Isaiah 32
32
Safe Houses, Quiet Gardens
1-8But look! A king will rule in the right way,
and his leaders will carry out justice.
Each one will stand as a shelter from high winds,
provide safe cover in stormy weather.
Each will be cool running water in parched land,
a huge granite outcrop giving shade in the desert.
Anyone who looks will see,
anyone who listens will hear.
The impulsive will make sound decisions,
the tongue-tied will speak with eloquence.
No more will fools become celebrities,
nor crooks be rewarded with fame.
For fools are fools and that’s that,
thinking up new ways to do mischief.
They leave a wake of wrecked lives
and lies about God,
Turning their backs on the homeless hungry,
ignoring those dying of thirst in the streets.
And the crooks? Underhanded sneaks they are,
inventive in sin and scandal,
Exploiting the poor with scams and lies,
unmoved by the victimized poor.
But those who are noble make noble plans,
and stand for what is noble.
* * *
9-14Take your stand, idle women!
Listen to me!
Indulgent, idle women,
listen closely to what I have to say.
In just a little over a year from now,
you’ll be shaken out of your lazy lives.
The grape harvest will fail,
and there’ll be no fruit on the trees.
Oh tremble, you idle women.
Get serious, you pampered dolls!
Strip down and discard your silk fineries.
Put on funeral clothes.
Shed honest tears for the lost harvest,
the failed vintage.
Weep for my people’s gardens and farms
that grow nothing but thistles and thornbushes.
Cry tears, real tears, for the happy homes no longer happy,
the merry city no longer merry.
The royal palace is deserted,
the bustling city quiet as a morgue,
The emptied parks and playgrounds
taken over by wild animals,
delighted with their new home.
15-20Yes, weep and grieve until the Spirit is poured
down on us from above
And the badlands desert grows crops
and the fertile fields become forests.
Justice will move into the badlands desert.
Right will build a home in the fertile field.
And where there’s Right, there’ll be Peace
and the progeny of Right: quiet lives and endless trust.
My people will live in a peaceful neighborhood—
in safe houses, in quiet gardens.
The forest of your pride will be clear-cut,
the city showing off your power leveled.
But you will enjoy a fortunate life,
planting well-watered fields and gardens,
with your farm animals grazing freely.
Currently Selected:
Isaiah 32: MSG
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
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 32
32
XXXII
1Behold! a king shall reign in righteousness,
And princes shall rule with equity.
2And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind,
And a covert from the tempest;
As rivers of water in a dry place,
As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
3And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim;
And the ears of them that hear shall hearken.
4The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge,
And the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.
5The fool shall no longer be called honourable,
And the fraudulent shall no more be called liberal;
6For the fool will still utter folly,
And his heart will work iniquity,
To practise impiety, and to utter error against Jehovah;
To make empty the soul of the hungry,
And he will cause the drink of the thirsty to foil.
7As for the fraudulent, his instruments are evil;
He plotteth mischievous devices
To destroy the oppressed with lying words,
Even when the poor man speaketh right.
8But the honourable man will devise honourable things,
And upon honourable things will he insist.
9Arise, hear my voice, ye women that are at ease,
Give ear unto my speech, ye careless daughters.
10Many days and years shall ye be disquieted, ye careless ones!
For the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come.
11Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be disquieted, ye careless ones!
Strip you, and make you bare; and gird sackcloth upon your loins.
12They lament for the fields,
For the pleasant field; for the fruitful vine.
13Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers,
Yea, upon all the joyous houses in the exulting city.
14For the palace shall be deserted, the populous city shall be forsaken;
The hill and the watch-tower shall be for dens, for a long season;
A joy of wild asses, a pasture for the flocks;
15Until the Spirit be poured out upon us from on high;
And the wilderness become a fruitful field,
And the fruitful field be esteemed a forest.
16Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness,
And righteousness inhabit the fruitful field.
17And the work of righteousness shall be peace;
And the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever.
18And my people shall dwell in a peaceful abode,
And in habitations secure,
And in resting-places undisturbed.
19But it shall hail at the time when the forest is cut down,
And into an humble state shall the city fall.
20Blessed are ye who sow your seed beside all waters,
Who send forth the foot of the ox and the ass.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
Translated by Rev John Jones (Ioan Tegid).Published at Oxford in 1830, second edition 1842.