Isaiah 14-16
The consequences of a touched eyeball are that you can run, but you cannot hide.
NARRATOR:
For Jehovah will show mercy to Jacob, and he will again choose Israel.
He will settle them in their land, and the foreign residents will join them and attach themselves to the house of Jacob.
And peoples will take them and bring them to their own place,
and the house of Israel will possess them as male and female servants in Jehovah’s land;
and they will be the captors of those who held them captive,
and they will have in subjection those who were forcing them to work.
In the day when Jehovah gives you rest from your pain and from your turmoil
and from the hard slavery imposed on you,
you will recite this proverb against the king of Babylon:
ISRAEL (PROVERB AGAINST THE KING OF BABYLON):
How the one forcing others to work has met his end!
How the oppression has ended!
Jehovah has broken the rod of the wicked,
the staff of the rulers,
the one furiously striking peoples with unceasing blows,
the one angrily subduing nations with relentless persecution.
The whole earth now rests, free of disturbance.
People cry out for joy.
Even the juniper trees rejoice over you,
along with the cedars of Lebanon.
They say,
‘Ever since you have fallen,
no woodcutter comes up against us.’
Even the Grave underneath is stirred up to meet you when you come.
Because of you, it awakens those powerless in death,
all the oppressive leaders of the earth.
It makes all the kings of the nations rise from their thrones.
All of them speak up and say to you:
‘Have you also become weak like us?
Have you become like us?
Down to the Grave your pride has been brought,
the sound of your stringed instruments.
Maggots are spread beneath you as a bed,
and worms are your covering.’
How you have fallen from heaven,
O shining one, son of the dawn!
How you have been cut down to the earth,
you who vanquished nations!
You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to the heavens.
Above the stars of God I will lift up my throne,
and I will sit down on the mountain of meeting,
in the remotest parts of the north.
I will go up above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself resemble the Most High.’
Instead, you will be brought down to the Grave,
to the remotest parts of the pit.
Those seeing you will stare at you;
they will closely examine you, saying:
‘Is this the man who was shaking the earth,
who made kingdoms tremble,
who made the inhabited earth like the wilderness
and overthrew its cities,
who refused to let his prisoners go home?’
All other kings of the nations,
yes, all of them, lie down in glory,
each one in his own tomb.
But you are discarded without a grave,
like a detested sprout,
clothed with the slain who were stabbed with the sword,
who go down to the stones of a pit,
like a carcass trampled underfoot.
You will not join them in a grave,
for you destroyed your own land,
you killed your own people.
The offspring of evildoers will never again be named.
Prepare a slaughtering block for his sons
because of the guilt of their forefathers,
so that they will not rise up and take over the earth
and fill the land with their cities.
JEHOVAH OF ARMIES:
I will rise up against them.
And I will wipe out from Babylon name and remnant and descendants and posterity.
And I will make her a possession of porcupines and a region of marshes,
and I will sweep her with the broom of annihilation.
NARRATOR:
Jehovah of armies has sworn:
“Just as I have intended, so it will occur,
and just as I have decided, that is what will come true.
I will crush the Assyrian in my land,
and I will trample him on my mountains.
His yoke will be removed from them,
and his load will be removed from their shoulder.”
This is what has been decided against all the earth,
and this is the hand that is stretched out against all the nations.
For Jehovah of armies has decided,
and who can thwart it?
His hand is stretched out,
and who can turn it back?
In the year that King Ahaz died, this pronouncement was made:
JEHOVAH (PRONOUNCEMENT AGAINST PHILISTIA):
Do not rejoice, Philistia, any of you,
just because the staff of the one striking you has been broken.
For from the root of the serpent will come a poisonous snake,
and its offspring will be a flying fiery snake.
While the firstborn of the lowly feed
and the poor lie down in security,
I will put your root to death with famine,
and what is left of you will be killed.
Wail, O gate! Cry out, O city!
All of you will lose heart, O Philistia!
For a smoke is coming from the north,
and there are no stragglers in his ranks.
How should they answer the messengers of the nation?
That Jehovah has laid the foundation of Zion,
and that the lowly ones of his people will take refuge in her.
CHAPTER 15
NARRATOR (PRONOUNCEMENT AGAINST MOAB):
Because it has been devastated in a night,
Ar of Moab has been silenced.
Because it has been devastated in a night,
Kir of Moab has been silenced.
He has gone up to the House and to Dibon,
to the high places to weep.
Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba.
Every head is shaved bald, every beard is clipped.
In its streets they have put on sackcloth.
On their roofs and in their public squares they all wail;
they go down weeping.
Heshbon and Elealeh cry out;
their voice is heard as far as Jahaz.
That is why the armed men of Moab keep shouting.
He is trembling.
My heart cries out over Moab.
Its fugitives have fled as far as Zoar and Eglath-shelishiyah.
On the ascent of Luhith they weep as they go up;
on the way to Horonaim they cry out over the catastrophe.
For the waters of Nimrim are desolate;
the green grass has dried up,
the grass is gone and nothing green is left.
That is why they are carrying away what is left of their stores and their riches;
they are crossing the valley of poplars.
For the outcry echoes throughout the territory of Moab.
The wailing reaches to Eglaiim;
the wailing reaches to Beer-elim.
For the waters of Dimon are full of blood,
and I have more in store for Dimon:
a lion for those of Moab who escape
and for those remaining in the land.
CHAPTER 16
NARRATOR:
Send a ram to the ruler of the land,
from Sela through the wilderness
to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.
Like a bird chased away from its nest,
so the daughters of Moab will be at the fords of Arnon.
COUNSEL TO MOAB:
Offer counsel, carry out the decision.
Make your shadow at high noon like the night.
Conceal the dispersed and do not betray those fleeing.
May my dispersed ones reside in you, O Moab.
Become a place of concealment to them because of the destroyer.
The oppressor will reach his end,
the destruction will come to an end,
and those trampling others down will perish from the earth.
Then a throne will be firmly established in loyal love.
The one who sits on it in the tent of David will be faithful;
he will judge fairly and will swiftly execute righteousness.
NARRATOR:
We have heard about the pride of Moab—he is very proud—
his haughtiness and his pride and his fury;
but his empty talk will come to nothing.
So Moab will wail for Moab;
they will all wail.
Those who are stricken will moan for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth.
For the terraces of Heshbon have withered,
the vine of Sibmah.
The rulers of the nations have trampled its bright-red branches;
they had reached as far as Jazer;
they had extended into the wilderness.
Its shoots had spread out and gone as far as the sea.
That is why I will weep over the vine of Sibmah as I weep for Jazer.
With my tears I will drench you, O Heshbon and Elealeh,
because the shouting over your summer fruit and your harvest has ended.
Rejoicing and joyfulness have been taken away from the orchard,
and there are no songs of joy or shouting in the vineyards.
The treader no longer treads out wine in the presses,
for I have caused the shouting to cease.
That is why deep within me I am boisterous over Moab,
like the strumming of a harp,
and my innermost being over Kir-hareseth.
Even when Moab wears himself out on the high place
and goes to pray in his sanctuary, he will accomplish nothing.
This is the word that Jehovah previously spoke concerning Moab.
And now Jehovah says:
“Within three years, like the years of a hired worker,
the glory of Moab will be disgraced with much tumult of every sort,
and those who remain will be very few and insignificant.”
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