Isaiah

¹ to those who haven't bothered to ask. I'm here, ready to be found by those who haven't bothered to look. I kept saying 'I'm here, I'm right here' to a nation that ignored me.

² to a people who turned their backs on me, People who make wrong turns, who insist on doing things their own way.

³ are rude to my face day after day, Make up their own kitchen religion, a potluck religious stew.

⁴ to get messages from the dead, Eat forbidden foods and drink a witch's brew of potions and charms.

⁵ Don't touch me. I'm holier than thou.' These people gag me. I can't stand their stench.

⁶ I have the list before me. I'm not putting up with this any longer. I'll pay them the wages

⁷ And for the sins of their parents lumped in, a bonus." God says so. "Because they've practiced their blasphemous worship, mocking me at their hillside shrines, I'll let loose the consequences and pay them in full for their actions."

⁸ "But just as one bad apple doesn't ruin the whole bushel, there are still plenty of good apples left. So I'll preserve those in Israel who obey me. I won't destroy the whole nation.

⁹ and the heirs of my mountains from Judah. My chosen will inherit the land, my servants will move in.

¹⁰ will be a pasture for flocks, And in the east, the valley of Achor, a place for herds to graze. These will be for the people who bothered to reach out to me, who wanted me in their lives, who actually bothered to look for me.

¹¹ who forget the holy mountains, Who hold dinners for Lady Luck and throw cocktail parties for Sir Fate,

¹² your destiny, Death. For when I invited you, you ignored me; when I spoke to you, you brushed me off. You did the very things I exposed as evil; you chose what I hate."

¹³ "My servants will eat, and you'll go hungry; My servants will drink, and you'll go thirsty; My servants will rejoice, and you'll hang your heads.

¹⁴ and you'll cry out heartbroken, yes, wail from crushed spirits.

¹⁵ will be your name reduced to a cussword. I, God, will put you to death and give a new name to my servants.

¹⁶ will use my faithful name for the blessing, And whoever takes an oath in the land will use my faithful name for the oath, Because the earlier troubles are gone and forgotten, banished far from my sight.

¹⁷ I'm creating new heavens and a new earth. All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain are things of the past, to be forgotten.

¹⁸ Anticipate what I'm creating: I'll create Jerusalem as sheer joy, create my people as pure delight.

¹⁹ take delight in my people: No more sounds of weeping in the city, no cries of anguish;

²⁰ or old people who don't enjoy a full lifetime; One-hundredth birthdays will be considered normal— anything less will seem like a cheat.

²¹ and move in. They'll plant fields and eat what they grow.

²² that some outsider takes over, No more planting fields that some enemy confiscates, For my people will be as long-lived as trees, my chosen ones will have satisfaction in their work.

²³ they won't have children snatched out from under them. For they themselves are plantings blessed by God, with their children and grandchildren likewise God-blessed.

²⁴ Before they've finished speaking, I'll have heard.

²⁵ lion and ox eat straw from the same trough, but snakes—they'll get a diet of dirt! Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill anywhere on my Holy Mountain," says God.