Isaiah 30
30
XXX
1Wo unto the rebellious children, saith Jehovah,
Who form counsels, but not from me;
And make oblations, but not by my spirit:
That they may add sin to sin.
2Who set forward to go down to Egypt;
But have not inquired at my mouth:
To strengthen themselves with the strength of Pharaoh;
And to trust in the shadow of Egypt.
3But the strength of Pharaoh shall be your shame;
And your trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion.
4When his princes were at Zoan,
And his ambassadors arrived at Hanes:
5They were all ashamed of a people that could not profit them;
Nor be an help nor profit;
But a shame and also a reproach.
6THE ORACLE CONCERNING THE BEASTS OF THE SOUTH.
Through a land of distress and difficulty,
From whence come the lioness and the lion,
The viper and the flying fiery serpent,
They carry on the shoulder of young asses their wealth;
And on the bunch of the camel their treasures;
To a people that shall not profit them:
7For Egypt shall help in vain, and to no purpose;
Wherefore I have called her, Rahab Hem Shabeth.
8Now, go write it for them on a tablet;
And note it in a book:
That it might be for time to come;
For ever and ever.
9For this is a rebellious people, lying children;
Children, who will not hear the law of Jehovah;
10Who say to the seers, See not;
And to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us rightthings;
Speak unto us smooth things;
Prophesy deceits.
11Get you out of the way,
Turn out of the path;
Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.
12Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel:
Because ye have rejected this word,
And have trusted in oppression and perverseness;
And have stayed thereon:
13Therefore this iniquity shall be unto you
Like a breach ready to fall, bulging out in a high wall;
Whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.
14And it shall be broken, as the breaking of a potter's vessel that is broken in pieces;
He shall not spare;
So that there shall not be found a sherd among its fragments,
To take up fire from the hearth,
Or to take water from the cistern.
15Verily thus saith the Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel:
In returning and rest should ye have been saved;
In quietness and in confidence should have been your strength;
But ye would not.
16And ye said: No, for we will flee upon horses;
Therefore shall ye certainly flee:
And, we will ride upon swift coursers;
Therefore shall they be made swift that pursue you.
17One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one;
At the rebuke of five shall ye flee:
Till ye be left as a standard on the summit of a mountain;
And as a beacon on an hill.
18And therefore shall Jehovah delay, that he may be gracious unto you;
And therefore shall he withdraw himself that he may have mercy upon you;
For Jehovah is a God of judgment;
Blessed are all they that wait for him.
19Surely the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem:
Thou shalt weep no more:
He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry;
No sooner shall he hear it, than he will answer thee.
20And the Lord shall give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction;
And thy teachers shall not be hid any more;
But thine eyes shall see thy teachers:
21And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee,
Saying: This is the way, walk ye in it:
When ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
22And ye shall defile the covering of your graven images of silver,
And the clothing of your molten images of gold:
Thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth;
Thou shalt say unto them, Begone.
23Then shall he give rain for thy seed,
With which thou shalt sow thy ground,
And bread of the produce of the ground;
And it shall be abundant and plenteous:
And thy cattle shall feed in that day in large pastures.
24And the oxen, and the young asses, that till the ground,
Shall eat clean provender,
Which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan.
25And there shall be upon every high mountain,
And upon every lofty hill,
Brooks, even streams of water,
In the day of the great slaughter,
When the towers fall.
26Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun,
And the light of the sun shall be sevenfold,
As the light of seven days:
In the day when Jehovah shall bind up the breach of his people;
And shall heal the wound which his stroke hath inflicted.
27Behold! the name of Jehovah cometh from afar,
His wrath burneth, and vehement is the flame;
His lips are full of indignation,
And his tongue is as a consuming fire.
28And his breath is like an overflowing torrent,
That reacheth to the middle of the neck;
To sift the nations with the sieve of destruction:
And there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people causing them to err.
29Ye shall have a song, as in the night when the feast
is celebrated;
And gladness of heart, as when one marcheth after the pipe,
To go to the mountain of Jehovah, to the rock of Israel.
30And Jehovah shall cause his glorious voice to be heard,
And make the descending of his arm to be seen,
With indignant wrath, and with a flame of consuming fire;
With a violent storm, and rushing showers, and hailstones.
31When at the voice of Jehovah the Assyrian shall be beaten down,
Then with the rod He shall smite.
32And wherever the appointed rod shall pass,
Which Jehovah shall cause to rest upon him;
It shall be accompanied with tabrets and harps;
And with fierce battles shall He fight against them.
33For Tophet is ordained of old,
Even the same for the king is prepared;
He hath made it deep; he hath made it large;
The pile thereof, fire and wood in abundance:
The breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.
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Isaiah 30: TEG
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Translated by Rev John Jones (Ioan Tegid).Published at Oxford in 1830, second edition 1842.
Isaiah 30
30
All Show, No Substance
1-5“Doom, rebel children!”
God’s Decree.
“You make plans, but not mine.
You make deals, but not in my Spirit.
You pile sin on sin,
one sin on top of another,
Going off to Egypt
without so much as asking me,
Running off to Pharaoh for protection,
expecting to hide out in Egypt.
Well, some protection Pharaoh will be!
Some hideout, Egypt!
They look big and important, true,
with officials strategically established in
Zoan in the north and Hanes in the south,
but there’s nothing to them.
Anyone stupid enough to trust them
will end up looking stupid—
All show, no substance,
an embarrassing farce.”
6-7And this note on the animals of the Negev
encountered on the road to Egypt:
A most dangerous, treacherous route,
menaced by lions and deadly snakes.
And you’re going to lug all your stuff down there,
your donkeys and camels loaded down with bribes,
Thinking you can buy protection
from that hollow farce of a nation?
Egypt is all show, no substance.
My name for her is Toothless Dragon.
This Is a Rebel Generation
8-11So, go now and write all this down.
Put it in a book
So that the record will be there
to instruct the coming generations,
Because this is a rebel generation,
a people who lie,
A people unwilling to listen
to anything God tells them.
They tell their spiritual leaders,
“Don’t bother us with irrelevancies.”
They tell their preachers,
“Don’t waste our time on impracticalities.
Tell us what makes us feel better.
Don’t bore us with obsolete religion.
That stuff means nothing to us.
Quit hounding us with The Holy of Israel.”
12-14Therefore, The Holy of Israel says this:
“Because you scorn this Message,
Preferring to live by injustice
and shape your lives on lies,
This perverse way of life
will be like a towering, badly built wall
That slowly, slowly tilts and shifts,
and then one day, without warning, collapses—
Smashed to bits like a piece of pottery,
smashed beyond recognition or repair,
Useless, a pile of debris
to be swept up and thrown in the trash.”
God Takes the Time to Do Everything Right
15-17 God, the Master, The Holy of Israel,
has this solemn counsel:
“Your salvation requires you to turn back to me
and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves.
Your strength will come from settling down
in complete dependence on me—
The very thing
you’ve been unwilling to do.
You’ve said, ‘No way! We’ll rush off on horseback!’
You’ll rush off, all right! Just not far enough!
You’ve said, ‘We’ll ride off on fast horses!’
Do you think your pursuers ride old nags?
Think again: A thousand of you will scatter before one attacker.
Before a mere five you’ll all run off.
There’ll be nothing left of you—
a flagpole on a hill with no flag,
a signpost on a roadside with the sign torn off.”
18But God’s not finished. He’s waiting around to be gracious to you.
He’s gathering strength to show mercy to you.
God takes the time to do everything right—everything.
Those who wait around for him are the lucky ones.
19-22Oh yes, people of Zion, citizens of Jerusalem, your time of tears is over. Cry for help and you’ll find it’s grace and more grace. The moment he hears, he’ll answer. Just as the Master kept you alive during the hard times, he’ll keep your teacher alive and present among you. Your teacher will be right there, local and on the job, urging you on whenever you wander left or right: “This is the right road. Walk down this road.” You’ll scrap your expensive and fashionable god-images. You’ll throw them in the trash as so much garbage, saying, “Good riddance!”
23-26God will provide rain for the seeds you sow. The grain that grows will be abundant. Your cattle will range far and wide. Oblivious to war and earthquake, the oxen and donkeys you use for hauling and plowing will be fed well near running brooks that flow freely from mountains and hills. Better yet, on the Day God heals his people of the wounds and bruises from the time of punishment, moonlight will flare into sunlight, and sunlight, like a whole week of sunshine at once, will flood the land.
* * *
27-28Look, God’s on his way,
and from a long way off!
Smoking with anger,
immense as he comes into view,
Words steaming from his mouth,
searing, indicting words!
A torrent of words, a flash flood of words
sweeping everyone into the vortex of his words.
He’ll shake down the nations in a sieve of destruction,
herd them into a dead end.
29-33But you will sing,
sing through an all-night holy feast!
Your hearts will burst with song,
make music like the sound of flutes on parade,
En route to the mountain of God,
on the way to the Rock of Israel.
God will sound out in grandiose thunder,
display his hammering arm,
Furiously angry, showering sparks—
cloudburst, storm, hail!
Oh yes, at God’s thunder
Assyria will cower under the clubbing.
Every blow God lands on them with his club
is in time to the music of drums and pipes,
God in all-out, two-fisted battle,
fighting against them.
Topheth’s fierce fires are well prepared,
ready for the Assyrian king.
The Topheth furnace is deep and wide,
well stoked with hot-burning wood.
God’s breath, like a river of burning pitch,
starts the fire.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.