The Living Bible (232 page)

Isaiah
47

“O Babylon, the unconquered, come sit in the dust; for your days of glory, pomp, and honor are ended. O daughter of Chaldea, never again will you be the lovely princess, tender and delicate.
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 Take heavy millstones and grind the corn; remove your veil;
*
strip off your robe; expose yourself to public view.
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 You shall be in nakedness and shame. I will take vengeance upon you and will not repent.”

    
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 So speaks our Redeemer, who will save Israel from Babylon’s mighty power; the Lord Almighty is his name, the Holy One of Israel.

    
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 Sit in darkness and silence, O Babylon; never again will you be called “The Queen of Kingdoms.”
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 For I was angry with my people Israel and began to punish them a little by letting them fall into your hands, O Babylon. But you showed them no mercy. You have made even the old folks carry heavy burdens.
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 You thought your reign would never end, Queen Kingdom of the world. You didn’t care a whit about my people or think about the fate of those who do them harm.

    
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 O pleasure-mad kingdom, living at ease, bragging as the greatest in the world—listen to the sentence of my court upon your sins. You say, “I alone am God! I’ll never be a widow; I’ll never lose my children.”
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 Well, those two things shall come upon you in one moment, in full measure in one day: widowhood and the loss of your children, despite all your witchcraft and magic.

    
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 You felt secure in all your wickedness. “No one sees me,” you said. Your “wisdom” and “knowledge” have caused you to turn away from me and claim that you yourself are Jehovah.
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 That is why disaster shall overtake you suddenly—so suddenly that you won’t know where it comes from. And there will be no atonement then to cleanse away your sins.

    
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 Call out the demon hordes you’ve worshiped all these years. Call on them to help you strike deep terror into many hearts again.
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 You have advisors by the ton—your astrologers and stargazers, who try to tell you what the future holds.
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 But they are as useless as dried grass burning in the fire. They cannot even deliver themselves! You’ll get no help from them at all. Theirs is no fire to sit beside to make you warm!
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 And all your friends of childhood days shall slip away and disappear, unable to help.

Isaiah
48

Hear me, my people: you swear allegiance to the Lord without meaning a word of it when you boast of living in the Holy City and brag about depending on the God of Israel.
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 Time and again I told you what was going to happen in the future. My words were scarcely spoken when suddenly I did just what I said.
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 I knew how hard and obstinate you are. Your necks are as unbending as iron; you are as hardheaded as brass.
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 That is why I told you ahead of time what I was going to do, so that you could never say, “My idol did it; my carved image commanded it to happen!”
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 You have heard my predictions and seen them fulfilled, but you refuse to agree it is so. Now I will tell you new things I haven’t mentioned before, secrets you haven’t heard.

    
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 Then you can’t say, “We knew that all the time!”

    
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 Yes, I’ll tell you things entirely new, for I know so well what traitors you are, rebels from earliest childhood, rotten through and through.
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 Yet for my own sake and for the honor of my name I will hold back my anger and not wipe you out.
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 I refined you in the furnace of affliction, but found no silver there. You are worthless, with nothing good in you at all.
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 Yet for my own sake—yes,
for my own sake—
I will save you from my anger and not destroy you lest the heathen say their gods have conquered me. I will not let them have my glory.

    
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 Listen to me, my people, my chosen ones! I alone am God. I am the First; I am the Last.
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 It was my hand that laid the foundations of the earth; the palm of my right hand spread out the heavens above; I spoke and they came into being.

    
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 Come, all of you, and listen. Among all your idols, which one has ever told you this: “The Lord loves Cyrus. He will use him to put an end to the empire of Babylonia. He will utterly rout the armies of the Chaldeans”?
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 But I am saying it. I have called Cyrus; I have sent him on this errand, and I will prosper him.

    
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 Come closer and listen. I have always told you plainly what would happen, so that you could clearly understand. And now the Lord God and his Spirit have sent me (with this message):

    
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 The Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, says: I am the Lord your God, who punishes you for your own good and leads you along the paths that you should follow.

    
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 Oh, that you had listened to my laws! Then you would have had peace flowing like a gentle river, and great waves of righteousness.
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 Then you would have become as numerous as the sands along the seashores of the world, too many to count, and there would have been no need for your destruction.

    
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 Yet even now, be free from your captivity! Leave Babylon, singing as you go; shout to the ends of the earth that the Lord has redeemed his servants, the Jews.
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 They were not thirsty when he led them through the deserts; he divided the rock, and water gushed out for them to drink.
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 But there is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked.

Isaiah
49

Listen to me, all of you in far-off lands: The Lord called me before my birth. From within the womb he called me by my name.
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 God will make my words of judgment sharp as swords. He has hidden me in the shadow of his hand; I am like a sharp arrow in his quiver.

    
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 He said to me: “You are my servant, a prince of power
*
with God, and you shall bring me glory.”

    
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 I replied, “But my work for them seems all in vain; I have spent my strength for them without response. Yet I leave it all with God for my reward.”

    
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 “And now,” said the Lord—the Lord who formed me from my mother’s womb to serve him who commissioned me to restore to him his people Israel, who has given me the strength to perform this task and honored me for doing it!—
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 “you shall do more than restore Israel to me. I will make you a Light to the nations of the world to bring my salvation to them too.”

    
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 The Lord, the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel, says to the One who is despised, rejected by mankind, and kept beneath the heel of the world’s rulers: “Kings shall stand at attention when you pass by; princes shall bow low because the Lord has chosen you; he, the faithful Lord, the Holy One of Israel, chooses you.”

    
^8-9
 The Lord says, “Your request has come at a favorable time. I will keep you from harm and give you as a token and pledge to Israel, proof that I will reestablish the land of Israel and reassign it to its own people again. Through you I am saying to the prisoners of darkness, ‘Come out! I am giving you your freedom!’ They will be my sheep, grazing in green pastures and on the grassy hills.
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 They shall neither hunger nor thirst; the searing sun and scorching desert winds will not reach them anymore. For the Lord in his mercy will lead them beside the cool waters.
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 And I will make my mountains into level paths for them; the highways shall be raised above the valleys.
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 See, my people shall return from far away, from north and west and south.”

    
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 Sing for joy, O heavens; shout, O earth. Break forth with song, O mountains, for the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion upon them in their sorrow.

    
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 Yet they say, “My Lord deserted us; he has forgotten us.”

    
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 “Never! Can a mother forget her little child and not have love for her own son? Yet even if that should be, I will not forget you.
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 See, I have tattooed your name upon my palm, and ever before me is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins.
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 Soon your rebuilders shall come and chase away all those destroying you.
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 Look and see, for the Lord has vowed that all your enemies shall come and be your slaves. They will be as jewels to display, as bridal ornaments.

    
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 “Even the most desolate parts of your abandoned land shall soon be crowded with your people, and your enemies who enslaved you shall be far away.
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 The generations born in exile shall return and say, ‘We need more room! It’s crowded here!’
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 Then you will think to yourself, ‘Who has given me all these? For most of my children were killed, and the rest were carried away into exile, leaving me here alone. Who bore these? Who raised them for me?’”

    
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 The Lord God says, “See, I will give a signal to the Gentiles, and they shall carry your little sons back to you in their arms, and your daughters on their shoulders.
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 Kings and queens shall serve you; they shall care for all your needs. They shall bow to the earth before you and lick the dust from off your feet; then you shall know I am the Lord. Those who wait for me shall never be ashamed.”

    
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 Who can snatch the prey from the hands of a mighty man? Who can demand that a tyrant let his captives go?
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 But the Lord says, “Even the captives of the most mighty and most terrible shall all be freed; for I will fight those who fight you, and I will save your children.
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 I will feed your enemies with their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with rivers of their own blood. All the world shall know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and Redeemer, the Mighty One of Israel.”