﻿Isaiah.
Chapter 30.
“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the LORD, “who carry out plans that do not come from me and pour out a libation, but not by my Spirit, adding sin to sin! 
They go down to Egypt without consulting my mouth, to seek refuge in Pharaoh’s protection and shelter in Egypt’s shade. 
But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and shelter in Egypt’s shade your disgrace. 
For his officials are in Zoan, and his messengers reach Hanes. 
They will all be ashamed because of a people who cannot benefit them, who bring neither help nor profit, but only shame and disgrace.” 
An oracle concerning the beasts of the Negev. Through a land of distress and anguish, from which come the lioness and the lion, the viper and the flying fiery serpent, they carry their wealth on the shoulders of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people who cannot benefit them. 
Egypt’s help is vain and empty; therefore I have called her “Rahab who sits still.” 
“Now go, write it on a tablet before them and inscribe it on a scroll, so that it may remain for a future day, forever and ever. 
For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the LORD. 
They say to the seers, ‘Do not see,’ and to those who have visions, ‘Do not see for us what is right. Speak smooth things to us; see illusions. 
Leave the way, turn aside from the path; remove the Holy One of Israel from our presence.’” 
Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this word, trusted in oppression and perverseness, and relied on it, 
this iniquity will be to you like a breach about to fall, bulging in a high wall whose collapse comes suddenly, in an instant. 
He will shatter it like a potter’s jar, smashed without mercy, so that among its fragments no shard will be found for scooping fire from the hearth or drawing water from a cistern.” 
For this is what the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, said: “In returning and rest you will be saved; in quietness and trust will be your strength. But you were unwilling. 
You said, ‘No! We will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee. ‘We will ride on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift. 
One thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will flee, until you are left like a mast on a mountaintop and like a banner on a hill.” 
Therefore the LORD waits to show you grace, and therefore he rises to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! 
For the people will dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem. You will weep no more. He will surely show you grace at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you. 
The Lord will give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, but your teachers will no longer be hidden. Your eyes will see your teachers, 
and your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it,” when you turn to the right or to the left. 
You will defile the silver plating of your carved images and the gold covering of your cast images. You will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Get out!” 
He will give rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food the land produces will be rich and abundant. In that day your livestock will graze in wide pastures. 
The oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, winnowed with shovel and fork. 
On every high mountain and every lofty hill there will be streams, flowing waters, on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 
The light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days, on the day the LORD binds up his people’s fracture and heals the wound of his blow. 
Look, the name of the LORD comes from afar, his anger burning, with dense smoke. His lips are full of indignation, and his tongue is like a devouring fire. 
His breath is like an overflowing torrent reaching to the neck, to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction; a bridle that leads astray is on the jaws of the peoples. 
You will have a song as on the night of a holy festival, and gladness of heart like one going with a flute to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel. 
The LORD will make the majesty of his voice heard and show his descending arm, with raging anger and a flame of devouring fire, with shattering, a downpour, and hailstones. 
For at the voice of the LORD Assyria will be shattered; he will strike with a rod. 
Every stroke of the appointed staff that the LORD lays upon him will be accompanied by tambourines and lyres; in battles with sweeping blows he will fight against them. 
For Topheth has long been prepared; it is also ready for the king. He has made it deep and wide; its pyre has fire and much wood. The breath of the LORD, like a torrent of sulfur, sets it ablaze. 
