Study Desk

God showed Isaiah son of Amoz this message about Babylon:

The Lord 's special day is near. So cry and be sad for yourselves. A time is coming when the enemy will steal your wealth. God All-Powerful will make that happen.

Look, the Lord 's special day is coming! It will be a terrible day. God will be very angry. He will destroy the country and wipe out the sinful people who live there.

Babylon will be destroyed like the time God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. "Babylon is the most beautiful of all kingdoms. The Babylonians are very proud of their city.

I will go up to the altar above the tops of the clouds. I will be like God Most High."

This will happen because you have forgotten the God who saves you. You have not remembered that God is your place of safety. You brought some very good grapevines from faraway places. You might plant those grapevines, but they will not grow.

And like the waves, they will rush away when God speaks harshly to them. They will be like chaff blown away by the wind. They will be like weeds chased by a storm.

The Lord God All-Powerful says, "I will give Egypt to a hard master. A powerful king will rule over the people."

My people, you will be like the grain crushed on my threshing floor. I have told you everything I heard from the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel.

Only a few of the archers, the great soldiers of Kedar, will be left alive." The Lord , the God of Israel, told me this.

The Lord God All-Powerful chose a special day for there to be riots and confusion. People trampled on each other in the Valley of Vision. The city walls were pulled down. People in the valley shouted up at those on the mountain.

Then you noticed how many cracks there were in the walls around the City of David, so you began collecting water from the Lower Pool. You counted the houses and used stones from them to repair the walls. Then you built a pool between the double walls for storing water from the Old Pool. You did all this to protect yourselves, but you did not trust the God who made all these things. You did not even notice the one who made all these things so long ago.

So the Lord God All-Powerful told the people to cry and mourn for their dead friends. He told them to shave their heads and wear mourning clothes.

The Lord All-Powerful said this to me and I heard it with my own ears: "You are guilty of doing wrong, and I promise that you will die before this guilt is forgiven." The Lord God All-Powerful said these things.

The Lord God All-Powerful told me to go to Shebna, the palace manager,

The people have ruined the land. They did what God said was wrong. They did not obey God's laws. They made an agreement with God a long time ago, but they broke their agreement with God.

The people living in this land are guilty of doing wrong, so God promised to destroy the land. The people will be punished, and only a few of them will survive.

They will say, "People in the east, praise the Lord ! People in faraway lands, praise the name of the Lord , the God of Israel."

We hear songs of praise for God from every place on earth. They praise the God who does what is right. But I say, "Enough! I have had enough. What I see is terrible. Traitors are turning against people and hurting them."

Lord , you are my God. I honor you and praise your name, because you did amazing things. The words you said long ago are completely true; everything happened exactly as you said it would.