Isaiah 47
47
God’s Message to Babylon
1“Fall down and sit in the dirt, Virgin Daughter Babylon.
You have no throne, so sit on the ground, daughter of the Chaldeans.#47:1 Virgin Daughter Babylon, daughter of the Chaldeans Names for the city of Babylon.
You are not the ruler now.
You are no longer the beautiful young princess that people said you were.
2Get the millstones ready
and grind the grain into flour.
Take off your veil and fancy clothes.
Lift your skirt and get ready to cross the rivers.#47:2 rivers The Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Babylon was between these two rivers.
3Men will see your naked body
and use you for sex.
I will make you pay for the bad things you did,
and I will not let anyone help you.
4“My people say, ‘God saves us.
His name is the Lord All-Powerful, the Holy One of Israel.’”
5“So Babylon, sit down and shut up.
Daughter of the Chaldeans, go into the dark prison.
You will no longer be ‘The Queen of the Kingdoms.’
6“I was angry with my people.
They were mine, but I turned against them.
I let you punish them,
but you showed them no mercy.
Even for those who were old
you made the work hard.
7You said, ‘I will live forever.
I will always be the queen.’
You didn’t care what you did to my people.
You didn’t think about what might happen later.
8So now listen, you who love only pleasure!
Feeling so safe, you tell yourself,
‘I alone am important, and no one else matters.
I will never be a widow or lose my children.’
9These two things will happen to you:
First, you will lose your children and then your husband.
And none of your magic spells will help you.
10You do bad things but still feel safe.#47:10 You … safe Or “You put your trust in your evil.”
You say to yourself, ‘No one sees the wrong I do.’
You thought that your wisdom and knowledge would save you.
You tell yourself, ‘I alone am important,
and no one else matters.’
11“But disaster is coming your way.
You don’t know when it will happen, but disaster is coming.
And there is nothing you can do to stop it.
12You worked hard all your life
learning magic and spells.
So start using that magic.
Maybe those spells will help you.
Maybe you will be able to frighten someone.
13You have many advisors.
Are you tired of the advice they give?
Then send out your men who read the stars.
They can tell when the month starts,
so maybe they can tell you when your troubles will come.
14But they cannot even save themselves.
They will burn like straw.
They will burn so fast that there will be no coals left to cook bread.
There will be no fire left to sit by.
15That’s what will happen to those you have worked with,
the people you did business with all your life.
They will all go their own way.
There will be no one left to save you.”
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© 1987, 2004 Bible League International
Isaiah 47
47
XLVII
1Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon I
Sit on the ground, without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans:
For thou shalt no longer be called the tender, and the delicate.
2Take the mill, and grind meal:
Take off thy veil, take up the train of thy garment;
Make bare thy leg; wade through the rivers.
3Thy nakedness shall be disclosed; yea, thy shame shall be seen:
I will take vengeance, and will not spare a man.
4 Thus saith our Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts is his name,
The Holy One of Israel:
5Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans;
For thou shalt no longer be called. The lady of Kingdoms.
6I was angry with my people, I polluted mine inheritance,
And gave them up into thine hand:
Thou didst shew them no mercy;
Upon the aged didst thou very heavily lay thy yoke.
7And thou saidst: I shall be a lady for ever:
So that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart,
Neither didst thou think upon the latter end thereof.
8Now, therefore, hear this, O thou voluptuous, that sittest in security:
Thou that sayest in thine heart: I am, and there is none besides;
I shall not sit a widow; neither shall I know the loss of children.
9Yet these two things shall come to thee in a moment,
In one day, loss of children and widowhood:
They shall come upon thee in their perfection,
Notwithstanding the multitude of thy sorceries;
Notwithstanding the great strength of thine enchantments.
10But thou didst trust in thy wickedness, and saidst: None seeth me.
Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, they perverted thee;
So that thou saidst in thine heart: I am, and there is none besides.
11Therefore shall evil come upon thee,
The dawn whereof thou shalt not perceive;
And mischief shall fall upon thee,
Which thou shalt not be able to expiate;
And destruction shall come upon thee suddenly, of which thou shalt have no apprehension.
12Persist now in thine enchantments,
And in the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth;
Perhaps thou mayest be able to profit,
Perhaps thou mayest prevail.
13Thou art wearied in the multiplicity of thy counsels:
Let them stand up now, and save thee,
The astrologers, the gazers on the stars;
They that prognosticate at every new moon
What are the events that shall happen unto thee.
14Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them up;
They shall not deliver their own souls from the power of the flame:
There shall not be a coal to warm at,
Nor a fire to sit before it.
15Thus will they prove to be unto thee, amongst whom thou hast laboured,
Those with whom thou hast had dealing from thy youth:
They shall become bewildered, every one in his quarter;
Not one will there be to save thee.
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Translated by Rev John Jones (Ioan Tegid).Published at Oxford in 1830, second edition 1842.