Isaiah 29
29
Chapter 29
A sad song about Ariel
1It will be very bad for Ariel, the city where David lived. #29:1 ‘the city where David lived’ or ‘the city that David attacked’. ‘Ariel’ is used here as a name for Jerusalem. Continue to have your usual feasts every year, but trouble will come!
2I will bring trouble to Ariel. The people there will be very sad and they will weep. Ariel will become like my altar for burnt offerings. #29:2 The Hebrew word for an altar like this is ‘Ariel’.
3I will bring an army to attack you. There will be soldiers all round the city so that nobody can leave. I will build strong towers against the city's walls. 4Then you will fall down to the ground. While you lie there, you will speak. Your words will come quietly from deep down in the dirt. It will seem like the voice of a dead person's spirit. You will sound like a magician who is speaking magic words.
5Your enemies will be like an army of dust. The wind will blow away that crowd of cruel men as if they are chaff. That will all happen very suddenly! 6The Lord Almighty will come with great power. He will come with thunder, earthquake and a loud noise. There will be a great storm with strong winds and a fire that burns up everything.
7The great crowd of armies from all the nations that attack Ariel will quickly disappear. They will soon come to an end, like a dream that someone sees in the night. All the weapons that they bring to attack the city's walls will disappear!
8A hungry man may dream that he is eating a big meal. But as soon as he wakes up, he knows that he is still hungry! A thirsty man may dream that he is drinking. But as soon as he wakes up, he knows that he is still weak and thirsty. That is what it will be like for the great armies from all the nations that have come to attack Mount Zion.
9You are so surprised that you do not believe what I say. You have become completely blind. You are stupid, like people who are drunk, but not from wine! You fall over, but not because you have drunk too much beer!
10It is the Lord who has caused you to be like that. He has caused you to be completely asleep. He has shut the eyes of your prophets and he has covered the heads of your seers.
11You do not understand this vision that the Lord has given to me. It is like the words in a closed book. Give the book to someone who can read. Say to him, ‘Read this, please.’ But he will answer, ‘I cannot read it, because someone has closed it.’ 12Give the book to someone who cannot read and tell them, ‘Read it, please.’ But he will answer, ‘I do not know how to read.’
13The Lord God says, ‘These people open their mouths to worship me. They use their lips to say that I am great. But they are not really thinking about me. When they worship me, they use rules that people have taught them. 14So now I will surprise these people again. I will surprise them with great miracles! Wise people will not seem wise any more. Clever people will no longer seem to be clever.’
15It will be very bad for people who try to deceive the Lord. They try to hide their thoughts from him. They secretly decide to do evil things. They boast and they say, ‘Nobody can see us. Nobody knows what we are doing.’
16Your minds are really confused! You think that the clay is more important than the person who uses it to make pots! A bowl cannot say to its maker, ‘You did not make me!’ A pot cannot say to the potter, ‘You do not know what you are doing!’
17Very soon, Lebanon's forest will become a field of fruit trees. And the field of fruit trees will seem like a forest. 18At that time, deaf people will be able to hear when someone is reading words from a book. Blind people who have been living in a dark place will be able see what is happening. 19And the Lord will make weak people happy again. Poor people will sing with joy, because of what the Holy God of Israel has done.
20Cruel people will disappear. Proud people who insult others will no longer be there. There will be no more people who love to do evil things.
21It will be the same for people who tell lies in court. They deceive the judge at the city gate. They say false things against good people to make them guilty. People who are like that will have gone!
22So this is what the Lord says to Jacob's descendants. He is the one who rescued Abraham. He says, ‘Jacob's descendants will no longer be ashamed. Their faces will show their shame no more. 23They will see that I have blessed them so that they have many children. Then they will agree that I am great. They will praise me, the Holy God of Jacob. They will respect me, Israel's God.
24At that time, people with minds that are confused will understand what is right. And people who like to complain will accept my teaching.’
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Isaiah 29
29
The Fate of Jerusalem
1God's altar, Jerusalem itself, is doomed! The city where David camped is doomed! Let another year or two come and go, with its feasts and festivals, 2and then God will bring disaster on the city that is called “God's altar”. There will be weeping and wailing, and the whole city will be like an altar covered with blood. 3God will attack the city, surround it, and besiege it. 4Jerusalem will be like a ghost struggling to speak from under the ground, a muffled voice coming from the dust.
5Jerusalem, all the foreigners who attack you will be blown away like dust, and their terrifying armies will fly away like straw. Suddenly and unexpectedly 6the LORD Almighty will rescue you with violent thunderstorms and earthquakes. He will send tempests and raging fire; 7then all the armies of the nations attacking the city of God's altar, all their weapons and equipment — everything — will vanish like a dream, like something imagined in the night. 8All the nations that assemble to attack Jerusalem will be like a starving person who dreams he is eating and wakes up hungry, or like someone dying of thirst who dreams he is drinking and wakes with a dry throat.
Disregarded Warnings
9Go ahead and be stupid! Go ahead and be blind! Get drunk without any wine! Stagger without drinking a drop! 10#Rom 11.8The LORD has made you drowsy, ready to fall into a deep sleep. The prophets should be the eyes of the people, but God has blindfolded them. 11The meaning of every prophetic vision will be hidden from you; it will be like a sealed scroll. If you take it to someone who knows how to read and ask him to read it to you, he will say he can't because it is sealed. 12If you give it to someone who can't read and ask him to read it to you, he will answer that he doesn't know how.
13 #
Mt 15.8–9; Mk 7.6–7 The Lord said, “These people claim to worship me, but their words are meaningless, and their hearts are somewhere else. Their religion is nothing but human rules and traditions, which they have simply memorized. 14#1 Cor 1.19So I will startle them with one unexpected blow after another. Those who are wise will turn out to be fools, and all their cleverness will be useless.”
Hope for the Future
15Those who try to hide their plans from the LORD are doomed! They carry out their schemes in secret and think no one will see them or know what they are doing. 16#Is 45.9They turn everything upside down. Which is more important, the potter or the clay? Can a thing which someone has made say to its maker, “You didn't make me”? Or “You don't know what you are doing”?
17As the saying goes, before long the dense forest will become farmland, and the farmland will go back to forest.
18When that day comes, the deaf will be able to hear a book being read aloud, and the blind, who have been living in darkness, will open their eyes and see. 19Poor and humble people will once again find the happiness which the LORD, the holy God of Israel, gives. 20It will be the end of those who oppress others and show contempt for God. Every sinner will be destroyed. 21God will destroy those who slander others, those who prevent the punishment of criminals, and those who tell lies to keep honest men from getting justice.
22So now the LORD, the God of Israel, who rescued Abraham from trouble, says, “My people, you will not be disgraced any longer, and your faces will no longer be pale with shame. 23When you see the children that I will give you, then you will acknowledge that I am the holy God of Israel. You will honour me and stand in awe of me. 24Foolish people will learn to understand, and those who are always grumbling will be glad to be taught.”
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Good News Bible. Scripture taken from the Good News Bible (r) (Today's English Version Second Edition, UK/British Edition). Copyright © 1992 British & Foreign Bible Society. Used by permission.