Isaiah 4

²³and she conceived and gave birth to a son. “God has taken away my shame,” she said.

¹⁷So the pride of man will be brought low, and the loftiness of men will be humbled; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day,

¹²I will make man scarcer than pure gold, and mankind rarer than the gold of Ophir.

²²For these are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written.

²⁵“The Lord has done this for me. In these days He has shown me favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”

¹²We command and urge such people by our Lord Jesus Christ to begin working quietly to earn their own living.

⁵Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and He will reign wisely as King and will administer justice and righteousness in the land.

¹²And you are to tell him that this is what the Lord of Hosts says: ‘Here is a man whose name is the Branch, and He will branch out from His place and build the temple of the Lord.

⁸Hear now, O high priest Joshua, you and your companions seated before you, who are indeed a sign. For behold, I am going to bring My servant, the Branch.

⁶In the days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will bud and blossom and fill the whole world with fruit.

³²And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has promised, among the remnant called by the Lord.

¹⁵In those days and at that time I will cause to sprout for David a righteous Branch, and He will administer justice and righteousness in the land.

²⁰Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

²¹Then all your people will be righteous; they will possess the land forever; they are the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, so that I may be glorified.

²⁸May they be blotted out of the Book of Life and not listed with the righteous.

¹Awake, awake, clothe yourself with strength, O Zion! Put on your garments of splendor, O Jerusalem, holy city! For the uncircumcised and unclean will no longer enter you.

²⁷But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who practices an abomination or a lie, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

³²Yet now, if You would only forgive their sin.... But if not, please blot me out of the book that You have written.”

³³The Lord replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot out of My book.

²But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire, like a launderer’s soap.

³And He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.

¹⁸“Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me. All of them are copper, tin, iron, and lead inside the furnace; they are but the dross of silver.

¹⁹Therefore this is what the Lord God says: ‘Because all of you have become dross, behold, I will gather you into Jerusalem.

²⁵I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols.

⁹This third I will bring through the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’”

¹¹I baptize you with water for repentance, but after me will come One more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

¹²His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

²⁹I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will summon the grain and make it plentiful, and I will not bring famine upon you.

²¹And the Lord went before them in a pillar of cloud to guide their way by day, and in a pillar of fire to give them light by night, so that they could travel by day or night.

²²Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place before the people.

¹²You led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they should travel.

³⁴Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

³⁵Moses was unable to enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

¹⁵On the day that the tabernacle, the Tent of the Testimony, was set up, the cloud covered it and appeared like fire above the tabernacle from evening until morning.

¹⁶It remained that way continually; the cloud would cover the tabernacle by day, and at night it would appear like fire.

¹⁴He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night.

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.

⁴For You have been a refuge for the poor, a stronghold for the needy in distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat. For the breath of the ruthless is like rain against a wall,

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.

²Each will be like a shelter from the wind, a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in a dry land, like the shadow of a great rock in an arid land.

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

¹⁴And He will be a sanctuary—but to both houses of Israel a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, to the dwellers of Jerusalem a trap and a snare.

¹⁸Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.