Isaiah 26

⁵For I will be a wall of fire around it, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory within it.’”

¹⁸No longer will violence be heard in your land, nor ruin or destruction within your borders. But you will name your walls Salvation and your gates Praise.

¹¹Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the ends of the earth, “Say to Daughter Zion: See, your Savior comes! Look, His reward is with Him, and His recompense goes before Him.”

¹⁹Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your hearts to the Lord,

²⁰always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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.

¹And David sang this song to the Lord on the day the Lord had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.

²He said: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer.

⁹And they sang a new song: “Worthy are You to take the scroll and open its seals, because You were slain, and by Your blood You purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

¹¹Your gates will always stand open; they will never be shut, day or night, so that the wealth of the nations may be brought into you, with their kings being led in procession.

⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

²⁰This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.

¹⁰Go out, go out through the gates; prepare the way for the people! Build it up, build up the highway; clear away the stones; raise a banner for the nations!

²Nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory. You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.

⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

³³I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world!”

²⁷Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid.

⁷But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.

⁸He is like a tree planted by the waters that sends out its roots toward the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes, and its leaves are always green. It does not worry in a year of drought, nor does it cease to produce fruit.

¹⁰Those who know Your name trust in You, for You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You.

¹Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

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.”

⁸Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge. Selah

¹³I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

²²Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken.

²The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer. My God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

¹¹God has spoken once; I have heard this twice: that power belongs to God,

¹¹Unleash the fury of your wrath; look on every proud man and bring him low.

¹²Look on every proud man and humble him; trample the wicked where they stand.

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.

³⁷Babylon will become a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals, an object of horror and scorn, without inhabitant.

²⁵“Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, you who devastate the whole earth, declares the Lord. I will stretch out My hand against you; I will roll you over the cliffs and turn you into a charred mountain.

²⁶No one shall retrieve from you a cornerstone or a foundation stone, because you will become desolate forever,” declares the Lord.

¹¹I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will end the haughtiness of the arrogant and lay low the pride of the ruthless.

⁶⁴Then you are to say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again, because of the disaster I will bring upon her. And her people will grow weary.’” Here end the words of Jeremiah.

¹⁹Behold, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you.

²⁰The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

²⁶And to the one who overcomes and continues in My work until the end, I will give authority over the nations.

²⁴When they had brought the kings to Joshua, he summoned all the men of Israel and said to the army commanders who had accompanied him, “Come here and put your feet on the necks of these kings.” So the commanders came forward and put their feet on their necks.

⁵Listen, my beloved brothers: Has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him?

¹⁴The sons of your oppressors will come and bow down to you; all who reviled you will fall facedown at your feet and call you the City of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁰For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.

¹⁶I will lead the blind by a way they did not know; I will guide them on unfamiliar paths. I will turn darkness into light before them and rough places into level ground. These things I will do for them, and I will not forsake them.

⁷Little children, let no one deceive you: The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Christ is righteous.

¹²For this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in relation to you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God—not in worldly wisdom, but in the grace of God.

¹⁰By this the children of God are distinguished from the children of the devil: Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

⁷For the Lord is righteous; He loves justice. The upright will see His face.

³Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.

⁴Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.

⁷Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer awaits the precious fruit of the soil—how patient he is for the fall and spring rains.

⁸You, too, be patient and strengthen your hearts, because the Lord’s coming is near.

²O Lord, be gracious to us! We wait for You. Be our strength every morning and our salvation in time of trouble.

¹⁵God also told Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

⁵May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.

⁶You formed the mountains by Your power, having girded Yourself with might.

³³But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

⁶²At midnight I rise to give You thanks for Your righteous judgments.

¹A Psalm of David, when he was in the Wilderness of Judah. O God, You are my God. Earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You. My body yearns for You in a dry and weary land without water.

¹On my bed at night I sought the one I love; I sought him, but did not find him.

²I will arise now and go about the city, through the streets and squares. I will seek the one I love. So I sought him but did not find him.

⁶When I remember You on my bed, I think of You through the watches of the night.

⁷For You are my help; I will sing for joy in the shadow of Your wings.

³⁵Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and went out to a solitary place to pray.

⁷My people are bent on turning from Me. Though they call to the Most High, He will by no means exalt them.

³⁷And the Father who sent Me has Himself testified about Me. You have never heard His voice nor seen His form,

³⁸nor does His word abide in you, because you do not believe the One He sent.

⁴Or do you disregard the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?

⁵But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

¹⁵When Pharaoh saw that there was relief, however, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.

¹⁵But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

³⁴When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had ceased, he sinned again and hardened his heart—he and his officials.

²⁷but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume all adversaries.

⁹Your hand will be lifted over your foes, and all your enemies will be cut off.

²⁴Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes the straw, and as dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will decay and their blossoms will blow away like dust; for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

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.”

⁶Now the hand of the Lord was heavy on the people of Ashdod and its vicinity, ravaging them and afflicting them with tumors.

⁷And when the men of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel must not stay here with us, because His hand is heavy upon us and upon our god Dagon.”

⁹but keep watching it. If it goes up the road to its homeland, toward Beth-shemesh, it is the Lord who has brought on us this great disaster. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not His hand that punished us and that it happened by chance.”

¹⁰For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.

²I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills His purpose for me.

¹¹The Lord gives His people strength; the Lord blesses His people with peace.

¹⁴But I acted for the sake of My name, so that it would not be profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.

⁶The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

⁶Nevertheless, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal its people and reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth.

⁷I will make known the Lord’s loving devotion and His praiseworthy acts, because of all that the Lord has done for us—the many good things for the house of Israel according to His great compassion and loving devotion.

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

⁷So you are not to associate with these nations that remain among you. You must not call on the names of their gods or swear by them, and you must not serve them or bow down to them.

²²Thus says your Lord, the Lord, even your God, who defends His people: “See, I have removed from your hand the cup of staggering. From that goblet, the cup of My fury, you will never drink again.

⁴and on that day you will say: “Give praise to the Lord; proclaim His name! Make His works known among the peoples; declare that His name is exalted.

¹⁰And when the relative who is to burn the bodies picks them up to remove them from the house, he will call to one inside, “Is anyone else with you?” “None,” that person will answer. “Silence,” the relative will retort, “for the name of the Lord must not be invoked.”

⁷The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.

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.

³All the nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her immorality. The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown wealthy from the extravagance of her luxury.”

¹⁹But you are cast out of your grave like a rejected branch, covered by those slain with the sword, and dumped into a rocky pit like a carcass trampled underfoot.

²⁰You will not join them in burial, since you have destroyed your land and slaughtered your own people. The offspring of the wicked will never again be mentioned.

¹⁸What use is an idol, that a craftsman should carve it—or an image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.

¹⁹Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ or to silent stone, ‘Arise!’ Can it give guidance? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet there is no breath in it at all.”

¹⁹When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter, shouldn’t a people consult their God instead? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?

²⁸They yoked themselves to Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods.

³You have enlarged the nation and increased its joy. The people rejoice before You as they rejoice at harvest time, as men rejoice in dividing the plunder.

²“Enlarge the site of your tent, stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, do not hold back. Lengthen your ropes and drive your stakes in deep.

³For you will spread out to the right and left; your descendants will dispossess the nations and inhabit the desolate cities.

¹²A third of your people will die by plague or be consumed by famine within you, a third will fall by the sword outside your walls, and a third I will scatter to every wind and unleash a sword behind them.

³⁷I will surely gather My people from all the lands to which I have banished them in My furious anger and great wrath, and I will return them to this place and make them dwell in safety.

¹⁹Thanksgiving will proceed from them, a sound of celebration. I will multiply them, and they will not be decreased; I will honor them, and they will not be belittled.

²³You multiplied their descendants like the stars of heaven and brought them to the land You had told their fathers to enter and possess.

¹⁵Then I will return to My place until they admit their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.”

¹⁵Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor Me.”

¹⁹Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street.

¹For the choirmaster. According to Jeduthun. A Psalm of Asaph. I cried out to God; I cried aloud to God to hear me.

²In the day of trouble I sought the Lord; through the night my outstretched hands did not grow weary; my soul refused to be comforted.

¹⁵When he calls out to Me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him.

³⁷and when they come to their senses in the land to which they were taken, and they repent and plead with You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong; we have acted wickedly,’

³⁸and when they return to You with all their heart and soul in the land of the enemies who took them captive, and when they pray in the direction of the land that You gave to their fathers, the city You have chosen, and the house I have built for Your Name,

⁸Terror, pain, and anguish will seize them; they will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look at one another, their faces flushed with fear.

²¹A woman has pain in childbirth because her time has come; but when she brings forth her child, she forgets her anguish because of her joy that a child has been born into the world.

³Therefore my body is filled with anguish. Pain grips me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am bewildered to hear, I am dismayed to see.

³While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

³¹For I hear a cry like a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child—the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands to say, “Woe is me, for my soul faints before the murderers!”

²⁴We have heard the report; our hands hang limp. Anguish has gripped us, pain like that of a woman in labor.

¹³Labor pains come upon him, but he is an unwise son. When the time arrives, he fails to present himself at the opening of the womb.

¹⁴from such men, O Lord, by Your hand—from men of the world whose portion is in this life. May You fill the bellies of Your treasured ones and satisfy their sons, so they leave their abundance to their children.

⁴No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case honestly. They rely on empty pleas; they tell lies; they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.

³to tell him, “This is what Hezekiah says: Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace; for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them.

³to tell him, “This is what Hezekiah says: Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace; for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them.

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

²And many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, but others to shame and everlasting contempt.

¹The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me out by His Spirit and set me down in the middle of the valley, and it was full of bones.

²He led me all around among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, and indeed, they were very dry.

⁵²The tombs broke open, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

¹⁴So it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

¹⁴I will ransom them from the power of Sheol; I will redeem them from Death. Where, O Death, are your plagues? Where, O Sheol, is your sting? Compassion is hidden from My eyes.

²⁰Though You have shown me many troubles and misfortunes, You will revive me once again. Even from the depths of the earth You will bring me back up.

⁵For His anger is fleeting, but His favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping may stay the night, but joy comes in the morning.

⁵For in the day of trouble He will hide me in His shelter; He will conceal me under the cover of His tent; He will set me high upon a rock.

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

⁸In a surge of anger I hid My face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord your Redeemer.

⁶But when you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

⁴He will cover you with His feathers; under His wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and rampart.

¹⁰The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.

¹⁴Enoch, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied about them: “Behold, the Lord is coming with myriads of His holy ones

¹⁵to execute judgment on everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of every ungodly act of wickedness and every harsh word spoken against Him by ungodly sinners.”

⁹And when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony they had upheld.

¹⁰And they cried out in a loud voice, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge those who dwell upon the earth and avenge our blood?”

¹¹I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will end the haughtiness of the arrogant and lay low the pride of the ruthless.

⁴For this is what the Lord has told me: “I will quietly look on from My dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

¹⁸O earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry for help never be laid to rest.

³For behold, the Lord comes forth from His dwelling place; He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.

⁴The mountains will melt beneath Him, and the valleys will split apart, like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope.