Isaiah 18 - 22 - Legacy Standard Bible

Isaiah 18 - 22

A Message to Ethiopia

Alas, O land of whirring wings

Which lies beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,

Which sends envoys by the sea,

Even in papyrus vessels on the surface of the waters.

Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth,

To a people feared far and wide,

A powerful and oppressive nation

Whose land the rivers divide.

All you inhabitants of the world and dwellers on earth,

As soon as a standard is raised on the mountains, you will see it,

And as soon as the trumpet is blown, you will hear it.

4 For thus Yahweh has told me,

“I will look from My dwelling place quietly

Like dazzling heat in the sunshine,

Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

For before the harvest, as soon as the bud blossoms

And the flower becomes a ripening grape,

Then He will cut off the sprigs with pruning knives

And remove and cut away the spreading branches.

They will be left together for mountain birds of prey,

And for the beasts of the earth;

And the birds of prey will spend the summer feeding on them,

And all the beasts of the earth will spend harvest time on them.

At that time a gift of homage will be brought to Yahweh of hosts

From a people tall and smooth,

Even from a people feared far and wide,

A powerful and oppressive nation,

Whose land the rivers divide—

To the place of the name of Yahweh of hosts, even Mount Zion.

An Oracle Concerning Egypt

The oracle concerning Egypt.

Behold, Yahweh is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt;

The idols of Egypt will shake at His presence,

And the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.

“So I will incite Egyptians against Egyptians;

And they will each fight against his brother and each against his neighbor,

City against city and kingdom against kingdom.

Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be emptied to destruction within them;

And I will confuse their counsel,

So that they will seek idols and ghosts of the dead

And to mediums and spiritists.

Moreover, I will deliver the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel master,

And a strong king will rule over them,” declares the Lord, Yahweh of hosts.

The waters from the sea will dry up,

And the river will be parched and dry.

The rivers will emit a stench,

The streams of Egypt will thin out and dry up;

The reeds and rushes will rot away.

The bulrushes by the Nile, by the edge of the Nile

And all the sown fields by the Nile

Will become dry, be driven away, and be no more.

And the fishermen will lament,

And all those who cast a line into the Nile will mourn,

And those who spread nets on the waters will languish.

Moreover, the manufacturers of linen made from combed flax

And the weavers of white cloth will be ashamed.

And the pillars of Egypt will be crushed;

All the hired laborers will be grieved in soul.

The princes of Zoan are merely ignorant fools;

The counsel of Pharaoh’s wisest counselors has become senseless.

How can you men say to Pharaoh,

“I am a son of the wise, a son of the kings of old”?

Well then, where are your wise men?

Please let them tell you,

And let them understand what Yahweh of hosts

Has counseled against Egypt.

The princes of Zoan have acted as ignorant fools,

The princes of Memphis are deluded;

Those who are the cornerstone of her tribes

Have led Egypt astray.

Yahweh has mixed within her a spirit of distortion;

They have led Egypt astray in all that it does,

As a drunken man strays into his vomit.

There will be no work for Egypt

Which its head or tail, its palm branch or bulrush, may do.

Yahweh Will Bless Egypt, Assyria, and Israel

16 In that day the Egyptians will become like women, and they will tremble and be in dread because of the waving of the hand of Yahweh of hosts, which He is going to wave over them. 17 And the land of Judah will become a terror to Egypt; everyone to whom it is mentioned will be in dread of it because of the counsel of Yahweh of hosts which He is counseling against them. 18 In that day five cities in the land of Egypt will be speaking the language of Canaan and swearing allegiance to Yahweh of hosts; one will be called the City of Destruction. 19 In that day there will be an altar to Yahweh in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to Yahweh near its border. 20 And it will become a sign and a witness to Yahweh of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they will cry to Yahweh because of oppressors, and He will send them a Savior and a Champion, and He will deliver them. 21 Thus Yahweh will make Himself known to Egypt, and the Egyptians will know Yahweh in that day. They will even worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make a vow to Yahweh and pay it. 22 And Yahweh will smite Egypt, smiting but healing; so they will return to Yahweh, and He will be moved by their entreaty and will heal them. 23 In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians will come into Egypt and the Egyptians into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. 24 In that day Israel will be the third party with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, 25 whom Yahweh of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.”

A Prophecy About Egypt and Ethiopia

In the year that the commander came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him and he fought against Ashdod and captured it, 2 at that time Yahweh spoke by the hand of Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go and loosen the sackcloth from your hips and take your shoes off your feet.” And he did so, going naked and barefoot. 3 And Yahweh said, “Even as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot three years as a sign and wonder against Egypt and Ethiopia, 4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. 5 Then they will be dismayed and ashamed because of Ethiopia their hope and Egypt their boast. 6 So the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, ‘Behold, such is our hope, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria; and we, how shall we escape?’”

Fallen, Fallen Is Babylon

The oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea.

As whirlwinds in the Negev sweep on,

It comes from the wilderness, from a fearsome land.

A harsh vision has been declared to me;

The treacherous one still deals treacherously, and the destroyer still destroys.

Go up, Elam, lay siege, Media;

I have made an end of all the groaning she has caused.

For this reason my loins are full of anguish;

Pains have seized me like the pains of a woman in labor.

I am so bewildered I cannot hear, so terrified I cannot see.

My heart reels; horror terrorizes me;

The twilight I longed for has been turned for me into trembling.

They set the table, they spread out the cloth, they eat, they drink;

“Rise up, commanders, oil the shields,”

6 For thus the Lord says to me,

“Go, station the lookout, let him declare what he sees.

Indeed, he shall see riders, horsemen in pairs,

Riders of donkeys, riders of camels,

So let him pay close attention, very close attention.”

8 Then the lookout called,

“O Lord, I stand continually by day on the watchtower,

And I am stationed every night at my guard post.

Now behold, here comes a troop of riders, horsemen in pairs.”

And one answered and said, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon;

And all the graven images of her gods are shattered on the ground.”

O my trampled people and my afflicted of the threshing floor!

What I have heard from Yahweh of hosts,

The God of Israel, I have declared to you.

Oracles Concerning Dumah and Arabia

11 The oracle concerning Dumah.

One keeps calling to me from Seir,

“Watchman, how far gone is the night?

Watchman, how far gone is the night?”

The watchman says,

“Morning comes but also night.

If you would inquire, inquire;

Come back again.”

13 The oracle about Arabia.

In the thickets of Arabia you must spend the night,

O caravans of Dedanites.

Bring water to meet the thirsty,

O inhabitants of the land of Tema,

Meet with bread the one who has fled.

For they have fled from the swords,

From the drawn sword, and from the bent bow

And from the heaviness of battle.

16 For thus the Lord said to me, “In a year, as a hired man would count it, all the glory of Kedar will end; 17 and the remainder of the number of bowmen, the mighty men of the sons of Kedar, will be few; for Yahweh, the God of Israel, has spoken.”

An Oracle Concerning the Valley of Vision

The oracle concerning the valley of vision.

What is the matter with you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops?

You who were full of noise,

You roaring city, you exultant town;

Your slain were not slain with the sword,

Nor did they die in battle.

All your rulers have fled together,

And have been captured without the bow;

All of you who were found were captured together,

Though they had fled far away.

Therefore I say, “Turn your gaze away from me,

Let me weep bitterly,

Do not insist on comforting me concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people.”

For Lord Yahweh of hosts has a day of confusion, oppression, and panic

In the valley of vision,

A breaking down of walls

And a crying to the mountain.

Now Elam took up the quiver

With the chariots, infantry, and horsemen;

And Kir uncovered the shield.

Then your choicest valleys were full of chariots,

And the horsemen took up fixed positions at the gate.

And He revealed the defense of Judah.

In that day you looked to the weapons of the house of the forest,

And you saw that the breaches

In the wall of the city of David were many;

And you collected the waters of the lower pool.

Then you counted the houses of Jerusalem

And tore down houses to fortify the wall.

And you made a reservoir between the two walls

For the waters of the old pool.

But you did not look to Him who made it,

Nor did you see Him who formed it long ago.

Therefore in that day Lord Yahweh of hosts called you to weeping, to wailing,

To shaving the head, and to wearing sackcloth.

Instead, behold, there is joy and gladness,

Killing of cattle and slaughtering of sheep,

Eating of meat and drinking of wine:

“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we may die.”

But Yahweh of hosts revealed Himself in my ears,

“Surely this iniquity shall not be atoned for you

Until you die,” says Lord Yahweh of hosts.

15 Thus says Lord Yahweh of hosts,

“Come, go to this steward,

To Shebna, who is in charge of the royal household,

‘What right do you have here,

And whom do you have here,

That you have hewn a tomb for yourself here,

You who hew a tomb on the height,

You who carve a dwelling place for yourself in the cliff?

Behold, Yahweh is about to hurl you headlong, O man.

And He is about to grasp you firmly

And He will surely roll you tightly like a ball,

To be cast into a vast country;

There you will die,

And there your glorious chariots will be,

You disgrace of your master’s house.’

I will push you out of your office,

And I will pull you down from your station.

Then it will be in that day,

That I will summon My servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,

And I will clothe him with your tunic

And tie your sash securely about him.

I will give your authority into his hand,

And he will become a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.

Then I will set the key of the house of David on his shoulder,

When he opens no one will shut,

When he shuts no one will open.

I will drive him like a peg in a firm place,

And he will become a throne of glory to his father’s house.

24 So they will hang on him all the glory of his father’s house, offspring and issue, all the least of vessels, from bowls to all the jars. 25 In that day,” declares Yahweh of hosts, “the peg driven in a firm place will give way; it will even break off and fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut off, for Yahweh has spoken.”