Hezekiah Shows His Treasures

1 At that time Merodach-baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that he had been sick and had recovered. 2 Hezekiah was pleased, and showed them {all} his treasure house, the silver and the gold and the spices and the precious oil and his whole armory and all that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his house nor in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them. 3 Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say, and from where have they come to you? And Hezekiah said, “They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon. 4 He said, “What have they seen in your house? So Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing among my treasuries that I have not shown them.

 5 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD of hosts, 6 `Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house and all that your fathers have laid up in store to this day will be carried to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the LORD. 7 `And {some} of your sons who will issue from you, whom you will beget, will be taken away, and they will become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon.’ 8 Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD which you have spoken is good. For he thought, “For there will be peace and truth in my days.

Hezekiah Healed

1 In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, `Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’ 2 Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, 3 and said, “Remember now, O LORD, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

 4 Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying, 5 “Go and say to Hezekiah, `Thus says the LORD, the God of your father David, “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will add fifteen years to your life. 6 “I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city.’

 7 “This shall be the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that He has spoken: 8 “Behold, I will cause the shadow on the stairway, which has gone down with the sun on the stairway of Ahaz, to go back ten steps. So the sun’s {shadow} went back ten steps on the stairway on which it had gone down.

 9 A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery: 10
I said, “In the middle of my life
I am to enter the gates of Sheol;
I am to be deprived of the rest of my years. 11
I said, “I will not see the LORD,
The LORD in the land of the living;
I will look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world. 12
“Like a shepherd’s tent my dwelling is pulled up and removed from me;
As a weaver I rolled up my life.
He cuts me off from the loom;
From day until night You make an end of me. 13
“I composed {my soul} until morning.
Like a lion–so He breaks all my bones,
From day until night You make an end of me. 14
“Like a swallow, {like} a crane, so I twitter;
I moan like a dove;
My eyes look wistfully to the heights;
O Lord, I am oppressed, be my security.

 15
“What shall I say?
For He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it;
I will wander about all my years because of the bitterness of my soul. 16
“O Lord, by {these} things {men} live,
And in all these is the life of my spirit;
O restore me to health and let me live! 17
“Lo, for {my own} welfare I had great bitterness;
It is You who has kept my soul from the pit of nothingness,
For You have cast all my sins behind Your back. 18
“For Sheol cannot thank You,
Death cannot praise You;
Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness. 19
“It is the living who give thanks to You, as I do today;
A father tells his sons about Your faithfulness. 20
“The LORD will surely save me;
So we will play my songs on stringed instruments
All {the} days of our life at the house of the LORD.

 21 Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover. 22 Then Hezekiah had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?

Hezekiah Seeks Isaiah’s Help

1 And when King Hezekiah heard {it,} he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth and entered the house of the LORD. 2 Then he sent Eliakim who was over the household with Shebna the scribe and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. 3 They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, `This day is a day of distress, rebuke and rejection; for children have come to birth, and there is no strength to deliver. 4 `Perhaps the LORD your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the LORD your God has heard. Therefore, offer a prayer for the remnant that is left.’

 5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master, `Thus says the LORD, “Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. 7 “Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land. And I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.’

 8 Then Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left Lachish. 9 When he heard {them} say concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, “He has come out to fight against you, and when he heard {it} he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10 “Thus you shall say to Hezekiah king of Judah, `Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11 `Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them completely. So will you be spared? 12 `Did the gods of those nations which my fathers have destroyed deliver them, {even} Gozan and Haran and Rezeph and the sons of Eden who {were} in Telassar? 13 `Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, {and of} Hena and Ivvah?’

Hezekiah’s Prayer in the Temple

 14 Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. 15 Hezekiah prayed to the LORD saying, 16 “O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, who is enthroned {above} the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 17 “Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; and listen to all the words of Sennacherib, who sent {them} to reproach the living God. 18 “Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have devastated all the countries and their lands, 19 and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them. 20 “Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, LORD, are God.

God Answers through Isaiah

 21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent {word} to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, `Because you have prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 this is the word that the LORD has spoken against him:
“She has despised you and mocked you,
The virgin daughter of Zion;
She has shaken {her} head behind you,
The daughter of Jerusalem! 23
“Whom have you reproached and blasphemed?
And against whom have you raised {your} voice
And haughtily lifted up your eyes?
Against the Holy One of Israel! 24
“Through your servants you have reproached the Lord,
And you have said, `With my many chariots I came up to the heights of the mountains,
To the remotest parts of Lebanon;
And I cut down its tall cedars {and} its choice cypresses.
And I will go to its highest peak, its thickest forest. 25
`I dug {wells} and drank waters,
And with the sole of my feet I dried up
All the rivers of Egypt.’ 26
“Have you not heard?
Long ago I did it,
From ancient times I planned it.
Now I have brought it to pass,
That you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps. 27
“Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength,
They were dismayed and put to shame;
They were {as} the vegetation of the field and {as} the green herb,
{As} grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up. 28
“But I know your sitting down
And your going out and your coming in
And your raging against Me. 29
“Because of your raging against Me
And because your arrogance has come up to My ears,
Therefore I will put My hook in your nose
And My bridle in your lips,
And I will turn you back by the way which you came.

 30 “Then this shall be the sign for you: you will eat this year what grows of itself, in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 31 “The surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward. 32 “For out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant and out of Mount Zion survivors. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.’

 33 “Therefore, thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, `He will not come to this city or shoot an arrow there; and he will not come before it with a shield, or throw up a siege ramp against it. 34 `By the way that he came, by the same he will return, and he will not come to this city,’ declares the LORD. 35 `For I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’

Assyrians Destroyed

 36 Then the angel of the LORD went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, all of these were dead. 37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned {home} and lived at Nineveh. 38 It came about as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons killed him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son became king in his place.

Sennacherib Invades Judah

1 Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them. 2 And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a large army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway of the fuller’s field. 3 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to him.

 4 Then Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, `Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, “What is this confidence that you have? 5 “I say, `Your counsel and strength for the war are only empty words.’ Now on whom do you rely, that you have rebelled against me? 6 “Behold, you rely on the staff of this crushed reed, {even} on Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him. 7 “But if you say to me, `We trust in the LORD our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, `You shall worship before this altar’? 8 “Now therefore, come make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. 9 “How then can you repulse one official of the least of my master’s servants and rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 10 “Have I now come up without the LORD’S approval against this land to destroy it? The LORD said to me, `Go up against this land and destroy it.”

 11 Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Speak now to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand {it;} and do not speak with us in Judean in the hearing of the people who are on the wall. 12 But Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words, {and} not to the men who sit on the wall, {doomed} to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?

 13 Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in Judean and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. 14 “Thus says the king, `Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you; 15 nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us, this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 16 `Do not listen to Hezekiah,’ for thus says the king of Assyria, `Make your peace with me and come out to me, and eat each of his vine and each of his fig tree and drink each of the waters of his own cistern, 17 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 18 `{Beware} that Hezekiah does not mislead you, saying, “The LORD will deliver us. Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? 19 `Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And when have they delivered Samaria from my hand? 20 `Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their land from my hand, that the LORD would deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’

 21 But they were silent and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him. 22 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of Rabshakeh.

Zion’s Happy Future

1
The wilderness and the desert will be glad,
And the Arabah will rejoice and blossom;
Like the crocus 2
It will blossom profusely
And rejoice with rejoicing and shout of joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
The majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
They will see the glory of the LORD,
The majesty of our God. 3
Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble. 4
Say to those with anxious heart,
“Take courage, fear not.
Behold, your God will come {with} vengeance;
The recompense of God will come,
But He will save you. 5
Then the eyes of the blind will be opened
And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. 6
Then the lame will leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy.
For waters will break forth in the wilderness
And streams in the Arabah. 7
The scorched land will become a pool
And the thirsty ground springs of water;
In the haunt of jackals, its resting place,
Grass {becomes} reeds and rushes. 8
A highway will be there, a roadway,
And it will be called the Highway of Holiness.
The unclean will not travel on it,
But it {will} be for him who walks {that} way,
And fools will not wander {on it.} 9
No lion will be there,
Nor will any vicious beast go up on it;
These will not be found there.
But the redeemed will walk {there,} 10
And the ransomed of the LORD will return
And come with joyful shouting to Zion,
With everlasting joy upon their heads.
They will find gladness and joy,
And sorrow and sighing will flee away.

God’s Wrath against Nations

1
Draw near, O nations, to hear; and listen, O peoples!
Let the earth and all it contains hear, and the world and all that springs from it. 2
For the LORD’S indignation is against all the nations,
And {His} wrath against all their armies;
He has utterly destroyed them,
He has given them over to slaughter. 3
So their slain will be thrown out,
And their corpses will give off their stench,
And the mountains will be drenched with their blood. 4
And all the host of heaven will wear away,
And the sky will be rolled up like a scroll;
All their hosts will also wither away
As a leaf withers from the vine,
Or as {one} withers from the fig tree. 5
For My sword is satiated in heaven,
Behold it shall descend for judgment upon Edom
And upon the people whom I have devoted to destruction. 6
The sword of the LORD is filled with blood,
It is sated with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats,
With the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah
And a great slaughter in the land of Edom. 7
Wild oxen will also fall with them
And young bulls with strong ones;
Thus their land will be soaked with blood,
And their dust become greasy with fat. 8
For the LORD has a day of vengeance,
A year of recompense for the cause of Zion. 9
Its streams will be turned into pitch,
And its loose earth into brimstone,
And its land will become burning pitch. 10
It will not be quenched night or day;
Its smoke will go up forever.
From generation to generation it will be desolate;
None will pass through it forever and ever. 11
But pelican and hedgehog will possess it,
And owl and raven will dwell in it;
And He will stretch over it the line of desolation
And the plumb line of emptiness. 12
Its nobles–there is no one there
{Whom} they may proclaim king–
And all its princes will be nothing. 13
Thorns will come up in its fortified towers,
Nettles and thistles in its fortified cities;
It will also be a haunt of jackals
{And} an abode of ostriches. 14
The desert creatures will meet with the wolves,
The hairy goat also will cry to its kind;
Yes, the night monster will settle there
And will find herself a resting place. 15
The tree snake will make its nest and lay {eggs} there,
And it will hatch and gather {them} under its protection.
Yes, the hawks will be gathered there,
Every one with its kind.

 16 Seek from the book of the LORD, and read:
Not one of these will be missing;
None will lack its mate.
For His mouth has commanded,
And His Spirit has gathered them. 17
He has cast the lot for them,
And His hand has divided it to them by line.
They shall possess it forever;
From generation to generation they will dwell in it.

The Judgment of God

1
Woe to you, O destroyer,
While you were not destroyed;
And he who is treacherous, while {others} did not deal treacherously with him.
As soon as you finish destroying, you will be destroyed;
As soon as you cease to deal treacherously, {others} will deal treacherously with you. 2
O LORD, be gracious to us; we have waited for You.
Be their strength every morning,
Our salvation also in the time of distress. 3
At the sound of the tumult peoples flee;
At the lifting up of Yourself nations disperse. 4
Your spoil is gathered {as} the caterpillar gathers;
As locusts rushing about men rush about on it. 5
The LORD is exalted, for He dwells on high;
He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness. 6
And He will be the stability of your times,
A wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge;
The fear of the LORD is his treasure. 7
Behold, their brave men cry in the streets,
The ambassadors of peace weep bitterly. 8
The highways are desolate, the traveler has ceased,
He has broken the covenant, he has despised the cities,
He has no regard for man. 9
The land mourns {and} pines away,
Lebanon is shamed {and} withers;
Sharon is like a desert plain,
And Bashan and Carmel lose {their foliage.} 10
“Now I will arise, says the LORD,
“Now I will be exalted, now I will be lifted up. 11
“You have conceived chaff, you will give birth to stubble;
My breath will consume you like a fire. 12
“The peoples will be burned to lime,
Like cut thorns which are burned in the fire.

 13
“You who are far away, hear what I have done;
And you who are near, acknowledge My might. 14
Sinners in Zion are terrified;
Trembling has seized the godless.
“Who among us can live with the consuming fire?
Who among us can live with continual burning? 15
He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity,
He who rejects unjust gain
And shakes his hands so that they hold no bribe;
He who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed
And shuts his eyes from looking upon evil; 16
He will dwell on the heights,
His refuge will be the impregnable rock;
His bread will be given {him,}
His water will be sure.

 17
Your eyes will see the King in His beauty;
They will behold a far-distant land. 18
Your heart will meditate on terror:
“Where is he who counts?
Where is he who weighs?
Where is he who counts the towers? 19
You will no longer see a fierce people,
A people of unintelligible speech which no one comprehends,
Of a stammering tongue which no one understands. 20
Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts;
Your eyes will see Jerusalem, an undisturbed habitation,
A tent which will not be folded;
Its stakes will never be pulled up,
Nor any of its cords be torn apart. 21
But there the majestic {One,} the LORD, will be for us
A place of rivers {and} wide canals
On which no boat with oars will go,
And on which no mighty ship will pass– 22
For the LORD is our judge,
The LORD is our lawgiver,
The LORD is our king;
He will save us– 23
Your tackle hangs slack;
It cannot hold the base of its mast firmly,
Nor spread out the sail.
Then the prey of an abundant spoil will be divided;
The lame will take the plunder. 24
And no resident will say, “I am sick;
The people who dwell there will be forgiven {their} iniquity.

The Glorious Future

1
Behold, a king will reign righteously
And princes will rule justly. 2
Each will be like a refuge from the wind
And a shelter from the storm,
Like streams of water in a dry country,
Like the shade of a huge rock in a parched land. 3
Then the eyes of those who see will not be blinded,
And the ears of those who hear will listen. 4
The mind of the hasty will discern the truth,
And the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak clearly. 5
No longer will the fool be called noble,
Or the rogue be spoken of {as} generous. 6
For a fool speaks nonsense,
And his heart inclines toward wickedness:
To practice ungodliness and to speak error against the LORD,
To keep the hungry person unsatisfied
And to withhold drink from the thirsty. 7
As for a rogue, his weapons are evil;
He devises wicked schemes
To destroy {the} afflicted with slander,
Even though {the} needy one speaks what is right. 8
But the noble man devises noble plans;
And by noble plans he stands.

 9
Rise up, you women who are at ease,
{And} hear my voice;
Give ear to my word,
You complacent daughters. 10
Within a year and {a few} days
You will be troubled, O complacent {daughters;}
For the vintage is ended,
{And} the {fruit} gathering will not come. 11
Tremble, you {women} who are at ease;
Be troubled, you complacent {daughters;}
Strip, undress and put {sackcloth} on {your} waist, 12
Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine, 13
For the land of my people {in which} thorns {and} briars shall come up;
Yea, for all the joyful houses {and for} the jubilant city. 14
Because the palace has been abandoned, the populated city forsaken.
Hill and watch-tower have become caves forever,
A delight for wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks; 15
Until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high,
And the wilderness becomes a fertile field,
And the fertile field is considered as a forest. 16
Then justice will dwell in the wilderness
And righteousness will abide in the fertile field. 17
And the work of righteousness will be peace,
And the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever. 18
Then my people will live in a peaceful habitation,
And in secure dwellings and in undisturbed resting places; 19
And it will hail when the forest comes down,
And the city will be utterly laid low. 20
How blessed will you be, you who sow beside all waters,
Who let out freely the ox and the donkey.

Help Not in Egypt but in God

1
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help
{And} rely on horses,
And trust in chariots because they are many
And in horsemen because they are very strong,
But they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the LORD! 2
Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster
And does not retract His words,
But will arise against the house of evildoers
And against the help of the workers of iniquity. 3
Now the Egyptians are men and not God,
And their horses are flesh and not spirit;
So the LORD will stretch out His hand,
And he who helps will stumble
And he who is helped will fall,
And all of them will come to an end together.

 4 For thus says the LORD to me,
“As the lion or the young lion growls over his prey,
Against which a band of shepherds is called out,
{And} he will not be terrified at their voice nor disturbed at their noise,
So will the LORD of hosts come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill. 5
Like flying birds so the LORD of hosts will protect Jerusalem.
He will protect and deliver {it;}
He will pass over and rescue {it.}

 6 Return to Him from whom you have deeply defected, O sons of Israel. 7 For in that day every man will cast away his silver idols and his gold idols, which your sinful hands have made for you as a sin. 8
And the Assyrian will fall by a sword not of man,
And a sword not of man will devour him.
So he will not escape the sword,
And his young men will become forced laborers. 9
“His rock will pass away because of panic,
And his princes will be terrified at the standard,
Declares the LORD, whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

Judah Warned against Egyptian Alliance

1
“Woe to the rebellious children, declares the LORD,
“Who execute a plan, but not Mine,
And make an alliance, but not of My Spirit,
In order to add sin to sin; 2
Who proceed down to Egypt
Without consulting Me,
To take refuge in the safety of Pharaoh
And to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! 3
“Therefore the safety of Pharaoh will be your shame
And the shelter in the shadow of Egypt, your humiliation. 4
“For their princes are at Zoan
And their ambassadors arrive at Hanes. 5
“Everyone will be ashamed because of a people who cannot profit them,
{Who are} not for help or profit, but for shame and also for reproach.

 6 The oracle concerning the beasts of the Negev.
Through a land of distress and anguish,
From where {come} lioness and lion, viper and flying serpent,
They carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys
And their treasures on camels’ humps,
To a people who cannot profit {them;} 7
Even Egypt, whose help is vain and empty.
Therefore, I have called her
“Rahab who has been exterminated. 8
Now go, write it on a tablet before them
And inscribe it on a scroll,
That it may serve in the time to come
As a witness forever. 9
For this is a rebellious people, false sons,
Sons who refuse to listen
To the instruction of the LORD; 10
Who say to the seers, “You must not see {visions};
And to the prophets, “You must not prophesy to us what is right,
Speak to us pleasant words,
Prophesy illusions. 11
“Get out of the way, turn aside from the path,
Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.

 12 Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel,
“Since you have rejected this word
And have put your trust in oppression and guile, and have relied on them, 13
Therefore this iniquity will be to you
Like a breach about to fall,
A bulge in a high wall,
Whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant, 14
Whose collapse is like the smashing of a potter’s jar,
So ruthlessly shattered
That a sherd will not be found among its pieces
To take fire from a hearth
Or to scoop water from a cistern.

 15 For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said,
“In repentance and rest you will be saved,
In quietness and trust is your strength.
But you were not willing, 16
And you said, “No, for we will flee on horses,
Therefore you shall flee!
“And we will ride on swift {horses,}
Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift. 17
One thousand {will flee} at the threat of one {man;}
You will flee at the threat of five,
Until you are left as a flag on a mountain top
And as a signal on a hill.

God Is Gracious and Just

 18
Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you,
And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.
For the LORD is a God of justice;
How blessed are all those who long for Him.

 19 O people in Zion, inhabitant in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you. 20 Although the Lord has given you bread of privation and water of oppression, {He,} your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. 21 Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it, whenever you turn to the right or to the left. 22 And you will defile your graven images overlaid with silver, and your molten images plated with gold. You will scatter them as an impure thing, {and} say to them, “Be gone!

 23 Then He will give {you} rain for the seed which you will sow in the ground, and bread {from} the yield of the ground, and it will be rich and plenteous; on that day your livestock will graze in a roomy pasture. 24 Also the oxen and the donkeys which work the ground will eat salted fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. 25 On every lofty mountain and on every high hill there will be streams running with water on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 26 The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times {brighter,} like the light of seven days, on the day the LORD binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted.

 27
Behold, the name of the LORD comes from a remote place;
Burning is His anger and dense is {His} smoke;
His lips are filled with indignation
And His tongue is like a consuming fire; 28
His breath is like an overflowing torrent,
Which reaches to the neck,
To shake the nations back and forth in a sieve,
And to {put} in the jaws of the peoples the bridle which leads to ruin. 29
You will have songs as in the night when you keep the festival,
And gladness of heart as when one marches to {the sound of} the flute,
To go to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel. 30
And the LORD will cause His voice of authority to be heard,
And the descending of His arm to be seen in fierce anger,
And {in} the flame of a consuming fire
In cloudburst, downpour and hailstones. 31
For at the voice of the LORD Assyria will be terrified,
{When} He strikes with the rod. 32
And every blow of the rod of punishment,
Which the LORD will lay on him,
Will be with {the music of} tambourines and lyres;
And in battles, brandishing weapons, He will fight them. 33
For Topheth has long been ready,
Indeed, it has been prepared for the king.
He has made it deep and large,
A pyre of fire with plenty of wood;
The breath of the LORD, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it afire.