Isaiah 24:1

But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”

But now, Yahweh, you are our Father. We are the clay and you our potter. We all are the work of your hand.

For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,

He executes justice for the fatherless and widow and loves the foreigner in giving him food and clothing.

Therefore the showers have been withheld and there has been no latter rain; yet you have had a prostitute’s forehead and you refused to be ashamed.

I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers;

For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.

Yahweh will uproot the house of the proud, but he will keep the widow’s borders intact.

Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glory of his majesty.

Leave out the court which is outside of the temple, and don’t measure it, for it has been given to the nations. They will tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months.

There you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

Yahweh said, “I will also remove Judah out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city which I have chosen, even Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, ‘My name shall be there.’ ”

The king of Babylon attacked them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away captive out of his land.

They shall come, and shall all rest in the desolate valleys, in the clefts of the rocks, on all thorn hedges, and on all pastures.

It will happen in that day that every place where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silver shekels, shall be for briers and thorns.

Yahweh has mixed a spirit of perverseness in the middle of her; and they have caused Egypt to go astray in all of its works, like a drunken man staggers in his vomit.

But the pelican and the porcupine will possess it. The owl and the raven will dwell in it. He will stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness.

Why, when I came, was there no one? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it can’t redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea. I make the rivers a wilderness. Their fish stink because there is no water, and die of thirst.

Your holy people possessed it but a little while. Our adversaries have trodden down your sanctuary.

Therefore I will cast you out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

Ask now, and see whether a man travails with child. Why do I see every man with his hands on his waist, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned pale?

I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before those who seek their life. I will bring evil on them, even my fierce anger,’ says Yahweh; ‘and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.

Yahweh has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out the line. He has not withdrawn his hand from destroying; He has made the rampart and wall lament. They languish together.

Therefore the fathers will eat the sons within you, and the sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you; and I will scatter the whole remnant of you to all the winds.

A third part of you will die with the pestilence, and they will be consumed with famine within you. A third part will fall by the sword around you. A third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out a sword after them.

Then the king’s face was changed in him, and his thoughts troubled him; and the joints of his thighs were loosened, and his knees struck one against another.

The kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains.

Yahweh will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone.

They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods that they didn’t know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers didn’t dread.

Then I said to them, “You see the bad situation that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come, let’s build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we won’t be disgraced.”

I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within me.

You have made us like sheep for food, and have scattered us among the nations.

A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.

He turns rivers into a desert, water springs into a thirsty ground,

Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, houses without man, the land becomes utterly waste,

The cities of Aroer are forsaken. They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and no one shall make them afraid.

It will blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing. Lebanon’s glory will be given to it, the excellence of Carmel and Sharon. They will see Yahweh’s glory, the excellence of our God.

For I have set my face on this city for evil, and not for good,” says Yahweh. “It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire.” ’

Behold, I watch over them for evil, and not for good; and all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will be consumed by the sword and by the famine, until they are all gone.

You have become guilty in your blood that you have shed, and are defiled in your idols which you have made! You have caused your days to draw near, and have come even to your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mocking to all the countries.

I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by him who lives forever that it will be for a time, times, and a half; and when they have finished breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things will be finished.

At their presence the peoples are in anguish. All faces have grown pale.

All her idols will be beaten to pieces, and all her temple gifts will be burned with fire, and all her images I will destroy; for of the hire of a prostitute has she gathered them, and to the hire of a prostitute shall they return.”

It will come to pass in that day, says Yahweh of Armies, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they will be remembered no more. I will also cause the prophets and the spirit of impurity to pass out of the land.

who will pay the penalty: eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might,

whose voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.”

Yahweh upholds the humble. He brings the wicked down to the ground.

to go into the caverns of the rocks, and into the clefts of the ragged rocks, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake the earth mightily.

In that day, their strong cities will be like the forsaken places in the woods and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it will be a desolation.

The earth will be utterly emptied and utterly laid waste; for Yahweh has spoken this word.

I will make justice the measuring line, and righteousness the plumb line. The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters will overflow the hiding place.

I will destroy mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs. I will make the rivers islands, and will dry up the pools.

who says to the deep, ‘Be dry,’ and ‘I will dry up your rivers;’

Sharon will be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down in, for my people who have sought me.

“Therefore I will scatter them, as the stubble that passes away, by the wind of the wilderness.

Leave your fatherless children. I will preserve them alive. Let your widows trust in me.”

Your altars will become desolate, and your incense altars will be broken. I will cast down your slain men before your idols.

Then he will turn his face toward the fortresses of his own land; but he will stumble and fall, and won’t be found.

The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed. The thorn and the thistle will come up on their altars. They will tell the mountains, “Cover us!” and the hills, “Fall on us!”

Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.

He rebukes the sea, and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers. Bashan languishes, and Carmel; and the flower of Lebanon languishes.

She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.

For this is what Yahweh of Armies says: ‘Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the dry land;

to show mercy toward our fathers, to remember his holy covenant,

Then they will begin to tell the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and tell the hills, ‘Cover us.’

I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies that dwell in it will be astonished at it.

Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where Yahweh will lead you away.

Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone.

I said that I would scatter them afar. I would make their memory to cease from among men;

I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of Ahab’s house; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.

“Remember, I beg you, the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you trespass, I will scatter you among the peoples;

He shakes the earth out of its place. Its pillars tremble.

Come, see Yahweh’s works, what desolations he has made in the earth.

You have broken Rahab in pieces, like one of the slain. You have scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.

Yahweh preserves the foreigners. He upholds the fatherless and widow, but he turns the way of the wicked upside down.

Men shall go into the caves of the rocks, and into the holes of the earth, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake the earth mightily.

I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned or hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.”

They come from a far country, from the uttermost part of heaven, even Yahweh, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.

The earth will stagger like a drunken man, and will sway back and forth like a hammock. Its disobedience will be heavy on it, and it will fall and not rise again.

For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches.

You turn things upside down! Should the potter be thought to be like clay; that the thing made should say about him who made it, “He didn’t make me;” or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding?”

The land mourns and languishes. Lebanon is confounded and withers away. Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel are stripped bare.

It won’t be quenched night nor day. Its smoke will go up forever. From generation to generation, it will lie waste. No one will pass through it forever and ever.

The young lions have roared at him and yelled. They have made his land waste. His cities are burned up, without inhabitant.

A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations. He is on his way. He has gone out from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.

For Yahweh says, “The whole land will be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.

I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”

A third part you shall burn in the fire in the middle of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled. You shall take a third part, and strike with the sword around it. A third part you shall scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them.

“ ‘Moreover I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations that are around you, in the sight of all that pass by.

In all your dwelling places, the cities will be laid waste and the high places will be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

The cities that are inhabited will be laid waste, and the land will be a desolation. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.” ’ ”

Then set it empty on its coals, that it may be hot, and its bronze may burn, and that its filthiness may be molten in it, that its rust may be consumed.

The Lord Yahweh says: “When the whole earth rejoices, I will make you desolate.

They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, “Please let me go, and I will kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man will know it. Why should he take your life, that all the Jews who are gathered to you should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish?”

“Israel is a hunted sheep. The lions have driven him away. First, the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.”

When they didn’t find them, they dragged Jason and certain brothers before the rulers of the city, crying, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here also,

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion: Greetings.