Isaiah 21-23
Sing so they will remember you.
NARRATOR:
A pronouncement against the wilderness of the sea
It is coming like storm winds that sweep through in the south,
From the wilderness, from a fearsome land.
A harsh vision has been told to me:
The treacherous one is acting treacherously,
And the destroyer is destroying.
Go up, O Elam! Lay siege, O Media!
I will put an end to all the sighing she caused.
That is why I am in great anguish.
Convulsions have seized me,
Like those of a woman giving birth.
I am too distressed to hear;
I am too disturbed to see.
My heart falters; I shudder in terror.
The twilight I longed for makes me tremble.
“Set the table and arrange the seats!
Eat and drink!
Get up, you princes, anoint the shield!”
JEHOVAH:
Go, post a lookout and have him report what he sees.
NARRATOR:
And he saw a war chariot with a team of horses,
A war chariot of donkeys,
A war chariot of camels.
He watched carefully, with great attentiveness.
WATCHMAN:
Upon the watchtower, O Jehovah, I am standing constantly by day,
And I am stationed at my guardpost every night.
Look at what is coming:
Men in a war chariot with a team of horses!
“She has fallen! Babylon has fallen!
All the graven images of her gods he has shattered to the ground!”
NARRATOR:
O my people who have been threshed,
The product of my threshing floor,
I have reported to you what I have heard from Jehovah of armies, the God of Israel.
A pronouncement against Dumah:
Someone is calling out to me from Seir:
“Watchman, what of the night?
Watchman, what of the night?”
WATCHMAN:
The morning is coming, and also the night.
If you would inquire, inquire.
Come again!
NARRATOR:
A pronouncement against the desert plain:
In the forest in the desert plain you will spend the night,
O caravans of Dedan.
Bring water to meet the thirsty one,
You inhabitants of the land of Tema,
And bring bread for the one fleeing.
For they have fled from the swords, from the drawn sword,
From the bent bow, and from the cruelty of the war.
JEHOVAH:
Within one year, like the years of a hired worker,
All the glory of Kedar will come to an end.
The remaining bowmen of the warriors of Kedar will be few,
For Jehovah the God of Israel has spoken.
NARRATOR:
A pronouncement about the Valley of Vision
What is the matter with you that you have all gone up to the roofs?
You were full of turmoil,
A boisterous city, an exultant town.
Your slain were not slain with the sword,
Nor did they die in battle.
All your dictators have fled together.
They were taken prisoner without need of a bow.
All who were found were taken prisoner,
Even though they had fled far away.
ISAIAH:
That is why I said:
“Turn your eyes away from me,
And I will weep bitterly.
Do not insist on comforting me
Over the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
NARRATOR:
For it is a day of confusion and of defeat and of panic,
From the Sovereign Lord, Jehovah of armies,
In the Valley of Vision.
There is a demolishing of the wall
And a cry to the mountain.
Elam picks up the quiver
With manned chariots and horses,
And Kir uncovers the shield.
Your choicest valleys
Will become full of war chariots,
And the horses will take their positions at the gate,
And the screen of Judah will be removed.
“In that day you will look toward the armory of the House of the Forest,
And you will see the many breaches of the City of David.
And you will collect the waters of the lower pool.
You will count the houses of Jerusalem,
And you will pull down the houses to reinforce the wall.
And you will make a basin between the two walls for the water of the old pool,
But you will not look to its Grand Maker,
And you will not see the One who formed it long ago.”
NARRATOR:
In that day the Sovereign Lord, Jehovah of armies,
Will call for weeping and mourning,
For shaved heads and the wearing of sackcloth.
But instead, there is celebration and rejoicing,
The killing of cattle and the slaughtering of sheep,
The eating of meat and the drinking of wine.
“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.”
JEHOVAH:
This error will not be atoned in your behalf until you people die.
NARRATOR:
This is what the Sovereign Lord, Jehovah of armies, says:
“Go in to this steward, to Shebna, who is in charge of the house, and say,
‘What is your interest here, and who is there of interest to you here,
That you hewed out a burial place here for yourself?’
He is hewing out his burial place in a high place;
He is cutting out a resting-place for himself in a crag.
‘Look! Jehovah will hurl you down violently, O man, and seize you forcibly.
He will certainly wrap you up tightly and hurl you like a ball into a wide land.
There you will die, and there your glorious chariots will be,
A disgrace to your master’s house.
And I will depose you from your position
And throw you out of your office.”
JEHOVAH:
In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,
And I will clothe him with your robe
And firmly bind your sash around him,
And I will give your authority into his hand.
And he will be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem
And to the house of Judah.
And I will put the key of the house of David on his shoulder.
He will open and no one will shut;
And he will shut and no one will open.
I will drive him in as a peg in a lasting place,
And he will become as a throne of glory to the house of his father.
And they will hang on him all the glory of the house of his father,
The descendants and the offspring,
All the small vessels, the bowl-shaped vessels,
As well as all the large jars.
In that day,
The peg that is driven in a lasting place will be removed,
And it will be cut down and fall,
And the load that it supported will fall to ruin,
For Jehovah himself has spoken.
NARRATOR:
A pronouncement about Tyre
Wail, you ships of Tarshish!
For the port has been destroyed; it cannot be entered.
From the land of Kittim it has been revealed to them.
Be silent, you inhabitants of the coastland.
The merchants from Sidon who cross the sea have filled you.
Over many waters went the grain of Shihor,
The harvest of the Nile, her revenue,
Bringing the profit of the nations.
Be ashamed, O Sidon, you stronghold of the sea,
Because the sea has said:
“I have not had birth pains, and I have not given birth,
Nor have I brought up young men or raised young women.”
As when they heard the report about Egypt,
People will be in anguish over the report about Tyre.
Cross over to Tarshish!
Wail, you inhabitants of the coastland!
Is this your city that was exultant from long ago,
From her early times?
Her feet used to take her to distant lands to reside.
Who has decided this against Tyre,
The bestower of crowns,
Whose merchants were princes,
Whose tradesmen were honored in all the earth?
Jehovah of armies himself has decided this,
To profane her pride over all her beauty,
To humiliate all those who were honored throughout the earth.
Cross over your land like the Nile River,
O daughter of Tarshish.
There is no longer any shipyard.
He has stretched his hand out over the sea;
He has shaken kingdoms.
Jehovah has ordered the annihilation of Phoenicia’s strongholds.
And he says:
“You will exult no more,
O oppressed one, the virgin daughter of Sidon.
Get up, cross over to Kittim.
Even there you will find no rest.”
Look! The land of the Chaldeans.
This is the people—Assyria was not the one—
They made her a place for those haunting the desert.
They have erected their siege towers;
They have stripped bare her fortified towers,
Reducing her to a crumbling ruin.
Wail, you ships of Tarshish,
For your stronghold has been destroyed.
In that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years,
The same as the lifetime of one king.
At the end of seventy years,
It will happen to Tyre as in the song of a prostitute:
“Take a harp,
Go around the city,
O forgotten prostitute.
Play your harp skillfully;
Sing many songs,
So that they will remember you.”
At the end of seventy years,
Jehovah will turn his attention to Tyre,
And she will return to her hire
And prostitute herself with all the world’s kingdoms
On the face of the earth.
But her profit and her hire will become something holy to Jehovah.
It will not be stored or laid away,
Because her hire will be for those dwelling before Jehovah,
So that they may eat to satisfaction
And wear elegant clothing.
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