Isaiah 29

1Woe to Ariel, Ariel, the town where David made camp! Add one year to another; let the festivals come around again. 2Then I will press Ariel hard; there will be mourning and moaning, and she will be to me like an altar hearth. 3I will camp in a ring all around you; I will hem you in with siege posts and set up siege works against you. 4Brought low, you will speak from the ground; your words will come muffled from the dust. Your voice will rise from the earth like a ghost’s, and from the dust your words will chirp. 5Yet the horde of your foes will be like fine dust, the horde of the ruthless like chaff that blows away. It will happen in a moment, all at once. 6The LORD of Armies will come to her with thunder, earthquake, and a mighty roar, with gale and tempest and the blaze of a fire that consumes. 7Then the horde of all the nations that make war on Ariel, all who attack her and her stronghold and press her hard, will be like a dream, like something seen in the night. 8It will be like someone hungry who dreams of eating, then wakes and the stomach is still empty; like someone thirsty who dreams of drinking, then wakes weak, the throat dry and craving. That is how it will be for the horde of all the nations that make war on Mount Zion.

9Go slow and stand stunned; make yourselves blind and stay blind! They are drunk, though not with wine; they reel, though not from strong drink. 10The LORD has poured over you a spirit of heavy sleep. He has shut your eyes, that is, your prophets; he has wrapped your heads, that is, your seers. 11This whole vision has become for you like the words of a sealed scroll. People hand it to someone who can read and say, “Please read this,” and the answer comes, “I cannot; it is sealed.” 12Or the scroll is handed to someone who cannot read, with the words, “Please read this,” and the answer comes, “I do not know how to read.”

13The Lord said: Since this people approaches me with words of the mouth and gives me honor with their lips while keeping their heart far from me, and the fear they show me is only a human rule learned by rote, 14therefore I will once again deal with this people in astonishing ways, marvel after marvel. The wisdom of their wise will come to nothing, and the insight of their discerning will disappear from sight.

15Woe to those who burrow deep to keep their schemes hidden from the LORD! Their deeds are done in a dark place, and they say, “Who sees us? Who knows about us?” 16How you turn everything on its head! Is the potter to be counted the same as the clay? Should the thing that was made say of its maker, “He did not make me”? Should the vessel say of the one who shaped it, “He has no sense”? 17Is it not only a little while longer before Lebanon becomes orchard land, and the orchard land is counted a forest? 18On that day the deaf will hear the words written in a scroll, and blind eyes will see, out of the gloom and the dark. 19The humble will have more and more joy in the LORD, and the neediest of humankind will be glad in the Holy One of Israel. 20For the ruthless will be gone and the scoffer finished, and all who are on the watch for a chance to do wrong will be cut off, 21those who make a person guilty with a single word, who set snares for the one who speaks up for justice in the gate, and with baseless claims turn the innocent away.

22Therefore the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, says this about the house of Jacob: From now on Jacob will not be disgraced; his face will not turn pale anymore. 23For when Jacob sees his children around him, children my hands have made, they will keep my name holy. They will honor the Holy One of Jacob as holy and tremble with awe before the God of Israel. 24People whose spirits have strayed will gain insight, and the grumblers will take teaching to heart.