Isaiah

¹ the city where David set camp! Let the years add up, let the festivals run their cycles,

² The moaning and groaning will continue. Jerusalem to me is an Ariel.

³ I'll set siege, build towers, bring in siege engines, build siege ramps.

⁴ you'll mumble words from the dirt— Your voice from the ground, like the muttering of a ghost. Your speech will whisper from the dust.

⁵ the mob of tyrants who will be blown away like chaff. Because, surprise, as if out of nowhere,

⁶ With thunderclaps, earthquakes, and earsplitting noise, backed up by hurricanes, tornadoes, and lightning strikes,

⁷ all who trouble and hassle and torment her, will turn out to be a bad dream, a nightmare.

⁸ and wakes up hungry as ever, Like a thirsty woman dreaming she's drinking iced tea and wakes up thirsty as ever, So that mob of nations at war against Mount Zion will wake up and find they haven't shot an arrow, haven't killed a single soul.

⁹ Blind yourselves so you see nothing. Get drunk, but not on wine. Black out, but not from whiskey.

¹⁰ put the discerning prophets to sleep, put the farsighted seers to sleep.

¹¹ What you've been shown here is somewhat like a letter in a sealed envelope. If you give it to someone who can read and tell her, "Read this," she'll say, "I can't. The envelope is sealed."

¹² And if you give it to someone who can't read and tell him, "Read this," he'll say, "I can't read."

¹³ "These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their hearts aren't in it. Because they act like they're worshiping me but don't mean it,

¹⁴ astonish them, stand them on their ears. The wise ones who had it all figured out will be exposed as fools. The smart people who thought they knew everything will turn out to know nothing."

¹⁵ You shut God out and work behind the scenes, Plotting the future as if you knew everything, acting mysterious, never showing your hand.

¹⁶ You treat the potter as a lump of clay. Does a book say to its author, "He didn't write a word of me"? Does a meal say to the woman who cooked it, "She had nothing to do with this"?

¹⁷ and without you having anything to do with it, Wasted Lebanon will be transformed into lush gardens, and Mount Carmel reforested.

¹⁸ word-for-word what's been written. After a lifetime in the dark, the blind will see.

¹⁹ the down-and-outs shouting praise to The Holy of Israel.

²⁰ Cynical scoffers will be an extinct species. Those who never missed a chance to hurt or demean will never be heard of again:

²¹ gone the people who cheated the poor, gone the people who victimized the innocent.

²² the same God who redeemed Abraham: "No longer will Jacob hang his head in shame, no longer grow gaunt and pale with waiting.

²³ my personal gift to him—lots of children. And these children will honor me by living holy lives. In holy worship they'll honor the Holy One of Jacob and stand in holy awe of the God of Israel.

²⁴ and complainers and whiners learn gratitude."