Isaiah 30

Warning against Alliance with Egypt

¹“Oh rebellious children!” declares Yahweh,[#Literally “declaration of”]

“to make a plan, but not from me,

so as to add sin to sin.

²Who go to go down to Egypt,

to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh

³And the protection of Pharaoh shall be shame to you,

⁴For his officials are at Zoan,

⁵Everyone will start to stink because of a people that cannot profit them,

not for help and not for profiting,

Oracle regarding the Negev

⁶An oracle of the animals of the Negev:

Through a land of trouble and distress,

of lioness and lion,

they carry their wealth on the backs of male donkeys

to a people that cannot profit them.

⁷For Egyptians help with vanity and emptiness,[#Or “And”; #Literally “Egypt”]

⁸Now go, write it on a tablet with them,

that it may be for the time to come,

⁹For it is a people of rebellion, deceitful children,

¹⁰who say to those who do see, “You must not see!”

speak smooth things to us,

¹¹turn aside from the way,

put an end to the holy one of Israel from our face.”

¹²Therefore the holy one of Israel says this:

“Because you are rejecting this word

¹³therefore this iniquity shall come for you like a breach about to fall,

¹⁴And he breaks it like a vessel of a potter breaks,[#Literally “someone who forms”]

and no potsherd is found among its fragments to take fire from the hearth,

¹⁵For the Lord Yahweh, the holy one of Israel, said this:

“In returning and rest you shall be saved;

But you were not willing,

¹⁶and you said,

“No! For we will flee on horses!” Therefore you shall flee!

¹⁷One thousand because of a threat of one,[#Literally “from the face of”]

until you are left like a flagstaff on top of a mountain,

Yahweh Will Show Mercy

¹⁸Therefore Yahweh waits to be gracious to you,

for Yahweh is a God of justice;

¹⁹For people will live in Zion;

Surely he will be gracious to you;

²⁰And the Lord will give you the bread of distress

but your teachers will not hide themselves any longer.

²¹And your ears shall hear a word from behind you, saying,

when you go to your right

²²And you will defile the plating of your silver idols

You will scatter them like contaminated things;

²³And he will give rain for your seed with which you sow the ground,

On that day, your cattle will graze in broad pastures;

²⁵And there will be streams on every high mountain and elevated hill,

²⁶And the light of the full moon will be like the light of the sun,

on the day when Yahweh binds up the breakage of his people,

Judgment against Assyria

²⁷Look! The name of Yahweh comes from afar,

His lips are full of indignation,

²⁸And his breath is like an overflowing river;

to shake the nations with the sieve of worthlessness;

²⁹You shall have a song as in the night when a holy festival is kept,[#Literally “There shall be a song for you”]

³⁰And Yahweh will cause the majesty of his voice to be heard,

in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire,

³¹Indeed, Assyria will be shattered by the voice of Yahweh;

³²And every stroke of the staff of foundation that Yahweh lays will be on it with timbrels and lyres,[#Some translations emend this to “discipline”]

³³For Topheth has been prepared from yesterday;

He makes its pile of wood deep and wide;