Sermon Central
Isaiah 13:1-20:6
View Full ChapterA Prophecy Against Babylon 1A prophecy against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw:
2Raise a banner on a bare hilltop, shout to them; beckon to them to enter the gates of the nobles.
3I have commanded those I prepared for battle; I have summoned my warriors to carry out my wrath— those who rejoice in my triumph.
4Listen, a noise on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations massing together! The LORD Almighty is mustering an army for war.
5They come from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens— the LORD and the weapons of his wrath— to destroy the whole country.
6Wail, for the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.
7Because of this, all hands will go limp, every heart will melt with fear.
8Terror will seize them, pain and anguish will grip them; they will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at each other, their faces aflame.
9See, the day of the LORD is coming —a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger— to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.
10The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.
11I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless.
12I will make people scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir.
13Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the LORD Almighty, in the day of his burning anger.
14Like a hunted gazelle, like sheep without a shepherd, they will all return to their own people, they will flee to their native land.
15Whoever is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword.
16Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives violated.
17See, I will stir up against them the Medes, who do not care for silver and have no delight in gold.
18Their bows will strike down the young men; they will have no mercy on infants, nor will they look with compassion on children.
19Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the pride and glory of the Babylonians,
20She will never be inhabited or lived in through all generations; there no nomads will pitch their tents, there no shepherds will rest their flocks.
21But desert creatures will lie there, jackals will fill her houses; there the owls will dwell, and there the wild goats will leap about. 22Hyenas will inhabit her strongholds, jackals her luxurious palaces. Her time is at hand, and her days will not be prolonged.
1The LORD will have compassion on Jacob; once again he will choose Israel and will settle them in their own land. Foreigners will join them and unite with the descendants of Jacob.
2Nations will take them and bring them to their own place. And Israel will take possession of the nations and make them male and female servants in the LORD ’s land. They will make captives of their captors and rule over their oppressors. 3On the day the LORD gives you relief from your suffering and turmoil and from the harsh labor forced on you,
4you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury
5The LORD has broken the rod of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers,
6which in anger struck down peoples with unceasing blows, and in fury subdued nations with relentless aggression.
7All the lands are at rest and at peace; they break into singing.
8Even the junipers and the cedars of Lebanon gloat over you and say, “Now that you have been laid low, no one comes to cut us down.”
9The realm of the dead below is all astir to meet you at your coming; it rouses the spirits of the departed to greet you— all those who were leaders in the world; it makes them rise from their thrones— all those who were kings over the nations.
10They will all respond, they will say to you, “You also have become weak, as we are; you have become like us.”
11All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you.
12How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!
13You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.
14I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”
15But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.
16Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: “Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble,
17the man who made the world a wilderness, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?”
18All the kings of the nations lie in state, each in his own tomb.
19But you are cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch; you are covered with the slain, with those pierced by the sword, those who descend to the stones of the pit. Like a corpse trampled underfoot,
20you will not join them in burial, for you have destroyed your land and killed your people. Let the offspring of the wicked never be mentioned again.
21Prepare a place to slaughter his children for the sins of their ancestors; they are not to rise to inherit the land and cover the earth with their cities.
22“I will rise up against them,” declares the LORD Almighty. “I will wipe out Babylon’s name and survivors, her offspring and descendants,” declares the LORD .
23“I will turn her into a place for owls and into swampland; I will sweep her with the broom of destruction,” declares the LORD Almighty.
24The LORD Almighty has sworn, “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen.
25I will crush the Assyrian in my land; on my mountains I will trample him down. His yoke will be taken from my people, and his burden removed from their shoulders.”
26This is the plan determined for the whole world; this is the hand stretched out over all nations.
27For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?
A Prophecy Against the Philistines 28This prophecy came in the year King Ahaz died:
29Do not rejoice, all you Philistines, that the rod that struck you is broken; from the root of that snake will spring up a viper, its fruit will be a darting, venomous serpent.
30The poorest of the poor will find pasture, and the needy will lie down in safety. But your root I will destroy by famine; it will slay your survivors.
31Wail, you gate! Howl, you city! Melt away, all you Philistines! A cloud of smoke comes from the north, and there is not a straggler in its ranks. 32What answer shall be given to the envoys of that nation? “The LORD has established Zion, and in her his afflicted people will find refuge.”
A Prophecy Against Moab 1A prophecy against Moab: Ar in Moab is ruined, destroyed in a night! Kir in Moab is ruined, destroyed in a night!
2Dibon goes up to its temple, to its high places to weep; Moab wails over Nebo and Medeba. Every head is shaved and every beard cut off.
3In the streets they wear sackcloth; on the roofs and in the public squares they all wail, prostrate with weeping.
4Heshbon and Elealeh cry out, their voices are heard all the way to Jahaz. Therefore the armed men of Moab cry out, and their hearts are faint.
5My heart cries out over Moab; her fugitives flee as far as Zoar, as far as Eglath Shelishiyah. They go up the hill to Luhith, weeping as they go; on the road to Horonaim they lament their destruction.
6The waters of Nimrim are dried up and the grass is withered; the vegetation is gone and nothing green is left.
7So the wealth they have acquired and stored up they carry away over the Ravine of the Poplars.
8Their outcry echoes along the border of Moab; their wailing reaches as far as Eglaim, their lamentation as far as Beer Elim.
9The waters of Dimon
1Send lambs as tribute to the ruler of the land, from Sela, across the desert, to the mount of Daughter Zion.
2Like fluttering birds pushed from the nest, so are the women of Moab at the fords of the Arnon.
3“Make up your mind,” Moab says. “Render a decision. Make your shadow like night— at high noon. Hide the fugitives, do not betray the refugees.
4Let the Moabite fugitives stay with you; be their shelter from the destroyer.” The oppressor will come to an end, and destruction will cease; the aggressor will vanish from the land.
5In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it— one from the house
6We have heard of Moab’s pride— how great is her arrogance!— of her conceit, her pride and her insolence; but her boasts are empty.
7Therefore the Moabites wail, they wail together for Moab. Lament and grieve for the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth.
8The fields of Heshbon wither, the vines of Sibmah also. The rulers of the nations have trampled down the choicest vines, which once reached Jazer and spread toward the desert. Their shoots spread out and went as far as the sea.
9So I weep, as Jazer weeps, for the vines of Sibmah. Heshbon and Elealeh, I drench you with tears! The shouts of joy over your ripened fruit and over your harvests have been stilled.
10Joy and gladness are taken away from the orchards; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards; no one treads out wine at the presses, for I have put an end to the shouting.
11My heart laments for Moab like a harp, my inmost being for Kir Hareseth.
12When Moab appears at her high place, she only wears herself out; when she goes to her shrine to pray, it is to no avail. 13This is the word the LORD has already spoken concerning Moab. 14But now the LORD says: “Within three years, as a servant bound by contract would count them, Moab’s splendor and all her many people will be despised, and her survivors will be very few and feeble.”
A Prophecy Against Damascus 1A prophecy against Damascus: “See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins.
2The cities of Aroer will be deserted and left to flocks, which will lie down, with no one to make them afraid.
3The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim, and royal power from Damascus; the remnant of Aram will be like the glory of the Israelites,” declares the LORD Almighty.
4“In that day the glory of Jacob will fade; the fat of his body will waste away.
5It will be as when reapers harvest the standing grain, gathering the grain in their arms— as when someone gleans heads of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.
6Yet some gleanings will remain, as when an olive tree is beaten, leaving two or three olives on the topmost branches, four or five on the fruitful boughs,” declares the LORD, the God of Israel.
7In that day people will look to their Maker and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
8They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands, and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles
9In that day their strong cities, which they left because of the Israelites, will be like places abandoned to thickets and undergrowth. And all will be desolation.
10You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Therefore, though you set out the finest plants and plant imported vines,
11though on the day you set them out, you make them grow, and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud, yet the harvest will be as nothing in the day of disease and incurable pain.
12Woe to the many nations that rage— they rage like the raging sea! Woe to the peoples who roar— they roar like the roaring of great waters!
13Although the peoples roar like the roar of surging waters, when he rebukes them they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweed before a gale. 14In the evening, sudden terror! Before the morning, they are gone! This is the portion of those who loot us, the lot of those who plunder us.
A Prophecy Against Cush
1Woe to the land of whirring wings
2which sends envoys by sea in papyrus boats over the water. Go, swift messengers, to a people tall and smooth-skinned, to a people feared far and wide, an aggressive nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers.
3All you people of the world, you who live on the earth, when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will see it, and when a trumpet sounds, you will hear it.
4This is what the LORD says to me: “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
5For, before the harvest, when the blossom is gone and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the shoots with pruning knives, and cut down and take away the spreading branches.
6They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey and to the wild animals; the birds will feed on them all summer, the wild animals all winter. 7At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD Almighty from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people feared far and wide, an aggressive nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers— the gifts will be brought to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD Almighty.
A Prophecy Against Egypt 1A prophecy against Egypt: See, the LORD rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt tremble before him, and the hearts of the Egyptians melt with fear.
2“I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian— brother will fight against brother, neighbor against neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom.
3The Egyptians will lose heart, and I will bring their plans to nothing; they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead, the mediums and the spiritists.
4I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master, and a fierce king will rule over them,” declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.
5The waters of the river will dry up, and the riverbed will be parched and dry.
6The canals will stink; the streams of Egypt will dwindle and dry up. The reeds and rushes will wither,
7also the plants along the Nile, at the mouth of the river. Every sown field along the Nile will become parched, will blow away and be no more.
8The fishermen will groan and lament, all who cast hooks into the Nile; those who throw nets on the water will pine away.
9Those who work with combed flax will despair, the weavers of fine linen will lose hope.
10The workers in cloth will be dejected, and all the wage earners will be sick at heart.
11The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools; the wise counselors of Pharaoh give senseless advice. How can you say to Pharaoh, “I am one of the wise men, a disciple of the ancient kings”?
12Where are your wise men now? Let them show you and make known what the LORD Almighty has planned against Egypt.
13The officials of Zoan have become fools, the leaders of Memphis are deceived; the cornerstones of her peoples have led Egypt astray.
14The LORD has poured into them a spirit of dizziness; they make Egypt stagger in all that she does, as a drunkard staggers around in his vomit.
15There is nothing Egypt can do— head or tail, palm branch or reed. 16In that day the Egyptians will become weaklings. They will shudder with fear at the uplifted hand that the LORD Almighty raises against them.
17And the land of Judah will bring terror to the Egyptians; everyone to whom Judah is mentioned will be terrified, because of what the LORD Almighty is planning against them.
18In that day five cities in Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the LORD Almighty. One of them will be called the City of the Sun.
22The LORD will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the LORD, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.
23In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.
24In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing
A Prophecy Against Egypt and Cush 1In the year that the supreme commander, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it—
2at that time the LORD spoke through Isaiah son of Amoz. He said to him, “Take off the sackcloth from your body and the sandals from your feet.” And he did so, going around stripped and barefoot.
3Then the LORD said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush,