Isaiah 9

¹⁵“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—

¹⁶the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.”

²⁹In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and he took the people as captives to Assyria.

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.

²⁶So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria (that is, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria) to take the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh into exile. And he brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river of Gozan, where they remain to this day.

⁴And Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel, conquering Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and all the store cities of Naphtali.

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.

¹⁶the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.”

⁸For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light,

¹²Once again, Jesus spoke to the people and said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”

⁴⁶I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in Me should remain in darkness.

⁷⁸because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the Dawn will visit us from on high,

⁷⁹to shine on those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

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.

¹⁰So the redeemed of the Lord will return and enter Zion with singing, crowned with everlasting joy. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee.

¹⁵You have enlarged the nation, O Lord; You have enlarged the nation. You have gained glory for Yourself; You have extended all the borders of the land.

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.

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

¹⁶²I rejoice in Your promise like one who finds great spoil.

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.

¹³Then the maidens will rejoice with dancing, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into joy, and give them comfort and joy for their sorrow.

⁸On that day, declares the Lord of Hosts, I will break the yoke off their necks and tear off their bonds, and no longer will strangers enslave them.

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.”

²⁶And the Lord of Hosts will brandish a whip against them, as when He struck Midian at the rock of Oreb. He will raise His staff over the sea, as He did in Egypt.

²⁷On that day the burden will be lifted from your shoulders, and the yoke from your neck. The yoke will be broken because your neck will be too large.

¹³For I will now break their yoke from your neck and tear away your shackles.”

¹⁴In righteousness you will be established, far from oppression, for you will have no fear. Terror will be far removed, for it will not come near you.

²⁶I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. Then all mankind will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

⁸in blazing fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

⁸Yes, it is coming, and it will surely happen, declares the Lord God. This is the day of which I have spoken.

⁹Then those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go out, kindle fires, and burn up the weapons—the bucklers and shields, the bows and arrows, the clubs and spears. For seven years they will use them for fuel.

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.

⁹He makes wars to cease throughout the earth; He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; He burns the shields in the fire.

¹⁵For behold, the Lord will come with fire—His chariots are like a whirlwind—to execute His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire.

¹⁶For by fire and by His sword, the Lord will execute judgment on all flesh, and many will be slain by the Lord.

⁴when the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains from the heart of Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire.

¹¹Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord!

¹⁸Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.

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.

⁶In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is His name by which He will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.

¹⁴Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel.

²³“Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel” (which means, “God with us”).

²⁰And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true—in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

³²He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David,

³³and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end!”

⁴⁴In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will shatter all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, but will itself stand forever.

¹⁴And He was given dominion, glory, and kingship, that the people of every nation and language should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

¹⁶Your house and kingdom will endure forever before Me, and your throne will be established forever.”

⁴In your splendor ride forth in victory on behalf of truth and humility and justice; may your right hand show your awesome deeds.

⁵Your arrows pierce the hearts of the king’s foes; the nations fall beneath your feet.

²⁷Then the sovereignty, dominion, and greatness of the kingdoms under all of heaven will be given to the people, the saints of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will serve and obey Him.’

⁷But this is what the Lord God says: ‘It will not arise; it will not happen.

⁸For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered as a people.

¹Again I lifted up my eyes and saw before me a flying scroll.

²“What do you see?” asked the angel. “I see a flying scroll,” I replied, “twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide.”

⁴For before the boy knows how to cry ‘Father’ or ‘Mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”

⁵And the Lord spoke to me further:

¹This is the word of the Lord that came to Micah the Moreshite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah—what he saw regarding Samaria and Jerusalem:

²Hear, O peoples, all of you; listen, O earth, and everyone in it! May the Lord God bear witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple.

⁶But did not My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your fathers? They repented and said, ‘Just as the Lord of Hosts purposed to do to us according to our ways and deeds, so He has done to us.’”

¹²Listen to Me, you stubborn people, far removed from righteousness:

⁹“Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?

¹⁰As my hand seized the idolatrous kingdoms whose images surpassed those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

²⁸Those who escape the sword will return from Egypt to Judah, few in number, and the whole remnant of Judah who went to dwell in the land of Egypt will know whose word will stand, Mine or theirs!

²⁹This will be a sign to you that I will punish you in this place, declares the Lord, so that you may know that My threats of harm against you will surely stand.

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.”

⁵Young men, in the same way, submit yourselves to your elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

¹⁸Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

⁴Though Edom may say, “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” this is what the Lord of Hosts says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Land of Wickedness, and a people with whom the Lord is indignant forever.

²⁷The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as abundant as sycamore in the foothills.

⁹All these buildings were constructed with costly stones, cut to size and trimmed with saws inside and out from the foundation to the eaves, and from the outside to the great courtyard.

¹⁰The foundations were laid with large, costly stones, some ten cubits long and some eight cubits long.

¹This is the burden against Damascus: “Behold, Damascus is no longer a city; it has become a heap of ruins.

²The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they will be left to the flocks, which will lie down with no one to fear.

⁸For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered as a people.

⁹“Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?

¹⁰As my hand seized the idolatrous kingdoms whose images surpassed those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

⁴For before the boy knows how to cry ‘Father’ or ‘Mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”

⁵And the Lord spoke to me further:

²⁹In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and he took the people as captives to Assyria.

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.

¹⁸The Philistines had also raided the cities of the foothills and the Negev of Judah, capturing and occupying Beth-shemesh, Aijalon, and Gederoth, as well as Soco, Timnah, and Gimzo with their villages.

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.

⁷for they have devoured Jacob and devastated his homeland.

⁶At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath for Aram, drove out the men of Judah, and sent the Edomites into Elath, where they live to this day.

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.

²¹Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh; together they turn against Judah. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

³O Lord, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.

¹⁰Israel’s arrogance testifies against them, yet they do not return to the Lord their God; despite all this, they do not seek Him.

¹Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the Lord.

⁵Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.

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.

¹¹O Lord, Your hand is upraised, but they do not see it. They will see Your zeal for Your people and be put to shame. The fire set for Your enemies will consume them!

⁸Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and grief and famine—and she will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.”

¹⁵There is nothing Egypt can do—head or tail, palm or reed.

¹¹For the Lord gives a command: “The great house will be smashed to pieces, and the small house to rubble.”

¹³this iniquity of yours is like a breach about to fail, a bulge in a high wall, whose collapse will come suddenly—in an instant!

³Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that vanishes, like chaff blown from a threshing floor, like smoke through an open window.

¹⁰In fear of her torment, they will stand at a distance and cry out: “Woe, woe to the great city, the mighty city of Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.”

²⁴For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive even the elect, if that were possible.

¹⁰For the Lord has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep. He has shut your eyes, O prophets; He has covered your heads, O seers.

²Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and encourage with every form of patient instruction.

³For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires.

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.

⁶“Look,” said the servant, “in this city there is a man of God who is highly respected; everything he says surely comes to pass. Let us go there now. Perhaps he will tell us which way to go.”

²¹This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying to you lies in My name: “I will deliver them to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will kill them before your very eyes.

²²Because of them, all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse: ‘May the Lord make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire!’

¹²Youths oppress My people, and women rule over them. O My people, your guides mislead you; they turn you from your paths.

¹⁴Disregard them! They are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

¹⁶Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’

¹⁷You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes it sacred?

⁵⁵And he stood and blessed the whole assembly of Israel in a loud voice, saying:

⁵⁶“Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel according to all that He promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises He made through His servant Moses.

²⁷Then the priests and the Levites stood to bless the people, and God heard their voice, and their prayer came into His holy dwelling place in heaven.

²³“Tell Aaron and his sons: This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:

²⁴‘May the Lord bless you and keep you;

²¹Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle.

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.

⁶I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

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.

³⁴You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

¹¹When its limbs are dry, they are broken off. Women come and use them for kindling; for this is a people without understanding. Therefore their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor.

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.”

¹⁴As fire consumes a forest, as a flame sets the mountains ablaze,

¹⁰For they will be entangled as with thorns and consumed like the drink of a drunkard—like stubble that is fully dry.

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.

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

⁹Edom’s streams will be turned to tar, and her soil to sulfur; her land will become a blazing pitch.

⁶Who can withstand His indignation? Who can endure His burning anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; even rocks are shattered before Him.

²The godly man has perished from the earth; there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; they hunt one another with a net.

⁶For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies are the members of his own household.

⁴For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them deep into hell, placing them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment;

²For behold, darkness covers the earth, and thick darkness is over the peoples; but the Lord will rise upon you, and His glory will appear over you.

⁶Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants must bear the guilt; the earth’s dwellers have been burned, and only a few survive.

⁴⁵From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.

²⁶I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. Then all mankind will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

⁹I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’

²¹They will roam the land, dejected and hungry. When they are famished, they will become enraged; and looking upward, they will curse their king and their God.

²⁶When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and dole out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.

²⁷But if in spite of all this you do not obey Me, but continue to walk in hostility toward Me,

¹⁰The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

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.

⁶For in one day Pekah son of Remaliah killed 120,000 valiant men in Judah. This happened because they had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers.

⁷Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, killed Maaseiah the son of the king, Azrikam the governor of the palace, and Elkanah the second to the king.

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.

¹⁵But if you keep on biting and devouring one another, watch out, or you will be consumed by one another.

³⁰Then Hoshea son of Elah led a conspiracy against Pekah son of Remaliah. In the twentieth year of Jotham son of Uzziah, Hoshea attacked Pekah, killed him, and reigned in his place.

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.