Isaiah 24

¹⁰She is emptied! Yes, she is desolate and laid waste! Hearts melt, knees knock, bodies tremble, and every face grows pale!

¹⁹Men will flee to caves in the rocks and holes in the ground, away from the terror of the Lord and from the splendor of His majesty, when He rises to shake the earth.

²⁰The earth staggers like a drunkard and sways like a shack. Earth’s rebellion weighs it down, and it falls, never to rise again.

¹⁵I will lay waste the mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation. I will turn the rivers into dry land and drain the marshes.

¹¹Then I asked: “How long, O Lord?” And He replied: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left unoccupied and the land is desolate and ravaged,

¹²until the Lord has driven men far away and the land is utterly forsaken.

²⁰The inhabited cities will be laid waste, and the land will become desolate. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

⁹And it shall be like people, like priest. I will punish both of them for their ways and repay them for their deeds.

¹²The time has come; the day has arrived. Let the buyer not rejoice and the seller not mourn, for wrath is upon the whole multitude.

¹³The seller will surely not recover what he sold while both remain alive. For the vision concerning the whole multitude will not be revoked, and because of their iniquity, not one of them will preserve his life.

¹²Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders receive no respect.

¹³Young men toil at millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood.

¹⁸For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Just as My anger and wrath were poured out on the residents of Jerusalem, so will My wrath be poured out on you if you go to Egypt. You will become an object of cursing and horror, of vilification and disgrace, and you will never see this place again.’

¹⁵So mankind will be brought low, and each man humbled; the arrogant will lower their eyes.

²the mighty man and the warrior, the judge and the prophet, the soothsayer and the elder,

³the commander of fifty and the dignitary, the counselor, the cunning magician, and the clever enchanter.

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

¹¹Then I asked: “How long, O Lord?” And He replied: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left unoccupied and the land is desolate and ravaged,

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

⁴And each man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, with no one to frighten him. For the mouth of the Lord of Hosts has spoken.

⁴therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God. This is what the Lord God says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys, to the desolate ruins and abandoned cities, which have become a spoil and a mockery to the rest of the nations around you.

²⁵In that day, declares the Lord of Hosts, the peg driven into a firm place will give way; it will be sheared off and fall, and the load upon it will be cut down.” Indeed, the Lord has spoken.

³Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea disappear.

¹¹The proud look of man will be humbled, and the loftiness of men brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

¹²For the Day of the Lord of Hosts will come against all the proud and lofty, against all that is exalted—it will be humbled—

⁹The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is ashamed and decayed. Sharon is like a desert; Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.

²⁶And the gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.

¹Woe to the majestic crown of Ephraim’s drunkards, to the fading flower of his glorious splendor, set on the summit above the fertile valley, the pride of those overcome by wine.

⁴How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said, “He cannot see what our end will be.”

²⁰Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep,

²⁰For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope

²¹that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

¹Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary.

²⁵He will speak out against the Most High and oppress the saints of the Most High, intending to change the appointed times and laws; and the saints will be given into his hand for a time, and times, and half a time.

¹³Yet the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness. They did not follow My statutes and they rejected My ordinances—though the man who does these things will live by them—and they utterly profaned My Sabbaths. Then I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and put an end to them in the wilderness.

¹“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers—and you would return to Me?” declares the Lord.

²“Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.

¹“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble; the day is coming when I will set them ablaze,” says the Lord of Hosts. “Not a root or branch will be left to them.”

¹⁴But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.

³Then he told me, “This is the curse that is going out over the face of all the land, for according to one side of the scroll, every thief will be removed; and according to the other side, every perjurer will be removed.

⁴I will send it out, declares the Lord of Hosts, and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of him who swears falsely by My name. It will remain inside his house and destroy it, down to its timbers and stones.”

³But you are to take a few strands of hair and secure them in the folds of your garment.

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

²²I will send wild animals against you to rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and reduce your numbers, until your roads lie desolate.

¹⁰Joy and gladness are removed from the orchard; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards. No one tramples the grapes in the winepresses; I have put an end to the cheering.

¹⁰The field is ruined; the land mourns. For the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, and the oil fails.

¹¹Be dismayed, O farmers, wail, O vinedressers, over the wheat and barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.

⁸For the fields of Heshbon have withered, along with the grapevines of Sibmah. The rulers of the nations have trampled its choicest vines, which had reached as far as Jazer and spread toward the desert. Their shoots had spread out and passed over the sea.

¹Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations, for you have played the harlot against your God; you have made love for hire on every threshing floor.

²The threshing floor and winepress will not feed them, and the new wine will fail them.

⁹Stand up, you complacent women; listen to me. Give ear to my word, you overconfident daughters.

¹⁰In a little more than a year you will tremble, O secure ones. For the grape harvest will fail and the fruit harvest will not arrive.

¹¹I will put an end to all her exultation: her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—all her appointed feasts.

¹³So I will silence the sound of your songs, and the music of your lyres will no longer be heard.

²²And the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will never ring out in you again. Nor will any craftsmen of any trade be found in you again, nor the sound of a millstone be heard in you again.

³⁴I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of the bride and bridegroom, for the land will become a wasteland.”

¹⁰Moreover, I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.

⁹For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to remove from this place, before your very eyes and in your days, the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom.

²²Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine and champions in mixing strong drink,

⁷Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for God has already approved your works:

³“In that day,” declares the Lord God, “the songs of the temple will turn to wailing. Many will be the corpses, strewn in silence everywhere!”

¹¹Woe to those who rise early in the morning in pursuit of strong drink, who linger into the evening, to be inflamed by wine.

¹²At their feasts are the lyre and harp, tambourines and flutes and wine. They disregard the actions of the Lord and fail to see the work of His hands.

⁵You improvise songs on the harp like David and invent your own musical instruments.

⁶You drink wine by the bowlful and anoint yourselves with the finest oils, but you fail to grieve over the ruin of Joseph.

¹⁰I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day.

²And he cried out in a mighty voice: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a lair for demons and a haunt for every unclean spirit, every unclean bird, and every detestable beast.

⁵And on her forehead a mysterious name was written: BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

⁶I could see that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and witnesses for Jesus. And I was utterly amazed at the sight of her.

⁸The Chaldeans set fire to the palace of the king and to the houses of the people, and they broke down the walls of Jerusalem.

⁴When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled. They left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and they went out along the route to the Arabah.

¹¹The desert owl and screech owl will possess it, and the great owl and raven will dwell in it. The Lord will stretch out over Edom a measuring line of chaos and a plumb line of destruction.

³⁴Because of this, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and others you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town.

³⁵And so upon you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

¹⁴They do not cry out to Me from their hearts when they wail upon their beds. They slash themselves for grain and new wine, but turn away from Me.

¹⁰Joy and gladness are removed from the orchard; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards. No one tramples the grapes in the winepresses; I have put an end to the cheering.

¹⁹By the wrath of the Lord of Hosts the land is scorched, and the people are fuel for the fire. No man even spares his brother.

²²Then they will look to the earth and see only distress and darkness and the gloom of anguish. And they will be driven into utter darkness.

¹¹But when the king came in to see the guests, he spotted a man who was not dressed in wedding clothes.

¹²‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ But the man was speechless.

⁶Give strong drink to one who is perishing, and wine to the bitter in soul.

¹¹“And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

¹⁸because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate, patrolled by foxes.

¹⁴For the palace will be forsaken, the busy city abandoned. The hill and the watchtower will become caves forever—the delight of wild donkeys and a pasture for flocks—

⁹For her wound is incurable; it has reached even Judah; it has approached the gate of my people, as far as Jerusalem itself.

¹How lonely lies the city, once so full of people! She who was great among the nations has become a widow. The princess of the provinces has become a slave.

⁴The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she herself is bitter with anguish.

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

²²If those days had not been cut short, nobody would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short.

⁴But you do have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments, and because they are worthy, they will walk with Me in white.

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.”

⁴“Go throughout the city of Jerusalem,” said the Lord, “and put a mark on the foreheads of the men sighing and groaning over all the abominations committed there.”

⁵And as I listened, He said to the others, “Follow him through the city and start killing; do not show pity or spare anyone!

¹⁶Therefore declare that this is what the Lord God says: ‘Although I sent them far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries, yet for a little while I have been a sanctuary for them in the countries to which they have gone.’

¹⁷Therefore declare that this is what the Lord God says: ‘I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you from the countries to which you have been scattered, and I will give back to you the land of Israel.’

¹²They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will be radiant over the bounty of the Lord—the grain, new wine, and oil, and the young of the flocks and herds. Their life will be like a well-watered garden, and never again will they languish.

¹¹the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those bringing thank offerings into the house of the Lord, saying: ‘Give thanks to the Lord of Hosts, for the Lord is good; His loving devotion endures forever.’ For I will restore the land from captivity as in former times, says the Lord.

¹In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; salvation is established as its walls and ramparts.

¹In that day you will say: “O Lord, I will praise You. Although You were angry with me, Your anger has turned away, and You have comforted me.

²Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. For the Lord God is my strength and my song, and He also has become my salvation.”

⁷How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

⁸Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices, together they shout for joy. For every eye will see when the Lord returns to Zion.

¹⁰“Shout for joy and be glad, O Daughter of Zion, for I am coming to dwell among you,” declares the Lord.

¹¹For My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place, incense and pure offerings will be presented in My name, because My name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord of Hosts.

¹Listen to Me, O islands; pay attention, O distant peoples: The Lord called Me from the womb; from the body of My mother He named Me.

⁹Surely the islands will wait for Me, with the ships of Tarshish in the lead, to bring your children from afar, with their silver and gold, to the honor of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for He has glorified you.

⁴He will not grow weak or discouraged before He has established justice on the earth. In His law the islands will put their hope.”

¹⁰Sing to the Lord a new song—His praise from the ends of the earth—you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, you islands, and all who dwell in them.

⁵My righteousness draws near, My salvation is on the way, and My arms will bring justice to the nations. The islands will look for Me and wait in hope for My arm.

²A dire vision is declared to me: “The traitor still betrays, and the destroyer still destroys. Go up, O Elam! Lay siege, O Media! I will put an end to all her groaning.”

¹Woe to you, O destroyer never destroyed, O traitor never betrayed! When you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed. When you have finished betraying, you will be betrayed.

¹¹For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly unfaithful to Me,” declares the Lord.

²⁰But as a woman may betray her husband, so you have betrayed Me, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord.

²⁷All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord. All the families of the nations will bow down before Him.

²⁸For dominion belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations.

²She weeps aloud in the night, with tears upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

⁴³Terror and pit and snare await you, O dweller of Moab,” declares the Lord.

⁴⁴“Whoever flees the panic will fall into the pit, and whoever climbs from the pit will be caught in the snare. For I will bring upon Moab the year of their punishment,” declares the Lord.

²¹If you walk in hostility toward Me and refuse to obey Me, I will multiply your plagues seven times, according to your sins.

²²I will send wild animals against you to rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and reduce your numbers, until your roads lie desolate.

²¹For this is what the Lord God says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?

¹⁷Then Jehu will put to death whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death whoever escapes the sword of Jehu.

³And wherever I have banished them, the remnant of this evil family will choose death over life,” declares the Lord of Hosts.

¹⁹It will be like a man who flees from a lion, only to encounter a bear, or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall, only to be bitten by a snake.

⁷Then the earth shook and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains trembled; they were shaken because He burned with anger.

¹¹In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.

¹⁰And the Lord threw them into confusion before Israel, who defeated them in a great slaughter at Gibeon, pursued them along the ascent to Beth-horon, and struck them down as far as Azekah and Makkedah.

¹¹As they fled before Israel along the descent from Beth-horon to Azekah, the Lord cast down on them large hailstones from the sky, and more of them were killed by the hailstones than by the swords of the Israelites.

¹⁹It will be like a man who flees from a lion, only to encounter a bear, or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall, only to be bitten by a snake.

²⁴Though he flees from an iron weapon, a bronze-tipped arrow will pierce him.

²Therefore we will not fear, though the earth is transformed and the mountains are toppled into the depths of the seas,

³though their waters roar and foam and the mountains quake in the surge. Selah

⁴All the stars of heaven will be dissolved. The skies will be rolled up like a scroll, and all their stars will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like foliage from the fig tree.

⁵When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, then it will come down upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction.

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.

⁵The mountains quake before Him, and the hills melt away; the earth trembles at His presence—the world and all its dwellers.

⁶and what He did in the midst of all the Israelites to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, their tents, and every living thing that belonged to them.

¹¹Then I saw a great white throne and the One seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them.

²³I looked at the earth, and it was formless and void; I looked to the heavens, and they had no light.

²⁴I looked at the mountains, and behold, they were quaking; all the hills were swaying.

¹⁴The Lord has poured into her a spirit of confusion. Egypt has been led astray in all she does, as a drunkard staggers through his own vomit.

¹⁹After this, he will turn back toward the fortresses of his own land, but he will stumble and fall and be no more.

⁹Stop and be astonished; blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not from strong drink.

¹Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the Lord has a case against the people of the land: “There is no truth, no loving devotion, and no knowledge of God in the land!

²Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.

¹⁴Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as the way of Beersheba lives’—they will fall, never to rise again.”

²¹Then a mighty angel picked up a stone the size of a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying: “With such violence the great city of Babylon will be cast down, never to be seen again.

¹²He breaks the spirits of princes; He is feared by the kings of the earth.

¹²And this will be the plague with which the Lord strikes all the peoples who have warred against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.

¹³On that day a great panic from the Lord will come upon them, so that each will seize the hand of another, and the hand of one will rise against the other.

²The Lord is angry with all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will devote them to destruction; He will give them over to slaughter.

³Their slain will be left unburied, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will flow with their blood.

⁶May the high praises of God be in their mouths, and a double-edged sword in their hands,

⁷to inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples,

¹⁸so that you may eat the flesh of kings and commanders and mighty men, of horses and riders, of everyone slave and free, small and great.”

¹⁹Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies assembled to wage war against the One seated on the horse, and against His army.

¹⁴The sky receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place.

¹⁵Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the commanders, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and free man hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.

¹¹As for you, because of the blood of My covenant, I will release your prisoners from the waterless pit.

²²But this is a people plundered and looted, all trapped in caves or imprisoned in dungeons. They have become plunder with no one to rescue them, and loot with no one to say, “Send them back!”

⁶So they took Jeremiah and dropped him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah with ropes into the cistern, which had no water but only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.

⁷Now Ebed-melech the Cushite, a court official in the royal palace, heard that Jeremiah had been put into the cistern. While the king was sitting at the Gate of Benjamin,

⁸After a long time you will be summoned. In the latter years you will enter a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and all now dwell securely.

¹⁶Now the five kings had fled and hidden in the cave at Makkedah.

¹⁷And Joshua was informed: “The five kings have been found; they are hiding in the cave at Makkedah.”

⁴Nothing will remain but to crouch among the captives or fall among the slain. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

¹⁹No longer will the sun be your light by day, nor the brightness of the moon shine on your night; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your splendor.

¹⁰For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The rising sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.

²³And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, because the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its lamp.

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.

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

²⁶The light of the moon will be as bright as the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter—like the light of seven days—on the day that the Lord binds up the brokenness of His people and heals the wounds He has inflicted.