Isaiah 20-22

Isaiah 20

¹In the year that Tartan came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and took it;

²at that time the LORD spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go, and loosen the sackcloth from off your waist, and take your sandals from off your feet.” He did so, walking naked and barefoot.

³The LORD said, “As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder concerning Egypt and concerning Ethiopia,

⁴so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

⁵They will be dismayed and confounded, because of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.

⁶The inhabitants of this coast land will say in that day, ‘Behold, this is our expectation, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria. And we, how will we escape?’”

Isaiah 21

¹The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land.

²A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media’s sighing.

³Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have seized me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can’t hear. I am so dismayed that I can’t see.

⁴My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.

⁵They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield!

⁶For the Lord said to me, “Go, set a watchman. Let him declare what he sees.

⁷When he sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of donkeys, a troop of camels, he shall listen diligently with great attentiveness.”

⁸He cried like a lion: “Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime, and every night I stay at my post.

⁹Behold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs.” He answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground.

¹⁰You are my threshing, and the grain of my floor!” That which I have heard from the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.

¹¹The burden of Dumah. One calls to me out of Seir, “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?”

¹²The watchman said, “The morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire. Come back again.”

¹³The burden on Arabia. You will lodge in the thickets in Arabia, you caravans of Dedanites.

¹⁴They brought water to him who was thirsty. The inhabitants of the land of Tema met the fugitives with their bread.

¹⁵For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the heat of battle.

¹⁶For the Lord said to me, “Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will fail,

¹⁷and the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, will be few; for the LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken it.”

Isaiah 22

¹The burden of the valley of vision. What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops?

²You that are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, a joyous town, your slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle.

³All your rulers fled away together. They were bound by the archers. All who were found by you were bound together. They fled far away.

⁴Therefore I said, “Look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Don’t labor to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

⁵For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity from the Lord, GOD of Armies, in the valley of vision, a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains.”

⁶Elam carried his quiver, with chariots of men and horsemen; and Kir uncovered the shield.

⁷Your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at the gate.

⁸He took away the covering of Judah; and you looked in that day to the armor in the house of the forest.

⁹You saw the breaches of David’s city, that they were many; and you gathered together the waters of the lower pool.

¹⁰You counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall.

¹¹You also made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you didn’t look to him who had done this, neither did you have respect for him who planned it long ago.

¹²In that day, the Lord, GOD of Armies, called to weeping, to mourning, to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth;

¹³and behold, there is joy and gladness, killing cattle and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine: “Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.”

¹⁴The LORD of Armies revealed himself in my ears, “Surely this iniquity will not be forgiven you until you die,” says the Lord, GOD of Armies.

¹⁵The Lord, GOD of Armies says, “Go, get yourself to this treasurer, even to Shebna, who is over the house, and say,

¹⁶‘What are you doing here? Who has you here, that you have dug out a tomb here?’ Cutting himself out a tomb on high, chiseling a habitation for himself in the rock!”

¹⁷Behold, the LORD will overcome you and hurl you away violently. Yes, he will grasp you firmly.

¹⁸He will surely wind you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a large country. There you will die, and there the chariots of your glory will be, you disgrace of your lord’s house.

¹⁹I will thrust you from your office. You will be pulled down from your station.

²⁰It will happen in that day that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,

²¹and I will clothe him with your robe, and strengthen him with your belt. I will commit your government into his hand; and he will be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.

²²I will lay the key of David’s house on his shoulder. He will open, and no one will shut. He will shut, and no one will open.

²³I will fasten him like a nail in a sure place. He will be for a throne of glory to his father’s house.

²⁴They will hang on him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the issue, every small vessel, from the cups even to all the pitchers.

²⁵“In that day,” says the LORD of Armies, “the nail that was fastened in a sure place will give way. It will be cut down and fall. The burden that was on it will be cut off, for the LORD has spoken it.”