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ISAIAH INSTITUTE TRANSLATION

  Isaiah

29

Isaiah 29

Unsealing the sealed Book of Isaiah overturns the learning of academics and exposes spiritual error.

1 Woe to Ariel—Ariel, the city where David lodged!Though you add year to year,and the feastdays recur in succession, 2 yet will I distress Ariel:there shall be mourning and sorrowwhen she becomes as my aaltar hearth.a 3 I will encamp against you round about,and beleaguer you with assault posts,and erect siege installations against you. 4 And when you have been laid low,you will speak from the ground,your words uttering out of the dust:your voice from the groundshall be like that of a medium;your sayings shall whisper out of the dust.
5 Suddenly, in an instant,your crowds of evildoersb shall become as fine dust,your violent mobs like flying chaff. 6 She shall be chastened by Jehovah of Hostswith thunderous quakings,resounding booms, tempestuous blastsand conflagrations of devouring flame.
7 And the nations amassed to fight against Ariel,all who congregate at her strongholdto distress her,shall be as a dream seen in the night: 8 like a hungry man who dreams he eatsbut awakens famished,or like a thirsty man who dreams he drinksbut wakes up faint and craving.So shall be all the nationsthat amass to fight against Mount Zion.
9 Procrastinate, and become bewildered;preoccupy yourselves, until you cry for help.Be drunk, but not with wine;stagger, but not from strong drink. 10 Jehovah has poured out on youa spirit of deep sleep:he has shut your eyes, the prophets;he has covered your heads, the seers.
11 For you the sum of vision has become as the words of a sealed book that they give to one who is learned, saying, Please read this, and he answers, I cannot; it is sealed. 12 Or if they give it to one who is unlearned, saying, Please read this, he answers, I am unlearned.
13 But my Lord says, Because these peopleapproach me with the mouthand pay me homage with their lips,while their heart remains far from me—their piety toward me consisting ofcommandments of men learned by rote— 14 therefore it is that I shall again astound these peoplewith wonder upon wonder,rendering void the knowledge of their sagesand the intelligence of their wise men insignificant.
15 Woe to those who contriveto hide their schemes from Jehovah!They work in the dark, thinking,Who will see us? Who will know? 16 What a contradiction you are!Shall the potter be regarded as the clay?Shall what is made say of its maker,He did not make me,or a work of its designer, He doesn’t understand? 17 In a very little while, shall not Lebanonagain become a fruitful land,and lands now fruitful be considered backwoods?
18 In that day shall the deaf hearthe words of the bookand the eyes of the blind seeout of gross darkness. 19 The lowly shall obtain an increase of joy in Jehovah,and the poorest of men rejoicein the Holy One of Israel.
20 For tyrants shall come to nought and scorners cease;all who watch for iniquity shall be cut off— 21 those who at a word adjudge a man to be guilty,who ensnare the defender at court,who for nothing turn away him who is in the right.
22 Therefore thus says Jehovah,who redeemed Abraham, to the house of Jacob:No longer shall Jacob be dismayed;his face shall pale no more. 23 For when he sees among him his children,the work of my hands, hallowing my name,devoted to the Holy One of Jacob,reverencing the God of Israel, 24 then will the erring in spirit gain understandingand they who murmured accept instruction.

  • a2 Or, Ariel, a wordplay.
  • b5 So 1QIsaa; LXX. MT of strangers.


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