Isaiah 28
28
A Warning to the Northern Kingdom
1The kingdom of Israel is doomed! Its glory is fading like the crowns of flowers on the heads of its drunken leaders. Their proud heads are well perfumed, but there they lie, dead drunk. 2The Lord has someone strong and powerful ready to attack them, someone who will come like a hailstorm, like a torrent of rain, like a rushing, overpowering flood, and will overwhelm the land. 3The pride of those drunken leaders will be trampled underfoot. 4The fading glory of those proud leaders will disappear like the first figs of the season, picked and eaten as soon as they are ripe.
5A day is coming when the LORD Almighty will be like a glorious crown of flowers for his people who survive. 6He will give a sense of justice to those who serve as judges, and courage to those who defend the city gates from attack.
Isaiah and the Drunken Prophets of Judah
7Even the prophets and the priests are so drunk that they stagger. They have drunk so much wine and liquor that they stumble in confusion. The prophets are too drunk to understand the visions that God sends, and the priests are too drunk to decide the cases that are brought to them. 8The tables where they sit are all covered with vomit, and not a clean spot is left.
9They complain about me. They say, “Who does that man think he's teaching? Who needs his message? It's only good for babies that have just been weaned! 10He is trying to teach us letter by letter, line by line, lesson by lesson.”
11 #
1 Cor 14.21
If you won't listen to me, then God will use foreigners speaking some strange-sounding language to teach you a lesson. 12He offered rest and comfort to all of you, but you refused to listen to him. 13That is why the LORD is going to teach you letter by letter, line by line, lesson by lesson. Then you will stumble with every step you take. You will be wounded, trapped, and taken prisoner.
A Cornerstone for Zion
14Now you arrogant ones who rule here in Jerusalem over this people, listen to what the LORD is saying. 15You boast that you have made a treaty with death and reached an agreement with the world of the dead. You are certain that disaster will spare you when it comes, because you depend on lies and deceit to keep you safe. 16#Ps 118.22–23; Rom 9.33; 10.11; 1 Pet 2.6This, now, is what the Sovereign LORD says: “I am placing in Zion a foundation that is firm and strong. In it I am putting a solid cornerstone on which are written the words, ‘Faith that is firm is also patient.’ 17Justice will be the measuring line for the foundation, and honesty will be its plumb line.”
Hailstorms will sweep away all the lies you depend on, and floods will destroy your security. 18The treaty you have made with death will be abolished, and your agreement with the world of the dead will be cancelled. When disaster sweeps down, you will be overcome. 19It will strike you again and again, morning after morning. You will have to bear it day and night. Each new message from God will bring new terror! 20You will be like the person in the proverb, who tries to sleep in a bed too short to stretch out on, with a blanket too narrow to wrap himself in. 21#Josh 10.10–12; 2 Sam 5.20; 1 Chr 14.11The LORD will fight as he did at Mount Perazim and in the valley of Gibeon, in order to do what he intends to do — strange as his actions may seem. He will complete his work, his mysterious work.
22Don't laugh at the warning I am giving you! If you do, it will be even harder for you to escape. I have heard the LORD Almighty's decision to destroy the whole country.
God's Wisdom
23Listen to what I am saying; pay attention to what I am telling you. 24No farmer goes on constantly ploughing his fields and getting them ready for sowing. 25Once he has prepared the soil, he sows the seeds of herbs such as dill and cumin. He sows rows of wheat and barley,#28.25 Hebrew has an additional word, the meaning of which is unclear. and at the edges of his fields he sows other grain. 26He knows how to do his work, because God has taught him. 27He never uses a heavy club to beat out dill seeds or cumin seeds; instead he uses light sticks of the proper size. 28He does not ruin the wheat by threshing it endlessly, and he knows how to thresh it by driving a cart over it without bruising the grains. 29All this wisdom comes from the LORD Almighty. The plans God makes are wise, and they always succeed!
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Isaiah 28: GNBUK
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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.
Isaiah 28
28
Ephraim’s Captivity Predicted
1Woe (judgment is coming) to [Samaria] the splendid crown of the drunkards of #I.e. the ten northern tribes of Israel.Ephraim,
And to the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
Which is at the head of the rich valley
Of those who are overcome with wine!
2Listen carefully, the Lord has a strong and mighty agent [the Assyrian];
Like a tempest of hail, a disastrous storm,
Like a tempest of mighty overflowing waters,
He has cast it down to the earth with His hand.
3The splendid crown of the drunkards of Ephraim is trampled by [the foreigners’] feet.
4And the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
Which is at the head of the rich valley,
Will be like the early fig before the summer,
Which one sees,
And as soon as it is in his hand
He [greedily] swallows it [and so will the Assyrians rapidly devour Samaria, Israel’s capital].
5In that day the Lord of hosts will become a magnificent crown
And a glorious diadem to the [converted] remnant of His people,
6A spirit of justice for him who sits in judgment [administering the law],
A strength to those who drive back the battle at the gate.
7But even these reel with wine and stagger from strong drink:
The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink;
They are confused by wine, they stagger from strong drink;
They reel while seeing visions,
They stagger when pronouncing judgment.
8For all the tables are full of filthy vomit, so that there is no place [that is clean.]
9 They say “To whom would He teach knowledge?
And to whom would He explain the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just taken from the breast?
10For He says,
‘Precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
Rule upon rule, rule upon rule,
Here a little, there a little.’ ”
11Indeed, the Lord will teach this people [in a more humiliating way]
By [men with] stammering lips and a foreign tongue,
12He who said to them, “This is the place of quiet, give rest to the weary,”
And, “This is the resting place,” yet they would not listen.
13Therefore the word of the Lord to them will be [merely monotonous repetitions]:
“Precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
Rule upon rule, rule upon rule,
Here a little, there a little.”
That they may go and stumble backward, and be broken, ensnared, and taken captive.
Judah Is Warned
14Therefore, hear the word of the Lord, you arrogant men
Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem!
15Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death,
And with Sheol (the place of the dead) we have made an agreement,
When the overwhelming scourge passes by, it will not reach us,
For we have made lies our refuge and we have concealed ourselves in deception.”
16Therefore the Lord God says this,
“Listen carefully, I am laying in Zion a Stone, a tested Stone,
A precious Cornerstone for the [secure] foundation, firmly placed.
He who believes [who trusts in, relies on, and adheres to that Stone] will not #The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) reads “be put to shame,” a phrase which occurs frequently in pleas to God.be disturbed or give way [in sudden panic].
17I will make justice the measuring line
And righteousness the mason’s level;
Then hail will sweep away the refuge of lies
And waters will flood over the secret [hiding] place.
18Your covenant with death will be annulled,
And your agreement with Sheol (the place of the dead) will not stand;
When the overwhelming scourge passes through,
Then you will become its trampling ground.
19As often as it passes through, it will seize you;
For morning after morning it will pass through, by day and by night,
And it will be sheer terror to understand what it means.”
20For the bed is too short to stretch out on,
And the blanket is too narrow to wrap around oneself [and likewise all their preparations are inadequate].
21For the Lord will rise up as at Mount Perazim,
He will be stirred up as in the Valley of Gibeon,
To do His work, His unusual and incredible work,
And to accomplish His work, His extraordinary work.
22Now do not carry on as scoffers,
Or the bands which bind you will be made stronger;
For I have heard from the Lord God of hosts [a decree]
Of decisive destruction on all the earth.
23Listen and hear my voice;
Listen carefully and hear my words.
24Does the farmer plow all day to plant seed?
Does he continually dig furrows and harrow his ground [after it is prepared]?
25When he has leveled its surface,
Does he not sow [the seed of] dill and scatter cumin,
And plant wheat in rows,
And barley in its [intended] place and #A subspecies of common wheat.rye within its border?
26For his God instructs [him correctly] and teaches him properly.
27For dill is not threshed with a sharp threshing sledge,
Nor is a cartwheel rolled over cumin;
But dill is beaten out with a staff, and cumin with a rod.
28Bread grain is crushed fine,
Indeed, the farmer does not continue to thresh it forever.
Because the wheel of his cart and his horses eventually damage it,
He does not thresh it longer.
29This also comes from the Lord of hosts,
Who has made His counsel wonderful and His wisdom great.
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