The MacArthur Study Bible, NKJV, page 323
f The lofty city;
He lays it low,
He lays it low to the ground,
He brings it down to the dust.
6The foot shall 4tread it down—
The feet of the poor
And the steps of the needy.”
7The way of the just is uprightness;
g O Most Upright,
You 5weigh the path of the just.
8Yes, hin the way of Your judgments,
O LORD, we have iwaited for You;
The desire of our soul is for Your name
And for the remembrance of You.
9j With my soul I have desired You in the night,
Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early;
For when Your judgments are in the earth,
The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
10k Let grace be shown to the wicked,
Yet he will not learn righteousness;
In lthe land of uprightness he will deal unjustly,
And will not behold the majesty of the LORD.
11LORD, when Your hand is lifted up, mthey will not see.
But they will see and be ashamed
For 6their envy of people;
Yes, the fire of Your enemies shall devour them.
12LORD, You will establish peace for us,
For You have also done all our works 7in us.
13O LORD our God, nmasters besides You
Have had dominion over us;
But by You only we make mention of Your name.
14They are dead, they will not live;
They are deceased, they will not rise.
Therefore You have punished and destroyed them,
And made all their memory to operish.
15You have increased the nation, O LORD,
You have pincreased the nation;
You are glorified;
You have expanded all the 8borders of the land.
16LORD, qin trouble they have visited You,
They poured out a prayer when Your chastening was upon them.
17As ra woman with child
Is in pain and cries out in her 9pangs,
When she draws near the time of her delivery,
So have we been in Your sight, O LORD.
18We have been with child, we have been in pain;
We have, as it were, 10brought forth wind;
We have not accomplished any deliverance in the earth,
Nor have sthe inhabitants of the world fallen.
19t Your dead shall live;
Together with 11my dead body they shall arise.
u Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust;
For your dew is like the dew of herbs,
And the earth shall cast out the dead.
Take Refuge from the Coming Judgment
20Come, my people, venter your chambers,
And shut your doors behind you;
Hide yourself, as it were, wfor a little moment,
Until the indignation is past.
21For behold, the LORD xcomes out of His place
To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;
The earth will also disclose her 12blood,
And will no more cover her slain.
Isaiah 27
Israel Will Be Restored
1In that day the LORD with His severe sword, great and strong,
Will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
a Leviathan that twisted serpent;
And He will slay bthe reptile that is in the sea.
The Restoration of Israel
2In that day csing to her,
d“A vineyard of 1red wine!
3e I, the LORD, keep it,
I water it every moment;
Lest any hurt it,
I keep it night and day.
4Fury is not in Me.
Who would set fbriers and thorns
Against Me in battle?
I would go through them,
I would burn them together.
5Or let him take hold gof My strength,
That he may hmake peace with Me;
And he shall make peace with Me.”
6Those who come He shall cause ito take root in Jacob;
Israel shall blossom and bud,
And fill the face of the world with fruit.
7j Has He struck 2Israel as He struck those who struck him?
Or has He been slain according to the slaughter of those who were slain by Him?
8k In measure, by sending it away,
You contended with it.
l He removes it by His rough wind
In the day of the east wind.
9Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be covered;
And this is all the fruit of taking away his sin:
When he makes all the stones of the altar
Like chalkstones that are beaten to dust,
3 Wooden images and incense altars shall not stand.
10Yet the fortified city will be mdesolate,
The habitation forsaken and left like a wilderness;
There the calf will feed, and there it will lie down
And consume its branches.
11When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off;
The women come and set them on fire.
For nit is a people of no understanding;
Therefore He who made them will onot have mercy on them,
And pHe who formed them will show them no favor.
12And it shall come to pass in that day
That the LORD will thresh,
From the channel of 4the River to the Brook of Egypt;
And you will be qgathered one by one,
O you children of Israel.
13r So it shall be in that day:
s The great trumpet will be blown;
They will come, who are about to perish in the land of Assyria,
And they who are outcasts in the land of tEgypt,
And shall uworship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.
Woe to Ephraim and Jerusalem
Isaiah 28
Jerusalem Warned
1Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim,
Whose glorious beauty is a fading flower
Which is at the head of the 1verdant valleys,
To those who are overcome with wine!
2Behold, the Lord has a mighty and strong one,
a Like a tempest of hail and a destroying storm,
Like a flood of mighty waters overflowing,
Who will bring them down to the earth with His hand.
3The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim,
Will be trampled underfoot;
4And the glorious beauty is a fading flower
Which is at the head of the 2verdant valley,
Like the first fruit before the summer,
Which an observer sees;
He eats it up while it is still in his hand.
5In that day the LORD of hosts will be
For a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty
To the remnant of His people,
6For a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment,
And for strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.
7But they also bhave erred through wine,
And through intoxicating drink are out of the way;
c The priest and the prophet have erred through intoxicating drink,
They are swallowed up by wine,
They are out of the way through intoxicating drink;
They err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
8For all tables are full of vomit and filth;
No place is clean.
9“Whomd will he teach knowledge?
And whom will he make to understand the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just drawn from the breasts?
10e For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little.”
11For with fstammering lips and another tongue
He will speak to this people,
12To whom He said, “This is the grest with which
You may cause the weary to rest,”
And, “This is the refreshing”;
Yet they would not hear.
13But the word of the LORD was to them,
“Precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little,”
That they might go and fall backward, and be broken
And snared and caught.
14Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scornful men,
Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem,
15Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death,
And with Sheol we are in agreement.
When the overflowing scourge passes through,
It will not come to us,
h For we have made lies our refuge,
And under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.”
A Cornerstone in Zion
16Therefore thus says the Lord GOD:
“Behold, I lay in Zion ia stone for a foundation,
A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation;
Whoever believes will not act hastily.
17Also I will make justice the measuring line,
And righteousness the plummet;
The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies,
And the waters will overflow the hiding place.
18Your covenant with death will be annulled,
And your agreement with Sheol will not stand;
When the overflowing scourge passes through,
Then you will be trampled down by it.
19As often as it goes out it will take you;
For morning by morning it will pass over,
And by day and by night;
It will be a terror just to understand the report.”
20For the bed is too short to stretch out on,
And the covering so narrow that one cannot wrap himself in it.
21For the LORD will rise up as at Mount jPerazim,
He will be angry as in the Valley of kGibeon—
That He may do His work, lHis awesome work,
And bring to pass His act, His 3unusual act.
22Now therefore, do not be mockers,
Lest your bonds be made strong;
For I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts,
m A 4destruction determined even upon the whole earth.
Listen to the Teaching of God
23Give ear and hear my voice,
Listen and hear my speech.
24Does the plowman keep plowing all day to sow?
Does he keep turning his soil and breaking the clods?
25When he has leveled its surface,
Does he not sow the black cummin
And scatter the cummin,
Plant the wheat in rows,
The barley in the appointed place,
And the 5spelt in its place?
26For He instructs him in right judgment,
His God teaches him.
27For the black cummin is not threshed with a threshing sledge,
Nor is a cartwheel rolled over the cummin;
But the black cummin is beaten out with a stick,
And the cummin with a rod.
28Bread flour must be ground;
Therefore he does not thresh it forever,
Break it with his cartwheel,
Or crush it with his horsemen.
29This also comes from the LORD of hosts,
n Who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in 6guidance.
Woe to Jerusalem
Isaiah 29
The Blindness of Israel
1“Woe ato 1Ariel, to Ariel, the city bwhere David dwelt!
Add year to year;
Let feasts come around.
2Yet I will distress Ariel;
There shall be heaviness and sorrow,
And it shall be to Me as Ariel.
3I will encamp against you all around,
I will lay siege against you with a mound,
And I will raise siegeworks against you.
4You shall be brought down,
You shall speak out of the ground;
Your speech shall be low, out of the dust;
Your voice shall be like a medium’s, cout of the ground;
And your speech shall whisper out of the dust.
5“Moreover the multitude of your dfoes
Shall be like fine dust,
And the multitude of the terrible ones
Like echaff that passes away;
Yes, it shall be fin an instant, suddenly.
6g You will be punished by the LORD of hosts
With thunder and hearthquake and great noise,
With storm and tempest
And the flame of devouring fire.
7i The multitude of all the nations who fight against 2Ariel,
Even all who fight against her and her fortress,
And distress her,
Shall be jas a dream of a night vision.
8k It shall even be as when a hungry man dreams,
And look—he eats;
But he awakes, and his soul is still empty;
Or as when a thirsty man dreams,
And look—he drinks;
But he awakes, and indeed he is faint,
And his soul still craves:
So the multitude of all the nations shall be,
Who fight against Mount Zion.”
The Blindness of Disobedience
9Pause and wonder!
Blind yourselves and be blind!
l They are drunk, mbut not with wine;
They stagger, but not with intoxicating drink.
10For nthe LORD has poured out on you
The spirit of deep sleep,
And has oclosed your eyes, namely, the prophets;
And He has covered your heads, namely, pthe seers.
11The whole vision has become to you like the words of a 3book qthat is sealed, which men deliver to one who is literate, saying, “Read this, please.” rAnd he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.”
12Then the book is delivered to one who 4is illiterate, saying, “Read this, please.” And he says, “I am not literate.”
13Therefore the Lord said:
s“Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths
And honor Me twith their lips,
But have removed their hearts far from Me,
And their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men,
14u Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work
Among this people,
A marvelous work and a wonder;
v For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
And the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.”
15w Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the LORD,
And their works are in the dark;
x They say, “Who sees us?” and, “Who knows us?”
16Surely you have things turned around!
Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay;
For shall the ything made say of him who made it,
“He did not make me”?
Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it,
“He has no understanding”?
Future Recovery of Wisdom
17Is it not yet a very little while
Till zLebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,
And the fruitful field be esteemed as a forest?
18a In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book,
And the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness.
19b The humble also shall increase their joy in the LORD,
And cthe poor among men shall rejoice
In the Holy One of Israel.
20For the 5terrible one is brought to nothing,
d The scornful one is consumed,
And all who ewatch for iniquity are cut off—
21Who make a man an offender by a word,
And flay a snare for him who reproves in the gate,
And turn aside the just gby empty words.
22Therefore thus says the LORD, hwho redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:
“Jacob shall not now be iashamed,
Nor shall his face now grow pale;
23But when he sees his children,
j The work of My hands, in his midst,
They will hallow My name,
And hallow the Holy One of Jacob,
And fear the God of Israel.
24These also kwho erred in spirit will come to understanding,
And those who complained will learn doctrine.”
Futile Confidence in Egypt
Isaiah 30
The Futility of Relying on Egypt
1“Woe to the rebellious children,” says the LORD,
a“Who take counsel, but not of Me,
And who 1devise plans, but not of My Spirit,
b That they may add sin to sin;
2c Who walk to go down to Egypt,
And dhave not asked My advice,
To strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh,
And to trust in the shadow of Egypt!
3e Therefore the strength of Pharaoh
Shall be your shame,
And trust in the shadow of Egypt
Shall be your humiliation.
4For his princes were at fZoan,
And his ambassadors came to Hanes.
5g They were all ashamed of a people who could not benefit them,
Or be help or benefit,
But a shame and also a reproach.”
6hThe 2burden against the beasts of the South.
Through a land of trouble and anguish,
From which came the lioness and lion,
i The viper and fiery flying serpent,
They will carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys,
And their treasures on the humps of camels,
To a people who shall not profit;
7j For the Egyptians shall help in vain and to no purpose.
Therefore I have called her
3 Rahab-Hem-Shebeth.
A Rebellious People
8Now go, kwrite it before them on a tablet,
And note it on a scroll,
That it may be for time to come,
Forever and ever:
9That lthis is a rebellious people,
Lying children,
Children who will not hear the law of the LORD;
