Isaiah
Chapter 29
1 Sadness to Ariel, the city where David lived! Keep adding year after year; continue the sacrifices.
2 I will trouble Ariel, and there will be sadness and pain; and Ariel will be to me as Ariel.
3 I will surround you with my camp, attack you with a siege mound, and build towers to besiege you.
4 You will be brought low, and you will speak from the ground, and your words will be soft from the dust, and your voice will be like a ghost from the ground, and your words will be a whisper from the dust.
5 Many strangers among you will be like tiny dust, and many cruel people will vanish like chaff blown away, and all this will happen quickly, in a moment.
6 You will be visited by God with thunder, earthquake, loud noise, storm, tempest, and flames of consuming fire.
7 The crowds from all countries battling Ariel, and all attacking her and her defenses, making her suffer, will be like a dream seen in the night.
8 It will be like a hungry person who dreams of eating, but wakes up still hungry, or like a thirsty person who dreams of drinking, but wakes up thirsty and weak. This is how it will be for all the nations that fight against God’s holy mountain.
9 Wait and be amazed; shout out loud, they act drunk, but not from wine; they stumble, but not from strong drink.
10 God has made you fall into a deep sleep and has shut your eyes. The prophets and leaders, the seers, he has covered.
11 The whole vision is like a sealed book to you. When it is given to someone who can read and they are asked, “Please read this,” they say, “I can’t, because it is sealed.”
12 The book is given to someone who can’t read, and they are asked, “Please read this,” but he answers, “I can’t read.”
13 So God said, “Although these people come close to me with their words and honor me with their lips, their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is just a human command they’ve been taught.”
14 So, I will do an amazing thing for these people, a truly amazing thing that will amaze them: their wise people will lose their wisdom, and their smart people will not be able to understand.
15 Trouble awaits those who try to hide their plans from God; they do their deeds in secret and think, “Who sees us? Who knows what we’re doing?”
16 Thinking you can twist things will be seen as silly as clay questioning the potter: Can what is made say to the one who made it, “You didn’t make me”? Or can a creation say to its creator, “You don’t know what you’re doing”?
17 Won’t it soon happen that Lebanon becomes a fertile land, and the fertile land will be considered like a forest?
18 On that day, the deaf will hear the words of the book, and the blind will see, even from darkness.
19 Humble people will find more joy in God, and the needy will celebrate the Holy One of Israel.
20 The dreadful one is defeated, the mocker is destroyed, and all who look for evil are stopped.
21 They make a person guilty because of a single word, set traps for those who correct in public, and twist the truth to harm the innocent for no reason.
22 So God, who saved Abraham, says about Jacob’s family: Jacob won’t be ashamed now, nor will his face turn pale.
23 But when he sees his children, my creation, around him, they will honor my name, respect the Holy One of Jacob, and fear the God of Israel.
24 Those who were confused will understand, and those who complained will learn what to believe.