Isaiah

31

The Message

1 thinking that horses can help them, Impressed by military mathematics, awed by sheer numbers of chariots and riders— And to The Holy of Israel, not even a glance, not so much as a prayer to God.

2 a most wise God who knows what he's doing. He can call down catastrophe. He's a God who does what he says. He intervenes in the work of those who do wrong, stands up against interfering evildoers.

3 and their horses are flesh, not Spirit. When God gives the signal, helpers and helped alike will fall in a heap and share the same dirt grave.

4 "Like a lion, king of the beasts, that gnaws and chews and worries its prey, Not fazed in the least by a bunch of shepherds who arrive to chase it off, So God-of-the-Angel-Armies comes down to fight on Mount Zion, to make war from its heights.

5 God-of-the-Angel-Armies protects Jerusalem. I'll protect and rescue it. Yes, I'll hover and deliver."

6 Repent, return, dear Israel, to the One you so cruelly abandoned.

7 On the day you return, you'll throw away—every last one of you—the no-gods your sinful hands made from metal and wood.

8 killed by a sword-thrust but not by a soldier, laid low by a sword not swung by a mortal. Assyrians will run from that sword, run for their lives, and their prize young men made slaves.

9 their leaders scatter hysterically." God's Decree on Assyria. His fire blazes in Zion, his furnace burns hot in Jerusalem.

Scripture quotations from The Message, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved.