Isaiah 10

⁵²Woe to you experts in the law! For you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”

¹Then I said: “Hear now, O leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Should you not know justice?

²You hate good and love evil. You tear the skin from my people and strip the flesh from their bones.

²³Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin. But you have disregarded the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

²⁰Can a corrupt throne be Your ally—one devising mischief by decree?

²¹They band together against the righteous and condemn the innocent to death.

⁶Will not all of these take up a taunt against him, speaking with mockery and derision: ‘Woe to him who amasses what is not his and makes himself rich with many loans! How long will this go on?’

²²His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews. For the Jews had already determined that anyone who confessed Jesus as the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.

⁵“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and against those who defraud laborers of their wages and deny justice to the foreigner but do not fear Me,” says the Lord of Hosts.

¹⁴The Lord brings this charge against the elders and leaders of His people: “You have devoured the vineyard; the plunder of the poor is in your houses.

⁷Father and mother are treated with contempt. Within your walls the foreign resident is exploited, the fatherless and the widow are oppressed.

²¹those who indict a man with a word, who ensnare the mediator at the gate, and who with false charges deprive the innocent of justice.

²³who acquit the guilty for a bribe and deprive the innocent of justice.

²³Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, and the plea of the widow never comes before them.

⁷The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have arrived—let Israel know it. The prophet is called a fool, and the inspired man insane, because of the greatness of your iniquity and hostility.

⁴⁴They will level you to the ground—you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”

¹⁴what will I do when God rises to judge? How will I answer when called to account?

⁶And on that day the dwellers of this coastland will say, ‘See what has happened to our source of hope, those to whom we fled for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! How then can we escape?’”

²¹For behold, the Lord is coming out of His dwelling to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer conceal her slain.

¹⁸Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them on the Day of the Lord’s wrath. The whole earth will be consumed by the fire of His jealousy.” For indeed, He will make a sudden end of all who dwell on the earth.

²⁵Therefore the anger of the Lord burns against His people; His hand is raised against them to strike them down. The mountains quake, and the corpses lie like refuse in the streets. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

¹⁰Indeed, if you were to strike down the entire army of the Chaldeans that is fighting against you, and only wounded men remained in their tents, they would still get up and burn this city down.”

¹²Aram from the east and Philistia from the west have devoured Israel with open mouths. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

³⁰How could one man pursue a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up?

¹⁷And I will set My face against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one pursues you.

³⁶As for those of you who survive, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that even the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. And they will flee as one flees the sword, and fall when no one pursues them.

³⁷They will stumble over one another as before the sword, though no one is behind them. So you will not be able to stand against your enemies.

²⁰“You are My war club, My weapon for battle. With you I shatter nations; with you I bring kingdoms to ruin.

²¹With you I shatter the horse and rider; with you I shatter the chariot and driver.

³⁰And the Lord will cause His majestic voice to be heard and His mighty arm to be revealed, striking in angry wrath with a flame of consuming fire, and with cloudburst, storm, and hailstones.

¹³And He will stretch out His hand against the north and destroy Assyria; He will make Nineveh a desolation, as dry as a desert.

²⁵I will break Assyria in My land; I will trample him on My mountain. His yoke will be taken off My people, and his burden removed from their shoulders.”

¹⁵Does an axe raise itself above the one who swings it? Does a saw boast over him who saws with it? It would be like a rod waving the one who lifts it, or a staff lifting him who is not wood!

⁵They are coming from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens—the Lord and the weapons of His wrath—to destroy the whole country.

¹⁷Therefore the Lord takes no pleasure in their young men; He has no compassion on their fatherless and widows. For every one of them is godless and wicked, and every mouth speaks folly. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

¹³For he says: ‘By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, for I am clever. I have removed the boundaries of nations and plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their rulers.

¹⁴My hand reached as into a nest to seize the wealth of the nations. Like one gathering abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth. No wing fluttered, no beak opened or chirped.’”

²⁶Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it; in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should crush fortified cities into piles of rubble.

²⁷Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power, are dismayed and ashamed. They are like plants in the field, tender green shoots, grass on the rooftops, scorched before it is grown.

¹⁷The land of Judah will bring terror to Egypt; whenever Judah is mentioned, Egypt will tremble over what the Lord of Hosts has planned against it.

⁵They will be like mighty men in battle, trampling the enemy in the mire of the streets. They will fight because the Lord is with them, and they will put the horsemen to shame.

⁶‘Alas, O sword of the Lord, how long until you rest? Return to your sheath; cease and be still!’

⁷How can it rest when the Lord has commanded it? He has appointed it against Ashkelon and the shore of its coastland.”

²⁰As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this—to preserve the lives of many people.

²³He was delivered up by God’s set plan and foreknowledge, and you, by the hands of the lawless, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross.

¹¹But now many nations have assembled against you, saying, “Let her be defiled, and let us feast our eyes on Zion.”

¹²But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord or understand His plan, for He has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor.

¹⁸Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

²⁷The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning Him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath.

²⁸And though they found no ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have Him executed.

¹¹Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the other countries, devoting them to destruction. Will you then be spared?

¹²Did the gods of the nations destroyed by my fathers rescue those nations—the gods of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and of the people of Eden in Telassar?

²⁴For how can you repel a single officer among the least of my master’s servants when you depend on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

¹⁰“Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

³⁷You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given sovereignty, power, strength, and glory.

⁷For this is what the Lord God says: ‘Behold, I will bring against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with cavalry and a great company of troops.

⁸Now, therefore, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them!

⁹So the king of Assyria responded to him, marched up to Damascus, and captured it. He took its people to Kir as captives and put Rezin to death.

²⁰After all this, when Josiah had set the temple in order, Neco king of Egypt marched up to fight at Carchemish by the Euphrates, and Josiah went out to confront him.

¹⁰His kingdom began in Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

²concerning Egypt and the army of Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt, which was defeated at Carchemish on the Euphrates River by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah:

⁵Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years.

⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried away the Israelites to Assyria, where he settled them in Halah, in Gozan by the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.

²³Concerning Damascus: “Hamath and Arpad are put to shame, for they have heard a bad report; they are agitated like the sea; their anxiety cannot be calmed.

¹⁹They spoke against the God of Jerusalem as they had spoken against the gods of the peoples of the earth—the work of human hands.

¹²Did not Hezekiah himself remove His high places and His altars and say to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before one altar, and on it you shall burn sacrifices’?

¹³Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of the lands? Have the gods of these nations ever been able to deliver their land from my hand?

¹²Did the gods of the nations destroyed by my fathers rescue those nations—the gods of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and of the people of Eden in Telassar?

¹³Where are the kings of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’”

³³Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

³⁴Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

¹⁷Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste these nations and their lands.

¹⁸They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands.

¹⁴My hand reached as into a nest to seize the wealth of the nations. Like one gathering abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth. No wing fluttered, no beak opened or chirped.’”

¹⁰“Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

¹¹Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the other countries, devoting them to destruction. Will you then be spared?

⁸Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made.

¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

²⁰Who among all the gods of these lands has delivered his land from my hand? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

¹⁸Therefore this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “I will punish the king of Babylon and his land as I punished the king of Assyria.

³⁷Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, for all His works are true and all His ways are just. And He is able to humble those who walk in pride.

¹¹Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who array yourselves with firebrands, walk in the light of your fire and of the firebrands you have lit! This is what you will receive from My hand: You will lie down in a place of torment.

³⁰And the Lord will cause His majestic voice to be heard and His mighty arm to be revealed, striking in angry wrath with a flame of consuming fire, and with cloudburst, storm, and hailstones.

³¹For Assyria will be shattered at the voice of the Lord; He will strike them with His scepter.

⁵Like birds hovering overhead, so the Lord of Hosts will protect Jerusalem. He will shield it and deliver it; He will pass over it and preserve it.”

⁶Return to the One against whom you have so blatantly rebelled, O children of Israel.

²⁷For You save an afflicted people, but You humble those with haughty eyes.

¹⁷You might say in your heart, “The power and strength of my hands have made this wealth for me.”

³⁰the king exclaimed, “Is this not Babylon the Great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”

³Speak to him and tell him that this is what the Lord God says: Behold, I am against you, O Pharaoh king of Egypt, O great monster who lies among his rivers, who says, ‘The Nile is mine; I made it myself.’

¹⁵Although he flourishes among his brothers, an east wind will come—a wind from the Lord rising up from the desert. His fountain will fail, and his spring will run dry. The wind will plunder his treasury of every precious article.

¹⁶Samaria will bear her guilt because she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.

⁸Ahaz also took the silver and gold found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s palace, and he sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria.

¹⁵Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace.

²⁵if I have rejoiced in my great wealth because my hand had gained so much,

¹²Before his downfall a man’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.

⁴Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, even from there I will bring you down,” declares the Lord.

⁹“Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold!” There is no end to the treasure, an abundance of every precious thing.

¹⁶The terror you cause and the pride of your heart have deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks, O occupiers of the mountain summit. Though you elevate your nest like the eagle, even from there I will bring you down,” declares the Lord.

⁵and wealth indeed betrays him. He is an arrogant man never at rest. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and like Death, he is never satisfied. He gathers all the nations to himself and collects all the peoples as his own.

⁶Will not all of these take up a taunt against him, speaking with mockery and derision: ‘Woe to him who amasses what is not his and makes himself rich with many loans! How long will this go on?’

²⁰But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, “Why did You make me like this?”

²¹Does not the potter have the right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special occasions and another for common use?

⁹Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?

⁵Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.

¹⁶You have turned things upside down, as if the potter were regarded as clay. Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pottery say of the potter, “He has no understanding”?

²⁰“You are My war club, My weapon for battle. With you I shatter nations; with you I bring kingdoms to ruin.

²¹With you I shatter the horse and rider; with you I shatter the chariot and driver.

⁹Will you still say, ‘I am a god,’ in the presence of those who slay you? You will be only a man, not a god, in the hands of those who wound you.

²¹and the Lord sent an angel who annihilated every mighty man of valor and every leader and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he entered the temple of his god, some of his own sons struck him down with the sword.

¹⁵So He granted their request, but sent a wasting disease upon them.

²³Immediately, because Herod did not give glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

⁶who replied, “Tell your master that this is what the Lord says: ‘Do not be afraid of the words you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.

⁷Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”

¹⁰“Now I will arise,” says the Lord. “Now I will lift Myself up. Now I will be exalted.

¹¹You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble. Your breath is a fire that will consume you.

¹⁸The splendor of its forests and orchards, both soul and body, it will completely destroy, as a sickness consumes a man.

⁴I am not angry. If only thorns and briers confronted Me, I would march and trample them, I would burn them to the ground.

²³Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

⁵There will be no more night in the city, and they will have no need for the light of a lamp or of the sun. For the Lord God will shine on them, and they will reign forever and ever.

²⁰Therefore this is what the Lord God says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.

¹Soon the people began to complain about their hardship in the hearing of the Lord, and when He heard them, His anger was kindled, and fire from the Lord blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp.

²And the people cried out to Moses, and he prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down.

³⁵And fire came forth from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense.

³³Behold, the Lord God of Hosts will lop off the branches with terrifying power. The tall trees will be cut down, the lofty ones will be felled.

³⁴He will clear the forest thickets with an axe, and Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.

²³Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: “With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the remote peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypresses. I have reached its farthest outposts, the densest of its forests.

¹⁴I will punish you as your deeds deserve, declares the Lord. I will kindle a fire in your forest that will consume everything around you.’”

¹⁸For wickedness burns like a fire that consumes the thorns and briers and kindles the forest thickets, which roll upward in billows of smoke.

⁴⁷Say to the forest of the Negev: Hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Lord God says: I am about to ignite in you a fire, and it will devour all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched, and by it every face from south to north will be scorched.

⁴⁸Then all people will see that I, the Lord, have kindled it; it will not be quenched.”

²⁸Because your rage and arrogance against Me have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will send you back the way you came.’

³⁶Then the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!

¹⁷The remaining archers, the warriors of Kedar, will be few.” For the Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken.

³¹And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root below and bear fruit above.

³²For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.

⁷So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the hands of the kings of Aram and Israel, who are rising up against me.”

²⁰Then Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came to Ahaz but afflicted him rather than strengthening him.

⁷In that day men will look to their Maker and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.

⁸They will not look to the altars they have fashioned with their hands or to the Asherahs and incense altars they have made with their fingers.

⁹Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a few survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Gomorrah.

¹⁰Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of His Servant? Who among you walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord; let him lean on his God.

⁶For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

¹⁴But their minds were closed. For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant. It has not been lifted, because only in Christ can it be removed.

¹⁵And even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.

¹Come, let us return to the Lord. For He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bind up our wounds.

²⁰First to those in Damascus and Jerusalem, then to everyone in the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I declared that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds worthy of their repentance.

⁸This is what the Lord says: “As the new wine is found in a cluster of grapes, and men say, ‘Do not destroy it, for it contains a blessing,’ so I will act on behalf of My servants; I will not destroy them all.

⁹And I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and heirs from Judah; My elect will possess My mountains, and My servants will dwell there.

¹⁶They turn, but not to the Most High; they are like a faulty bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword for the cursing of their tongue; for this they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt.

²⁷Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.

²⁸For the Lord will carry out His sentence on the earth thoroughly and decisively.”

¹³And though a tenth remains in the land, it will be burned again. As the terebinth and oak leave stumps when felled, so the holy seed will be a stump in the land.”

⁵In the same way, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.

⁶And if it is by grace, then it is no longer by works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.

⁸and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to assemble them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the seashore.

²⁷And he will confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of the temple will come the abomination that causes desolation, until the decreed destruction is poured out upon him.”

¹⁵For you said, “We have made a covenant with death; we have fashioned an agreement with Sheol. When the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not touch us, because we have made lies our refuge and falsehood our hiding place.”

¹⁶So this is what the Lord God says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; the one who believes will never be shaken.

²²So now, do not mock, or your shackles will become heavier. Indeed, I have heard from the Lord God of Hosts a decree of destruction against the whole land.

¹Behold, the Lord lays waste the earth and leaves it in ruins. He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants—

²people and priest alike, servant and master, maid and mistress, buyer and seller, lender and borrower, creditor and debtor.

²⁸For the Lord will carry out His sentence on the earth thoroughly and decisively.”

³⁵All the peoples of the earth are counted as nothing, and He does as He pleases with the army of heaven and the peoples of the earth. There is no one who can restrain His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”

²⁶This is the plan devised for the whole earth, and this is the hand stretched out over all the nations.

²⁷The Lord of Hosts has purposed, and who can thwart Him? His hand is outstretched, so who can turn it back?

²²Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to myriads of angels

²³in joyful assembly, to the congregation of the firstborn, enrolled in heaven. You have come to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,

⁶who replied, “Tell your master that this is what the Lord says: ‘Do not be afraid of the words you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.

³to console the mourners in Zion—to give them a crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for a spirit of despair. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.

⁴Say to those with anxious hearts: “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With divine retribution He will come to save you.”

¹³I am bringing My righteousness near; it is not far away, and My salvation will not be delayed. I will grant salvation to Zion and adorn Israel with My splendor.

⁹The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi-hahiroth, opposite Baal-zephon.

³⁶Then the king will do as he pleases and will exalt and magnify himself above every god, and he will speak monstrous things against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, for what has been decreed must be accomplished.

³⁵And that very night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!

³⁷For, “In just a little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay.

⁵Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.

⁷“For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will bring you back.

³³Behold, the Lord God of Hosts will lop off the branches with terrifying power. The tall trees will be cut down, the lofty ones will be felled.

³⁴He will clear the forest thickets with an axe, and Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.

⁴For as in the day of Midian You have shattered the yoke of their burden, the bar across their shoulders, and the rod of their oppressor.

²⁵They also captured Oreb and Zeeb, the two princes of Midian; and they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb. So they pursued the Midianites and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side of the Jordan.

³⁵And that very night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!

¹⁶And as for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.

¹⁸The nations were enraged, and Your wrath has come. The time has come to judge the dead and to reward Your servants the prophets, as well as the saints and those who fear Your name, both small and great—and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”

²⁵He caused their chariot wheels to wobble, so that they had difficulty driving. “Let us flee from the Israelites,” said the Egyptians, “for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt!”

²⁶Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.”

⁴For as in the day of Midian You have shattered the yoke of their burden, the bar across their shoulders, and the rod of their oppressor.

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed,

²⁵I will break Assyria in My land; I will trample him on My mountain. His yoke will be taken off My people, and his burden removed from their shoulders.”

¹⁵“Do not touch My anointed ones! Do no harm to My prophets!”

²⁰You, however, have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.

⁷You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you above your companions with the oil of joy.

²Meanwhile, Saul was staying under the pomegranate tree in Migron on the outskirts of Gibeah. And the troops who were with him numbered about six hundred men,

²He chose for himself three thousand men of Israel: Two thousand were with Saul at Michmash and in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin. And the rest of the troops he sent away, each to his own home.

⁵Now the Philistines assembled to fight against Israel with three thousand chariots, six thousand horsemen, and troops as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They went up and camped at Michmash, east of Beth-aven.

²²Then David left his supplies in the care of the quartermaster and ran to the battle line. When he arrived, he asked his brothers how they were doing.

³¹That day, after the Israelites had struck down the Philistines from Michmash to Aijalon, the people were very faint.

³¹The descendants of Benjamin from Geba lived in Michmash, Aija, and Bethel with its villages;

²³And a garrison of the Philistines had gone out to the pass at Michmash.

¹⁷Then he would return to Ramah because his home was there, and there he judged Israel and built an altar to the Lord.

¹⁷And from the tribe of Benjamin they gave them Gibeon, Geba,

¹⁵This is what the Lord says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

⁴When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and relayed these words in the hearing of the people, they all wept aloud.

³⁴Then Samuel went to Ramah, but Saul went up to his home in Gibeah of Saul.

⁴⁴But Saul had given his daughter Michal, David’s wife, to Palti son of Laish, who was from Gallim.

¹These are the words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the priests in Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin.

¹⁸Anathoth, and Almon—four cities, together with their pasturelands.

²⁹They named it Dan, after their forefather Dan, who was born to Israel—though the city was formerly named Laish.

²⁶Then the king said to Abiathar the priest, “Go back to your fields in Anathoth. Even though you deserve to die, I will not put you to death at this time, since you carried the ark of the Lord God before my father David, and you suffered through all that my father suffered.”

⁸Then, as the Lord had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and urged me, ‘Please buy my field in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for you own the right of inheritance and redemption. Buy it for yourself.’” Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.

³¹Ziklag, Madmannah, Sansannah,

¹Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And when Ahimelech met David, he trembled and asked him, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”

¹⁶In that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will tremble with fear beneath the uplifted hand of the Lord of Hosts, when He brandishes it against them.

²²this is the word that the Lord has spoken against him: ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.

⁹I will surely wave My hand over them, so that they will become plunder for their own servants. Then you will know that the Lord of Hosts has sent Me.”

¹⁹He also put to the sword Nob, the city of the priests, with its men and women, children and infants, oxen, donkeys, and sheep.

²In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.

⁹Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, though his height was like that of the cedars, and he was as strong as the oaks. Yet I destroyed his fruit above and his roots below.

³⁸One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. And his son Esar-haddon reigned in his place.

³⁷Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, for all His works are true and all His ways are just. And He is able to humble those who walk in pride.

²⁴Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: “With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the remote peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypresses. I have reached its farthest heights, the densest of its forests.

²⁵I have dug wells and drunk foreign waters. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”

²¹This is the word that the Lord has spoken against him: ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.

²²Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

²¹and the Lord sent an angel who annihilated every mighty man of valor and every leader and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he entered the temple of his god, some of his own sons struck him down with the sword.

²⁴Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: “With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the remote peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypresses. I have reached its farthest heights, the densest of its forests.

⁷and to grant relief to you who are oppressed and to us as well. This will take place when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels

¹²This is what the Lord says: “Though they are allied and numerous, yet they will be cut down and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, O Judah, I will afflict you no longer.

²³And you, O king, saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying: ‘Cut down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump with its roots in the ground, with a band of iron and bronze around it, in the tender grass of the field. Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and graze with the beasts of the field till seven times pass him by.’

²⁰Bless the Lord, all His angels mighty in strength who carry out His word, who hearken to the voice of His command.

¹Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may consume your cedars!

²Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen; the majestic trees are ruined! Wail, O oaks of Bashan, for the dense forest has been cut down!