26
Have you not heard?
I designed it long ago;
I planned it in days gone by.
I have now brought it to pass,
and you have crushed fortified cities
into piles of rubble.
27
Their inhabitants have become powerless,
dismayed, and ashamed.
They are plants of the field,
tender grass,
grass on the rooftops,
blasted by the east wind.
28
But I know your sitting down,
your going out and your coming in,
and your raging against Me.
29
Because your raging against Me
and your arrogance have reached My ears,
I will put My hook in your nose
and My bit in your mouth;
I will make you go back
the way you came.
30
“ ‘This will be the sign for you: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what grows from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
31
The surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
32
For a remnant will go out from Jerusalem and survivors, from Mount Zion. The zeal of the
Lord
of Hosts will accomplish this.'
33
“Therefore, this is what the
Lord
says about the king of Assyria:
He will not enter this city
or shoot an arrow there
or come before it with a shield
or build up an assault ramp against it.
34
He will go back
the way he came,
and he will not enter this city.
This is the
Lord
's declaration.
35
I will defend this city and rescue it
because of Me
and because of My servant David.”
Defeat and Death of Sennacherib
36
Then the angel of the
Lord
went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning — there were all the dead bodies!
37
So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and left. He returned home and lived in Nineveh.
38
One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. Then his son Esar-haddon became king in his place.
Isaiah
Hezekiah's Illness and Recovery
38
In those days Hezekiah became terminally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came and said to him, “This is what the
Lord
says: ‘Put your affairs in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.' ”
2
Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the
Lord
.
3
He said, “Please,
Lord
, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and wholeheartedly, and have done what pleases You.”And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4
Then the word of the
Lord
came to Isaiah:
5
“Go and tell Hezekiah that this is what the
Lord
God of your ancestor David says: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I am going to add 15 years to your life.
6
And I will deliver you and this city from the power of the king of Assyria; I will defend this city.
7
This is the sign to you from the
Lord
that He will do what He has promised:
8
I am going to make the sun's shadow that goes down on Ahaz's stairway go back by 10 steps.” So the sun's shadow went back the 10 steps it had descended.
9
A poem by Hezekiah king of Judah after he had been sick and had recovered from his illness:
10
I said: In the prime of my life
I must go to the gates of
•Sheol
;
I am deprived of the rest of my years.
11
I said: I will never see the
Lord
,
the
Lord
in the land of the living;
I will not look on humanity any longer
with the inhabitants of what is passing away.
12
My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me
like a shepherd's tent.
I have rolled up my life like a weaver;
He cuts me off from the loom.
You make an end of me from day until night.
13
I thought until the morning:
He will break all my bones like a lion;
You make an end of me day and night.
14
I chirp like a swallow or a crane;
I moan like a dove.
My eyes grow weak looking upward.
Lord, I am oppressed; support me.
15
What can I say?
He has spoken to me,
and He Himself has done it.
I walk along slowly all my years
because of the bitterness of my soul,
16
Lord, because of these promises people live,
and in all of them is the life of my spirit as well;
You have restored me to health
and let me live.
17
Indeed, it was for my own welfare
that I had such great bitterness;
but Your love has delivered me
from the
•Pit
of destruction,
for You have thrown all my sins behind Your back.
18
For Sheol cannot thank You;
Death cannot praise You.
Those who go down to the Pit
cannot hope for Your faithfulness.
19
The living, only the living can thank You,
as I do today;
a father will make Your faithfulness known to children.
20
The
Lord
will save me;
we will play stringed instruments
all the days of our lives
at the house of the
Lord
.
21
Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of pressed figs and apply it to his infected skin, so that he may recover.”
22
And Hezekiah had asked, “What is the sign that I will go up to the
Lord
's temple? ”
Isaiah
Hezekiah's Folly
39
At that time Merodach-baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah since he heard that he had been sick and had recovered.
2
Hezekiah was pleased with them, and showed them his treasure house — the silver, the gold, the spices, and the precious oil — and all his armory, and everything that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his palace and in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.
3
Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and asked him, “Where did these men come from and what did they say to you? ”
Hezekiah replied, “They came to me from a distant country, from Babylon.”
4
Isaiah asked, “What have they seen in your palace? ”
Hezekiah answered, “They have seen everything in my palace. There isn't anything in my treasuries that I didn't show them.”
5
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the
Lord
of
•Hosts
:
6
‘The time will certainly come when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until this day will be carried off to Babylon; nothing will be left,' says the
Lord
.
7
‘Some of your descendants who come from you will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.' ”
8
Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the
Lord
that you have spoken is good,” for he thought: There will be peace and security during my lifetime.
Isaiah
God's People Comforted
40
“Comfort, comfort My people,”
says your God.
2
“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and announce to her
that her time of forced labor is over,
her iniquity has been pardoned,
and she has received from the
Lord
's hand
double for all her sins.”
3
A voice of one crying out:
Prepare the way of the
Lord
in the wilderness;
make a straight highway for our God in the desert.
4
Every valley will be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill will be leveled;
the uneven ground will become smooth
and the rough places, a plain.
5
And the glory of the
Lord
will appear,
and all humanity together will see it,
for the mouth of the
Lord
has spoken.
6
A voice was saying, “Cry out! ”
Another said, “What should I cry out? ”
“All humanity is grass,
and all its goodness is like the flower of the field.
7
The grass withers, the flowers fade
when the breath of the
Lord
blows on them;
indeed, the people are grass.
8
The grass withers, the flowers fade,
but the word of our God remains forever.”
9
•Zion
, herald of good news,
go up on a high mountain.
Jerusalem, herald of good news,
raise your voice loudly.
Raise it, do not be afraid!
Say to the cities of Judah,
“Here is your God! ”
10
See, the Lord
God
comes with strength,
and His power establishes His rule.
His reward is with Him,
and His gifts accompany Him.
11
He protects His flock like a shepherd;
He gathers the lambs in His arms
and carries them in the fold of His garment.
He gently leads those that are nursing.
12
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
or marked off the heavens with the span of his hand?
Who has gathered the dust of the earth in a measure
or weighed the mountains in a balance
and the hills in the scales?
13
Who has directed the Spirit of the
Lord
,
or who gave Him His counsel?
14
Who did He consult with?
Who gave Him understanding
and taught Him the paths of justice?
Who taught Him knowledge
and showed Him the way of understanding?
15
Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are considered as a speck of dust in the scales;
He lifts up the islands like fine dust.
16
Lebanon is not enough for fuel,
or its animals enough for a
•burnt
offering.
17
All the nations are as nothing before Him;
they are considered by Him
as nothingness and emptiness.
18
Who will you compare God with?
What likeness will you compare Him to?
19
To an idol? — something that a smelter casts,
and a metalworker plates with gold
and makes silver welds for it?
20
To one who shapes a pedestal,
choosing wood that does not rot?
He looks for a skilled craftsman
to set up an idol that will not fall over.
21
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been declared to you
from the beginning?
Have you not considered
the foundations of the earth?
22
God is enthroned above the circle of the earth;
its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like thin cloth
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
23
He reduces princes to nothing
and makes judges of the earth irrational.
24
They are barely planted, barely sown,
their stem hardly takes root in the ground
when He blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind carries them away like stubble.
25
“Who will you compare Me to,
or who is My equal? ” asks the Holy One.
26
Look up and see:
who created these?
He brings out the starry host by number;
He calls all of them by name.
Because of His great power and strength,
not one of them is missing.
27
Jacob, why do you say,
and Israel, why do you assert:
“My way is hidden from the
Lord
,
and my claim is ignored by my God”?
28
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
•Yahweh
is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the whole earth.
He never grows faint or weary;
there is no limit to His understanding.
29
He gives strength to the weary
and strengthens the powerless.
30
Youths may faint and grow weary,
and young men stumble and fall,
31
but those who trust in the
Lord
will renew their strength;
they will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary;
they will walk and not faint.