Study Desk

The meaning of every prophetic vision will be hidden from you; it will be like a sealed scroll. If you take it to someone who knows how to read and ask him to read it to you, he will say he can't because it is sealed.

The Lord has spoken: "Those who rule Judah are doomed because they rebel against me. They follow plans that I did not make, and sign treaties against my will, piling one sin on another.

And yet the Lord is waiting to be merciful to you. He is ready to take pity on you because he always does what is right. Happy are those who put their trust in the Lord .

You may be satisfied now, but this time next year you will be in despair because there will be no grapes for you to gather.

Beat your breasts in grief because the fertile fields and the vineyards have been destroyed,

Because everyone will do what is right, there will be peace and security forever.

There will be people in Jerusalem and on Mount Zion who will survive, because the Lord Almighty is determined to make this happen.

I will defend this city and protect it, for the sake of my own honor and because of the promise I made to my servant David.'"

About this time King Hezekiah became sick and almost died. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to see him and said to him, "The Lord tells you that you are to put everything in order because you will not recover. Get ready to die."

You will toss them in the air; the wind will carry them off, and they will be scattered by the storm. Then you will be happy because I am your God; you will praise me, the holy God of Israel.

I will give up whole nations to save your life, because you are precious to me and because I love you and give you honor.

And yet, I am the God who forgives your sins, and I do this because of who I am. I will not hold your sins against you.

He said to me, "Israel, you are my servant; because of you, people will praise me."

Israel's holy God and savior says to the one who is deeply despised, who is hated by the nations and is the servant of rulers: "Kings will see you released and will rise to show their respect; princes also will see it, and they will bow low to honor you." This will happen because the Lord has chosen his servant; the holy God of Israel keeps his promises.

The Lord says, "Do you think I sent my people away like a man who divorces his wife? Where, then, are the papers of divorce? Do you think I sold you into captivity like a man who sells his children as slaves? No, you went away captive because of your sins; you were sent away because of your crimes.

But their insults cannot hurt me because the Sovereign Lord gives me help. I brace myself to endure them. I know that I will not be disgraced,

But because of our sins he was wounded, beaten because of the evil we did. We are healed by the punishment he suffered, made whole by the blows he received.

A foreigner who has joined the Lord 's people should not say, "The Lord will not let me worship with his people." A man who has been castrated should never think that because he cannot have children, he can never be part of God's people.

The Lord says, "Who are these gods that make you afraid, so that you tell me lies and forget me completely? Have you stopped honoring me because I have kept silent for so long?

I was angry with them because of their sin and greed, and so I punished them and abandoned them. But they were stubborn and kept on going their own way.