Yahweh’s Judgment and Help
33 Ah, destroyer, and yourself not destroyed!
And treacherous one, and no one has dealt treacherously with him![a]
When you cease[b] destroying, you will be destroyed.
When you stop dealing treacherously, one will deal treacherously with you.
2 Yahweh, be gracious to us, we wait for you.
Be our[c] arm in the mornings,
indeed our salvation in the time of trouble.
3 At the sound of tumult, peoples fled;
because of your exaltation, nations scattered.
4 And your spoil is gathered,
as the gathering of the locust,
as a swarm of locusts storming on it.
5 Yahweh is exalted, for he dwells on high;
he filled Zion with justice and righteousness,
6 and he will be the security of your times,
an abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.
The fear of Yahweh is his treasure.
7 Look! Their heroes cry out in the street;
the messengers of peace weep bitterly.
8 Highways are deserted;
the traveler on the road ceases.
One breaks a treaty,
he rejects the cities,[d]
he does not hold man in high regard.
9 The land mourns; it languishes.
Lebanon feels abashed; it withers.
Sharon is like the desert,
and Bashan and Carmel are losing their leaves.[e]
10 “Now I will arise,” says Yahweh.
“Now I will lift myself up proudly;
now I will raise myself.
11 You conceive dry grass, you bring forth stubble;
your breath is a fire; it will consume you.
12 And the peoples will be burning to lime—
they are burned like thorns that have been cut down in the fire.
13 You who are far away, hear what I have done;
and you who are near, know my might!”
14 Sinners are afraid in Zion;
trembling has seized the godless:
“Who of us can live[f] with devouring fire?
Who of us can live[g] with everlasting consuming hearths?”
15 He who walks in righteousness
and speaks uprightness,
who rejects the gain of extortion,
who refuses[h] a bribe,
who stops up his ears[i] from hearing bloodshed[j]
and shuts his eyes from seeing evil.
16 That one will live on the heights;
the fortresses of rocks will be his refuge.
His food will be given;
his waters[k] will endure.
17 Your eyes will see the king in his beauty;
they will see a distant land.[l]
18 Your mind[m] will meditate on the terror:
“Where is the one who counted?
Where is the one who weighed out?
Where is the one who counted the towers?”
19 You will not see the insolent people,
the people whose language is too obscure to understand,[n]
whose stammering of tongue cannot be understood.[o]
20 Look on Zion, the city of our appointed festivals!
Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
an undisturbed settlement,
a tent that is not moved.[p]
No one will ever pull out its tent pegs,
and none of its ropes will be torn in two.
21 Rather, there Yahweh will be mighty for us,
a place of rivers and broad streams,[q]
a galley ship with[r] oars[s] cannot go in it,
and a mighty ship cannot pass through it.
22 For Yahweh is our judge; Yahweh is our lawgiver.
Yahweh is our king; he is the one who will save us.
23 Your riggings hang slack;
they do not hold the base of their mast firm,
they do not spread out the sail.
Then the prey of spoil in abundance will be divided;
the lame will take plunder.
24 And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”;
the people who live in it, their iniquity will be taken away.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 33:1 Many manuscripts suggest “you” rather than “him”
- Isaiah 33:1 Literally “finishing”
- Isaiah 33:2 Hebrew “their”
- Isaiah 33:8 A Dead Sea Scroll reads “witnesses”
- Isaiah 33:9 Literally “shaking off”
- Isaiah 33:14 Literally “dwell as an alien”
- Isaiah 33:14 Literally “dwell as an alien”
- Isaiah 33:15 Literally “shakes his hand from the taking of”
- Isaiah 33:15 Hebrew “ear”
- Isaiah 33:15 Literally “blood”
- Isaiah 33:16 Hebrew “water”
- Isaiah 33:17 Literally “land of distance”
- Isaiah 33:18 Literally “heart”
- Isaiah 33:19 Literally “obscure of lip than to hear”
- Isaiah 33:19 Literally “there is no understanding”
- Isaiah 33:20 Literally “not he is loaded”
- Isaiah 33:21 Literally “streams broad of hands”
- Isaiah 33:21 Or “of”
- Isaiah 33:21 Hebrew “oar”