Isaiah

30 ¹Declares the LORD,

The Lord

“Woe, stubborn children, who devise counsel that is not from Me
and who form an alliance that is not of My Spirit so that they add sin to sin,

²who go down to Egypt without asking at My mouth

to take refuge in the stronghold of Pharaoh
and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt.

³Therefore the stronghold of Pharaoh will be your shame
and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt your insult.

⁴Although his officials are in Zoan
and his envoys have reached Hanes,

⁵everyone will be put to shame, on account of a people not able to profit them,
neither helping nor profiting, but shame, and disgrace, too.”

⁶A prophecy against the Beasts of the Negev:
In the land of trouble and anguish,

lioness and lion among them,
viper and flying serpent.

They carry their riches on the backs of donkeys,
their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that cannot profit them.

⁷And Egypt is worthless!
They will help in vain!

Therefore, I have called her: “Its Arrogance Has Ceased!”

Isaiah

⁸Now come, write it on a tablet with them
and inscribe it on a book

and let it be for the last day,
a witness forever.

⁹For they are a rebellious people,
lying children—
children who are unwilling to hear the law of the LORD,

¹⁰who say to the seers,

The wicked

“Do not see,”

Isaiah

and to the prophets,

The wicked

“Do not see right things.

Speak smooth things to us;
prophesy deceptions.

¹¹Turn aside from the way;
turn off the path;
cause the Holy One of Israel to cease before us.”

Isaiah

¹²Therefore, thus says the Holy One of Israel,

The Lord

“Because you despise this word and trust in oppression
and perverseness and leaned on it,

¹³therefore, this iniquity will become to you like a breach,
bulging out in a high wall,

whose breaking comes suddenly,
in an instant.

¹⁴And its breaking is like a potter’s vessel that is broken, relentlessly shattered,
so that a shard will not be found among its fragments

with which to take fire from the hearth
or to dip up water out of a cistern.”

Isaiah

¹⁵For thus the Lord, the LORD, the Holy One of Israel said:

The Lord

“In returning and rest you will be saved;
in quietness and in trust your strength will be.

But you were unwilling.
But you said,

Inhabitants of Judah

¹⁶‘No! Because upon a horse we will flee’;

The Lord

therefore, you will flee.

Inhabitants of Judah

“We will ride upon a swift one”;

The Lord

Therefore, your pursuers will be swift.

¹⁷One thousand before the threat of one;
before the threat of five, will you flee,

until you are left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
like an ensign on a hill.

Isaiah

¹⁸And therefore, the LORD waits to grant you grace,
and therefore, He will rise to show you compassion,

for the LORD is a God of justice;
blessed are all who wait for Him.

¹⁹Because, O people in Zion,
who dwell at Jerusalem,

surely you will weep no longer;
He will surely grant you grace at the sound of your crying;
when He hears it, He will answer you.

²⁰And the Lord will give you the bread of adversity
and the water of oppression,

and your Teacher will no longer hide Himself,
and your eyes will see your Teacher,

²¹and your ears will hear a word behind you, saying:

The Lord

“This is the way;
walk in it,

whether you turn to the right
or you turn to the left.”

Isaiah

²²Then you will defile your idols, overlaid with silver,
and your gold-plated molten images;

you will cast them away as menstrual cloth;
you will say to them,

God’s covenant people

“Go out!”

Isaiah

²³And He will give rain for your seed, that you sow in the ground,
and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and fat.

In that day, your cattle will graze in a large pasture,
²⁴and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder

that is winnowed with shovel and fork.

²⁵And there will be on every lofty mountain
and every high hill, brooks running with water,

in the day of the great slaughter,
when towers fall.

²⁶And the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun,
and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days,

in the day when the LORD binds up the brokenness of His people
and heals the blow of their wound.

Isaiah

²⁷Behold, the name of the LORD comes from a distance,
His anger burning and the burden heavy,

His lips full of indignation,
and His tongue like a devouring fire;

²⁸His breath is like an overflowing stream,
reaching up to the neck

to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction,
and a bridle on the jaws of the peoples, for he that leads astray.

²⁹Your song will be as on the night when a festival is sanctified,
and rejoicing of the heart, as when one walks with a flute

to come to the mountain of the LORD,
to the Rock of Israel.

³⁰And the LORD will cause His majestic voice to be heard,
and He will show His arm coming down

with the indignation of anger
and a flame of devouring fire,

with a cloudburst
and tempest and hailstones.

³¹For at the voice of the LORD the Assyrians are terrified
when He smites with His rod.

³²And every stroke with the appointed staff that the LORD lays upon them
is to the sound of tambourines and harps,
and in the wars that He will fight against them
is with brandished weapons.

³³For a burning place was arranged long ago;
yea, it was prepared for the king.

Its pyre was made deep and wide,
with much fire and wood.

The breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone,
sets fire to it.