Isaiah 33
33
The Ground Under Our Feet Mourns
1Doom to you, Destroyer,
not yet destroyed;
And doom to you, Betrayer,
not yet betrayed.
When you finish destroying,
your turn will come—destroyed!
When you quit betraying,
your turn will come—betrayed!
2-4 God, treat us kindly. You’re our only hope.
First thing in the morning, be there for us!
When things go bad, help us out!
You spoke in thunder and everyone ran.
You showed up and nations scattered.
Your people, for a change, got in on the loot,
picking the field clean of the enemy spoils.
5-6 God is supremely esteemed. His center holds.
Zion brims over with all that is just and right.
God keeps your days stable and secure—
salvation, wisdom, and knowledge in surplus,
and best of all, Zion’s treasure, Fear-of-God.
7-9But look! Listen!
Tough men weep openly.
Peacemaking diplomats are in bitter tears.
The roads are empty—
not a soul out on the streets.
The peace treaty is broken,
its conditions violated,
its signers reviled.
The very ground under our feet mourns,
the Lebanon mountains hang their heads,
Flowering Sharon is a weed-choked gully,
and the forests of Bashan and Carmel? Bare branches.
10-12“Now I’m stepping in,” God says.
“From now on, I’m taking over.
The gloves come off. Now see how mighty I am.
There’s nothing to you.
Pregnant with chaff, you produce straw babies;
full of hot air, you self-destruct.
You’re good for nothing but fertilizer and fuel.
Earth to earth—and the sooner the better.
13-14“If you’re far away,
get the reports on what I’ve done,
And if you’re in the neighborhood,
pay attention to my record.
The sinners in Zion are rightly terrified;
the godless are at their wit’s end:
‘Who among us can survive this firestorm?
Who of us can get out of this purge with our lives?’”
15-16The answer’s simple:
Live right,
speak the truth,
despise exploitation,
refuse bribes,
reject violence,
avoid evil amusements.
This is how you raise your standard of living!
A safe and stable way to live.
A nourishing, satisfying way to live.
God Makes All the Decisions Here
17-19Oh, you’ll see the king—a beautiful sight!
And you’ll take in the wide vistas of land.
In your mind you’ll go over the old terrors:
“What happened to that Assyrian inspector who condemned and confiscated?
And the one who gouged us of taxes?
And that cheating moneychanger?”
Gone! Out of sight forever! Their insolence
nothing now but a fading stain on the carpet!
No more putting up with a language you can’t understand,
no more sounds of gibberish in your ears.
20-22Just take a look at Zion, will you?
Centering our worship in festival feasts!
Feast your eyes on Jerusalem,
a quiet and permanent place to live.
No more pulling up stakes and moving on,
no more patched-together lean-tos.
Instead, God! God majestic, God himself the place
in a country of broad rivers and streams,
But rivers blocked to invading ships,
off-limits to predatory pirates.
For God makes all the decisions here. God is our king.
God runs this place and he’ll keep us safe.
23Ha! Your sails are in shreds,
your mast wobbling,
your hold leaking.
The plunder is free for the taking, free for all—
for weak and strong, insiders and outsiders.
24No one in Zion will say, “I’m sick.”
Best of all, they’ll all live guilt-free.
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Isaiah 33: 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 33
33
1Woe to you who destroy, but you weren’t destroyed,
and who betray, but nobody betrayed you!
When you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed;
and when you have finished betrayal, you will be betrayed.
2Yahweh, be gracious to us. We have waited for you.
Be our strength every morning,
our salvation also in the time of trouble.
3At the noise of the thunder, the peoples have fled.
When you lift yourself up, the nations are scattered.
4Your plunder will be gathered as the caterpillar gathers.
Men will leap on it as locusts leap.
5Yahweh is exalted, for he dwells on high.
He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.
6There will be stability in your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.
The fear of Yahweh is your treasure.
7Behold, their valiant ones cry outside;
the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.
8The highways are desolate.
The traveling man ceases.
The covenant is broken.
He has despised the cities.
He doesn’t respect man.
9The land mourns and languishes.
Lebanon is confounded and withers away.
Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel are stripped bare.
10“Now I will arise,” says Yahweh.
“Now I will lift myself up.
Now I will be exalted.
11You will conceive chaff.
You will give birth to stubble.
Your breath is a fire that will devour you.
12The peoples will be like the burning of lime,
like thorns that are cut down and burned in the fire.
13Hear, you who are far off, what I have done;
and, you who are near, acknowledge my might.”
14The sinners in Zion are afraid.
Trembling has seized the godless ones.
Who among us can live with the devouring fire?
Who among us can live with everlasting burning?
15He who walks righteously
and speaks blamelessly,
he who despises the gain of oppressions,
who gestures with his hands, refusing to take a bribe,
who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed,
and shuts his eyes from looking at evil—
16he will dwell on high.
His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks.
His bread will be supplied.
His waters will be sure.
17Your eyes will see the king in his beauty.
They will see a distant land.
18Your heart will meditate on the terror.
Where is he who counted?
Where is he who weighed?
Where is he who counted the towers?
19You will no longer see the fierce people,
a people of a deep speech that you can’t comprehend,
with a strange language that you can’t understand.
20Look at Zion, the city of our appointed festivals.
Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet habitation,
a tent that won’t be removed.
Its stakes will never be plucked up,
nor will any of its cords be broken.
21But there Yahweh will be with us in majesty,
a place of wide rivers and streams,
in which no galley with oars will go,
neither will any gallant ship pass by there.
22For Yahweh is our judge.
Yahweh is our lawgiver.
Yahweh is our king.
He will save us.
23Your rigging is untied.
They couldn’t strengthen the foot of their mast.
They couldn’t spread the sail.
Then the prey of a great plunder was divided.
The lame took the prey.
24The inhabitant won’t say, “I am sick.”
The people who dwell therein will be forgiven their iniquity.
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