1:23 Your officials are rebels,
they associate with thieves.
All of them love bribery,
and look for payoffs.
They do not take up the cause of the orphan,
or defend the rights of the widow.
3:9 The look on their faces testifies to their guilt;
like the people of Sodom they openly boast of their sin.
Too bad for them!
For they bring disaster on themselves.
9:4 For their oppressive yoke
and the club that strikes their shoulders,
the cudgel the oppressor uses on them,
you have shattered, as in the day of Midian’s defeat.
10:6 I sent him against a godless nation,
I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry,
to take plunder and to carry away loot,
to trample them down like dirt in the streets.
10:20 At that time those left in Israel, those who remain of the family of Jacob, will no longer rely on a foreign leader that abuses them. Instead they will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.
11:6 A wolf will reside with a lamb,
and a leopard will lie down with a young goat;
an ox and a young lion will graze together,
as a small child leads them along.
13:8 They panic –
cramps and pain seize hold of them
like those of a woman who is straining to give birth.
They look at one another in astonishment;
their faces are flushed red.
14:22 “I will rise up against them,”
says the Lord who commands armies.
“I will blot out all remembrance of Babylon and destroy all her people,
including the offspring she produces,”
says the Lord.
14:25 I will break Assyria in my land,
I will trample them underfoot on my hills.
Their yoke will be removed from my people,
the burden will be lifted from their shoulders.
16:4 Please let the Moabite fugitives live among you.
Hide them from the destroyer!”
Certainly the one who applies pressure will cease,
the destroyer will come to an end,
those who trample will disappear from the earth.
23:1 Here is a message about Tyre:
Wail, you large ships,
for the port is too devastated to enter!
From the land of Cyprus this news is announced to them.
28:12 In the past he said to them,
“This is where security can be found.
Provide security for the one who is exhausted!
This is where rest can be found.”
But they refused to listen.
29:23 For when they see their children,
whom I will produce among them,
they will honor my name.
They will honor the Holy One of Jacob;
they will respect the God of Israel.
30:28 His battle cry overwhelms like a flooding river
that reaches one’s neck.
He shakes the nations in a sieve that isolates the chaff;
he puts a bit into the mouth of the nations and leads them to destruction.
31:8 Assyria will fall by a sword, but not one human-made;
a sword not made by humankind will destroy them.
They will run away from this sword
and their young men will be forced to do hard labor.
32:2 Each of them will be like a shelter from the wind
and a refuge from a rainstorm;
like streams of water in a dry region
and like the shade of a large cliff in a parched land.
34:16 Carefully read the scroll of the Lord!
Not one of these creatures will be missing,
none will lack a mate.
For the Lord has issued the decree,
and his own spirit gathers them.
41:2 Who stirs up this one from the east?
Who officially commissions him for service?
He hands nations over to him,
and enables him to subdue kings.
He makes them like dust with his sword,
like windblown straw with his bow.
41:15 “Look, I am making you like a sharp threshing sledge,
new and double-edged.
You will thresh the mountains and crush them;
you will make the hills like straw.
41:17 The oppressed and the poor look for water, but there is none;
their tongues are parched from thirst.
I, the Lord, will respond to their prayers;
I, the God of Israel, will not abandon them.
42:11 Let the desert and its cities shout out,
the towns where the nomads of Kedar live!
Let the residents of Sela shout joyfully;
let them shout loudly from the mountaintops.
43:6 I will say to the north, ‘Hand them over!’
and to the south, ‘Don’t hold any back!’
Bring my sons from distant lands,
and my daughters from the remote regions of the earth,
43:14 This is what the Lord says,
your protector, the Holy One of Israel:
“For your sake I send to Babylon
and make them all fugitives,
turning the Babylonians’ joyful shouts into mourning songs.
44:7 Who is like me? Let him make his claim!
Let him announce it and explain it to me –
since I established an ancient people –
let them announce future events!
44:11 Look, all his associates will be put to shame;
the craftsmen are mere humans.
Let them all assemble and take their stand!
They will panic and be put to shame.
47:14 Look, they are like straw,
which the fire burns up;
they cannot rescue themselves
from the heat of the flames.
There are no coals to warm them,
no firelight to enjoy.
48:14 All of you, gather together and listen!
Who among them announced these things?
The Lord’s ally will carry out his desire against Babylon;
he will exert his power against the Babylonians.
52:5 And now, what do we have here?” says the Lord.
“Indeed my people have been carried away for nothing,
those who rule over them taunt,” says the Lord,
“and my name is constantly slandered all day long.
54:17 No weapon forged to be used against you will succeed;
you will refute everyone who tries to accuse you.
This is what the Lord will do for his servants –
I will vindicate them,”
says the Lord.
56:5 I will set up within my temple and my walls a monument
that will be better than sons and daughters.
I will set up a permanent monument for them that will remain.
57:6 Among the smooth stones of the stream are the idols you love;
they, they are the object of your devotion.
You pour out liquid offerings to them,
you make an offering.
Because of these things I will seek vengeance.
60:21 All of your people will be godly;
they will possess the land permanently.
I will plant them like a shoot;
they will be the product of my labor,
through whom I reveal my splendor.
61:6 You will be called, ‘the Lord’s priests,
servants of our God.’
You will enjoy the wealth of nations
and boast about the riches you receive from them.
63:14 Like an animal that goes down into a valley to graze,
so the Spirit of the Lord granted them rest.
In this way you guided your people,
gaining for yourself an honored reputation.
64:5 You assist those who delight in doing what is right,
who observe your commandments.
Look, you were angry because we violated them continually.
How then can we be saved?
65:7 for your sins and your ancestors’ sins,” says the Lord.
“Because they burned incense on the mountains
and offended me on the hills,
I will punish them in full measure.”
66:2 My hand made them;
that is how they came to be,” says the Lord.
I show special favor to the humble and contrite,
who respect what I have to say.