Isaiah 66

⁴⁸However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:

⁴⁹‘Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. What kind of house will you build for Me, says the Lord, or where will My place of repose be?

²⁴The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.

³⁴But I tell you not to swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne;

³⁵or by the earth, for it is His footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.

²⁷But will God indeed dwell upon the earth? The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain You, much less this temple I have built.

⁷Let us go to His dwelling place; let us worship at His footstool.

²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where one must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹“Believe Me, woman,” Jesus replied, “a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

¹⁵For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and humble in spirit, to restore the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite.

¹⁸The Lord is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.

¹⁷The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

³“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

²⁷because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and against its people, and because you have humbled yourself before Me and have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I have heard you,’ declares the Lord.

²⁸‘Now I will indeed gather you to your fathers, and you will be gathered to your grave in peace. Your eyes will not see all the calamity that I will bring on this place and on its people.’” So they brought her answer back to the king.

¹⁴Blessed is the man who is always reverent, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble.

⁸The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.

¹¹“What good to Me is your multitude of sacrifices?” says the Lord. “I am full from the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed cattle; I take no delight in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

¹²When you come to appear before Me, who has required this of you—this trampling of My courts?

²¹“I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.

²²Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; for your peace offerings of fattened cattle I will have no regard.

¹²I will destine you for the sword, and you will all kneel down to be slaughtered, because I called and you did not answer, I spoke and you did not listen; you did evil in My sight and chose that in which I did not delight.”

¹⁷“Those who consecrate and purify themselves to enter the groves—to follow one in the center of those who eat the flesh of swine and vermin and rats—will perish together,” declares the Lord.

²and bring it to Aaron’s sons the priests. The priest shall take a handful of the flour and oil, together with all the frankincense, and burn this as a memorial portion on the altar, a food offering, a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

¹²I will destine you for the sword, and you will all kneel down to be slaughtered, because I called and you did not answer, I spoke and you did not listen; you did evil in My sight and chose that in which I did not delight.”

²⁴What the wicked man dreads will overtake him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted.

¹³And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and because I have spoken to you again and again but you would not listen, and I have called to you but you would not answer,

²⁴Because you refused my call, and no one took my outstretched hand,

²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord by following the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

⁶He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did great evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger.

²Has not My hand made all these things? And so they came into being,” declares the Lord. “This is the one I will esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at My word.

¹⁸If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me first.

¹⁹If you were of the world, it would love you as its own. Instead, the world hates you, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.

¹⁰Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.

²⁰Those who repay my good with evil attack me for pursuing the good.

²²You will be hated by everyone because of My name, but the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.

²²Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man.

²³Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For their fathers treated the prophets in the same way.

⁷Behold, I will rouse them from the places to which you sold them; I will return your recompense upon your heads.

⁸I will sell your sons and daughters into the hands of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans—to a distant nation.” Indeed, the Lord has spoken.

⁸For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

²He said: “The Lord roars from Zion and raises His voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the summit of Carmel withers.”

¹⁸So He will repay according to their deeds: fury to His enemies, retribution to His foes, and recompense to the islands.

⁵They say, ‘Keep to yourself; do not come near me, for I am holier than you!’ Such people are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all day long.

⁶Behold, it is written before Me: I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will pay it back into their laps,

¹And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.

²She was pregnant and crying out in the pain and agony of giving birth.

²⁶But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

⁴From ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides You, who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.

⁹Rather, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

²⁰Yet the children of your bereavement will say in your hearing, ‘This place is too small for us; make room for us to live here.’

²¹Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has begotten these for me? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. So who has reared them? Look, I was left all alone, so where did they come from?’”

¹⁸I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed,

¹⁹by the power of signs and wonders, and by the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.

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.

¹⁴Is anything too difficult for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you—in about a year—and Sarah will have a son.”

⁸O Lord, I love the house where You dwell, the place where Your glory resides.

⁶May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!

⁴³Rejoice, O heavens, with Him, and let all God’s angels worship Him. Rejoice, O nations, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His children. He will take vengeance on His adversaries and repay those who hate Him; He will cleanse His land and His people.

¹⁸But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; for I will create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight.

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.”

²³Sing for joy, O heavens, for the Lord has done this; shout aloud, O depths of the earth. Break forth in song, O mountains, you forests and all your trees. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and revealed His glory in Israel.

¹⁶You will drink the milk of nations and nurse at the breasts of royalty; you will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

¹⁸And in that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and the hills will flow with milk. All the streams of Judah will run with water, and a spring will flow from the house of the Lord to water the Valley of Acacias.

⁸They feast on the abundance of Your house, and You give them drink from Your river of delights.

⁵Then you will look and be radiant, and your heart will tremble and swell with joy, because the riches of the sea will be brought to you, and the wealth of the nations will come to you.

²Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,

¹⁶You will drink the milk of nations and nurse at the breasts of royalty; you will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

¹⁸If only you had paid attention to My commandments, your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like waves of the sea.

¹⁴This is what the Lord says: “The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush, along with the Sabeans, men of stature, will come over to you and will be yours; they will trudge behind you; they will come over in chains and bow down to you. They will confess to you: ‘God is indeed with you, and there is no other; there is no other God.’”

¹¹so that you may nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts; you may drink deeply and delight yourselves in her glorious abundance.

¹⁹For your ruined and desolate places and your ravaged land will now indeed be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away.

²⁰Yet the children of your bereavement will say in your hearing, ‘This place is too small for us; make room for us to live here.’

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

⁴who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

³For the Lord will comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; He will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and melodious song.

¹“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God.

⁷On the contrary, we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother caring for her children.

¹⁰Be glad for Jerusalem and rejoice over her, all who love her. Rejoice greatly with her, all who mourn over her,

¹⁸But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; for I will create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight.

¹⁹I will rejoice in Jerusalem and take delight in My people. The sounds of weeping and crying will no longer be heard in her.

⁷Ephraim will be like a mighty man, and their hearts will be glad as with wine. Their children will see it and be joyful; their hearts will rejoice in the Lord.

⁸This will bring healing to your body and refreshment to your bones.

³¹On the twelfth day of the first month we set out from the Ahava Canal to go to Jerusalem, and the hand of our God was upon us to protect us from the hands of the enemies and bandits along the way.

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.

²²For I was ashamed to ask the king for an escort of soldiers and horsemen to protect us from our enemies on the road, since we had told him, “The hand of our God is gracious to all who seek Him, but His great anger is against all who forsake Him.”

⁹He had begun the journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month, and he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month, for the gracious hand of his God was upon him.

³³For Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its funeral pyre is deep and wide, with plenty of fire and wood. The breath of the Lord, like a torrent of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze.

¹⁰But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and its works will be laid bare.

¹¹Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to conduct yourselves in holiness and godliness

⁶After all, it is only right for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you,

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

⁷The king was enraged, and he sent his troops to destroy those murderers and burn their city.

⁶On the wicked He will rain down fiery coals and sulfur; a scorching wind will be their portion.

³Fire goes before Him and consumes His foes on every side.

²¹And I will summon a sword against Gog on all My mountains, declares the Lord God, and every man’s sword will be against his brother.

²²I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed. I will pour out torrents of rain, hailstones, fire, and sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him.

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.

²I will turn you around, drive you along, bring you up from the far north, and send you against the mountains of Israel.

³Then I will strike the bow from your left hand and dash down the arrows from your right hand.

¹In that day the Lord will take His sharp, great, and mighty sword, and bring judgment on Leviathan the fleeing serpent—Leviathan the coiling serpent—and He will slay the dragon of the sea.

¹¹Then I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse. And its rider is called Faithful and True. With righteousness He judges and wages war.

¹²He has eyes like blazing fire, and many royal crowns on His head. He has a name written on Him that only He Himself knows.

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.

⁶The sword of the Lord is bathed in blood. It drips with fat—with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

³to a people who continually provoke Me to My face, sacrificing in the gardens and burning incense on altars of brick,

⁴sitting among the graves, spending nights in secret places, eating the meat of pigs and polluted broth from their bowls.

³You must not eat any detestable thing.

⁴These are the animals that you may eat: The ox, the sheep, the goat,

²⁸But rebels and sinners will together be shattered, and those who forsake the Lord will perish.

²⁹Surely you will be ashamed of the sacred oaks in which you have delighted; you will be embarrassed by the gardens that you have chosen.

²“Say to the Israelites, ‘Of all the beasts of the earth, these ones you may eat:

³You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud.

⁹All the nations You have made will come and bow before You, O Lord, and they will glorify Your name.

¹⁵Then the seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and loud voices called out in heaven: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever.”

⁴The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

⁵For we do not proclaim ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.

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.

⁴²but I know you, that you do not have the love of God within you.

²⁰And again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”

¹⁵so He will sprinkle many nations. Kings will shut their mouths because of Him. For they will see what they have not been told, and they will understand what they have not heard.

²¹Rather, as it is written: “Those who were not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.”

¹⁰Men of Persia, Lydia, and Put served as warriors in your army. They hung their shields and helmets on your walls; they gave you splendor.

⁵Surely you will summon a nation you do not know, and nations who do not know you will run to you. For the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, has bestowed glory on you.”

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.

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!

³Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

⁴Lift up your eyes and look around: They all gather and come to you; your sons will come from afar, and your daughters will be carried on the arm.

⁹They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is full of water.

²⁵The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but the food of the serpent will be dust. They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain,” says the Lord.

¹¹But you who forsake the Lord, who forget My holy mountain, who set a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny,

¹⁶to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

⁷I will bring them to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on My altar, for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”

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.

⁶And unto Me you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to speak to the Israelites.”

⁵you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

⁶who has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and power forever and ever! Amen.

⁶But you will be called the priests of the Lord; they will speak of you as ministers of our God; you will feed on the wealth of nations, and you will boast in their riches.

⁶Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.

¹⁷For behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

¹³But in keeping with God’s promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

¹Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

²⁷My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me.

²⁸I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand.

⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you,

⁵who through faith are shielded by God’s power for the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

²⁰and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

¹“This is what the Lord God says: ‘The gate of the inner court that faces east must be kept shut during the six days of work, but on the Sabbath day and on the day of the New Moon it shall be opened.

⁹All the nations You have made will come and bow before You, O Lord, and they will glorify Your name.

⁶On the day of the New Moon he shall offer a young, unblemished bull, six lambs, and a ram without blemish.

¹⁶Therefore let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a feast, a New Moon, or a Sabbath.

¹⁷These are a shadow of the things to come, but the body that casts it belongs to Christ.

¹⁶Then all the survivors from the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.

⁴Who will not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed.”

¹¹Your pomp has been brought down to Sheol, along with the music of your harps. Maggots are your bed and worms your blanket.

¹⁰he too will drink the wine of God’s anger, poured undiluted into the cup of His wrath. And he will be tormented in fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.

¹¹And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. Day and night there is no rest for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.”

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

¹⁵who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and drove us out as well. They are displeasing to God and hostile to all men,

¹⁶hindering us from telling the Gentiles how they may be saved. As a result, they continue to heap up their sins to full capacity; the utmost wrath has come upon them.

⁸But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.”

¹⁰The righteous will rejoice when they see they are avenged; they will wash their feet in the blood of the wicked.

¹¹Then men will say, “There is surely a reward for the righteous! There is surely a God who judges the earth!”