Isaiah 1
1
Messages of Judgment
Quit Your Worship Charades
1The vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw regarding Judah and Jerusalem during the times of the kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.
2-4Heaven and earth, you’re the jury.
Listen to God’s case:
“I had children and raised them well,
and they turned on me.
The ox knows who’s boss,
the mule knows the hand that feeds him,
But not Israel.
My people don’t know up from down.
Shame! Misguided God-dropouts,
staggering under their guilt-baggage,
Villainous gang,
band of vandals—
My people have walked out on me, their God,
turned their backs on The Holy of Israel,
walked off and never looked back.
5-9“Why bother even trying to do anything with you
when you just keep to your bullheaded ways?
You keep beating your heads against brick walls.
Everything within you protests against you.
From the bottom of your feet to the top of your head,
nothing’s working right.
Wounds and bruises and running sores—
untended, unwashed, unbandaged.
Your country is laid waste,
your cities burned down.
Your land is destroyed by outsiders while you watch,
reduced to rubble by barbarians.
Daughter Zion is deserted—
like a tumbledown shack on a dead-end street,
Like a tarpaper shanty on the wrong side of the tracks,
like a sinking ship abandoned by the rats.
If God-of-the-Angel-Armies hadn’t left us a few survivors,
we’d be as desolate as Sodom, doomed just like Gomorrah.
10“Listen to my Message,
you Sodom-schooled leaders.
Receive God’s revelation,
you Gomorrah-schooled people.
11-12“Why this frenzy of sacrifices?”
God ’s asking.
“Don’t you think I’ve had my fill of burnt sacrifices,
rams and plump grain-fed calves?
Don’t you think I’ve had my fill
of blood from bulls, lambs, and goats?
When you come before me,
whoever gave you the idea of acting like this,
Running here and there, doing this and that—
all this sheer commotion in the place provided for worship?
13-17“Quit your worship charades.
I can’t stand your trivial religious games:
Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings—
meetings, meetings, meetings—I can’t stand one more!
Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them!
You’ve worn me out!
I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion,
while you go right on sinning.
When you put on your next prayer-performance,
I’ll be looking the other way.
No matter how long or loud or often you pray,
I’ll not be listening.
And do you know why? Because you’ve been tearing
people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.
Go home and wash up.
Clean up your act.
Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings
so I don’t have to look at them any longer.
Say no to wrong.
Learn to do good.
Work for justice.
Help the down-and-out.
Stand up for the homeless.
Go to bat for the defenseless.
Let’s Argue This Out
18-20“Come. Sit down. Let’s argue this out.”
This is God’s Message:
“If your sins are blood-red,
they’ll be snow-white.
If they’re red like crimson,
they’ll be like wool.
If you’ll willingly obey,
you’ll feast like kings.
But if you’re willful and stubborn,
you’ll die like dogs.”
That’s right. God says so.
Those Who Walk Out on God
21-23Oh! Can you believe it? The chaste city
has become a whore!
She was once all justice,
everyone living as good neighbors,
And now they’re all
at one another’s throats.
Your coins are all counterfeits.
Your wine is watered down.
Your leaders are turncoats
who keep company with crooks.
They sell themselves to the highest bidder
and grab anything not nailed down.
They never stand up for the homeless,
never stick up for the defenseless.
24-31This Decree, therefore, of the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
the Strong One of Israel:
“This is it! I’ll get my oppressors off my back.
I’ll get back at my enemies.
I’ll give you the back of my hand,
purge the junk from your life, clean you up.
I’ll set honest judges and wise counselors among you
just like it was back in the beginning.
Then you’ll be renamed
City-That-Treats-People-Right, the True-Blue City.”
God’s right ways will put Zion right again.
God’s right actions will restore her prodigals.
But it’s curtains for rebels and God-traitors,
a dead end for those who walk out on God.
“Your dalliances in those oak grove shrines
will leave you looking mighty foolish,
All that fooling around in god and goddess gardens
that you thought was the latest thing.
You’ll end up like an oak tree
with all its leaves falling off,
Like an unwatered garden,
withered and brown.
‘The Strong Man’ will turn out to be dead bark and twigs,
and his ‘work,’ the spark that starts the fire
That exposes man and work both
as nothing but cinders and smoke.”
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Isaiah 1: MSG
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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.
Isaiah 1
1
1A vision of Isaiah, the sonne of Amoz, which he sawe concerning Iudah and Ierusalem: in the dayes of Vzziah, Iotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah Kings of Iudah. 2Heare, O heauens, and hearken, O earth: for the Lord hath sayde, I haue nourished and brought vp children, but they haue rebelled against me. 3The oxe knoweth his owner, and the asse his masters crib: but Israel hath not knowen: my people hath not vnderstand. 4Ah, sinfull nation, a people laden with iniquitie: a seede of the wicked, corrupt children: they haue forsaken the Lord: they haue prouoked the holy one of Israel to anger: they are gone backewarde. 5Wherefore shoulde ye be smitten any more? for ye fall away more and more: the whole head is sicke, and the whole heart is heauie. 6From the sole of the foote vnto the head, there is nothing whole therein, but wounds, and swelling, and sores full of corruption: they haue not bene wrapped, nor bound vp, nor mollified with oyle. 7Your land is waste: your cities are burnt with fire: strangers deuoure your lande in your presence, and it is desolate like the ouerthrowe of strangers. 8And the daughter of Zion shall remaine like a cotage in a vineyarde, like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and like a besieged citie. 9Except the Lord of hostes had reserued vnto vs, euen a small remnant: we should haue bene as Sodom, and should haue bene like vnto Gomorah. 10Heare the worde of the Lord, O princes of Sodom: hearken vnto the Law of our God, O people of Gomorah. 11What haue I to doe with the multitude of your sacrifices, sayth the Lord? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and of the fat of fed beasts: and I desire not the blood of bullocks, nor of lambs, nor of goates. 12When ye come to appeare before me, who required this of your hands to tread in my courts? 13Bring no more oblations, in vaine: incense is an abomination vnto me: I can not suffer your newe moones, nor Sabbaths, nor solemne dayes (it is iniquitie) nor solemne assemblies. 14My soule hateth your newe moones and your appointed feastes: they are a burden vnto me: I am weary to beare them. 15And when you shall stretch out your hands, I wil hide mine eyes from you: and though ye make many prayers, I wil not heare: for your hands are full of blood. 16Wash you, make you cleane: take away the euill of your workes from before mine eyes: cease to doe euill. 17Learne to doe well: seeke iudgement, relieue the oppressed: iudge the fatherlesse and defend the widowe. 18Come nowe, and let vs reason together, sayth the Lord: though your sinnes were as crimsin, they shalbe made white as snowe: though they were red like skarlet, they shalbe as wooll. 19If ye consent and obey, ye shall eate the good things of the land. 20But if ye refuse and be rebellious, ye shalbe deuoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. 21Howe is the faithfull citie become an harlot? it was full of iudgement, and iustice lodged therein, but now they are murtherers. 22Thy siluer is become drosse: thy wine is mixt with water. 23Thy Princes are rebellious and companions of theeues: euery one loueth giftes, and followeth after rewards: they iudge not the fatherlesse, neither doeth the widowes cause come before them. 24Therefore sayth the Lord God of hostes, the mightie one of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine aduersaries, and auenge me of mine enemies. 25Then I will turne mine hand vpon thee, and burne out thy drosse, till it be pure, and take away all thy tinne. 26And I will restore thy iudges as at the first, and thy counsellers as at the beginning: afterward shalt thou be called a citie of righteousnes, and a faithfull citie. 27Zion shall be redeemed in iudgement, and they that returne in her, in iustice. 28And the destruction of the transgressers and of the sinners shalbe together: and they that forsake the Lord, shalbe consumed. 29For they shalbe confounded for the okes, which ye haue desired, and ye shall be ashamed of the gardens, that ye haue chosen. 30For ye shalbe as an oke, whose leafe fadeth: and as a garden that hath no water. 31And the strong shall be as towe, and the maker thereof, as a sparke: and they shall both burne together, and none shall quench them.
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