, to the conduit of the upper pool, a in the way of the fuller's held.
4 And thou shalt say to him: See thou be quiet: fear not, and let not thy heart be afraid of the two tails of these fire brands, smoking with the wrath of the fury of Rasin king of Syria, end of the son of Romelia.
5 Because Syria hath taken counsel against thee, unto the evil of Ephraim and the son of Romelia, saying:
6 Let us go up to Juda, and rouse it up, and draw it away to us, and make the son of Tabeel king in the midst thereof.
7 Thus saith the Lord God: It shall not stand, and this shall not be.
8 But the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Basin: and within threescore and five years, Ephraim shall cease to be a people:
9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria the son of Romelia. If you will not believe, you shall not continue.
10 And the Lord spoke again to Achaz, saying:
11 Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God either unto the depth of hell, or unto the height above.
12 And Achaz said: I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord.
13 And he said: Hear ye therefore, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to be grievous to men, that you are grievous to my God also?
14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.
15 He shall eat butter and honey, that he may know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good.
16 For before the child know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good, the land which thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of the face of her two kings.
17 The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon the house of thy father, days that have not come since the time of the separation of Ephraim from Juda with the king of the Assyrians.
18 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly, that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.
19 And they shall come, and shall all of them rest in the torrents of the valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all places set with shrubs, and in all hollow places.
20 In that day the Lord shall shave with a razor that is hired by them that are beyond the river, by the king of the Assyrians, the head and the hairs of the feet, and the whole beard.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep.
22 And for the abundance of milk he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that shall be left in the midst of the land.
23 And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place where there were a thousand vines, at a thousand pieces of silver, shall become thorns and briers.
24 With arrows and with bows they shall go in thither: for briars and thorns shall be in all the land.
25 And as for all the hills that shall be raked with a rake, the fear of thorns and briers shall not come thither, but they shall be for the ox to feed on, and the lesser cattle to tread upon.
THe name of a child that is to be born: many evils shall come upon the Jews for their sins.
AND the Lord said to me: Take thee a great book, and write in it with a man's pen. Take sway the spoils with speed, quickly take the prey.
2 And I took unto me faithful witnesses, Urias the priest, and Zacharias the son of Barachias.
3 And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived, and bore a son. And the Lord said to me: Call his name, Hasten to take away the spoils: Make haste to take away the prey.
4 For before the child know to call his father and his mother, the strength of Damascus, and the spoils of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of the Assyrians.
5 And the Lord spoke to me again, saying:
6 Forasmuch as this people hath cast away the waters of Siloe, that go with silence, and hath rather taken Basin, and the son of Romelia:
7 Therefore behold the Lord will bring upon them the waters of the river strong and many, the king of the Assyrians, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and shall overflow all his banks,
8 And shall pass through Juda, overflowing, and going over shall reach even to the neck. And the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Emmanuel.
9 Gather yourselves together, O ye people, and be overcome, and give ear, all ye lands afar off: strengthen yourselves, end be overcome, gird yourselves, and be overcome.
10 Take counsel together, and it shall be defeated: speak a word, and it shall not be done: because God is with us.
11 For thus saith the Lord to me: As he hath taught me, with a strong arm, that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying:
12 Say ye not: A conspiracy: for all that this people speaketh, is a conspiracy: neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid.
13 Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself: and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
14 And he shall be a sanctification to you. But for a stone or stumbling, and for a rock of offence to the two houses of Israel, for a snare and a ruin to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 And very many of them shall stumble and fall, and shall be broken in pieces, and shall be snared, and taken.
16 Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.
17 And I will wait for the Lord, who hath hid his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
18 Behold I and my children, whom the Lord hath given me for a sign, and for a wonder in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwelleth in mount Sion.
19 And when they shall say to you: Seek of pythons, and of diviners, who mutter in their enchantments: should not the people seek of their God, for the living of the dead?
20 To the law rather, and to the testimony. And if they speak not according to this word, they shall not have the morning light.
21 And they shall pass by it, they shall fall, and be hungry: and when they shall be hungry, they will be angry, and curse their king, and their God, and look upwards.
22 And they shall look to the earth, and behold trouble and darkness, weakness and distress, and a mist following them, and they cannot fly away from their distress.
What joy shall come after afflictions by the birth and kingdom of Christ: which shall flourish for ever. Judgments upon Israel for their sins.
AT the first time the land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephtali was lightly touched: and at the last the way of the sea beyond the Jordan of the Galilee of the Gentiles was heavily loaded.
2 The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen.
3 Thou hast multiplied the nation, and hast not increased the joy. They shall rejoice before thee, as they that rejoice in the harvest, as conquerors rejoice after taking a prey, when they divide the spoils.
4 For the yoke of their burden, and the rod of their shoulder, and the sceptre of their oppressor thou best overcome, as in the day of Median.
5 For every violent taking of spoils, with tumult, and garment mingled with blood, shall be burnt, and be fuel for the fire.
6 For a CHILD IS BORN to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.
7 His empire shall be multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace: he shall sit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom; to establish it and strengthen it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth and for ever: the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
8 The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel.
9 And all the people of Ephraim shall know, and the inhabitants of Samaria that say in the pride and haughtiness of their heart:
10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with square stones: they have cut down the sycamores, but we will change them for cedars.
11 And the Lord shall set up the enemies of Rasin over him, and shall bring on his enemies in a crowd:
12 The Syrians from the east, and the Philistines from the west: and they shall devour Israel with open mouth, For all this his indignation is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
13 And the people are not returned to him who hath struck them, and have not sought after the Lord of hosts.
14 And the Lord shall destroy out of Israel the head and the tail, him that bendeth down, and him that holdeth back, in one day.
15 The aged and honourable, he is the head: and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.
16 And they that call this people blessed, shall cause them to err: and they that are called blessed, shall be thrown down headlong.
17 Therefore the Lord shell have no joy in their young men: neither shall he have mercy on their fatherless, and widows: for every one is a hypocrite and wicked, and every mouth hath spoken folly. For all this his indignation is not turned away, but his bend is stretched out still.
18 For wickedness is kindled as a fire, it shall devour the brier and the thorn: and shall kindle in the thicket of the forest, and it shall be wrapped up in smoke ascending on high.
19 By the wrath of the Lord of hosts the land is troubled, and the people shall be as fuel for the fire: no man shall spare his brother.
20 And he shall turn to the right hand, and shall be hungry: and shall eat on the left hand, and shall not be filled: every one shell eat the flesh of his own arm: Manasses Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasses, and they together shall be against Juda.
21 After all these things his indignation is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
Woe to the makers of wicked laws. The Assyrians shall be a rod for punnishing Israel: but for their pride they shall be destroyed: and a remnant of Israel saved.
WOE to them that make wicked laws: and when they write, write injustice:
2 To oppress the poor in judgment, and do violence to the cause of the humble of my people: that widows might be their prey, and that they might rob the fatherless.
3 What will you do in the day of visitation, and of the calamity which cometh from afar? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?
4 That you be not bowed down under the bond, and fall with the slain? In all these things his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
5 Woe to the Assyrian, he is the rod and the staff of my anger, and my indignation is in their hands.
6 I will send him to a deceitful nation, and I will give him a charge against the people of my wrath, to take away the spoils, and to lay hold on the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
7 But he shall not take it so, and his heart shall not think so: but his heart shall be set to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few.
8 For he shall say:
9 Are not my princes as so many kings ? is not Calano as Charcamis: and Emath as Arphad? is not Samaria as Damascus?
10 As my hand hath found the king- dome of the idol, so also their idols of Jerusalem, and of Samaria.
11 Shall I not, as I have done to Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?
12 And it shall come to pass, that when the Lord shall have performed all his works in mount Sion, and in Jerusalem, I will visit the fruit of the proud heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of the haughtiness of his eyes.
13 For he hath said: By the strength of my own hand I have done it, and by my own wisdom I have understood: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have taken the spoils of the princes, and as a mighty man hath pulled down them that sat on high.
14 And my hand hath found the strength of the people as a nest; and as eggs are gathered, that are left, so have I gathered all the earth: and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or made the least noise.
15 Shall the axe boast itself against him that cutteth with it? or shall the saw exalt itself against him by whom it is drawn? as if a rod should lift itself up against him that lifteth it up, and a staff exalt itself, which is but wood.
16 Therefore the sovereign Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall send leanness among his fat ones: and under his glory shall be kindled a burning, as it were the burning of a fire.
17 And the light of Israel shall be as a fire, and the Holy One thereof as a flame: and his thorns and his briers shall be set on fire, and shall be devoured in one day.
18 And the glory of his forest, and of his beautiful hill, shall be consumed from the soul even to the flesh, and he shall run away through fear.
19 And they that remain of the trees of his forest shall be so few, that they shall easily be numbered, and a child shall write them down.
20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and they that shall escape of the house of Jacob, shall lean no more upon him that striketh them: but they shall lean upon the Lord the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
21 The remnant shall be converted, the remnant, I say, of Jacob, to the mighty God.
22 For if thy people, O Israel, shall be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them shall be converted, the consumption abridged shall overflow with justice.
23 For the Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption, and an abridgment in the midst of all the land.
24 Therefore, thus saith the Lord the God of hosts: O my people that dwellest in Sion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall strike thee with his rod, and he shall lift up his staff over thee in the way of Egypt.
25 For yet a little and a very little while, and my indignation shall cease, and my wrath shall be upon their wickedness.
26 And the Lord of hosts shall raise up a scourge against him, according to the slaughter of Madian in the rock of Oreb, and his rod over the sea, and he shall lift it up in the way of Egypt.
27 And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall putrify at the presence of the oil.
28 He shall come into Aiath, he shall pass into Magron: at Machmas he shall lay up his carriages.
29 They have passed in haste, Gaba is our lodging: Rama was astonished, Gabaath of Saul fled away.
30 Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim, attend, O Laisa, poor Anathoth.
31 Medemena is removed: ye inhabitants of Gabim, take courage.
32 It is yet day enough, to remain in Nobe: he shall shake his hand against the mountain of the daughter of Sion, the hill of Jerusalem.
33 Behold the sovereign Lord of hosts shall break the earthen vessel with terror, and the tall of stature shall be cut down, and the lofty shall be humbled.
34 And the thickets of the forest shall be cut down with iron, and Libanus with its high ones shall fall.
Of the spiritual kingdom of Christ, to which all nations shall repair.
AND there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root.
2 And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness.
3 And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of the ears.
4 But he shall judge the poor with justice, and shall reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: land he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
5 And justice shall be the girdle of his loins: and faith the girdle of his reins.
6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb: and the leopard shall lie down with the kid: the calf and the lion, and the sheep shall abide together, and a little child shall lead them.
7 The calf and the bear shall feed: their young ones shall rest together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp: and the weaned child shall thrust his hand into the den of the basilisk.
9 They shall not hurt, nor shall they kill in all my holy mountain, for the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of the sea.
10 In that day the root of Jesse, who standeth for an ensign of the people, him the Gentiles shall beseech, and his sepulchre shall be glorious.
11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand the second time to possess the remnant of his people, which shall be left from the Assyrians, and from Egypt, and from Phetros, and from Ethiopia, and from Elam, and from Sennaar, and from Emath, and from the islands of the sea.
12 And he shall set up a standard unto the nations, and shall assemble the fugitives of Israel, and shall gather together the dispersed of Juda from the four quarters of the earth.
13 And the envy of Ephraim shall be taken away, and the enemies of Juda shall perish: Ephraim shall not envy Juda, and Juda shall not fight against Ephraim.
14 But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines by the sea, they together shall spoil the children of the east: Edom, and Moab shall be under the rule of their hand, and the children of Ammon shall be obedient.
15 And the Lord shall lay waste the tongue of the sea of Egypt, and shall lift up his hand over the river in the strength of his spirit: and he shall strike it in the seven streams, so that men may pass through it in their shoes.
16 And there shall be a highway for the remnant of my people, which shall be left from the Assyrians: as there was for Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.
A canticle of thanksgiving for the benefits of Christ.
AND thou shalt say in that day: I will give thanks to thee, O Lord, for thou wast angry with me: thy wrath is turned away, and thou hast comforted me.
2 Behold, God is my saviour, I will deal confidently, and will not fear: O because the Lord is my strength, and my praise, and he is become my salvation.
3 You shall draw waters with joy out of the saviour's fountains:
4 And you shall say in that day: Praise ye the Lord, and call upon his name: make his works known among the people: remember that his name is high.
5 Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath done great things: shew this forth in all the earth.
6 Rejoice, and praise, O thou habitation of Sion: for great is he that is in the midst of thee, the Holy One of Israel.
The desolation of Babylon.
THE burden of Babylon, which Isaias the son of Amos saw.
2 Upon the dark mountain lift ye up a banner, exalt the voice, lift up the hand, and let the rulers go into the gates.
3 I have commanded my sanctified ones, and have called my strong ones in my wrath, them that rejoice in my glory.
4 The noise of a multitude in the mountains, as it were of many people, the noise of the sound of kings, of nations gathered together: the Lord of hosts hath given charge to the troops of war.
5 To them that come from a country afar off, from the end of heaven: tile Lord and the instruments of his wrath, to destroy the whole land.
6 Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is near: it shall come as a destruction from the Lord.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every heart of man shall melt,
8 And shall be broken. Gripings and pains shall take hold of them, they shall be in pain as a woman in labour. Every one shall be amazed at his neighbour, their countenances shall be as faces burnt.
9 Behold, the day of the Lord shall come, a cruel day, and full of indignation, and of wrath, and fury, to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven, and their brightness shall not display their light: the sun shall be darkened in his rising, and the moon shall not shine with her light.
11 And I will visit the evils of the world, and against the wicked for their iniquity: and I will make the pride of infidels to cease, and will bring down the arrogancy of the mighty.
12 A man shall be more precious than gold, yea a man than the finest of gold.
13 For this I will trouble the heaven: and the earth shall be moved out of her place, for the indignation of the Lord of hosts, and for the day of his tierce wrath.
14 And they shall be as a doe fleeing away, and as a sheep: and there shall be none to gather them together: every man shall turn to his own people, and every one shall flee to his own land.
15 Every one that shall be found, shall be slain: and every one that shall come to their aid, shall fall by the sword.
16 Their infants shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes: their houses shall be pillaged, and their wives shall be ravished.
17 Behold I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not seek silver, nor desire gold:
18 But with their arrows they shall kill the children, and shall have no pity upon the sucklings of the womb, and their eye shall not spare their sons.
19 And that Babylon, glorious among kingdoms, the famous pride of the Chaldeans, shall be even as the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha.
20 It shall no more be inhabited for ever, and it shall not be founded unto generation and generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch his tents there, nor shall shepherds rest there.
21 But wild beasts shall rest there, and their houses shall be filled with serpents, and ostriches shall dwell there, and the hairy ones shall dance there:
22 And owls shall answer one another there, in the houses thereof, and sirens in the temples of pleasure.
The restoration of Israel after their captivity. The parable or song insulting over the king of Babylon. A prophecy against the Phillistines.
HER time is near at hand, and her days shall not be prolonged. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose out of Israel, and will make them rest upon their own ground: and the stranger shall be joined with them, and shall adhere to the house of Jacob.
2 And the people shall take them, and bring them into their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids: and they shall make them captives that had taken them, and shall subdue their oppressors.
3 And it shall come to pass in that day, that when God shall give thee rest from thy labour, and from thy vexation, and from the hard bondage, wherewith thou didst serve before,
4 Thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and shalt say: How is the oppressor come to nothing, the tribute hath ceased?
5 The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, the rod of the rulers,
6 That struck the people in wrath with an incurable wound, that brought nations under in fury, that persecuted in a cruel manner.
7 The whole earth is quiet and still, it is glad and hath rejoiced.
8 The fir trees also have rejoiced over thee, and the cedars of Libanus, saying: Since thou hast slept, there hath none come up to cut us down.
9 Hell below was in an uproar to meet thee at thy coming, it stirred up the giants for thee. All the princes of the earth are risen up from their thrones, all the princes of nations.
10 All shall answer, and say to thee: Thou also art wounded as well as we, thou art become like unto us.
11Thy pride is brought down to hell, thy carcass is fallen down: under thee shall the moth be strewed, and worms shall be thy covering.
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? how art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations?
13 And thou saidst in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north.
14 I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High.
15 But yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, into the depth of the pit.
16 They that shall see thee, shall turn toward thee, and behold thee. Is this the man that troubled the earth, that shook kingdoms,
17 That made the world a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof, that opened not the prison to his prisoners?
18 All the kings of the nations have all of them slept in glory, every one in his own house.
19 But thou art cast out of thy grave, as an unprofitable branch defiled, and wrapped up among them that were slain by the sword, and art gone down to the bottom of the pit, as a rotten carcass.
20 Thou shalt not keep company with them, even in burial: for thou hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people: the seed of the wicked shall not be named for ever.
21 Prepare his children for slaughter for the iniquity of their fathers: they shall not rise up, nor inherit the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.
22 And I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will destroy the name of Babylon, and the remains, and the bud, and the offspring, saith the Lord.
23 And I will make it a possession for the ericius and pools of waters, and I will sweep it and wear it out with a besom, saith the Lord of hosts.
24 The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying: Surely as I have thought, so shall it be: and as I have purposed,
25 So shall it fall out: That I will destroy the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: and his yoke shall be taken away from them, and his burden shall be taken off their shoulder.
26 This is the counsel, that I have purposed upon all the earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all nations.
27 For the Lord of hosts hath decreed, and who can disannul it? and his hand is stretched out: and who shall turn it away?
28 In the year that king Achaz died, was this burden:
29 Rejoice not thou, whole Philistia, that the rod of him that struck thee is broken in pieces: for out of the root of the serpent shall come forth a basilisk, and his seed shall swallow the bird.
30 And the firstborn of the poor shall be fed, and the poor shall rest with confidence: and I will make thy root perish with famine, and I will kill thy remnant.
31 Howl, O gate; cry, O city: all Philistia is thrown down: for a smoke shall come from the north, and there is none that shall escape his troop.
32 And what shall be answered to the messengers of the nations? That the Lord hath founded Sion, and the poor of his people shall hope in him.
A prophecy of the desolation of the Moabites.
THE burden of Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste, it is silent: because the wall of Moab is destroyed in the night, it is silent.
2 The house is gone up, and Dibon to the high places to mourn over Nabo, and over Medaba, Moab hath howled: ton all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard shall be shaven.
3 In their streets they are girded with sackcloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their streets all shall howl and come down weeping.
4 Hesebon shall cry, and Eleale, their voice is heard even to Jasa. For this shall the well appointed men of Moab howl, his soul shall howl to itself.
5 My heart shall cry to Moab, the bars thereof shall flee unto Segor a heifer of three years old: for by the ascent of Luith they shall go up weeping: and in the way of Oronaim they shall lift up a cry of destruction.
6 For the waters of Nemrim shall be desolate, for the grass is withered away, the spring is faded, all the greenness is perished.
7 According to the greatness of their work, is their visitation also: they shall lead them to the torrent of the willows.
8 For the cry is gone round about the border of Moab: the howling thereof unto Gallim, and unto the well of Elim the cry thereof.
9 For the waters of Dibon are filled with blood: for I will bring more upon Dibon: the lion upon them that shall flee of Moab, and upon the remnant of the land.
The prophet prayeth for Christ's coming. THe afliction of the Moabites for their pride.
SEND forth, O Lord, the lamb, the ruler of the earth, from Petra of the desert, to the mount of the daughter of Sion.
2 And it shall come to pass, that as a bird fleeing away, and as young ones flying out of the nest, so shall the daughters of Moab be in the passage of Arnon.
3 Take counsel, gather a council: make thy shadow as the night in the midday: hide them that flee, and betray not them that wander about.
4 My fugitives shall dwell with thee: O Moab, be thou a covert to them from the face of the destroyer: for the dust is at an end, the wretch is consumed: he hath failed, that trod the earth under foot.
5 And a throne shall be prepared in mercy, and one shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking judgment and quickly rendering that which is just.
6 We have heard of the pride of Moab, he is exceeding proud: his pride and his arrogancy, and his indignation is more than his strength.
7 Therefore shall Moab howl to Moab, every one shall howl: to them that rejoice upon the brick walls, tell ye their stripes.
8 For the suburbs of Hesebon are desolate, and the lords of the nations have destroyed the vineyard of Sabama: the branches thereof have reached even to Jazer: they have wandered in the wilderness, the branches thereof are left, they are gone over the sea.
9 Therefore I will lament with the weeping of Jazer the vineyard of Sabama: I will water thee with my tears, O Hesebon, and Eleale: for the voice of the treaders hath rushed in upon thy vintage, and upon thy harvest.
10 And gladness and joy shall be taken away from Carmel, and there shall be no rejoicing nor shouting in the vineyards. He shall not tread out wine in the press that was wont to tread it out: the voice of the treaders I have taken away.
11 Wherefore my bowels shall sound like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for the brick wall.
12 And it shall come to pass, when it is seen that Moab is wearied on his high places, that he shall go in to his sanctuaries to pray, and shall not prevail.
13 This is the word, that the Lord spoke to Moab from that time:
14 And now the Lord hath spoken, saying: In three years, as the years of a hireling, the glory of Moab shall be taken away for all the multitude of the people, and it shall be left small and feeble, not many.
Judgments upon Damascus and Samaria. The overthrow of the Assyrians.
THE burden of Damascus. Behold Damascus shall cease to be a city, and shall be as a ruinous heap of stones.
2 The cities of Aroer shall be left for flocks, and they shall rest there, and there shall be none to make them afraid.
3 And aid shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: and the remnant of Syria shall be as the glory of the children of Israel: saith the Lord of hosts.
4 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall grow lean.
5 And it shall be as when one gathereth in the harvest that which remaineth, and his arm shall gather the ears of corn: and it shall be as he that seeketh ears in the vale of Raphaim.
6 And the fruit thereof that shall be left upon it, shall be as one cluster of grapes, and as the shaking of the olive tree, two or three berries in the top of a bough, or four or five upon the top of the tree, saith the Lord the God of Israel.
7 In that day man shall bow down himself to his Maker, and his eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel.
8 And he shall not look to the altars which his hands made: and he shall not have respect to the things that his fingers wrought, such as groves and temples.
9 In that day his strong cities shall be forsaken, as the ploughs, and the corn that were left before the face of the children of Israel, and thou shalt be desolate.
10 Because thou hast forgotten God thy saviour, and hast not remembered thy strong helper: therefore shalt thou plant good plants, and shalt sow strange seed.
11 In the day of thy planting shall be the wild grape, and in the morning thy seed shall flourish: the harvest is taken away in the day of inheritance, and shall grieve thee much.
12 Woe to the multitude of many people, like the multitude of the roaring sea: and the tumult of crowds, like the noise of many waters.
13 Nations shall make a noise like the noise of waters overflowing, but he shall rebuke him, and he shall flee far off: and he shall be carried away as the dust of the mountains before the wind, and as a whirlwind before a tempest.
14 In the time of the evening, behold there shall be trouble: the morning shall come, and he shall not be: this is the portion of them that have wasted us, and the lot of them that spoiled us.
A woe to the Ethiopians, who fed Israel with vain hopes, their future conversion.
WOE to the land, the winged cymbal, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,
2 That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, and in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters. Go, ye swift angels, to a nation rent and torn in pieces: to a terrible people, after which there is no other: to a nation expecting and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled.
3 All ye inhabitants of the world, who dwell on the earth, when the sign shall be lifted up on the mountains, you shall see, and you shall hear the sound of the trumpet.
4 For thus saith the Lord to me: I will take my rest, and consider in my place, as the noon light is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest.
5 For before the harvest it was all flourishing, and it shall bud without perfect ripeness, and the sprigs thereof shall be cut off with pruning hooks: and what is left shall be cut away and shaken out.
6 And they shall be left together to the birds of the mountains, and the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall be upon them all the summer, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.
7 At that time shall a present be brought to the Lord of hosts, from a people rent and torn in pieces: from a terrible people, after which there hath been no other: from a nation expecting, expecting and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, to mount Sion.
The punishment of Egypt: their call to the church.
THE burden of Egypt. Behold the Lord will ascend upon a swift cloud, and will enter into Egypt, and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst thereof.
2 And I will set the Egyptians to fight against the Egyptians: and they shall fight brother against brother, and friend against friend, city against city, kingdom against kingdom.
3 And the spirit of Egypt shall be broken in the bowels thereof, and I will cast down their counsel: and they shall consult their idols, and their diviners, and their wizards, and soothsayers.
4 And I will deliver Egypt into the hand of cruel masters, and a strong king shall rule over them, saith the Lord the God of hosts.
5 And the water of the sea shall be dried up, and the river shall be wasted and dry.
6 And the rivers shall fail: the streams of the banks shall be diminished, and be dried up. The reed and the bulrush shall wither away.
7 The channel of the river shall be laid bare from its fountain, and every thing sown by the water shall be dried up, it shall wither away, and shall be no more.
8 The fishers also shall mourn, and all that cast a hook into the river shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish away.
9 They shall be confounded that wrought in flax, combing and weaving fine linen.
10 And its watery places shall be dry, all they shall mourn that made pools to take fishes.
11 The princes of Tanis are become fools, the wise counsellors of Pharao have given foolish counsel: how will you say to Pharao: I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?
12 Where are now thy wise men? let them tell thee, and shew what the Lord of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt.
13 The princes of Tanis are become fools, the princes of Memphis are gone astray, they have deceived Egypt, the stay of the people thereof.
14 The Lord hath mingled in the midst thereof the spirit of giddiness: and they have caused Egypt to err in all its works, as a drunken man staggereth and vomiteth.
15 And there shall be no work for Egypt, to make head or tail, him that bendeth down, or that holdeth back.
16 In that day Egypt shall be like unto women, and they shall be amazed, and afraid, because of the moving of the hand of the Lord of hosts, which he shall move over it.
17 And the land of Juda shall be a terror to Egypt: every one that shall remember it shall tremble because of the counsel of the Lord of hosts, which he hath determined concerning it.
18 In that day there shall be five cities in the land of Egypt, speaking the language of Chanaan, and swearing by the Lord of hosts: one shall be called the city of the sun.
19 In that day there shall be an altar of the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a monument of the Lord at the borders thereof:
20 It shall be for a sign, and for a testimony to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. For they shall cry to the Lord because of the oppressor, and he shall send them a Saviour and a defender to deliver them.
21 And the Lord shall be known by Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day, and shall worship him with sacrifices and offerings: and they shall make vows to the Lord, and per- form them.
22 And the Lord shall strike Egypt with a scourge, and shall heal it, and they shall return to the Lord, and he shall be pacified towards them, and heal them.
23 In that day there shall be a way from Egypt to the Assyrians, and the Assyrian shall enter into Egypt, and the Egyptian to the Assyrians, and the Egyptians shall serve the Assyrian.
24 In that day shall Israel be the third to the Egyptian and the Assyrian: a blessing in the midst of the land,
25 Which the Lord of hosts hath blessed, saying: Blessed be my people of Egypt, and the work of my hands to the Assyrian: but Israel is my inheritance.
THe ignominious captivity of the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians.
IN the year that Tharthan entered into Azotus, when Sargon the king of the Assyrians had sent him, and he had fought against Azotus, and had taken it:
2 At that same time the Lord spoke by the hand of Isaias the son of Amos, saying: Go, and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and take off thy shoes from thy feet. And he did so, and went naked, and barefoot.
3 And the Lord said: As my servant Isaias hath walked, naked and barefoot, it shall be a sign and a wonder of three years upon Egypt, and upon Ethiopia,
4 So shall the king of the Assyrians lead away the prisoners of Egypt, and the captivity of Ethiopia, young and old. naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered to the shame of Egypt.
5 And they shall be afraid, and ashamed of Ethiopia their hope, and of Egypt their glory.
6 And the inhabitants of this isle shall say in that day: Lo this was our hope, to whom we fled for help, to deliver up from the face of the king of the Assyrians: and how shall we be able to escape?
THe destruction of Babylon by the Medes and Persians
THE burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds come from the south, it cometh from the desert from a terrible land.
2 A grievous vision is told me: he that is unfaithful dealeth unfaithfully : and he that is a spoiler, spoileth. Go up, O Elam, besiege, O Mede: I have made all the mourning thereof to cease.
3 Therefore are my loins filled with pain, anguish hath taken hold of me, as the anguish of a woman in labour: I fell down at the hearing of it, I was troubled at the seeing of it.
4 My heart failed, darkness amazed me: Babylon my beloved is become a wonder to me.
5 Prepare the table, behold in the watchtower them that eat and drink: arise, ye princes, take up the shield.
6 For thus hath the Lord said to me: Go, and set a watchman: and whatsoever he shall see, let him tell.
7 And he saw a chariot with two horsemen, a rider upon an ass, and a rider upon a camel: and he beheld them diligently with much heed.
8 And a lion cried out: I am upon the watchtower of the Lord, standing continually by day: and I am upon my ward, standing whole nights.
9 Behold this man cometh, the rider upon the chariot with two horsemen, and he answered, and said: Babylon is fallen, she is fallen, and all the graven gods thereof are broken unto the ground.
10 O my thrashing and the children of my door, that which I have heard of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared unto you.
11 The burden of Duma calleth to me out of Seir: Watchman, what of the night? watchman, what of the night?
12 The watchman said: The morning cometh, also the night: if you seek, seek: return, come.
13 The burden in Arabia. In the forest at evening you shall sleep, in the paths of Dedanim.
14 Meeting the thirsty bring him water, you that inhabit the land of the south, meet with bread him that fleeth.
15 For they are fled from before the swords, from the sword that hung over them, from the bent bow, from the face of a grievous battle.
16 For thus saith the Lord to me: Within a year, according to the years of a hireling, all the glory of Cedar shall be taken away.
17 And the residue of the number of strong archers of the children of Cedar shall be diminished: for the Lord the God of Israel hath spoken it.
The prophet laments the devastation of Juda. He foretells the edprivation of Solma, and the substitution of Eliacim, a figure of Christ.
THE burden of the valley of vision. What aileth thee also, that thou too art wholly gone up to the housetops?
2 Full of clamour, a populous city, a joyous city: thy slain are not slain by the sword, nor dead in battle.
3 All the princes are fled together, and are bound hard: all that were found, are bound together, they are fled far off.
4 Therefore have I said: Depart from me, I will weep bitterly: labour not to comfort me, for the devastation of the daughter of my people.
5 For it is a day of slaughter and of treading down, and of weeping to the Lord the God of hosts in the valley of vision, searching the wall, and magnificent upon the mountain.
6 And Elam took the quiver, the chariot of the horseman, and the shield was taken down from the wall.
7 And thy choice valleys shall be full of chariots, and the horseman shall place themselves in the gate.
8 And the covering of Juda shall be discovered, and thou shalt see in that day the armoury of the house of the forest.
9 And you shall see the breaches of the city of David, that they are many: and you have gathered together the waters of the lower pool,
10 And have numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and broken down houses to fortify the wall.
11 And you made a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool: and you have not looked up to the maker thereof, nor regarded him even at a distance, that wrought it long ago.
12 And the Lord, the God of hosts, in that day shall call to weeping, and to mourning, to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:
13 And behold joy and gladness, killing calves, and slaying rams, eating flesh, and drinking wine: Let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die.
14 And the voice of the Lord of hosts was revealed in my ears: Surely this iniquity shall not be forgiven you till you die, saith the Lord God of hosts.
15 Thus saith the Lord God of hosts: Go, get thee in to him that dwelleth in the tabernacle, to Sobna who is over the temple: and thou shalt say to him:
16 What dost thou here, or as if thou wert somebody here? for thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, thou hast hewed out a monument carefully in a high place, a dwelling for thyself in a rock.
17 Behold the Lord will cause thee to be carried away, as a cock is carried away, and he will lift thee up as a garment.
18 He will crown thee with a crown of tribulation, he will toss thee like a ball into a large and spacious country: there shalt thou die, and there shall the chariot of thy glory be, the shame of the house of thy Lord.
19 And I will drive thee out From thy station, and depose thee from thy ministry.
20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliacim the son of Helcias,
21 And I will clothe him with thy robe, and will strengthen him with thy girdle, and will give thy power into his hand: and he shall be as a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Juda.
22 And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder: and he shall open, and none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none shall open.
23 And I will fasten him as a peg in a sure place, and he shall be for a throne of glory to the house of his father.
24 And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house, divers kinds of vessels, every little vessel, from the vessels of cups even to every instrument of music.
26 In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall the peg be removed, that was fastened in the sure place: and it shall be broken and shall fall: and that which hung thereon, shall perish, because the Lord hath spoken it.
THe destruction of Tyre. It shall be reparied again after seventy years.
THE burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of the sea, for the house is destroyed, from whence they were wont to come: from the land of Cethim it is revealed to them.
2 Be silent, you that dwell in the island: the merchants of Sidon passing over the sea, have filled thee.
3 The seed of the Nile in many waters, the harvest of the river is her revenue: and she is become the mart of the nations.
4 Be thou ashamed, O Sidon: for the sea speaketh, even the strength of the sea, saying: I have not been in labour, nor have I brought forth, nor have I nourished up young men, nor brought up virgins.
5 When it shall be heard in Egypt, they will be sorry when they shall hear of Tyre:
6 Pass over the seas, howl, ye inhabitants of the island.
7 Is not this your city, which gloried from of old in her antiquity? her feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn.
8 Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, that was formerly crowned, whose merchants were princes, and her traders the nobles of the earth?
9 The Lord of hosts hath designed it, to pull down the pride of all glory, and bring to disgrace all the glorious ones of the earth.
10 Pass thy land as a river, O daughter of the sea, thou hast a girdle no more.
11 He stretched out his hand over the sea, he troubled kingdoms: the Lord hath given a charge against Chanaan, to destroy the strong ones thereof.
12 And he said: Thou shalt glory no more, O virgin daughter of Sidon, who art oppressed: arise and sail over to Cethim, there also thou shalt have no, rest.
13 Behold the land of the Chaldeans, there was not such a people, the Assyrian founded it: they have led away the strong ones thereof into captivity, they have destroyed the houses thereof, they have brought it to ruin.
14 Howl, O ye ships of the sea, for your strength is laid waste.
15 And it shall come to pass in that day that thou, O Tyre, shalt be forgotten, seventy years, according to the days of one king: but after seventy years, there shall be unto Tyre as the song of a harlot.
16 Take a harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten: sing well, sing many a song, that thou mayst be remembered.
17 And it shall come to pass after seventy years, that the Lord will visit Tyre, and will bring her back again to her traffic: and she shall commit fornication again with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.
18 And her merchandise and her hire shall be sanctified to the Lord: they shall not be kept in store, nor laid up: for her merchandise shall be for them that shall dwell before the Lord, that they may eat unto fulness, and be clothed for a continuance.
The judfments of God upon all the sinners of the world. A remnant shall joyfully praise him.
BEHOLD the Lord shall lay waste the earth, and shall strip it, and shall afflict the face thereof, and scatter abroad the inhabitants thereof.
2 And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest: and as with the servant, so with his master: as with the handmaid, so with her mistress: as with the buyer, so with the seller: as with the lender, so with the borrower: as with him that calleth for his money, so with him that oweth.
3 With desolation shall the earth be laid waste, and it shall be utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word.
4 The earth mourned, and faded away, and is weakened: the world faded away, the height of the people of the earth is weakened.
5 And the earth is infected by the in- habitants thereof: because they have transgressed the laws, they have changed the ordinance, they have broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore shall a curse devour the earth, and the inhabitants thereof shall sin: and therefore they that dwell therein shall be mad, and few men shall be left.
7 The vintage hath mourned, the vine hath languished away, all the merryhearted have sighed.
8 The mirth of timbrels hath ceased, the noise of them that rejoice is ended, the melody of the harp is silent.
9 They shall not drink wine with a song: the drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.
10 The city of vanity is broken down, every house is shut up, no man cometh in.
11 There shall be a crying for wine in the streets: all mirth is forsaken: the joy of the earth is gone away.
12 Desolation is left in the city, and calamity shall oppress the gates.
13 For it shall be thus in the midst of the earth, in the midst of the people, as if a few olives, that remain, should be shaken out of the olive tree: or grapes, when the vintage is ended.
14 These shall lift up their voice, and shall give praise: when the Lord shall be glorified, they shall make a joyful noise from the sea.
15 Therefore glorify ye the Lord in instruction: the name of the Lord God of Israel in the islands of the sea.
16 From the ends of the earth we have heard praises, the glory of the just one. And I said: My secret to myself, my secret to myself, woe is me: the prevaricators have prevaricated, and with the prevarication of transgressors they have prevaricated.
17 Fear, and the pit, and the snare are upon thee, O thou inhabitant of the earth.
18 And it shall come to pass, that he that shall flee from the noise of the fear, shall fall into the pit: and he that shall rid himself out of the pit, shall be taken in the snare: for the flood-gates from on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth shall be shaken.
19 With breaking shall the earth be broken, with crushing shall the earth be crushed, with trembling shall the earth be moved.
20 With shaking shall the earth be shaken as a drunken man, and shall be removed as the tent of one night: and the iniquity thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fell, and not rise again.
21 And it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord shall visit upon the host of heaven on high, and upon the kings of the earth, on the earth.
22 And they shall be gathered together as in the gathering of one bundle into the pit, and they shall be shut up there in prison: and after many days they shall be visited.
23 And the moon shall blush, and the sun shall be ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Sion, and in Jerusalem, and shall be glorified in the sight of his ancients.
A canticle of thanksgiving for Gods judgments and benefits.
O LORD, thou art my God, I will exalt thee, and give glory to thy name: for thou hast done wonderful things, thy designs of old faithful, amen.
2 For thou hast reduced the city to a heap, the strong city to ruin, the house of strangers, to be no city, and to be no more built up for ever.
3 Therefore shall a strong people praise thee, the city of mighty nations shall fear thee.
4 Because thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress: a refuge from the whirlwind, a shadow from the heat. For the blast of the mighty is like a whirlwind beating against a wall.
5 Thou shalt bring down the tumult of strangers, as heat in thirst: and as with heat under a burning cloud, thou shalt make the branch of the mighty to wither away.
6 And the Lord of hosts shall make unto all people in this mountain, a feast of fat things, a feast of wine, of fat things full of marrow, of wine purified from the lees.
7 And he shall destroy in this mountain the face of the bond with which all pie were tied, and the web that he over all nations.
8 He shall cast death down headlong forever: and the Lord God shall wipe away tears from every face, and the reproach of his people he shall take away from off the whole earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.
9 And they shall say in that day: Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord, we have patiently waited for him, we shall rejoice and be joyful in his salvation.
10 For the hand of the Lord shall rest in this mountain: and Moab shall be trodden down under him, as straw is broken in pieces with the wain.
11 And he shall stretch forth his hands under him, as he that swimmeth stretcheth forth his hands to swim: and he shall bring down his glory with the dashing of his hands.
12 And the bulwarks of thy high walls shall fall, and be brought low, and shall be pulled down to the ground, even to the dust.
A canticle of thanks for the deliverance of God's people.
IN that day shall this canticle be sung the land of Juda. Sion the city of our strength a saviour, a wall and a bulwark shall be set therein.
2 Open ye the gates, and let the just nation, that keepeth the truth, enter in.
3 The old error is passed away: thou wilt keep peace: peace, because we have hoped in thee.
4 You have hoped in the Lord for evermore, in the Lord God mighty for ever.
5 For he shall bring down them that dwell on high, the high city he shall lay low. He shall bring it down even to the ground, he shall pull it down even to the dust.
6 The foot shall tread it down, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.
7 The way of the just is right, the path of the just is right to walk in.
8 And in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, we have patiently waited for thee: thy name, and thy remembrance are the desire of the soul.
9 My soul hath desired thee in the night: yea, and with my spirit within me in the morning early I will watch to thee. When thou shalt do thy judgments on the earth, the inhabitants of the world shall learn justice.
10 Let us have pity on the wicked, but he will not learn justice: in the land of the saints he hath done wicked things, and he shall not see the glory of the Lord.
11 Lord, let thy hand be exalted, and let them not see: let the envious people see, and be confounded: and let fire devour thy enemies.
12 Lord, thou wilt give us peace: for thou hast wrought all our works for us.
13 O Lord our God, other lords besides thee have had dominion over us, only in thee let us remember thy name.
14 Let not the dead live, let not the giants rise again: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and best destroyed all their memory.
15 Thou hast been favourable to the nation, O Lord, thou hast been favourable to the nation: art thou glorified? thou hast removed all the ends of the earth far off.
16 Lord, they have sought after thee in distress, in the tribulation of murmuring thy instruction was with them.
17 As a woman with child, when she draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs: so are we become in thy presence, O Lord.
18 We have conceived, and been as it were in labour, and have brought forth wind: we have not wrought salvation on the earth, therefore the inhabitants of the earth have not fallen.
19 Thy dead men shall live, my slain shall rise again: awake, and give praise, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is the dew of the light: and the land of the giants thou shalt pull down into ruin.
20 Go, my people, enter into thy chambers, shut thy doors upon thee, hide thyself a little for a moment, until the indignation pass away.
21 For behold the Lord will come out of his place, to visit the iniquity of the inhabitant of the earth against him: and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall cover her slain no more.
THe punishment of the oppressors of Gods people. The Lord's favour to his church.
IN that day the Lord with his hard, and great, and strong sword shall visit leviathan the bar serpent, and leviathan the crooked serpent, and shall slay the whale that is in the see.
2 In that day there shall be singing to the vineyard of pure wine.
3 I am the Lord that keep it, I will suddenly give it drink: lest any hurt come to it, I keep it night and day.
4 There is no indignation in m: who shall make me a thorn and a brier in battle: shall march against it, shall I set it on fire together?
5 Or rather shall it take hold of my strength, shall it make peace with me, shall it make peace with me?
6 When they shall rush in unto Jacob, Israel shall blossom and bud, and they shall fill the face of the world with seed.
7 Hath he struck him according to the stroke of him that struck him? or is he slain, as he killed them that were slain by him?
8 In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, thou shalt judge it. He hath meditated with his severe spirit in the day of heat.
9 Therefore upon this shall the iniquity of the house of Jacob be forgiven: and this is all the fruit, that the sin thereof should be taken away, when he shall have made all the stones of the altar, as burnt stones broken in pieces, the groves and temples shall not stand.
10 For the strong city shall be desolate, the beautiful city shall be forsaken, and shall be left as a wilderness : there the calf shall feed, and there shall he lie down, and shall consume its branches.
11 Its harvest shall be destroyed with drought, women shall come and teach it: for it is not a wise people, therefore he that made it, shall not have mercy on it: and he that formed it, shall not spare it.
12 And it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord will strike from the channel of the river even to the torrent of Egypt, and you shall be gathered together one by one, O ye children of Israel.
13 And it shall come to pass, that in that day a noise shall be made with a great trumpet, and they that were lost, shall come from the land of the Assyrians, and they that were outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall adore the Lord in the holy mount in Jerusalem.
The punishment of the Israelites, for their pride, intemperance, and contempt of religion. Christ the corner stone.
WOE to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower the glory of his joy, who were on the head of the fat valley, staggering with wine.
2 Behold the Lord is mighty and strong, as a storm of hail: a destroying whirlwind, as the violence of many waters overflowing, and sent forth upon a spacious land.
3 The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden under feet.
4 And the fading flower the glory of his joy, who is on the head of the fat valley, shall be as a hasty fruit before the ripeness of autumn: which when he that seeth it shall behold, as soon as he taketh it in his hand, he will eat it up.
5 In that day the Lord of hosts shall be a crown of glory, and a garland of joy to the residue of his people:
6 And a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and strength to them that return out of the battle to the gate.
7 But these also have been ignorant through wine, and through drunkenness have erred: the priest and the prophet have been ignorant through drunkenness, they are swallowed up with wine, they have gone astray in drunkenness, they have not known him that seeth, they have been ignorant of judgment.
8 For all tables were full of vomit and filth, so that there was no more place.
9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand the hearing? them that are weaned from the milk, that are drawn away from the breasts.
10 For command, command again; command, command again; expect, expect again; expect, expect again: a little there, a little there.
11 For with the speech of lips, and with another tongue he will speak to this people.
12 To whom he said: This is my rest, refresh the weary, and this is my refreshing: and they would not hear.
13 And the word of the Lord shall be to them: Command, command again; command, command again: expect, expect again; expect, expect again: a little there, a little there: that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
14 Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, who rule over my people that is in Jerusalem.
15 For you have said : We have entered into a league with death, and we have made a covenant with hell. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come upon us: for we have placed our hope in lies, and by falsehood we are protected.
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will lay a stone in the foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundation. He that believeth, let him not hasten.
17 And I will set judgment in weight, and justice in measure: and hail shall overturn the hope of falsehood: and waters shall overflow its protection.
18 And Sour league with death shall be abolished, and your covenant with hell shall not stand: when the overflowing scourge shall pass, you shall be trodden down by it.
19 Whensoever it shall pass through, it shall take you away: because in the morning early it shall pass through, in the day and in the night, and vexation alone shall make you understand what you hear.
20 For the bed is straitened, so that one must fall out, and a short covering can- not cover both.
21 For the Lord shall stand up as in the mountain of divisions: he shall be angry as in the valley which is in Gabaon: that he may do his work, his strange work: that he may perform his work, his work is strange to him.
22 And now do not mock, lest your bonds be tied strait. For I have heard of the Lord the God of hosts a consumption and a cutting short upon all the earth.
23 Give ear, and hear my voice, hearken, and hear my speech.
24 Shall the ploughman plough all the day to sow, shall he open and harrow his ground?
25 Will he not, when he hath made plain the surface thereof, sow gith, and scatter cummin, and put wheat in order, and barley, and millet, and vetches in their bounds?
26 For he will instruct him in judgment : his God will teach him.
27 For gith shall not be thrashed with saws, neither shall the cart wheel turn about upon cummin: but gith shall be beaten out with a rod, and cummin with a staff.
28 But bread corn shall be broken small: but the thrasher shall not thrash it for ever, neither shall the cart wheel hurt it, nor break it with its teeth.
29 This also is come forth from the Lord God of hosts, to make his counsel wonderful, and magnify justice.
Gods heavy judgments upon Jerusalem, for their blind obstinacy: with a prophecy of the conversion of the Gentiles.
WOE to Ariel, to Ariel the city which David took: year is added to year: the solemnities are at an end.
2 And I will make a trench about Ariel, and it shall be in sorrow and mourning, and it shall be to me as Ariel.
3 And I will make a circle round about thee, and will cast up a rampart against thee, and raise up bulwarks to besiege thee.
4 Thou shalt be brought down, thou shalt speak out of the earth, and thy speech shall be heard out of the ground: and thy voice shall be from the earth like that of the python, and out of the ground thy speech shall mutter.
5 And the multitude of them that fan thee, shall be like small dust: and as ashes passing away, the multitude of them that have prevailed against thee.
6 And it shall be at an instant suddenly. A visitation shall come from the Lord of hosts in thunder, and with earthquake, and with a great noise of whirlwind and tempest, and with the flame of devouring fire.
7 And the multitude of all nations that have fought against Ariel, shall be as the dream of a vision by night, and all that have fought, and besieged and prevailed against it.
8 And as he that is hungry dreameth, and eateth, but when he is awake, his soul is empty: and as he that is thirsty dreameth, and drinketh, and after he is awake, is yet faint with thirst, and his soul is empty: so shall be the multitude of all the Gentiles, that have fought against mount Sion.
9 Be astonished, and wander, waver, and stagger: be drunk, and not with wine: stagger, and not with drunkenness.
10 For the Lord hath mingled for you the spirit of a deep sleep, he will shut up your eyes, he will cover your prophets and princes, that see visions.
11 And the vision of all shall be unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which when they shall deliver to one that is learned, they shall say: Read this: and he shall answer: I cannot, for it is sealed.
12 And the book shall be given to one that knoweth no letters, and it shall be said to him: Read: and he shall answer: I know no letters.
13 And the Lord said: Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify me, but their heart is far from me, and they have feared me with the commandment and doctrines of men:
14 Therefore behold I will proceed to cause an admiration in this people, by a great and wonderful miracle: for wisdom shall perish from their wise men, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.
15 Woe to you that are deep of heart, to hide your counsel from the Lord: and their works are in the dark, and they say: Who seeth us, and who knoweth us?
16 This thought of yours is perverse: as if the clay should think against the potter, and the work should say to the maker thereof: Thou madest me not: or the thing framed should say to him that fashioned it: Thou understandest not.
17 Is it not yet a very little while, and Libanus shall be turned into charmel, and charmel shall be esteemed as a forest?
18 And in that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and out of darkness and obscurity the eyes of the blind shall see.
19 And the meek shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For he that did prevail hath failed, the scorner is consumed, and they are all cut off that watched for iniquity:
21 That made men sin by word, and supplanted him that reproved them in the gate, and declined in vain from the just.
22 Therefore thus saith the Lord to the house of Jacob, he that redeemed Abraham: Jacob shall not now be confounded, neither shall his countenance now be ashamed:
23 But when he shall see his children, the work of my hands in the midst of him sanctifying my name, and they shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall glorify the God of Israel:
24 And they that erred in spirit, shall know understanding, and they that murmured, shall learn the law.
THe people are blamed for their confidence in Egypt, God's mercies towards his church: the punishment of sinners.
WOE to you, apostate children, saith the Lord, that you would take counsel, and not of me: and would begin a web, and not by my spirit, that you might add sin upon sin.
2 Who walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth, hoping for help in the strength of Pharao, and trusting in the shadow of Egypt.
3 And the- strength of Pharao shall be to your confusion, and the confidence of the shadow of Egypt to your shame.
4 For thy princes were in Tanis, and thy messengers came even to Hanes.
5 They were all confounded at a people that could not profit them: they were no help, nor to any profit, but to confusion and to reproach.
6 The burden of the beasts of the south. In a land of trouble and distress, from whence come the lioness, and the lion, the viper and the flying basilisk, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of beasts, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels to a people that shall not be able to profit them.
7 For Egypt shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this: It is pride only, sit still.
8 Now therefore go in and write for them upon box, and note it diligently in a book, and it shall be in the latter days for a testimony for ever.
9 For it is a people that provoketh to wrath, and lying children, children that will not hear the law of God.
10 Who say to the seers: See not: and to them that behold: Behold not for us those things that are right: speak unto us pleasant things, see errors for us.
11 Take away from me the way, turn away the path from me, let the Holy One of Israel cease from before us.
12 Therefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel: Because you have rejected this word, and have trusted in oppression and tumult, and have leaned upon it:
13 Therefore shall this iniquity be to you as a breach that falleth, and is found wanting in a high wall, for the destruction thereof shall come on a sudden, when it is not looked for.
14 And it shall be broken small, as the potter's vessel is broken all to pieces with mighty breaking, and there shall not a shred be found of the pieces thereof, wherein a little fire may be carried from the hearth, or a, little water be drawn out of the pit.
15 For thus saith the Lord God the Holy One of Israel: If you return and be quiet, you shall be saved: in silence and in hope shall your strength be. And you would not:
16 But have said: No, but we will flee to horses: therefore shall you flee. And we will mount upon swift ones: therefore shall they be swifter that shall pursue after you.
17 A thousand men shall flee for fear of one: and for fear of five shall you flee, till you be left as the mast of a ship on the top of a mountain, and as an ensign upon a hill.
18 Therefore the Lord waiteth that he may have mercy on you: and therefore shall he be exalted sparing you: because the Lord is the God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.
19 For the people of Sion shall dwell in Jerusalem: weeping thou shalt not weep, he will surely have pity on thee: at the voice of thy cry, se soon as he shell hear, he will answer thee.
20 And the Lord will give you spare bread, and short water: and will not cause thy teacher to flee away from thee any more, and thy eyes shall see thy teacher.
21 And thy ears shall hear the word of one admonishing thee behind thy back: This is the way, walk ye in it: and go not aside neither to the right hand, nor to the left.
22 And thou shalt defile the plates of thy graven things of silver, and the garment of thy molten things of gold, and shalt cast them away as the uncleanness of a menstruous woman. Thou shalt say to it: Get thee hence.
23 And rain shall be given to thy seed, wheresoever thou shalt sow in the land: and the bread of the corn of the land shall be most plentiful, and fat. The lamb in that day shall feed at large in thy possession:
24 And thy oxen, and the ass colts that till the ground, shall eat mingled pro vender as it was winnowed in the floor.
25 And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every elevated hill rivers of running waters in the day of the slaughter of many, when the towers shall fall.
26 And the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days: in the day when the Lord shall bind up the wound of his people, and shall heal the stroke of their wound.
27 Behold the name of the Lord cometh from afar, his wrath burneth, and is heavy to bear: his lips are filled with indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire.
28 His breath as a torrent overflowing even to the midst of the neck, to destroy the nations unto nothing, and the bridle of error that was in the jaws of the people.
29 You shall have a song as in the night of the sanctified solemnity, and joy of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe, to come into the mountain of the Lord, to the Mighty One of Israel.
30 And the Lord shall make the glory of his voice to be heard, and shall shew the terror of his arm, in the threatening of wrath, and the dame of devouring fire: he shall crush to pieces with whirlwind, and hailstones.
31 For at the voice of the Lord the Assyrian shall fear being struck with the rod.
32 And the passage of the rod shall be strongly grounded, which the Lord shall make to rest upon him with timbrels and harps, and in great battles he shall over throw them.
33 For Topheth is prepared from yesterday, prepared by the king, deep, and wide. The nourishment thereof is fire and much wood: the breath of the Lord as a torrent of brimstone kindling it.
The folly of trusting to Egypt, and forgeting God. He
will fight for his people against the Assyrians. WOE to them that go down to Egypt for help, trusting in
horses, and putting their confidence in chariots, because they are many: and in
horsemen, because they are very strong: and have not trusted in the Holy One of
Israel, and have not sought after the Lord.
2 But he that is the wise one hath brought evil, and
hath not removed his words: and he will rise up against the house of the wicked,
and against the aid of them that work iniquity.
3 Egypt is man, and not God: and their horses, flesh,
and not spirit: and the Lord shall put down his hand, and the helper shall fall,
and he that is helped shall fall, and they shall all be confounded together.
4 For thus saith the Lord to me: Like as the lion
roareth, and the lion's whelp upon his prey, and when a multitude of shepherds
shall come against him, he will not fear at their voice, nor be afraid of their
multitude: so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight upon mount Sion, and
upon the hill thereof.
5 As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts protect
Jerusalem, protecting and delivering, passing over and saving.
6 Return as you had deeply revolted, O children of
Israel.
7 For in that day a man shall cast away his idols of
silver, and his idols of gold, which your hands have made for you to sin.
8 And the Assyrian shall fall by the sword not of a man,
and the sword not of a man shall devour him, and he shall flee not at the face
of the sword: and his young men shall be tributaries.
9 And his
strength shall pass away with dread, and his princes fleeing shall be afraid:
the Lord hath said it, whose fire is in Sion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.
The Blessings of the reign of Christ. The desolation of the
Jews, and prosperity of the church of Christ. BEHOLD a king shall reign in justice, and princes shall
rule in judgment.
2 And a man shall be as when one is hid from the wind,
and hideth himself from a storm, as rivers of waters in drought, and the shadow
of a rock that standeth out in a desert land.
3 The eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the
ears of them that hear shall hearken diligently.
4 And the heart of fools shall understand knowledge, and
the tongue of stammerers shall speak readily and plain.
5 The fool shall no more be called prince: neither shall
the deceitful be called great:
6 For the fool will speak foolish things, and his heart
will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and speak to the Lord deceitfully,
and to make empty the soul of the hungry, and take away drink from the thirsty.
7 The vessels of the deceitful are most wicked: for he
hath framed devices to destroy the meek, with lying words, when the poor man
speaketh judgment.
8 But the prince will devise such things as are worthy
of a prince, and he shall stand above the rulers.
9 Rise up, ye rich women, and hear my voice: ye
confident daughters, give ear to my speech.
10 For after
days and a year, you that are confident shall be troubled: for the vintage is at
an end, the gathering shall come no more.
11 Be astonished, ye rich women, be troubled, ye
confident ones: strip yen, and be confounded, gird your loins.
12 Mourn for your breasts, for the delightful country,
for the fruitful vineyard.
13 Upon the land of my people shall thorns and briers
come up: how much more upon all the houses of joy, of the city that rejoiced?
14 For the house is forsaken, the multitude of the city
is left, darkness and obscurity are come upon its dens for ever. A joy of wild
asses, the pastures of flocks,
15 Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high: and
the desert shall be as a charmel, and charmel shall be counted for a
forest.
16 And judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and
justice shall sit in charmel.
17 And the work of justice shall be peace, and the
service of justice quietness, and security for ever.
18 And my people shall sit in the beauty of peace, and
in the tabernacles of confidence, and in wealthy rest.
19 But hail shall be in the descent of the forest, and
the city shall be made very low.
20 Blessed are
ye that sow upon all waters, sending thither the foot of the ox and the ass.
God's revenge against the enemies of his church. The
happiness of the heavenly Jerusalem. WOE to thee that spoilest, shalt not thou thyself also
be spoiled? and thou that despisest, shalt not thyself also be despised? when
thou shalt have made an end of spoiling, thou shalt be spoiled: when being
wearied thou shalt cease to despise, thou shalt be despised.
2 O Lord, have mercy on us: for we have waited for thee:
be thou our arm in the morning, and our salvation in the time of trouble.
3 At the voice of the angel the people fled, and at the
lifting up thyself the nations are scattered.
4 And your spoils shall be gathered together as the
locusts are gathered, as when the ditches are full of them.
5 The Lord is magnified, for he hath dwelt on high: he
hath filled Sion with judgment and justice.
6 And there shall be faith in thy times: riches of
salvation, wisdom and knowledge: the fear of the Lord is his treasure.
7 Behold they that see shall cry without, the angels of
peace shall weep bitterly.
8 The ways are made desolate, no one passeth by the
road, the covenant is made void, he hath rejected the cities, he hath not
regarded the men.
9 The land hath mourned, and languished: Libanus is
confounded and become foul, and Saron is become as a desert: and Basan and
Carmel are shaken.
10 Now will
I rise up, saith the Lord: now will I be exalted, now will I lift up myself.
11 You shall conceive heat, you shall bring forth
stubble: your breath as fire shall devour you.
12 And the people shall be as ashes after a fire, as a
bundle of thorns they shall be burnt with fire.
13 Hear, you that are far off, what I have done, and you
that are near know my strength.
14 The sinners in Sion are afraid, trembling hath seized
upon the hypocrites. Which of you can dwell with devouring fire? which of you
shall dwell with everlasting burnings?
15 He that walketh in justices, and speaketh truth, that
casteth away avarice by oppression, and shaketh his hands from all bribes, that
stoppeth his ears lest he hear blood, and shutteth his eyes that he may see no
evil.
16 He shall dwell on high, the fortifications of rocks
shall be his highness: bread is given him, his waters are sure.
17 His eyes shall see the king in his beauty, they shall
see the land far off.
18 Thy heart shall meditate fear: where is the learned?
where is he that pondereth the words of the law? where is the teacher of little
ones?
19 The shameless people thou shalt not see, the people
of profound speech: so that thou canst not understand the eloquence of his
tongue, in whom there is no wisdom.
20 Look upon Sion the city of our solemnity: thy eyes
shall see Jerusalem, a rich habitation, a tabernacle that cannot be removed:
neither shall the nails thereof be taken away for ever, neither shall any of the
cords thereof be broken:
21 Because
only there our Lord is magnificent: a place of rivers, very broad and
spacious streams: no ship with oars shall pass by it, neither shall the great
galley pass through it.
22 For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver,
the Lord is our king: he will save us.
23 Thy tacklings are loosed, and they shall be of no
strength: thy mast shall be in such condition, that thou shalt not be able to
spread the flag. Then shall the spoils of much prey be divided: the lame shall
take the spoil.
24 Neither shall
he that is near, say: I am feeble. The people that dwell therein, shall have
their iniquity taken away from them.
The general judgment of the wicked. COME near, ye Gentiles, and hear, and hearken, ye
people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein, the world, and every thing
that cometh forth of it.
2 For the indignation of the Lord if upon all nations,
and his fury upon all their armies: he hath killed them, and delivered them to
slaughter.
3 Their slain shall be cast forth, and out of their
carcasses shall rise a stink: the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
4 And all the host of the heavens shall pine away, and
the heavens shall be folded together as a book: and all their host shall fall
down as the leaf falleth from the vine, and from the fig tree.
5 For my sword is inebriated in heaven: behold it shall
come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my slaughter unto judgment.
6 The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made
thick with the blood of lambs and buck goats, with the blood of rams full of
marrow: for there is a victim of the Lord in Bosra and a great slaughter in the
land of Edom.
7 And the unicorns shall go down with them, and the
bulls with the mighty: their land shall be soaked with blood, and their ground
with the fat of fat ones.
8 For it is the day of the vengeance of the Lord, the
year of recompenses of the judgment of Sion.
9 And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch,
and the ground thereof into brimstone: and the land thereof shall become burning
pitch.
10 Night and
day it shall not be quenched, the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from
generation to generation it shall lie waste, none shall pass through it for ever
and ever.
11 The bittern and ericius shall possess it: and the
ibis and the raven shall dwell in it: and a line shall be stretched out upon it,
to bring it to nothing, and a plummet, unto desolation.
12 The nobles thereof shall not be there: they shall
call rather upon the king, and all the princes thereof shall be nothing.
13 And thorns and nettles shall grow up in its houses,
and the thistle in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be the habitation of
dragons, and the pasture of ostriches.
14 And demons and monsters shall meet, and the hairy
ones shall cry out one to another, there hath the lamia lain down, and found
rest for herself.
15 There hath the ericius had its hole, and brought up
its young ones, and hath dug round about, and cherished them in the shadow
thereof: thither are the kites gathered together one to another.
16 Search ye diligently in the book of the Lord, and
read: not one of them was wanting, one hath not sought for the other: for that
which proceedeth out of my mouth, he hath commanded, and his spirit it hath
gathered them.
17 And he hath
cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it to them by line: they shall
possess it for ever, from generation to generation they shall dwell therein.
The joyful flourishing of Christ's kingdom: in his church
shall be a holy and secure way. THE land that was desolate and impassable shall be glad,
and the wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like the lily.
2 It shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with
joy and praise: the glory of Libanus is given to it: the beauty of Carmel, and
Saron, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the beauty of our God.
3 Strengthen ye the feeble hands, and confirm the weak
knees.
4 Say to the fainthearted: Take courage, and fear not:
behold your God will bring the revenge of recompense: God himself will come and
will save you.
5 Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the
ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
6 Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue
of the dumb shall be free: for waters are broken out in the desert, and streams
in the wilderness.
7 And that which was dry land, shall become a pool, and
the thirsty land springs of water. In the dens where dragons dwell before, shall
rise up the verdure of the reed and the bulrush.
8 And a path and a way shall be there, and it shall be
called the holy way: the unclean shall not pass over it, and this shall be unto
you a straight way, so that fools shall not err therein.
9 No lion shall be there, nor shall any mischievous
beast go up by it, nor be found there: but they shall walk there that shall be
delivered.
10 And the
redeemed of the Lord shall return, and shall come into Sion with praise, and
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
Sennacherib invades Juda: his blasphemies. AND it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king
Ezechias, that Sennacherib king of the Assyrians came up against all the fenced
cities of Juda, and took them.
2 And the king of the Assyrians sent Rabsaces from
Lachis to Jerusalem, to king Ezechias with a great army, and he stood by the
conduit of the upper pool in the way of the fuller's held.
3 And there went out to him Eliacim the son of Helcias,
who was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and Joahe the son of Asaph the
recorder.
4 And Rabsaces said to them: Tell Ezechias: Thus saith
the great king, the king of the Assyrians: What is this confidence wherein thou
trustest?
5 Or with what counsel or strength dost thou prepare for
war? on whom dost thou trust, that thou art revolted from me?
6 Lo thou trustest upon this broken staff of a reed,
upon Egypt: upon which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it:
so is Pharao king or Egypt to all that trust in him.
7 But if thou wilt answer me: We trust in the Lord our
God: is it not he whose high places and altars Ezechias hath taken away, and
hath said to Juda and Jerusalem: You shall worship before this altar?
8 And now deliver thyself up to my lord the king of the
Assyrians, and I will give thee two thousand horses, and thou wilt not be able
on thy part to find riders for them.
9 And how wilt thou stand against the face of the judge
of one place, of the least of my master's servants? But if thou trust in Egypt,
in chariots and in horsemen:
10 And am I
now come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to
me: Go up against this land, and destroy it.
11 And Eliacim, and Sobna, and Joahe said to Rabsaces:
Speak to thy servants in the Syrian tongue: for we understand it: speak not to
us in the Jews' language in the hearing of the people, that are upon the wall.
12 And Rabsaces said to them: Hath my master sent me to
thy master and to thee, to speak all these words; and not rather to the men that
sit on the wall; that they may eat their own dung, and drink their urine with
you?
13 Then Rabsaces stood, and cried out with a loud voice
in the Jews' language, and said: Hear the words of the great king, the king of
the Assyrians.
14 Thus saith the king: Let not Ezechias deceive you,
for he shall not be able to deliver you.
15 And let not Ezechias make you trust in the Lord,
saying: The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given into
the hands of the king of the Assyrians.
16 Do not hearken to Ezechias: for thus said the king of
the Assyrians: Do with me that which is for your advantage, and come out to me,
and eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his dg tree, and drink ye
every one the water of his cistern,
17 Till I come and take you away to a land, like to your
own, a land of corn and of wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
18 Neither let Ezechias trouble you, saying: The Lord
will deliver us. Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their land out of
the hand of the king of the Assyrians?
19 Where is the god of Emath and of Arphad? where is the
god of Sepharvaim? have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?
20 Who is there among all the gods of these lands, that
hath delivered his country out of my hand, that the Lord may deliver Jerusalem
out of my hand?
21 And they
held their peace, and answered him not a word. For the king had commanded,
saying: answer him not.
22 And Eliacim
the son of Helcias, that was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and Joahe the
son of Asaph the recorder, went in to Ezechias with their garments rent, and
told him the words of Rabsaces.
Ezechias, his mourning and prayer. God's promise of
protection. The Assyrian army is destroyed. Sennacherib is
slain. AND it came to pass, when king Ezechias had heard it,
that he rent his garments and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the
house of the Lord.
2 And he sent Eliacim who was over the house, and Sobna
the scribe, and the ancients of the priests covered with sackcloth, to Isaias
the son of Amos the prophet.
3 And they said to him: Thus saith Ezechias: This day is
a day of tribulation, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the children are come
to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.
4 It may be the Lord thy God will hear the words of
Rabsaces, whom the king of the Assyrians his master hath sent to blaspheme the
living God, and to reproach with words which the Lord thy God hath heard:
wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left.
5 And the servants of Ezechias came to Isaias.
6 And Isaias said to them: Thus shall you say to your
master: Thus saith the Lord: Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard,
with which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me.
7 Behold, I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall
hear a message, and shall return to his own country, and I will cause him to
fall by the sword in his own country.
8 And Rabsaces returned, end found the king of the
Assyrians besieging Lobna. For he had heard that he was departed from
Lachis.
9 And he heard say about Tharaca the king of Ethiopia:
He is come forth to fight against thee. And when he heard it, he sent messengers
to Ezechias, saying:
10 Thus
shall you speak to Ezechias the king of Juda, saying: Let not thy God deceive
thee, in whom thou trustest, saying: Jerusalem shall not be given into the hands
of the king of the Assyrians.
11 Behold thou hast heard all that the kings of the
Assyrians have done to all countries which they have destroyed, and canst thou
be delivered?
12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them whom my
fathers have destroyed, Gozam, and Haram, and Reseph, and the children of Eden,
that were in Thalassar?
13 Where is the king of Emath, and the king of Arphad,
and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Ana, and of Ava?
14 And Ezechias took the letter from the hand of the
messengers, and read it, and went up to the house of the Lord, and Ezechias
spread it before the Lord.
15 And Ezechias prayed to the Lord, saying:
16 O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, who sittest upon the
cherubims, thou alone art the God of all the kingdoms of the earth, thou hast
made heaven and earth.
17 Incline, O Lord, thy ear, and hear: open, O Lord, thy
eyes, and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he hath sent to
blaspheme the living God.
18 For of a truth, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians
have laid waste lands, and their countries.
19 And they have cast their gods into the fire, for they
were not gods, but the works of men's hands, of wood and stone: and they broke
them in pieces.
20 And now, O Lord our God, save us out of his hand: and
let all the kingdoms of the earth know, that thou only art the Lord.
21 And
Isaias the son of Amos sent to Ezechias, saying: Thus saith the Lord the God of
Israel: For the prayer thou hast made to me concerning Sennacherib the king of
the Assyrians:
22 This is the word which the Lord hath spoken of him:
The virgin the daughter of Sion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn:
the daughter of Jerusalem hath wagged the head after thee.
23 Whom hast thou reproached, and whom hast thou
blasphemed, and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thy eyes
on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.
24 By the hand of thy servants thou hast reproached the
Lord: and hast said: With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the
height of the mountains, to the top of Libanus: and I will cut down its tall
cedars, and its choice fir trees, and will enter to the top of its height, to
the forest of its Carmel.
25 I have digged, and drunk water, and have dried up
with the sole of my foot, all the rivers shut up in banks.
26 Hast thou not heard what I have done to him of old?
from the days of old I have formed it: and now I have brought it to effect: and
it hath come to pass that hills fighting together, and fenced cities should be
destroyed.
27 The inhabitants of them were weak of hand, they
trembled, and were confounded: they became like the grass of the field, and the
herb of the pasture, and like the grass of the housetops, which withered before
it was ripe.
28 I know thy dwelling, and thy going out, and thy
coming in, and thy rage against me.
29 When thou wast mad against me, thy pride came up to
my ears: therefore I will put a ring in thy nose, and a bit between thy lips,
and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.
30 But to thee this shall be a sign: Eat this year the
things that spring of themselves, and in the second year eat fruits: but in the
third year sow and reap, and giant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.
31 And that which shall be saved of the house of Juda,
and which is left, shall take root downward, and shall bear fruit upward :
32 For out
of Jerusalem shall go forth a, remnant, and salvation from mount Sion: the zeal
of the Lord of hosts shall do this.
33 Wherefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of
the Assyrians: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it, nor
come before it with shield, nor cast a trench about it.
34 By the way that he came, he shall return, and into
this city he shall not come, saith the Lord.
35 And I will protect this city, and will save it for my
own sake, and for the sake of David my servant.
36 And the angel of the Lord went out, and slew in the
camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And they arose in the
morning, and behold they were all dead corpses.
37 And Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians went out
and departed, and returned, and dwelt in Ninive.
38 And it came
to pass, as he was worshipping in the temple of Nesroch his god, that Adramelech
and Sarasar his sons slew him with the sword: and they fled into the land of
Ararat, and Asarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.
Ezechias being advertised that he shall die, obtains by
prayer a prolongation of his life: in confirmation of which the sun goes back.
The coanticle of Ezechias. IN those days Ezechias was sick even to death, and
Isaias the son of Amos the prophet came unto him, and said to him: Thus saith
the Lord: Take order with thy house, for thou shalt die, and not live.
2 And Ezechias turned his face toward the wall, and
prayed to the Lord,
3 And said: I beseech thee, O Lord, remember how I have
walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which
is good in thy sight. And Ezechias wept with great weeping.
4 And the word of the Lord came to Isaias, saying:
5 Go and say to Ezechias: Thus saith the Lord the God of
David thy father: I have heard thy prayer, and I have seen thy tears: behold I
will add to thy days fifteen years:
6 And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand
of the king of the Assyrians, and I will protect it.
7 And this shall be a sign to thee from the Lord, that
the Lord will do this word which he hath spoken:
8 Behold I will bring again the shadow of the lines, by
which it is now gone down in the sun dial of Achaz with the sun, ten lines
backward. And the sun returned ten lines by the degrees by which it was gone
down.
9 The writing of Ezechias king of Juda, when he had been
sick, and was recovered of his sickness.
10 I said:
In the midst of my days I shall go to the gates of hell: I sought for the
residue of my years.
11 I said: I shall not see the Lord God in the land of
the living. I shall behold man no more, nor the inhabitant of rest.
12 My generation is at an end, and it is rolled away
from me, as a shepherd's tent. My life is cut off, as by a weaver: whilst I was
yet but beginning, he out me off: from morning even to night thou wilt make an
end of me.
13 I hoped till morning, as a lion so hath he broken all
my bones: from morning even to night thou wilt make an end of me.
14 I will cry like a young swallow, I will meditate like
a dove: my eyes are weakened looking upward: Lord, I suffer violence, answer
thou for me.
15 What shall I say, or what shall he answer for me,
whereas he himself hath done it? I will recount to thee all my years in the
bitterness of my soul.
16 O Lord, if man's life be such, and the life of my
spirit be in such things as these, thou shalt correct me, and make me to live.
17 Behold in peace is my bitterness most bitter: but
thou best delivered my soul that it should not perish, thou hast cast all my
sins behind thy back.
18 For hell shall not confess to thee, neither shall
death praise thee: nor shall they that go down into the pit, look for thy truth.
19 The living, the living, he shall give praise to thee,
as I do this day: the father shall make thy truth known to the children.
20 O Lord, save me, and we will sing our psalms all the
days of our life in the house of the Lord.
21 Now
Isaias had ordered that they should take a lump of figs, and lay it as it
plaster upon the wound, and that he should be healed.
22 And Ezechias
bed said: What shah be the sign that I shah go up to the house of the Lord?
Ezechias shews all his treasures to the ambassadors of
Babylon: upon which Isaias foretells the Babylonish captivity. AT that time Merodach Baladan, the son of Baladan king
of Babylon, sent letters and presents to Ezechias: for he had heard that he had
been sick and was recovered.
2 And Ezechias rejoiced at their coming, and he shewed
them the storehouses of his aromatical spices, and of the silver, and of the
gold, and of the sweet odours, and of the precious ointment, and all the
storehouses of his furniture, and all things that were found in his treasures.
There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion that Ezechias shewed
them not.
3 Then Isaias the prophet came to king Ezechias, and
said to him: What said these men, and from whence came they to thee? And
Ezechias said: From a far country they came to me, from Babylon
4 And he said: What saw they in thy house? And Ezechias
said: All things that are in my house have they seen, there was not any thing
which I have not shewn them in my treasures.
5 And Isaias said to Ezechias: Rear the word of the Lord
of hosts.
6 Behold the days shall come, that all that is in thy
house, and that thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be
carried away into Babylon: there shall not any thing be left, saith the Lord.
7 And of thy children, that shall issue from thee, whom
thou shalt beget, they shall take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace
of the king of Babylon.
8 And Ezechias
said to Isaias: The word of the Lord, which he hath spoken, is good. And he
said: Only let peace and truth be in my days.
The prophet comforts the people with the promise of the
coming of Christ to forgive their sins. God's almighty power and
majesty. BE comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God.
2 Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her:
for her evil is come to an end, her iniquity is forgiven: she hath received of
the hand of the Lord double for all her sins.
3 The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the
way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and
hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough
ways plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all
flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.
6 The voice of one, saying: Cry. And I said: What shall
I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the held.
7 The grass is withered, and the dower is fallen,
because the spirit of the Lord hath blown upon it. Indeed the people is grass:
8 The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but
the word of our Lord endureth for ever.
9 Get thee up upon a high mountain, thou that bringest
good tidings to Sion: lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good
tidings to Jerusalem: lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Juda: Behold
your God:
10 Behold
the Lord God shall come with strength, and his arm shall rule: Behold his reward
is with him and his work is before him.
11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall
gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and
he himself shall carry them that are with young.
12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his
hand, and weighed the heavens with his palm? who hath poised with three fingers
the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a
balance?
13 Who hath forwarded the spirit of the Lord? or who
hath been his counsellor, and hath taught him?
14 With whom hath he consulted, and who hath instructed
him, and taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and shewed
him the way of understanding?
15 Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket, and
are counted as the smallest grain of a balance: behold the islands are as a
little dust.
16 And Libanus shall not be enough to burn, nor the
beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
17 All nations are before him as if they had no being at
all, and are counted to him as nothing, and vanity.
18 To whom then have you likened God? or what image will
you make for him?
19 Hath the workman cast a graven statue? or hath the
goldsmith formed it with gold, or the silversmith with plates of silver?
20 He hath chosen strong wood, and that will not rot:
the skilful workman seeketh how he may set up an idol that may not be moved.
21 Do you
not know? hath it not been heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning?
have you not understood the foundations of the earth ?
22 It is he that sitteth upon the globe of the earth,
and the inhabitants thereof are as locusts: he that stretcheth out the heavens
as nothing, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.
23 He that bringeth the searchers of secrets to nothing,
that hath made the judges of the earth as vanity.
24 And surely their stock was neither planted, nor sown,
nor rooted in the earth: suddenly he hath blown upon them, and they are
withered, and a whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.
25 And to whom have ye likened me, or made me equal,
saith the Holy One?
26 Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created
these things: who bringeth out their host by number, and calleth them all by
their names: by the greatness of his might, and strength, and power, not one of
them was missing.
27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel: My
way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?
28 Knowest thou not, or hast thou not heard? the Lord is
the everlasting God, who hath created the ends of the earth: he shall not faint,
nor labour, neither is there any searching out of his wisdom.
29 It is he that giveth strength to the weary, and
increaseth force and might to them that are not.
30 Youths shall faint, and labour, and young men shall
fall by infirmity.
31 But they that
hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings as eagles,
they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
The reign of the just one: the vanity of
idols. LET the islands keep silence before me, and the nations
take new strength: let them come near, and then speak, let us come near to
judgment together. 2 Who hath raised up the just one from the east, hath
called him to follow him? he shall give the nations in his sight, and he shall
rule over kings: he shall give them as the dust to his sword, as stubble driven
by the wind, to his bow.
3 He shall pursue them, he shall pass in peace, no path
shall appear after his feet.
4 Who hath wrought and done these things, calling the
generations from the beginning? I the Lord, I am the first and the last.
5 The islands saw it, and feared, the ends of the earth
were astonished, they drew near, and came.
6 Every one shall help his neighbour, and shall say to
his brother: Be of good courage.
7 The coppersmith striking with the hammer encouraged
him that forged at that time, saying: It is ready for soldering: and he
strengthened it with nails, that it should not be moved.
8 But thou Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have
chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend:
9 In whom I have taken thee from the ends of the earth,
and from the remote parts thereof have called thee, and said to thee: Thou art
my servant, I have chosen thee, and have not cast thee away.
10 Fear not,
for I am with thee: turn not aside, for I am thy God: I have strengthened thee,
and have helped thee, and the right hand of my just one hath upheld thee.
11 Behold all that fight against thee shall be
confounded and ashamed, they shall be as nothing, and the men shall perish that
strive against thee.
12 Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find the men that
resist thee: they shall be as nothing: and as a thing consumed the men that war
against thee.
13 For I am the Lord thy God, who take thee by the hand,
and say to thee: Fear not, I have helped thee.
14 Fear not, thou worm of Jacob, you that are dead of
Israel: I have helped thee, saith the Lord: and thy Redeemer the Holy One of
Israel.
15 I have made thee as a new thrashing wain, with teeth
like a saw: thou shall thrash the mountains, and break them in pieces: and shalt
make the hills as chaff.
16 Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them
away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord,
in the Holy One of Israel thou shalt be joyful.
17 The needy and the poor seek for waters, and there are
none: their tongue hath been dry with thirst. I the Lord will hear them, I the
God of Israel will not forsake them.
18 I will open rivers in the high bills, and fountains
in the midst of the plains: I will turn the desert into pools of waters, and the
impassable land into streams of waters.
19 I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, and the
thorn, and the myrtle, and the olive tree: I will set in the desert the fir
tree, the elm, and the box tree together:
20 That they may see and know, and consider, and
understand together that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One
of Israel hath created it.
21 Bring
your cause near, saith the Lord: bring hither, if you have any thing to allege,
saith the King of Jacob.
22 Let them come, and tell us all things that are to
come: tell us the former things what they were: and we will set our heart upon
them, and shall know the latter end of them, and tell us the things that are to
come.
23 Shew the things that are to come hereafter, and we
shall know that ye are gods. Do ye also good or evil, if you can: and let us
speak, and see together.
24 Behold, you are of nothing, and your work of that
which hath no being: he that hath chosen you is an abomination.
25 I have raised up one from the north, and he shall
come from the rising of the sun: he shall call upon my name, and he shall make
princes to be as dirt, and as the potter treading clay.
26 Who bath declared from the beginning, that we may
know: and from time of old, that we may say: Thou art just. There is none that
sheweth, nor that foretelleth, nor that heareth your words.
27 The first shall say to Sion: Behold they are here,
and to Jerusalem I will give an evangelist.
28 And I saw, and there was no one even among them to
consult, or who, when I asked, could answer a word.
29 Behold they
are all in the wrong, and their works are vain: their idols are wind and vanity.
BEHOLD my servant, I will uphold him: my elect, my soul
delighteth in him: I have given my spirit upon him, he shall bring forth
judgment to the Gentiles.
2 He shall not cry, nor have respect to person, neither
shall his voice be heard abroad.
3 The bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax
he shall not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
4 He shall not be sad, nor troublesome, till he set
judgment in the earth: and the islands shall wait for his law.
5 Thus saith the Lord God that created the heavens, and
stretched them out: that established the earth, and the things that spring out
of it: that giveth breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them that tread
thereon.
6 I the Lord have called thee in justice, and taken thee
by the hand, and preserved thee. And I have given thee for a covenant of the
people, for a light of the Gentiles:
7 That thou mightest open the eyes of the blind, and
bring forth the prisoner out of prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the
prison house.
8 I the Lord, this is my name: I will not give my glory
to another, nor my praise to graven things.
9 The things that were first, behold they are come: and
new things do I declare: before they spring forth, I will make you head them.
10 Sing ye
to the Lord a new song, his praise is from the ends of the earth: you that go
down to the sea, and all that are therein: ye islands, and ye inhabitants of
them.
11 Let the desert and the cities thereof be exalted:
Cedar shall dwell in houses: ye inhabitants of Petra, give praise, they shall
cry from the top of the mountains.
12 They shall give glory to the Lord, and shall declare
his praise in the islands.
13 The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, as a man of
war shall he stir up zeal: he shall shout and cry: he shall prevail against his
enemies.
14 I have always held my peace, I have I kept silence, I
have been patient, I will speak now as a woman in labour: I will destroy, and
swallow up at once.
15 I will lay waste the mountains and hills, and will
make all their grass to wither: and I will turn rivers into islands, and will
dry up the standing pools.
16 And I will lead the blind into the way which they
know not: and in the paths which they were ignorant of I will make them walk: I
will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight: these things
have I done to them, and have not forsaken them.
17 They are turned back: let them be greatly confounded,
that trust in a graven thing, that say to a molten thing: You are our god.
18 Hear, ye deaf, and, ye blind, behold that you may
see.
19 Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, but he to whom
I have sent my messengers? Who is blind, but he that is sold? or who is blind,
but the servant of the Lord?
20. Thou that seest many things, wilt thou not observe
them? thou that hast ears open, wilt thou not hear?
21 And the
Lord was willing to sanctify him, and to magnify the law, and exalt it.
22 But this is a people that is robbed and wasted: they
are all the snare of young men, and they are hid in the houses of prisons: they
are made a prey, and there is none to deliver them: a spoil, and there is none
that saith: Restore.
23 Who is there among you that will give ear to this,
that will attend and hearken for times to come?
24 Who hath given Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to
robbers? hath not the Lord himself, against whom we have sinned? And they would
not walk in his ways, and they have not hearkened to his law.
25 And he hath
poured out upon him the indignation of his fury, and a strong battle, and hath
burnt him round about, and he knew not: and set him on fire, and he understood
not.
God comforts his church, promising to protect her forever:
he expostulates with the Jews for their ingratitude. AND now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob,
and formed thee, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, and called thee
by thy name: thou art mine.
2 When thou shalt pass through the waters, I will be
with thee, and the rivers shall not cover thee: when thou shalt walk in the
fire, thou shalt not be burnt, and the flames shall not burn in thee:
3 For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy
Saviour: I have given Egypt for thy atonement, Ethiopia and Saba for thee.
4 Since thou becamest honourable in my eyes, thou art
glorious: I have loved thee, and I will give men for thee, and people for thy
life.
5 Fear not, for I am with thee: I will. bring thy seed
from the east, and gather thee from the west.
6 I will say to the north: Give up: and to the south:
Keep not back: bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the
earth.
7 And every one that calleth upon my name, I have
created him for my glory, I have formed him, and made him.
8 Bring forth the people that are blind, and have eyes:
that are deaf, and have ears.
9 All the nations are assembled together, and the tribes
are gathered: who among you can declare this, and shall make us hear the former
things? let them bring forth their witnesses, let them be justified, and hear,
and say: It is truth.
10 You are
my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that you may
know, and believe me, and understand that I myself am. Before me there was no
God formed, and after me there shall be none.
11 I am, I am the Lord: and there is no saviour besides
me.
12 I have declared, and have saved. I have made it
heard, and there was no strange one among you. You are my witnesses, saith the
Lord, and I am God.
13 And from the beginning I am the same, and there is
none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall turn it away?
14 Thus saith the Lord your redeemer, the Holy One of
Israel: For your sake I sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their bars,
and the Chaldeans glorying in their ships.
15 I am the Lord your Holy One, the Creator of Israel,
your King.
16 Thus saith the Lord, who made a way in the sea, and a
path in the mighty waters.
17 Who brought forth the chariot and the horse, the army
and the strong: they lay down to sleep together, and they shall not rise again:
they are broken as flax, and are extinct.
18 Remember not former things, and look not on things of
old.
19 Behold I do new things, and now they shall spring
forth, verily you shall know them: I will make a way in the wilderness, and
rivers in the desert.
20 The beast of the field shall glorify me, the dragons
and the ostriches: because I have given waters in the wilderness, rivers in the
desert, to give drink to my people, to my chosen.
21 This
people have I formed for my- self, they shall shew forth my praise.
22 But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob, neither
hast thou laboured about me, O Israel.
23 Thou hast not offered me the ram of thy holocaust,
nor hast thou glorified me with thy victims: I have not caused thee to serve
with oblations, nor wearied thee with incense.
24 Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither
hast thou filled me with the fat of thy victims. But thou hast made me to serve
with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thy iniquities.
25 I am, I am he that blot out thy iniquities for my own
sake, and I will not remember thy sins.
26 Put me in remembrance, and let us plead together:
tell if thou hast any thing to justify thyself.
27 Thy brat father sinned, and thy teachers have
transgressed against me.
28 And I have
profaned the holy princes, I have given Jacob to slaughter, and Israel to
reproach.
God's favour to his church. The folly of idolatry,
The people shall be delivered from captivity. AND now hear, O Jacob, my servant, and Israel whom I
have chosen.
2 Thus saith the Lord that made and formed thee, thy
helper from the womb: Fear not, O my servant Jacob, and thou most righteous whom
I have chosen.
3 For I will pour out waters upon the thirsty ground,
and streams upon the dry land: I will pour out my spirit upon thy seed, and my
blessing upon thy stock.
4 And they shall spring up among the herbs, as willows
beside the running waters.
5 One shall say: I am the Lord's, and another shall call
himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand, To the
Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel.
6 Thus saith the Lord the king of Israel, and his
redeemer the Lord of hosts: I am the first, and I am the last, and besides me
there is no God.
7 Who is like to me? let him call and declare: and let
him set before me the order, since I appointed the ancient people: and the
things to come, and that shall be hereafter, let them shew unto them.
8 Fear ye not, neither be ye troubled, from that time I
have made thee to hear, and have declared: you are my witnesses. Is there a God
besides me, a maker, whom I have not known?
9 The makers of idols are all of them nothing, and their
best beloved things shall not profit them. They are their witnesses, that they
do not see, nor understand, that they may be ashamed.
10 Who hath
formed a god, and made a graven thing that is profitable for nothing?
11 Behold, all the partakers thereof shall be
confounded: for the makers are men: they shall all assemble together, they shall
stand and fear, and shall be confounded together.
12 The smith hath wrought with his file, with coals, and
with hammers he hath formed it, and hath wrought with the strength of his arm:
he shall hunger and faint, he shall drink no water, and shall be weary.
13 The carpenter hath stretched out his rule, he hath
formed it with a plane: he hath made it with corners, and hath fashioned it
round with the compass: and he hath made the image of a man as it were a
beautiful man dwelling in a house.
14 He hath cut down cedars, taken the holm, and the oak
that stood among the trees of the forest: he hath planted the pine tree, which
the rain hath nourished.
15 And it hath served men for fuel: he took thereof, and
warmed himself: and he kindled it, and baked bread: but of the rest he made a
god, and adored it: he made a graven thing, and bowed down before it.
16 Part of it he burnt with fire, and with part of it he
dressed his meat: he boiled pottage, and was filled, and was warmed, and said:
Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire.
17 But the residue thereof he made a god, and a graven
thing for himself: he boweth down before it, and adoreth it, and prayeth unto
it, saying: Deliver me, for thou art my God.
18 They have not known, nor understood: for their eyes
are covered that they may not see, and that they may not understand with their
heart.
19 They do not consider in their mind, nor know, nor
have the thought to say: I have burnt part of it in the fire, and I have baked
bread upon the coals thereof: I have broiled flesh and have eaten, and of the
residue thereof shall I make an idol? shall I fall down before the stock of a
tree?
20 Part thereof is ashes: his foolish heart adoreth it,
and he will not save his soul, nor say: Perhaps there is a lie in my right hand.
21 Remember
these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for thou art my servant. I have formed thee,
thou art my servant, O Israel, forget me not.
22 I have blotted out thy iniquities as a cloud, and thy
sins as a mist: return to me, for I have redeemed thee.
23 Give praise, O ye heavens, for the Lord hath shewn
mercy: shout with joy, ye ends of the earth: ye mountains, resound with praise,
thou, O forest, and every tree therein: for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and
Israel shall be glorified.
24 Thus saith the Lord thy redeemer, and thy maker, from
the womb: I am the Lord, that make all things, that alone stretch out the
heavens, that establish the earth, and there is none with me.
25 That make void the tokens of diviners, and make the
soothsayers mad. That turn the wise backward, and that, make their knowledge
foolish.
26 That raise up the word of my servant and perform the
counsel of my messengers, who say to Jerusalem: Thou shalt be inhabited: and to
the cities of Juda: You shall be built, and I will raise up the wastes thereof.
27 Who say to the deep: Be thou desolate, and I will dry
up thy rivers.
28 Who say to
Cyrus: Thou art my shepherd, and thou shalt perform all my pleasure. Who say to
Jerusalem: Thou shalt be built: and to the temple: Thy foundations shall be
laid.
A prophecy of Cyrus, as a figure of Christ, the great
deliverer of God's people. THUS saith the Lord to my anointed Cyrus, whose right
hand I have taken hold of, to subdue nations before his face, and to turn the
backs of kings, and to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be
shut.
2 I will go before thee, and will humble the great ones
of the earth: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and will burst the bars
of iron.
3 And I will give thee hidden treasures, and the
concealed riches of secret places: that thou mayest know that I am the Lord who
call thee by thy name, the God of Israel.
4 For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my elect,
I have even called thee by thy name: I have made a likeness of thee, and thou
hast not known me.
5 I am the Lord, and there is none else: there is no
God, besides me: I girded thee, and thou hast not known me:
6 That they may know who are from the rising of the sun,
and they who are from the west, that there is none besides me. I am the Lord,
and there is none else:
7 I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace,
and create evil: I the Lord that do all these things.
8 Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the
clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a saviour: and let
justice spring up together: I the Lord have created him.
9 Woe to him that gainsayeth his maker, a sherd of the
earthen pots: shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it: What art thou
making, and thy work is without hands?
10 Woe to
him that saith to his father: Why begettest thou? and to the woman: Why dost
thou bring forth?
11 Thus saith the Lord the Holy One of Israel, his
maker: Ask me of things to come, concerning my children, and concerning the work
of my hands give ye charge to me.
12 I made the earth: and I created man upon it: my hand
stretched forth the heavens, and I have commanded all their host.
13 I have raised him up to justice, and I will direct
all his ways: he shall build my city, and let go my captives, not for ransom,
nor for presents, saith the Lord the God of hosts.
14 Thus saith the Lord: The labour of Egypt, and the
merchandise of Ethiopia, and of Sabaim, men of stature shall come over to thee,
and shall be thins: they shall walk after thee, they shall go bound with
manacles: and they shall worship thee, and shall make supplication to thee: only
in thee is God, and there is no God besides thee.
15 Verily thou art a hidden God, the God of Israel the
saviour.
16 They are all confounded and ashamed: the forgers of
errors are gone together into confusion.
17 Israel is saved in the Lord with as eternal
salvation: you shall not be con- founded, and you shall not be ashamed for ever
and ever.
18 For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God
himself that formed the earth, and made it, the very maker thereof: he did not
create it in vain: he formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord, and there is no
other.
19 I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the
earth: I have not said to the seed of Jacob: Seek me in vain. I am the Lord that
speak justice, that declare right things.
20 Assemble yourselves, and come, and draw near
together, ye that are saved of the Gentiles: they have no knowledge that set up
the wood of their graven work, and pray to a god that cannot save.
21 Tell ye,
and come, and consult together: who hath declared this from the beginning, who
hath foretold this from that time? Have not I the Lord, and there is no God else
besides me? A just God and a saviour, there is none besides me.
22 Be converted to me, and you shall be saved, all ye
ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is no other.
23 I have sworn by myself, the word of justice shall go
out of my mouth, and shall not return:
24 For every knee shall be bowed to me, and every tongue
shall swear.
25 Therefore shall he say: In the Lord are my justices
and empire: they shall come to him, and all that resist him shall be confounded.
26 In the Lord
shall all the seed of Israel be justified and praised.
The idols of Babylon shall be destroyed. Salvation is
promised through Christ. BEL is broken, Nebo is destroyed: their idols are put
upon beasts and cattle, your burdens of heavy weight even unto weariness.
2 They are consumed, and are broken together: they could
not save him that carried them, and they themselves shall go into captivity.
3 Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of
the house of Israel, who are carried by my bowels, are borne up by my womb.
4 Even to your old age I am the same, and to your grey
hairs I will carry you: I have made you, and I will bear: I will carry and will
save.
5 To whom have you likened me, and made me equal, and
compared me, and made me like?
6 You that contribute gold out of the bag, and weigh out
silver in the scales: and hire a goldsmith to make a god: and they fall down and
worship.
7 They bear him on their shoulders and carry him, and
set him in his piece, and he shall stand, and shall not stir out of his place.
Yea, when they shall cry also unto him, he shall not hear: he shall not save
them from tribulation.
8 Remember this, and be ashamed: return, ye
transgressors, to the heart.
9 Remember the former age, for I am God, and there is no
God beside, neither is there the like to me:
10 Who shew
from the beginning the things that shall be at last, and from ancient times the
things that as yet are not done, saying: My counsel shall stand, and all my will
shall be done:
11 Who call a bird from the east, and from a far country
the man of my own will, and I have spoken, and will bring it to pass: I have
created, and I will do it. Hear me, O ye hardhearted, who are far from justice.
12 I have
brought my justice near, it shall not be afar off: and my salvation shall not
tarry. I will give salvation in Sion, and my glory in Israel.
God's Judgment upon Babylon. COME down, sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of
Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne for the daughter of the
Chaldeans, for thou shalt no more be called delicate and tender.
2 Take a millstone and grind meal: uncover thy shame,
strip thy shoulder, make bare thy legs, pass over the rivers.
3 Thy nakedness shall be discovered, and thy shame shall
be seen: I will take vengeance, and no man shall resist me.
4 Our redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy
One of Israel.
5 Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O
daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called the lady of
kingdoms.
6 I was angry with my people, I have polluted my
inheritance, and have given them into thy bend: thou hast shewn no mercy to
them: upon the ancient thou hast laid thy yoke exceeding heavy.
7 And thou hast said: I shall be a lady for ever: thou
hast not laid these things to thy heart, neither hast thou remembered thy latter
end.
8 And now hear these things, thou that art delicate, and
dwellest confidently, that sayest in thy heart: I am, and there is none else
besides me: I shall not sit as a widow, and I shall not know barrenness.
9 These two things shall come upon thee suddenly in one
day, barrenness and widowhood. All things are come upon thee, because of the
multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great hardness of thy enchanters.
10 And thou
best trusted in thy wickedness, and hast said: There is none that seeth me. Thy
wisdom, and thy knowledge, this hath deceived thee. And thou best said in thy
heart: I am, and besides me there is no other.
11 Evil shall come upon thee, and then shalt not know
the rising thereof: and calamity shall fall violently upon thee, which thou
canst not keep off: misery shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not
know.
12 Stand now with thy enchanters, and with the multitude
of thy sorceries, in which thou hast laboured from thy youth, if so be it may
profit thee any thing, or if thou mayst become stronger.
13 Thou hast failed in the multitude or thy counsels:
let now the astrologers stand and save thee, they that gazed at the stars, and
counted the months, that from them they might tell the things that shall come to
thee.
14 Behold they are as stubble, fire hath burnt them,
they shall not deliver them- selves from the power of the dames: there are no
coals wherewith they may be warmed, nor fire, that they may sit thereat.
15 Such are all
the things become to thee, in which thou best laboured: thy merchants from thy
youth, every one hath erred in his own way, there is none that can save thee.
He reproaches the Jews for their obstinacy : he will
deliver them out of their captivity, for his own names sake. HEAR ye these things, O house of Jacob, you that are
called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Juda, you
who swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, but
not in truth, nor in justice.
2 For they are called of the holy city, and are
established upon the God of Israel: the Lord of hosts is his name.
3 The former things of old I have declared, and they
went forth out of my mouth, and I have made them to be heard: I did them
suddenly and they came to pass.
4 For I knew that thou art stubborn, and thy neck is as
an iron sinew, and thy forehead as brass.
5 I foretold thee of old, before they came to pass I
told thee, lest thou shouldst say: My idols have done these things, and my
graven and molten things have commanded them.
6 See now all the things which thou hast heard: but have
you declared them? I have shewn thee new things from that time, and things are
kept which thou knowest not:
7 They are created now, and not of old: and before the
day, when thou heardest them not, lest thou shouldst say: Behold I knew them.
8 Thou hast neither heard, nor known, neither was thy
ear opened of old. For I know that transgressing thou wilt transgress, and I
have called thee a transgressor from the womb.
9 For my name's sake I will remove my wrath far off: and
for my praise I will bridle thee, lest thou shouldst perish.
10 Behold I
have refined thee, but not as silver, I have chosen thee in the furnace of
poverty.
11 For my own sake, for my own sake will I do it, that I
may not be blasphemed: and I will not give my glory to another.
12 Hearken to me, O Jacob, and thou Israel whom I call:
I am he, I am the first, and I am the last.
13 My hand also hath founded the earth, and my right
hand hath measured the heavens: I shall call them, and they shall stand
together.
14 Assemble yourselves together, all you, and hear: who
among them hath declared these things? the Lord hath loved him, he will do his
pleasure in Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans.
15 I, even I have spoken and called him: I have brought
him, and his way is made prosperous.
16 Come ye near unto me, and hear this: I have not
spoken in secret from the beginning: from the time before it was done, I was
there, and now the Lord God hath sent me, and his spirit.
17 Thus saith the Lord thy redeemer, the Holy One of
Israel: I am the Lord thy God that teach thee profitable things, that govern
thee in the way that thou walkest.
18 O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments: thy
peace had been as a river, and thy justice as the waves of the sea,
19 And thy seed had been as the sand, and the offspring
of thy bowels like the gravel thereof: his name should not have perished, nor
have been destroyed from before my face.
20 Come forth out of Babylon, flee ye from the
Chaldeans, declare it with the voice of joy: make this to be heard, and speak it
out even to the ends of the earth. Say: The Lord hath redeemed his servant
Jacob.
21 They
thirsted not in the desert, when he led them out: he brought forth water out of
the rock for them, and he clove the rock, and the waters gushed out.
22 There is no
peace to the wicked, saith the Lord.
Christ shall bring the Gentiles to salvation. God's love to
his church is perpetual. GIVE ear, ye islands, and hearken, ye people from afar.
The Lord hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother he hath been
mindful of my name.
2 And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword: in the
shadow of his hand he hath protected me, and hath made me as a chosen arrow: in
his quiver he hath hidden me.
3 And he said to me: Thou art my servant Israel, for in
thee will I glory.
4 And I said: I have laboured in vain, I have spent my
strength without cause and in vain: therefore my judgment is with the Lord, and
my work with my God.
5 And now saith the Lord, that formed me from the womb
to be his servant, that I may bring back Jacob unto him, and Israel will not be
gathered together: and I am glorified in the eyes of the Lord, and my God is
made my strength.
6 And he said: It is a small thing that thou shouldst be
my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to convert the dregs of Israel.
Behold, I have given thee to be the light of the Gentiles, that thou mayst be my
salvation even to the farthest part of the earth.
7 Thus saith the Lord the redeemer of Israel, his Holy
One, to the soul that is despised, to the nation that is abhorred, to the
servant of rulers: Kings shall see, end princes shall rise up, and adore for the
Lord's sake, because he is faithful, and for the Holy One of Israel, who hath
chosen thee.
8 Thus saith the Lord: In an acceptable time I have
heard thee, and in the day of salvation I have helped thee: and I have preserved
thee, and given thee to be a covenant of the people, that thou mightest raise up
the earth, and possess the inheritances that were destroyed:
9 That thou mightest say to them that are bound: Come
forth: and to them that are in darkness: Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the
ways, and their pastures shall be in every plain.
10 They
shall not hunger, nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor the sun strike them:
for he that is merciful to them, shall be their shepherd, and at the fountains
of waters he shall give them drink.
11 And I will make all my mountains a way, and my paths
shall be exalted.
12 Behold these shall come from afar, and behold these
from the north and from the sea, and these from the south country.
13 Give praise, O ye heavens, and rejoice, O earth, ye
mountains, give praise with jubilation: because the Lord hath comforted his
people, and will have mercy on his poor ones.
14 And Sion said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and the
Lord hath forgotten me.
15 Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity
on the son of her womb? and if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee.
16 Behold, I have graven thee in my hands: thy walls are
always before my eyes.
17 Thy builders are come: they that destroy thee and
make thee waste shall go out of thee.
18 Lift up thy eyes round about, and see all these are
gathered together, they are come to thee: I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt be
clothed with all these se with an ornament, and as a bride thou shalt put them
about thee.
19 For thy deserts, and thy desolate places, and the
land of thy destruction shall now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants,
end they that swallowed thee up shall be chased far away.
20 The children of thy barrenness shall still say in thy
ears: The place is too strait for me, make me room to dwell in.
21 And thou
shalt-say in thy heart: Who hath begotten these? I was barren and brought not
forth, led away, and captive: and who hath brought up these? I was destitute and
alone: and these, where were they?
22 Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will lift up my
hand to the Gentiles, and will set up my standard to the people. And they shall
bring thy sons in their arms, and carry thy daughters upon their shoulders.
23 And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens
thy nurses: they shall worship thee with their face toward the earth, and they
shall lick up the dust of thy feet. And thou shalt know that I am the Lord, for
they shall not be confounded that wait for him.
24 Shall the prey be taken from the strong? or can that
which was taken by the mighty be delivered?
25 For thus saith the Lord: Yea verily, even the
captivity shall be taken away from the strong: and that which was taken by the
mighty, shall be delivered. But I will judge those that have judged thee, and
thy children I will save.
26 And I will
feed thy enemies with their own flesh: and they shall be made drunk with their
own blood, as with new wine: and all flesh shall know, that I am the Lord that
save thee, and thy Redeemer the Mighty One of Jacob.
The synagogue shall be divorced for her iniquities. Christ
for her sake will endure ignominous aflictions. THUS saith the Lord: What is this bill of the divorce of
your mother, with which I have put her away? or who is my creditor, to whom I
sold you: behold you are sold for your iniquities, and for your wicked deeds
have I put your mother away.
2 Because I came, and there was not a man: I called, and
there was none that would hear. Is my hand shortened and become little, that I
cannot redeem? or is there no strength in me to deliver? Behold at my rebuke I
will make the sea a desert, I will turn the rivers into dry land: the fishes
shall rot for want of water, and shall die for thirst.
3 I will clothe the heavens with darkness, and will make
sackcloth their covering.
4 The Lord hath given me a learned tongue, that I should
know how to uphold by word him that is weary: he wakeneth in the morning, in the
morning he wakeneth my ear, that I may hear him as a master.
5 The Lord God hath opened my ear, and I do not resist:
I have not gone back.
6 I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to
them that plucked them: I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked
me, and spit upon me.
7 The Lord God is my helper, therefore am I not
confounded: therefore have I set my face as a most hard rock, and I know that I
shall not be confounded.
8 He is near that justifieth me, who will contend with
me? let us stand together, who is my adversary? let him come near to me.
9 Behold the Lord God is my helper: who is he that shall
condemn me? Lo, they shall all be destroyed as a garment, the moth shall eat
them up.
10 Who is
there among you that feareth the Lord, that heareth the voice of his servant,
that hath walked in darkness, and hath no light? let him hope in the name of the
Lord, and lean upon his God.
11 Behold all
you that kindle a fire, encompassed with dames, walk in the light of your fire,
and in the dames which you have kindled: this is done to you by my hand, you
shall sleep in sorrows.
An exhortation to trust in Christ. He shall protect the
children of his church. GIVE ear to me, you that follow that which is just, and
you that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence you are hewn, and to the hole
of the pit from which you are dug out.
2 Look unto Abraham your father, and to Sara that bore
you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and multiplied him.
3 The Lord therefore will comfort Sion, and will comfort
all the ruins thereof: and he will make her desert as a place of pleasure, and
her wilderness as the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found
therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of praise.
4 Hearken unto me, O my people, and give ear to me, O my
tribes: for a law shall go forth from me, and my judgment shall rest to be a
light of the nations.
5 My just one is near at hand, my saviour is gone forth,
and my arms shall judge the people: the islands shall look for me, and shall
patiently wait for my arm.
6 Lift up your eyes to heaven, and look down to the
earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish like smoke, and the earth shall be
worn away like a garment, and the inhabitants thereof shall perish in like
manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my justice shall not fail.
7 Hearken to me, you that know what is just, my people
who have my law in your heart: fear ye not the reproach of men, and be not
afraid of their blasphemies.
8 For the worm shall eat them up as a garment: and the
moth shall consume them as wool: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my
justice from generation to generation,
9 Arise, arise, put on strength, O thou arm of the Lord,
arise as in the days of old, in the ancient generations. Hast not thou struck
the proud one, and wounded the dragon?
10 Hast not
thou dried up the sea, the water of the mighty deep, who madest the depth of the
sea a way, that the delivered might pass over?
11 And now they that are redeemed by the Lord, shall
return, and shall come into Sion singing praises, and joy everlasting shall be
upon their heads, they shall obtain joy and gladness, sorrow and mourning shall
flee away.
12 I, I myself will comfort you: who art thou, that thou
shouldst be afraid of a mortal man, and of the son of man, who shall wither away
like grass?
13 And thou hast forgotten the Lord thy maker, who
stretched out the heavens, and founded the earth: and thee hast been afraid
continually all the day at the presence of his fury who afflicted thee, and had
prepared himself to destroy thee: where is now the fury of the oppressor?
14 He shall quickly come that is going to open unto you,
and he shall not kill unto utter destruction, neither shall his bread fail.
15 But I am the Lord thy God, who trouble the sea, and
the waves thereof swell: the Lord of hosts is my name.
16 I have put my words in thy mouth, and have protected
thee in the shadow of my hand, that thou mightest plant the heavens, and found
the earth: and mightest say to Sion: Thou art my people.
17 Arise, arise, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk
at the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath; thou hast drunk even to the bottom
of the cup of dead sleep, and thou hast drunk even to the dregs.
18 There is none that can uphold her among all the
children that she hath brought forth: and there is none that taketh her by the
hand among all the children that she hath brought up.
19 There are two things that have happened to thee: who
shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the
sword, who shall comfort thee?
20 Thy children are cast forth, they have slept at the
head of all the ways, as the wild ox that is snared: full of the indignation of
the Lord, of the rebuke of thy God.
21 Therefore
hear this, thou poor little one, and thou that art drunk but no with wine.
22 Thus saith thy Sovereign the Lord and thy God, who
will fight for his people: Behold I have taken out of thy hand the cup of dead
sleep, the dregs of the cup of my indignation, thou shalt not drink it again any
more.
23 And I will
put it in the hand of them that have oppressed thee, and have said to thy soul:
Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as
a way to them that went over.
Under the figure of the deliverence from Babylonish
captivity, the church is invited to rejoice for her redemption from sin. Christs
kingdom shall be exalted. ARISE, arise, put on thy strength, O Sion, put on the
garments of thy glory, O Jerusalem, the city of the Holy One: for henceforth the
uncircumcised, and unclean shall no more pass through thee.
2 Shake thyself from the dust, arise, sit up, O
Jerusalem: loose the bonds from off thy neck, O captive daughter of Sion.
3 For thus saith the Lord: You were sold gratis, and you
shall be redeemed without money.
4 For thus saith the Lord God: My people went down into
Egypt at the beginning to sojourn there: and the Assyrian hath oppressed them
without any cause at all.
5 And now what have I here, saith the Lord: for my
people is taken away gratis. They that rule over them treat them unjustly, saith
the Lord, and my name is continually blasphemed all the day long.
6 Therefore my people shall know my name in that day:
for I myself that spoke, behold I am here.
7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him
that bringeth good tidings, and that preacheth peace: of him that sheweth forth
good, that preacheth salvation, that saith to Sion: Thy God shall reign!
8 The voice of thy watchmen: they have lifted up their
voice, they shah praise together: for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord
shall convert Sion
9 Rejoice, and give praise together, O ye deserts of
Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people: he hath redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The Lord
hath prepared his holy arm in the sight of all the Gentiles: and all the ends of
the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
11 Depart, depart, go ye out from thence, touch no
unclean thing: go out of the midst of her, be ye clean, you that carry the
vessels of the Lord.
12 For you shall not go out in a tumult, neither shall
you make haste by flight: For the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel
will gather you together.
13 Behold my servant shall understand, he shall be
exalted, and extolled, and shall be exceeding high.
14 As many have been astonished at thee, so shall his
visage be inglorious among men, and his form among the sons of men.
15 He shall
sprinkle many nations, kings shall shut their mouth at him: for they to whom it
was not told of him, have seen: and they that heard not, have beheld.
A prophecy of the passion of Christ. WHO hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of
the Lord revealed?
2 And he shall grow up as a tender plant before him, and
as a root out of a thirsty ground: there is no beauty in him, nor comeliness:
and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous
of him:
3 Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and his look was as it were hidden and
despised, whereupon we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our
sorrows: and we have thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God
and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised
for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we
are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath
turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us
all.
7 He was offered because it was his own will, and he
opened not his mouth: he shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be
dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth.
8 He was taken away from distress, and from judgment:
who shall declare his generation? because he is cut oh out of the land of the
living: for the wickedness of my people have I struck him.
9 And he shall give the ungodly for his burial, and the
rich for his death: because he hath done no iniquity, neither was there deceit
in his mouth.
10 And the
Lord was pleased to bruise him in infirmity: if he shall lay down his life for
sin, he shall see a long-lived seed, and the will of the Lord shall be
prosperous in his hand.
11 Because his soul hath laboured, he shall see and be
filled: by his knowledge shall this my just servant justify many, and he shall
bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore
will I distribute to him very many, and he shall divide the spoils of the
strong, because he hath delivered his soul unto death, and was reputed with the
wicked: and he hath borne the sins of many, and hath prayed for the
transgressors.
The Gentiles, who were barren before, shall multiply in the
church of Christ: from which God's mercy shall never depart. GIVE praise, O thou barren, that bearest not: sing forth
praise, and make a joyful noise, thou that didst not travail with child: for
many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a husband,
saith the Lord.
2 Enlarge the place of thy tent, and stretch out the
skins of thy tabernacles, spare not: lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy
stakes.
3 For thou shalt pass on to the right hand, and to the
left: and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and shall inhabit the desolate
cities.
4 Fear not, for thou shalt not be confounded, nor blush:
for thou shalt not be put to shame, because thou shalt forget the shame of thy
youth, and shalt remember no more the reproach of thy widowhood.
5 For he that made thee shall rule over thee, the Lord
of hosts is his name: and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, shall be called
the God of all the earth.
6 For the Lord hath called thee as woman forsaken and
mourning in spirit, end se a wife cast off from her youth, said thy God.
7 For a, small moment have I forsaken thee, but with
great mercies will I gather thee.
8 In a moment of indignation have I hid my face a little
while from thee, but with everlasting kindness have I had mercy on thee, said
the Lord thy Redeemer.
9 This thing is to me as in the days of Noe, to whom I
swore, that I would no more bring in the waters of Noe upon the earth: so have I
sworn not to be angry with thee, and not to rebuke thee.
10 For the
mountains shall be moved, and the hills shall tremble; but my mercy shall not
depart from thee, and the covenant of my peace shall not be moved: said the Lord
that hath mercy on thee.
11 O poor little one, tossed with tempest, without all
comfort, behold I will lay thy stones in order, and will lay thy foundations
with sapphires,
12 And I will make thy bulwarks of jasper: and thy gates
of graven stones, and all thy borders of desirable stones.
13 All thy children shall be taught of the Lord: and
great shall be the peace of thy children.
14 And thou shalt be founded in justice: depart far from
oppression, for thou shalt not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near
thee.
15 Behold, an inhabitant shall come, who was not with
me, he that was a stranger to thee before, shall be joined to thee.
16 Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the
coals in the fire, and bringeth forth an instrument for his work, and I have
created the killer to destroy.
17 No weapon
that is formed against thee shall prosper: and every tongue that resisteth thee
in judgment, thou shalt condemn. This is the inheritance of the servants of the
Lord, and their justice with me, saith the Lord.
God promises abundance of spiritual graces to the faithful,
that shall believe in Christ out of all nations, and sincerly server
him. ALL you that thirst, come to the waters: and you that
have no money make haste, buy, and eat: come ye, buy wine and milk without
money, and without any price.
2 Why do you spend money for that which is not breed,
and your labour for that which doth not satisfy you? Hearken diligently to me,
and eat that which is good, and your soul shall be delighted in fatness.
3 Incline your ear and come to me: hear and your soul
shall lire, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the faithful
mercies of David.
4 Behold I have given him for a witness to the people,
for a leader and a master to the Gentiles.
5 Behold thou shalt call a nation, which thou knewest
not: and the nations that knew not thee shall run to thee, because of the Lord
thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee.
6 Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found: call upon
him, while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his
thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to
our God: for he is bountiful to forgive.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways
my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are
my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts.
10 And as
the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return no more thither, but
soak the earth, and water it, and make it to spring, and give seed to the sower,
and bread to the eater:
11 So shall my word be, which shall go forth from my
mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and
shall prosper in the things for which I sent it.
12 For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with
peace: the mountains and the hills shall sing praise before yen, and all the
trees of the country shah clap their hands.
13 Instead of
the shrub, shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the nettle, shall come up
the myrtle tree: and the Lord shall be named for an everlasting sign, that shall
not be taken away.
God invites all to keep his commandments: the Gentiles that
keep them shall be the people of God: the Jewish pastors are
reproved. THUS saith the Lord : Keep ye judgment, and do justice:
for my salvation is near to come, and my justice to be revealed.
2 Blessed is the man that doth this, and the son of man
that shall lay hold on this: that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, that
keepeth his hands from doing any evil.
3 And let not the son of the stranger, that adhereth to
the Lord, speak, saying: The Lord will divide and separate me from his people.
And let not the eunuch say: Behold I am a dry tree.
4 For thus saith the Lord to the eunuchs, They that
shall keep my sabbaths, and shall choose the things that please me, and shall
hold fast my covenant:
5 I will give to them in my house, and within my walls,
a place, and a name better than sons and daughters: I will give them an
everlasting name which shall never perish.
6 And the children of the stranger that adhere to the
Lord, to worship him, and to love his name, to be his servants: every one that
keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, and that holdeth fast my covenant:
7 I will bring them into my holy mount, and will make
them joyful in my house of prayer: their holocausts, and their victims shall
please me upon my altar: for my house shall be called the house of prayer, for
all nations.
8 The Lord God, who gathereth the scattered of Israel,
saith: I will still gather unto him his congregation.
9 All ye beasts of the field come to devour, all ye
beasts of the forest.
10 His
watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant: dumb dogs not able to bark,
seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams.
11 And meet impudent dogs, they never had enough: the
shepherds themselves knew no understanding: all have turned aside into their own
way, every one after his own gain, from the first even to the last.
12 Come, let us
take wine, and be filled with drunkenness: and it shall be as to day, so also to
morrow, and much more.
The infidelity of the Jews: their idolatry. Promises to
humble penitents. THE just perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart, and
men of mercy are taken away, because there is none that understandeth; for the
just man is taken away from before the face of evil.
2 Let peace come, let him rest in his bed that hath
walked in his uprightness.
3 But draw near hither, you sons of the sorceress, the
seed of the adulterer, and of the harlot.
4 Upon whom have you jested? upon whom have you opened
your mouth wide, and put out your tongue? are not you wicked children, a false
seed,
5 Who seek your comfort in idols under every green tree,
sacrificing children in the torrents, under the high rocks?
6 In the parts of the torrent is thy portion, this is
thy lot: and thou hast poured out libations to them, thou hast offered
sacrifice. Shall I not be angry at these things?
7 Upon a high and lofty mountain thou hast laid thy bed,
and hast gone up thither to offer victims.
8 And behind the door, and behind the post thou best set
up thy remembrance: for thou hast discovered thyself near me, and hast received
an adulterer: thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made a covenant with them: thou
hast loved their bed with open hand.
9 And thou hast adorned thyself for the king with
ointment, and hast multiplied thy perfumes. Thou hast sent thy messengers far
off, and wast debased even to hell.
10 Thou hast
been wearied in the multitude of thy ways: yet thou saidst not: I will rest:
thou hast found life of thy hand, therefore thou hast not asked.
11 For whom hast thou been solicitous and afraid, that
thou hast lied, and hast not been mindful of me, nor thought on me in thy heart?
for I am silent, and as one that seeth not, and thou hast forgotten me.
12 I will declare thy justice, and thy works shall not
profit thee.
13 When thou shalt cry, let thy companies deliver thee,
but the wind shall carry them all off, a breeze shall take them away, but he
that putteth his trust in me, shall inherit the land, and shall possess my holy
mount.
14 And I will say: Make a way: give free passage, turn
out of the path, take away the stumblingblocks out of the way of my people.
15 For thus saith the High and the Eminent that
inhabiteth eternity: and his name is Holy, who dwelleth in the high and holy
place, and with a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the
humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.
16 For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be
angry unto the end: because the spirit shall go forth from my face, end
breathings I will make.
17 For the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry, and
I struck him: I hid my face from thee, and was angry: and he went away wandering
in his own heart.
18 I saw his ways, and I healed him, and brought him
back, and restored comforts to him, and to them that mourn for him.
19 I created the fruit of the lips, peace, peace to him
that is far off, and to him that is near, said the Lord, and I healed him.
20 But the wicked are like the raging sea, which cannot
rest, and the waves thereof cast up dirt and mire.
21 There is no
peace to the wicked, saith the Lord God.
God rejects the hypocritical fasts of the Jews: recommends
works of mercy, and sincere godliness. CRY, cease not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and
shew my people their wicked doings, and the house of Jacob their sins.
2 For they seek me from day to day, sad desire to know
my ways, as a nation that hath done justice, and hath not forsaken the judgment
of their God: they ask of me the judgments of justice: they are willing to
approach to God.
3 Why have we fasted, and thou hast not regarded: have
we humbled our souls, and thou hast not taken notice? Behold in the day of your
fast your own will is found, and you exact of all your debtors.
4 Behold you fast for debates and strife. and strike
with the fist wickedly. Do not fast as you have done until this day, to make
your cry to be heard on high.
5 Is this such a fast as I have chosen: for a man to
afflict his soul for a day? is this it, to wind his head about like a circle,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes? wilt thou call this a fast, and a day
acceptable to the Lord?
6 Is not this rather the fast that I have chosen? loose
the bands of wickedness, undo the bundles that oppress, let them that are broken
go free, and break asunder every burden.
7 Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and
the harbourless into thy house: when thou shalt see one naked, cover him, and
despise not thy own flesh.
8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and
thy health shall speedily arise, and thy justice shall go before thy face, end
the glory of the Lord shall gather thee up.
9 Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall hear: thou
shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou wilt take away the chain out of
the midst of thee, and cease to stretch out the finger, and to speak that which
profiteth not.
10 When thou
shalt pour out thy soul to the hungry, and shalt satisfy the afflicted soul then
shall thy light rise up in darkness, and thy darkness shall be as the noonday.
11 And the Lord will give thee rest continually, and
will fill thy soul with brightness, and deliver thy bones, and thou shalt be
like a watered garden, and like a fountain of water whose waters shall not fail
12 And the places that have been desolate for ages shall
be built in thee: thou shalt raise up the foundations of generation and
generation: and thou shalt be called the repairer of the fences, turning the
paths into rest.
13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from
doing thy own will in my holy day, and call the sabbath delightful, and the holy
of the Lord glorious, and glorify him, while thou dost not thy own ways, and thy
own will is not found: to speak a word:
14 Then shalt
thou be delighted in the Lord, and I will lift thee up above the high places of
the earth, and will feed thee with the inheritance of Jacob thy father. For the
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
The dreadful evil of sin is displayed, as the great
obstacle to all good from God: yet he will send a Redeemer, and make an
everlasting covenant with his church. BEHOLD the hand of the Lord is not shortened that it
cannot save, neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear.
2 But your iniquities have divided between you and your
God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he should not hear.
3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your
fingers with iniquity: your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue uttereth
iniquity.
4 There is none that calleth upon justice, neither is
there any one that judgeth truly: but they trust in a mere nothing, and speak
vanities: they have conceived labour, and brought forth iniquity.
5 They have broken the eggs of asps, and have woven the
webs of spiders: he that shall eat of their eggs, shall die: and that which is
brought out, shall be hatched into a basilisk.
6 Their webs shall not be for clothing, neither shall
they cover themselves with their works: their works are unprofitable works, and
the work of iniquity is in their hands.
7 Their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed
innocent blood: their thoughts are unprofitable thoughts: wasting and
destruction are in their ways.
8 They have not known the way of peace, and there is no
judgment in their steps: their paths are become crooked to them, every one that
treadeth in them, knoweth no peace.
9 Therefore is judgment far from us, and justice shall
not overtake us. We looked for light, and behold darkness: brightness, and we
have walked in the dark.
10 We have
groped for the wall, and like the blind we have groped as if we had no eyes: we
have stumbled at noonday as in darkness, we are in dark places as dead men.
11 We shall roar all of us like bears, and shall lament
as mournful doves. We have looked for judgment, and there is none: for
salvation, and it is far from us.
12 For our iniquities are multiplied before thee, and
our sins have testified against us: for our wicked doings are with us, and we
have known our iniquities:
13 In sinning and lying against the Lord: and we have
turned away so that we went not after our God, but spoke calumny and
transgression : we have conceived, and uttered from the heart, words of
falsehood.
14 And judgment is turned away backward, and justice
hath stood far off: because truth bath fallen down in the street, and equity
could not come in.
15 And truth hath been forgotten: and he that departed
from evil, lay open to be a prey: and the Lord saw, and it appeared evil in his
eyes, because there is no judgment.
16 And he saw that there is not a man: and he stood
astonished, because there is none to oppose himself: and his own arm brought
salvation to him, and his own justice supported him.
17 He put on justice as a breastplate, and a helmet of
salvation upon his head: he put on the garments of vengeance, and was clad with
zeal as with a cloak.
18 As unto revenge, as it were to repay wrath to his
adversaries, and a reward to his enemies: he will repay the like to the islands.
19 And they from the west, shall fear the name of the
Lord: and they from the rising of the sun, his glory: when he shall come as a
violent stream, which the spirit of the Lord driveth on:
20 And there shall come a, redeemer to Sion, and to them
that return from iniquity in Jacob, saith the Lord.
21 This is my
covenant with them, saith the Lord: My spirit that is in thee, and my words that
I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth
of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from
henceforth and for ever.
The light of true faith shall shine forth in the church of
Christ, and shall be spread through all nations, and continue for all
ages. ARISE, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is
come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
2 For behold darkness shall cover the earth, and a mist
the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon
thee.
3 And the Gentiles shall walk in thy light, and kings in
the brightness of thy rising.
4 Lift up thy eyes round about, and see: all these are
gathered together, they are come to thee: thy sons shah come from afar, and thy
daughters shall rise up at thy side.
5 Then shalt thou see, and abound, and thy heart shall
wonder and be enlarged, when the multitude of the sea shall be converted to
thee, the. strength of the Gentiles shall come to thee.
6 The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the
dromedaries of Madian and Epha: all they from Saba shall come, bringing gold and
frankincense: and shewing forth praise to the Lord.
7 All the flocks of Cedar shall be gathered together
unto thee, the rams of Nabaioth shall minister to thee: they shall be offered
upon my acceptable altar, and I will glorify the house of my majesty.
8 Who are these, that fly as clouds, and as doves to
their windows?
9 For, the islands wait for me, and the ships of the sea
in the beginning: that I may bring thy sons from afar: their silver, and their
gold with them, to the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel,
because he hath glorified thee.
10 And the
children of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister
to thee: for in my wrath have I struck thee, and in my reconciliation have I had
mercy upon thee.
11 And thy gates shall be open continually: they shall
not be shut day nor night, that the strength of the Gentiles may be brought to
thee, and their kings may be brought.
12 For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve
thee, shall perish: and the Gentiles shall be wasted with desolation.
13 The glory of Libanus shall come to thee, the Ar tree,
and the box tree, and the pine tree together, to beautify the place of my
sanctuary: and I will glorify the place of my feet.
14 And the children of them that afflict thee, shall
come bowing down to thee, and all that slandered thee shall worship the steps of
thy feet, and shall call thee the city of the Lord, the Sion of the Holy One of
Israel.
15 Because thou wast forsaken, and hated, and there was
none that passed through thee, I will make thee to be an everlasting glory, a
joy unto generation and generation:
16 And thou shalt suck the milk of the Gentiles, and
thou shalt be nursed with the breasts of kings: and thou shalt know that I am
the Lord thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.
17 For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will
bring silver: and for wood brass, and for stones iron: and I will make thy
visitation peace, and thy overseers justice.
18 Iniquity shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting
nor destruction in thy borders, and salvation shall possess thy walls, and
praise thy gates.
19 Thou shalt no more have the sun for thy light by day,
neither shall the brightness of the moon enlighten thee: but the Lord shall be
unto thee for an everlasting light, and thy God for thy glory.
20 Thy sun shall go down no more, and thy moon shall not
decrease: for the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and the days
of thy mourning shall be ended.
21 And thy
people shall be all just, they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my
planting, the work of my hand to glorify me.
22 The least
shall become a thousand, and a little one a most strong nation: I the Lord will
suddenly do this thing in its time.
The office of Christ: the mission of the Apostles; the
happiness of their converts. THE spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath
anointed me: he hath sent me to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of
heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and deliverance to them that are
shut up.
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the
day of vengeance of our God: to comfort all that mourn:
3 To appoint to the mourners of Sion, and to give them a
crown for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit
of grief: and they shall be called in it the mighty ones of justice, the
planting of the Lord to glorify hint.
4 And they shall build the places that have been waste
from of old, and shall raise up ancient ruins, and shall repair the desolate
cities, that were destroyed for generation and generation.
5 And strangers shall stand and shall feed your flocks:
and the sons of strangers shall be your husbandmen, and the dressers of your
vines.
6 But you shall be called the priests of the Lord: to
you it shall be said: Ye ministers of our God: you shall eat the riches of the
Gentiles, and you shall pride yourselves in their glory.
7 For your double confusion and shame, they shall praise
their part: therefore shall they receive double in their land, everlasting joy
shall be unto them.
8 For I am the Lord that love judgment, and hate robbery
in a holocaust: and I will make their work in truth, and I will make a perpetual
covenant with them.
9 And they shall know their seed among the Gentiles, and
their offspring in the midst of peoples: all that shall see them, shall know
them, that these are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.
10 I will
greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God: for he hath
clothed me with the garments of salvation: and with the robe of justice he hath
covered me, as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her
jewels.
11 For as the
earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth her seed to shoot forth:
so shall the Lord God make justice to spring forth, and praise before all the
nations.
The prophet will not cease from preaching Christ: to whom
all nations shall be converted: and whose chruch shall continue for
ever. FOR Sion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for the
sake of Jerusalem, I will not rest till her just one come forth as brightness,
and her saviour be lighted as a lamp.
2 And the Gentiles shall see thy just one, and all kings
thy glorious one: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the
Lord shall name.
3 And thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the
Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.
4 Thou shalt no more be called Forsaken: and thy land
shall no more be called Desolate: but thou shalt be called My pleasure in her,
and thy land inhabited. Because the Lord hath been well pleased with thee: and
thy land shall be inhabited.
5 For the young man shall dwell with the virgin, and thy
children shall dwell in thee. And the bridegroom shall rejoice over the bride,
and thy God shall rejoice over thee.
6 Upon thy wails, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen
all the day, and all the night, they shall never hold their peace. You that are
mindful of the Lord, hold not your peace,
7 And give him no silence till he establish, and till he
make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
8 The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm
of his strength: Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thy enemies:
and the sons of the strangers shall not drink thy wine, for which thou hast
laboured.
9 For they that gather it, shall eat it, and shall
praise the Lord: and they that bring it together, shall drink it in my holy
courts.
10 Go
through, go through the gates, prepare the way for the people, make the road
plain, pick out the stones, and lift up the standard to the people.
11 Behold the Lord hath made it to be heard in the ends
of the earth, tell the daughter of Sion: Behold thy Saviour cometh: behold his
reward is with him, and his work before him.
12 And they
shall call them, The holy people, the redeemed of the Lord. But thou shalt be
called: A city sought after, and not forsaken.
CHrists victory over his enemies: his mercies to his
people: their complaint. WHO is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments
from Bosra, this beautiful one in his robe, walking in the greatness of his
strength. I, that speak justice, and am a defender to save.
2 Why then is thy apparel red, and thy garments like
theirs that tread in the winepress?
3 I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the
Gentiles there is not a man with me: I have trampled on them in my indignation,
and have trodden them down in my wrath, and their blood is sprinkled upon my
garments, and I have stained all my apparel.
4 For the day of vengeance is in my heart, the year of
my redemption is come.
5 I looked about, and there was none to help: I sought,
and there was none to give aid: and my own arm hath saved for me, and my
indignation itself hath helped me.
6 And I have trodden down the people in my wrath, and
have made them drunk in my indignation, and have brought down their strength to
the earth.
7 I will remember the tender mercies of the Lord, the
praise of the Lord for all the things that the Lord hath bestowed upon us, and
for the multitude of his good things to the house of Israel, which he hath given
them according to his kindness, and according to the multitude of his mercies.
8 And he said: Surely they are my people, children that
will not deny: so he became their saviour.
9 In all their affliction he was not troubled, and the
angel of his presence saved them: in his love, and in his mercy he redeemed
them, and he carried them and lifted them up all the days of old.
10 But they
provoked to wrath, and afflicted the spirit of his Holy One: and he was turned
to be their enemy, and he fought against them.
11 And he remembered the days of old of Moses, and of
his people: Where is he that brought them up out of the sea, with the shepherds
of his flock? where is he that put in the midst of them the spirit of his Holy
One?
12 He that brought out Moses by the right hand, by the
arm of his majesty: that divided the waters before them, to make himself an
everlasting name.
13 He that led them out through the deep, as a horse in
the wilderness that stumbleth not.
14 As a beast that goeth down in the field, the spirit
of the Lord was their leader: so didst thou lead thy people to make thyself a
glorious name.
15 Look down from heaven, and behold from thy holy
habitation and the place of thy glory: where is thy zeal, and thy strength, the
multitude of thy bowels, and of thy mercies? they have held back themselves from
me.
16 For thou art our father, and Abraham hath not known
us, and Israel hath been ignorant of us: thou, O Lord, art our father, our
redeemer, from everlasting is thy name.
17 Why hast thou made us to err, O Lord, from thy ways:
why hast thou hardened our heart, that we should not fear thee? return for the
sake of thy servants, the tribes of thy inheritance.
18 They have possessed thy holy people as nothing: our
enemies have trodden down thy sanctuary.
19 We are become
as in the beginning, when thou didst not rule over us, and when we were not
called by thy name.
The prophet prays for the release of his people; and for
the remission of their sins. THAT thou wouldst rend the heavens, and wouldst come
down: the mountains would melt away at thy presence.
2 They would melt as at the burning of fire, the waters
would burn with fire, that thy name might be made known to thy enemies: that the
nations might tremble at thy presence.
3 When thou shalt do wonderful things, we shall not bear
them: thou didst come down, and at thy presence the mountains melted away.
4 From the beginning of the world they have not heard,
nor perceived with the ears: the eye hath not seen, O God, besides thee, what
things thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee.
5 Thou hast met him that rejoiceth, and doth justice: in
thy ways they shall remember thee: behold thou art angry, and we have sinned: in
them we have been always, and we shall be saved.
6 And we are all become as one unclean, and all our
justices as the rag of a menstruous woman: and we have all fallen as a leaf, and
our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
7 There is none that calleth upon thy name: that riseth
up, and taketh hold of thee: thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast crushed us
in the hand of our iniquity.
8 And now, O Lord, thou art our father, and we are clay:
and thou art our maker, and we all are the works of thy hands.
9 Be not very angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our
iniquity: behold, see we are all thy people.
10 The city
of thy sanctuary is become a desert, Sion is made a desert, Jerusalem is
desolate.
11 The house of our holiness, and of our glory, where
our fathers praised thee, is burnt with fire, and all our lovely things are
turned into ruins.
12 Wilt thou
refrain thyself, O Lord, upon these things, wilt thou hold thy peace, and
afflict us vehemently?
The Gentiles shall seek and find Christ, but the Jews will
persecute him, and be rejected, only a remnant shall be reserved. The church
shall multiply, and abound with graces. THEY have sought me that before asked not for me, they
have found me that sought me not. I said: Behold me, behold me, to a nation that
did not call upon my name.
2 I have spread forth my hands all the day to an
unbelieving people, who walk in a way that is not good after their own thoughts.
3 A people that continually provoke me to anger before
my face: that immolate in gardens, and sacrifice upon bricks.
4 That dwell in sepulchres, and sleep in the temple of
idols: that eat swine's flesh, and profane broth is in their vessels.
5 That say: Depart from me, come not near me, because
thou art unclean: these shall be smoke in my anger, a fire burning all the day.
6 Behold it is written before me: I will not be silent,
but I will render and repay into their bosom.
7 Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers
together, saith the Lord, who have sacrificed upon the mountains, and have
reproached me upon the hills; and I will measure back their first work in their
bosom.
8 Thus saith the Lord: As if a grain be found in a
cluster, and it be said: Destroy it not, because it is a blessing: so will I do
for the sake of my servants, that I may not destroy the whole.
9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of
Juda a possessor of my mountains: and my elect shall inherit it, and my servants
shall dwell there.
10 And the
plains shall be turned to folds of hocks, and the valley of Achor into a place
for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me.
11 And you, that have forsaken the Lord, that have
forgotten my holy mount, that set a table for fortune, and offer libations upon
it,
12 I will number you in the sword, and you shall all
fall by slaughter: because I called and you did not answer: I spoke, and you did
not hear: and you did evil in my eyes, and you have chosen the things that
displease me.
13 Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold my servants
shall eat, and you shall be hungry: behold my servants shall drink, and you
shall be thirsty.
14 Behold my servants shall rejoice, and you shall be
confounded: behold my servants shall praise for joyfulness of heart, and you
shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for grief of spirit.
15 And you shall leave your name for an execration to my
elect: and the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name.
16 In which he that is blessed upon the earth, shall be
blessed in God, amen: and he that sweareth in the earth, shall swear by God,
amen: because the former distresses are forgotten, and because they are hid from
my eyes.
17 For behold I create new heavens, and a new earth: and
the former things shall not be in remembrance, and they shall not come upon the
heart.
18 But you shall be glad and rejoice for ever in these
things, which I create: for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and the
people thereof joy.
19 And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my
people, and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the voice of
crying.
20 There shall no more be an infant of days there, nor
an old man that shall not fill up his days: for the child shall die a hundred
years old, and the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed.
21 And they
shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat
the fruits of them.
22 They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall
not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of
my people, and the works of their hands shall be of long continuance.
23 My elect shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth in
trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their posterity
with them.
24 And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I
will hear; as they are yet speaking, I will hear.
25 The wolf and
the lamb shall feed together; the lion and the ox shall eat straw; and dust
shall be the serpent's food: they shall not hurt nor kill in all my holy
mountain, saith the Lord.
More of the reprobation of the Jews, and of the call of the
Gentiles. THUS saith the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the earth
my footstool: what is this house that you will build to me? and what is this
place of my rest?
2 My hand made all these things, and all these things
were made, saith the Lord. But to whom shall I have respect, but to him that is
poor and little, and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my words?
3 He that sacrificeth an ox, is as if he slew a man: he
that killeth a sheep in sacrifice, as if he should brain a dog: he that offereth
an oblation, as if he should offer swine's blood; he that remembereth incense,
as if he should bless an idol. All these things have they chosen in their ways,
and their soul is delighted in their abominations.
4 Wherefore I also will choose their mockeries, and will
bring upon them the things they feared: because I called, and there was none
that would answer; I have spoken, and they heard not; and they have done evil in
my eyes, and have chosen the things that displease me.
5 Hear the word of the Lord, you that tremble at his
word: Your brethren that hate you, and cast you out for my name's sake, have
said: Let the Lord be glorified, and we shall see in your joy: but they shall be
confounded.
6 A voice of the people from the city, a voice from the
temple, the voice of the Lord that rendereth recompense to his enemies.
7 Before she was in labour, she brought forth; before
her time came to be delivered, she brought forth a man child.
8 Who hath ever heard such a thing? and who hath seen
the like to this? shall the earth bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be
brought forth at once, because Sion hath been in labour, and hath brought forth
her children?
9 Shall not I that make others to bring forth children,
myself bring forth, saith the Lord? shall I, that give generation to others, be
barren, saith the Lord thy God?
10 Rejoice
with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you that love her: rejoice for joy
with her, all you that mourn for her.
11 That you may suck, and be filled with the breasts of
her consolations: that you may milk out, and flow with delights, from the
abundance of her glory.
12 For thus saith the Lord: Behold I will bring upon her
as it were a river of peace, and as an overflowing torrent the glory of the
Gentiles, which you shall suck; you shall be carried at the breasts, end upon
the knees they shall caress you.
13 As one whom the mother caresseth, so will I comfort
you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
14 You shall see and your heart shall rejoice, and your
bones shall flourish like an herb, and the hand of the Lord shall be known to
his servants, and he shall be angry with his enemies.
15 For behold the Lord will come with fire, and his
chariots are like a whirlwind, to render his wrath in indignation, and his
rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For the Lord shall judge by fire, and by his sword
unto all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many.
17 They that were sanctified, and thought themselves
clean in the gardens behind the gate within, they that did eat swine's flesh,
and the abomination, and the mouse: they shall be consumed together, saith the
Lord.
18 But I know their works, and their thoughts: I come
that I may gather them together with all nations and tongues: and they shall
come and shall see my glory.
19 And I will set a sign among them, and I will send of
them that shall be saved, to the Gentiles into the sea, into Africa, and Lydia
them that draw the bow: into Italy, and Greece, to the islands afar off, to them
that have not heard of me, and have not seen my glory. And they shall declare my
glory to the Gentiles:
20 And they shall bring all your brethren out of all
nations for a gift to the Lord, upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters,
and on mules, and in coaches, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as
if the children of Israel should bring an offering in a clean vessel into the
house of the Lord.
21 And I
will take of them to be priests, and Levites, saith the Lord.
22 For as the new heavens, and the new earth, which I
will make to stand before me, saith the Lord: so shall your seed stand, and your
name.
23 And there shall be month after month, and sabbath
after sabbath: and all flesh shall come to adore before my face, saith the Lord.
24 And they shall go out, and see the carcasses of the
men that have transgressed against me: their worm shall not die, and their fire
shall not be quenched: and they shall be a loathsome sight to all flesh.
Chapter 31.
Chapter 32.
Chapter 33.
Chapter 34.
Chapter 35.
Chapter 36.
Chapter 37.
Chapter 38.
Chapter 39.
Chapter 40.
Chapter 41.
Chapter 42.
The office of Christ. The preaching of the gospel to the
Gentiles. The blindness and reprobation of the Jews.
Chapter 43.
Chapter 44.
Chapter 45.
Chapter 46.
Chapter 47.
Chapter 48.
Chapter 49.
Chapter 50.
Chapter 51.
Chapter 52.
Chapter 53.
Chapter 54.
Chapter 55.
Chapter 56.
Chapter 57.
Chapter 58.
Chapter 59.
Chapter 60.
Chapter 61.
Chapter 62.
Chapter 63.
Chapter 64.
Chapter 65.
Chapter 66.