NAS - Isaiah Chapter 3 to 6

3 God Will Remove the Leaders

¹For behold, the Lord GOD of hosts is going to remove from Jerusalem and Judah Both supply and support, the whole supply of bread And the whole supply of water; ²The mighty man and the warrior, The judge and the prophet, The diviner and the elder, ³ The captain of fifty and the honorable man, The counselor and the expert artisan, And the skillful enchanter. ⁴And I will make mere lads their princes, And capricious children will rule over them, ⁵ And the people will be oppressed, Each one by another, and each one by his neighbor; The youth will storm against the elder And the inferior against the honorable. ⁶ When a man lays hold of his brother in his father's house, saying, "You have a cloak, you shall be our ruler, And these ruins will be under your charge," ⁷ He will protest on that day, saying, "I will not be your healer, For in my house there is neither bread nor cloak; You should not appoint me ruler of the people." ⁸For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen, Because their speech and their actions are against the LORD, To rebel against His glorious presence. ⁹ The expression of their faces bears witness against them, And they display their sin like Sodom; They do not even conceal it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves. ¹⁰ Say to the righteous that it will go well with them, For they will eat the fruit of their actions. ¹¹ Woe to the wicked! It will go badly with him, For what he deserves will be done to him. ¹² O My people! Their oppressors are children, And women rule over them. O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray And confuse the direction of your paths.

God Will Judge

¹³The LORD arises to contend, And stands to judge the people. ¹⁴The LORD enters into judgment with the elders and princes of His people, "It is you who have devoured the vineyard; The plunder of the poor is in your houses. ¹⁵ "What do you mean by crushing My people And grinding the face of the poor?" Declares the Lord GOD of hosts.

Judah's Women Denounced

¹⁶Moreover, the LORD said, "Because the daughters of Zion are proud And walk with heads held high and seductive eyes, And go along with mincing steps And tinkle the bangles on their feet, ¹⁷ Therefore the Lord will afflict the scalp of the daughters of Zion with scabs, And the LORD will make their foreheads bare." ¹⁸In that day the Lord will take away the beauty of their anklets, headbands, crescent ornaments, ¹⁹dangling earrings, bracelets, veils, ²⁰headdresses, ankle chains, sashes, perfume boxes, amulets, ²¹finger rings, nose rings, ²²festal robes, outer tunics, cloaks, money purses, ²³hand mirrors, undergarments, turbans and veils. ²⁴ Now it will come about that instead of sweet perfume there will be putrefaction; Instead of a belt, a rope; Instead of well-set hair, a plucked-out scalp; Instead of fine clothes, a donning of sackcloth; And branding instead of beauty. ²⁵ Your men will fall by the sword And your mighty ones in battle. ²⁶And her gates will lament and mourn, And deserted she will sit on the ground.

4 A Remnant Prepared

¹For seven women will take hold of one man in that day, saying, "We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach!"

²In that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel. ³It will come about that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy--everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem. ⁴When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, ⁵then the LORD will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy. ⁶There will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain.

5 Parable of the Vineyard

¹Let me sing now for my well-beloved A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. ² He dug it all around, removed its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine. And He built a tower in the middle of it And also hewed out a wine vat in it; Then He expected it to produce good grapes, But it produced only worthless ones.

³"And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge between Me and My vineyard. ⁴ "What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones? ⁵ "So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard: I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed; I will break down its wall and it will become trampled ground. ⁶"I will lay it waste; It will not be pruned or hoed, But briars and thorns will come up. I will also charge the clouds to rain no rain on it."

⁷For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel And the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.

Woes for the Wicked

⁸Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field, Until there is no more room, So that you have to live alone in the midst of the land! ⁹ In my ears the LORD of hosts has sworn, "Surely, many houses shall become desolate, Even great and fine ones, without occupants. ¹⁰ "For ten acres of vineyard will yield only one bath of wine, And a homer of seed will yield but an ephah of grain." ¹¹Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may pursue strong drink, Who stay up late in the evening that wine may inflame them! ¹²Their banquets are accompanied by lyre and harp, by tambourine and flute, and by wine; But they do not pay attention to the deeds of the LORD, Nor do they consider the work of His hands.

¹³Therefore My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge; And their honorable men are famished, And their multitude is parched with thirst. ¹⁴ Therefore Sheol has enlarged its throat and opened its mouth without measure; And Jerusalem's splendor, her multitude, her din of revelry and the jubilant within her, descend into it. ¹⁵So the common man will be humbled and the man of importance abased, The eyes of the proud also will be abased. ¹⁶ But the LORD of hosts will be exalted in judgment, And the holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness. ¹⁷ Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, And strangers will eat in the waste places of the wealthy.

¹⁸Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood, And sin as if with cart ropes; ¹⁹ Who say, "Let Him make speed, let Him hasten His work, that we may see it; And let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near And come to pass, that we may know it!" ²⁰Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! ²¹ Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight! ²² Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine And valiant men in mixing strong drink, ²³ Who justify the wicked for a bribe, And take away the rights of the ones who are in the right!

²⁴Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble And dry grass collapses into the flame, So their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust; For they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. ²⁵ On this account the anger of the LORD has burned against His people, And He has stretched out His hand against them and struck them down. And the mountains quaked, and their corpses lay like refuse in the middle of the streets. For all this His anger is not spent, But His hand is still stretched out.

²⁶He will also lift up a standard to the distant nation, And will whistle for it from the ends of the earth; And behold, it will come with speed swiftly. ²⁷ No one in it is weary or stumbles, None slumbers or sleeps; Nor is the belt at its waist undone, Nor its sandal strap broken. ²⁸ Its arrows are sharp and all its bows are bent; The hoofs of its horses seem like flint and its chariot wheels like a whirlwind. ²⁹Its roaring is like a lioness, and it roars like young lions; It growls as it seizes the prey And carries it off with no one to deliver it. ³⁰ And it will growl over it in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land, behold, there is darkness and distress; Even the light is darkened by its clouds.

6 Isaiah's Vision

¹In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. ²Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³And one called out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory." ⁴And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. ⁵Then I said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."

⁶Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. ⁷He touched my mouth with it and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven."

Isaiah's Commission

⁸Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!" ⁹He said, "Go, and tell this people: `Keep on listening, but do not perceive; Keep on looking, but do not understand.' ¹⁰ "Render the hearts of this people insensitive, Their ears dull, And their eyes dim, Otherwise they might see with their eyes, Hear with their ears, Understand with their hearts, And return and be healed." ¹¹Then I said, "Lord, how long?" And He answered, "Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, Houses are without people And the land is utterly desolate, ¹²"The LORD has removed men far away, And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. ¹³ "Yet there will be a tenth portion in it, And it will again be subject to burning, Like a terebinth or an oak Whose stump remains when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump."