Isaiah 30

1Woe to the rebellious children, declares the LORD, who carry through a scheme that does not come from me, who seal a pact with a drink offering when my Spirit has not led them, piling up sin after sin, 2who head down to Egypt without seeking my word, to find safety in Pharaoh’s fortress and to hide in Egypt’s shade. 3But the safety Pharaoh offers will turn into your shame, and hiding in Egypt’s shade into your disgrace. 4His officials have gone as far as Zoan, and his envoys have arrived at Hanes. 5But all of them will be humiliated by a nation that is of no use to them. Egypt gives no help, no gain, nothing but shame and scorn.

6An oracle about the animals of the Negev. Through a land of misery and hardship, where lioness and lion roam, and viper and flying serpent, they load their wealth onto young donkeys and strap their treasures to the humps of camels, bringing them to a people who can do them no good. 7Egypt’s help is mere breath, utterly empty. So I have given her a name: Rahab, who sits and does nothing. 8Go now and write it on a tablet in front of them; set it down in a scroll, so that it will last into the future, for all time to come. 9For they are a defiant people, children who deal falsely, children who refuse to listen to the instruction of the LORD, 10who say to the seers, “Do not look,” and to those who see visions, “Do not show us what is right. Flatter us; dream up delusions. 11Get out of the way; step off the path; take the Holy One of Israel out of our sight.”

12So the Holy One of Israel says this: Since you have thrown aside this word, and put your confidence in oppression and deceit, and lean on them, 13therefore this guilt will be for you like a split in a tall wall, swelling outward and ready to fall, until it gives way all at once, without warning. 14It will burst apart like a potter’s jar, smashed without mercy, until not one piece is left large enough to lift coals from the hearth or dip a little water out of a pool.

15For the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, says this: Come back and be at rest, and you will be rescued. Your strength lies in staying calm and trusting. But you would not. 16Instead you said, “No! We will race away on horses.” So race away you will! “We will ride swift steeds.” So your pursuers will be swifter. 17A thousand of you will scatter at one man’s war cry; at the cry of five you will all scatter, until what remains of you is like a bare pole on a mountaintop, a lone flag on a hill. 18Even so, the LORD is waiting to be kind to you; he is rising to have mercy on you. For the LORD is a God of justice. Those who wait for him are truly blessed.

19A people will live in Zion, in Jerusalem, and you will never weep again. At the sound of your cry he will surely show you grace; the moment he hears it, he will reply. 20Though the Lord gives you hardship as your bread and distress as your water, your Teacher will not keep himself out of sight any longer; your eyes will see your Teacher. 21And when you stray to the right or to the left, a word will sound in your ears from behind you: “This is the road; keep walking on it.” 22Then you will treat as unclean the silver that covers your carved idols and the gold that sheathes your metal images. You will throw them away like a cloth from a woman’s monthly flow and say to them, “Get out!” 23Then he will water with rain the seed you plant in the soil, and the bread from the land’s harvest will be rich and full. On that day your herds will feed in open pastures. 24Even the oxen and donkeys that plow the soil will eat salted feed, winnowed clean with shovel and pitchfork. 25Water will run in streams and channels down every tall mountain and every raised hill on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers topple. 26The moonlight will be as bright as sunlight, and sunlight will be seven times stronger, like seven days’ light in one, on the day the LORD bandages the fractures of his people and heals the wounds his blows left.

27Look! The name of the LORD is coming from far away, his anger burning and the smoke rising thick and heavy. His lips brim with fury; his tongue is like a fire that devours. 28His breath is like a river in flood that rises neck-high. It comes to shake the nations in a sieve that sifts them to nothing, and to fit a bridle on the jaws of the peoples that steers them astray. 29But for you there will be singing, as on the night a holy feast begins, and joy in your hearts, like pilgrims walking to the flute’s tune on their way to the mountain of the LORD, the Rock of Israel. 30The LORD will make the splendor of his voice ring out, and he will show his arm as it falls, with furious anger and a flame of fire that devours, with bursting storm, driving rain, and hailstones. 31At the voice of the LORD Assyria will be shattered with dread, as he strikes it with the rod. 32Each time the LORD brings the rod he has appointed down on Assyria, tambourines and lyres will sound, and he will do battle against them with a raised and swinging arm. 33For Topheth was laid out long ago, and it stands ready for the king too. Its pyre is broad and deep, heaped with plenty of wood for the fire, and the breath of the LORD will kindle it like a river of sulfur.