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
Yahweh’s Judgment and Help
1Ah, destroyer, and yourself not destroyed!
And treacherous one, and no one has dealt treacherously with him!#Many manuscripts suggest “you” rather than “him”
When you cease#Literally “finishing” destroying, you will be destroyed.
When you stop dealing treacherously, one will deal treacherously with you.
2Yahweh, be gracious to us, we wait for you.
Be our#Hebrew “their” arm in the mornings,
indeed our salvation in the time of trouble.
3At the sound of tumult, peoples fled;
because of your exaltation, nations scattered.
4And your spoil is gathered,
as the gathering of the locust,
as a swarm of locusts storming on it.
5Yahweh is exalted, for he dwells on high;
he filled Zion with justice and righteousness,
6and he will be the security of your times,
an abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.
The fear of Yahweh is his treasure.
7Look! Their heroes cry out in the street;
the messengers of peace weep bitterly.
8Highways are deserted;
the traveler on the road ceases.
One breaks a treaty,
he rejects the cities,#A Dead Sea Scroll reads “witnesses”
he does not hold man in high regard.
9The land mourns; it languishes.
Lebanon feels abashed; it withers.
Sharon is like the desert,
and Bashan and Carmel are losing their leaves.#Literally “shaking off”
10“Now I will arise,” says Yahweh.
“Now I will lift myself up proudly;
now I will raise myself.
11You conceive dry grass, you bring forth stubble;
your breath is a fire; it will consume you.
12And the peoples will be burning to lime—
they are burned like thorns that have been cut down in the fire.
13You who are far away, hear what I have done;
and you who are near, know my might!”
14Sinners are afraid in Zion;
trembling has seized the godless:
“Who of us can live#Literally “dwell as an alien” with devouring fire?
Who of us can live#Literally “dwell as an alien” with everlasting consuming hearths?”
15He who walks in righteousness
and speaks uprightness,
who rejects the gain of extortion,
who refuses#Literally “shakes his hand from the taking of” a bribe,
who stops up his ears#Hebrew “ear” from hearing bloodshed#Literally “blood”
and shuts his eyes from seeing evil.
16That one will live on the heights;
the fortresses of rocks will be his refuge.
His food will be given;
his waters#Hebrew “water” will endure.
17Your eyes will see the king in his beauty;
they will see a distant land.#Literally “land of distance”
18Your mind#Literally “heart” will meditate on the terror:
“Where is the one who counted?
Where is the one who weighed out?
Where is the one who counted the towers?”
19You will not see the insolent people,
the people whose language is too obscure to understand,#Literally “obscure of lip than to hear”
whose stammering of tongue cannot be understood.#Literally “there is no understanding”
20Look on Zion, the city of our appointed festivals!
Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
an undisturbed settlement,
a tent that is not moved.#Literally “not he is loaded”
No one will ever pull out its tent pegs,
and none of its ropes will be torn in two.
21Rather, there Yahweh will be mighty for us,
a place of rivers and broad streams,#Literally “streams broad of hands”
a galley ship with#Or “of” oars#Hebrew “oar” cannot go in it,
and a mighty ship cannot pass through it.
22For Yahweh is our judge; Yahweh is our lawgiver.
Yahweh is our king; he is the one who will save us.
23Your riggings hang slack;
they do not hold the base of their mast firm,
they do not spread out the sail.
Then the prey of spoil in abundance will be divided;
the lame will take plunder.
24And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”;
the people who live in it, their iniquity will be taken away.
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