Isaiah 30

1Woe to rebellious sons, says Yahweh, who devise counsel but not from me and who forge a covering but not of my Spirit, to add sin upon sin.

2who walk to go down to Egypt without asking of my mouth, to strengthen in Pharaoh's stronghold and trust in the shadow of Egypt!

3The stronghold of Pharaoh will be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your disgrace.

4For their princes are at Zoan, and their ambassadors reach Hanes.

5All will be abhorred and ashamed because of a nation that cannot benefit them, offering no help nor any benefit, but shame and also reproach.

6The oracle concerning the beasts of the south: through a land of distress and oppression, from which come lioness and lion, viper and fiery flying serpent, they bear their goods on the backs of young donkeys and their stores on camels' humps, to a nation offering no benefit.

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

8Now go, write it on a tablet before them, and engrave it in a book, that it may be for a future day as a witness unto eternity.

9For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear Yahweh's law.

10who tell the seers, "Do not see," and the prophets, "Do not prophesy truths to us; speak flattering things to us; prophesy deceptions."

11Turn aside from the way, turn aside from the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from our presence.

12Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel: Because you reject this word and trust in extortion and perverseness, leaning on it.

13Therefore this iniquity will be to you like a breach about to fall, bulging in a high wall, whose fracture comes suddenly in an instant.

14He shatters it like a potter's jug crushed into bits without mercy, so no sherd turns up amid its wreckage to carry fire from the hearth or scoop water from the pit.

15For thus says the Lord Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel: You will be saved in return and rest; quietness and confidence will be your strength, but you refused.

16But you said, "No, for we will flee on horses; therefore you will flee. On the swift we will ride; therefore those who pursue you will be swift."

17One thousand will flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five you will flee until you remain like a mast atop the mountain and like a banner on the hill.

18Therefore Yahweh waits to show you grace, and therefore he will exalt himself to have mercy on you, for Yahweh is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him.

19For the people will dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; you will weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you.

20The Lord will give you bread of distress and water of oppression, yet your teachers will no longer be hidden, but your eyes will see your teachers.

21Your ears will hear a word behind you saying, "This is the way; walk in it," when you turn right and when you turn left.

22You will defile the overlay of your silver carved idols and the ornament of your molten gold idols, casting them away like a menstrual cloth; you will say to it, "Go away!"

23He will give rain for your seed with which you sow the ground, and bread from the ground's produce will be rich and abundant. On that day your livestock will graze in spacious pastures.

24The oxen and young donkeys that work the ground will eat clean provender winnowed with the shovel and the fan.

25And there will be streams and courses of water on every high mountain and every exalted hill in the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall.

26The light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days, in the day Yahweh binds up the fracture of his people and heals the bruise of their blow.

27Behold, the name of Yahweh arrives from afar, his anger ablaze and its burden heavy; his lips brim with indignation, and his tongue like a devouring fire.

28And his breath like a flooding torrent reaches to the middle of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of futility, and a deceiving bridle upon the jaws of the peoples.

29You will have a song like the night of a consecrated feast, and gladness of heart like one going with a flute to the mountain of Yahweh, to the Rock of Israel.

30Yahweh will make the majesty of his voice heard and reveal his arm's descent amid indignation and anger, with the blaze of devouring fire, scattering, torrent, and hailstones.

31For at the sound of Yahweh Assyria will be terrified; with the rod he will strike it.

32And every passage of the established rod which Yahweh lays upon him will be with timbrels and harps, and in battles of brandishing he will fight in it with them.

33For Tophet was arrayed long ago; yes, for the king it stands prepared, deepened and widened with its pyre of fire and much wood; the breath of Yahweh, like a stream of brimstone, kindles it.