Isaiah 56
56
Messages of Hope
Salvation Is Just Around the Corner
1-3 God’s Message:
“Guard my common good:
Do what’s right and do it in the right way,
For salvation is just around the corner,
my setting-things-right is about to go into action.
How fortunate are you who enter into these things,
you men and women who embrace them,
Who keep Sabbath and don’t defile it,
who watch your step and don’t do anything evil!
Make sure no outsider who now follows God
ever has occasion to say, ‘God put me in second-class.
I don’t really belong.’
And make sure no physically mutilated person
is ever made to think, ‘I’m damaged goods.
I don’t really belong.’”
4-5For God says:
“To the mutilated who keep my Sabbaths
and choose what delights me
and keep a firm grip on my covenant,
I’ll provide them an honored place
in my family and within my city,
even more honored than that of sons and daughters.
I’ll confer permanent honors on them
that will never be revoked.
6-8“And as for the outsiders who now follow me,
working for me, loving my name,
and wanting to be my servants—
All who keep Sabbath and don’t defile it,
holding fast to my covenant—
I’ll bring them to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
They’ll be welcome to worship the same as the ‘insiders,’
to bring burnt offerings and sacrifices to my altar.
Oh yes, my house of worship
will be known as a house of prayer for all people.”
The Decree of the Master, God himself,
who gathers in the exiles of Israel:
“I will gather others also,
gather them in with those already gathered.”
* * *
9-12A call to the savage beasts: Come on the run.
Come, devour, beast barbarians!
For Israel’s watchmen are blind, the whole lot of them.
They have no idea what’s going on.
They’re dogs without sense enough to bark,
lazy dogs, dreaming in the sun—
But hungry dogs, they do know how to eat,
voracious dogs, with never enough.
And these are Israel’s shepherds!
They know nothing, understand nothing.
They all look after themselves,
grabbing whatever’s not nailed down.
“Come,” they say, “let’s have a party.
Let’s go out and get drunk!”
And tomorrow, more of the same:
“Let’s live it up!”
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Isaiah 56: 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 56
56
LVI
1Thus saith Jehovah:
Keep ye judgment, and do justice;
For my salvation is near to come,
And my righteousness to be revealed.
2Blessed is the man that doeth this,
And the son of man that layeth hold on it;
That keepeth the sabbath from profaning it;
And keepeth his hand from doing any evil.
3And let not the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to Jehovah, speak, saying:
Jehovah hath utterly separated me from his people;
Neither let the eunuch say:
Behold! I am a dry tree.
4For thus saith Jehovah unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths,
And choose that in which I delight,
And take hold of my covenant;
5Even unto them will I give in mine house, and within my walls,
A place and a name better than of sons and daughters:
I will give them an everlasting name,
That shall never be cut off.
6And the sons of the stranger that join themselves unto Jehovah, to minister unto him,
And to love the name of Jehovah, and to become his servants;
Every one that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it,
And that taketh hold of my covenant;
7Even them will I bring to my holy mountain,
And make them joyful in mine house of prayer:
Their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar;
For mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.
8The Lord Jehovah,
Who gathereth together the outcasts of Israel, saith:
Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him.
9All ye beasts of the field, come to devour;
Yea, all ye beasts of the forest I
10His watchmen are blind, they are all ignorant;
They are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark;
Dreaming, stretching along, loving to slumber.
11Yea, they are dogs of greedy appetite, they can never have enough;
And the shepherds themselves cannot understand:
They all turn to their own way;
Every one for his gain from his quarter.
12Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine,
And we will fill ourselves with strong drink;
And tomorrow shall be as this day,
And much more abundant.
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Translated by Rev John Jones (Ioan Tegid).Published at Oxford in 1830, second edition 1842.