Study Desk

So the Lord cut off Israel’s head and tail,palm branch and reed in a single day.

to keep the poor from getting a fair trialand to deprive the needy among my people of justice,so that widows can be their spoiland they can plunder the fatherless.

The remaining trees of its forestwill be so few in numberthat a child could count them.

The Lord of Armies himself has planned it;therefore, who can stand in its way?It is his hand that is outstretched,so who can turn it back?

So they carry their wealth and belongingsover the Wadi of the Willows.

So I join with Jazerto weep for the vines of Sibmah;I drench Heshbon and Elealeh with my tears.Triumphant shouts have fallen silentover your summer fruit and your harvest.

so the king of Assyria will lead the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old alike, stripped and barefoot, with bared buttocks—to Egypt’s shame.

You counted the houses of Jerusalem so that you could tear them down to fortify the wall.

like heat in a dry land,you will subdue the uproar of barbarians.As the shade of a cloud cools the heat of the day,so he will silence the song of the violent.

As a pregnant woman about to give birthwrithes and cries out in her pains,so we were before you, Lord.

The word of the Lord will come to them:“Law after law, law after law,line after line, line after line,a little here, a little there,”so they go stumbling backward,to be broken, trapped, and captured.

So now, do not scoff,or your shackles will become stronger.Indeed, I have heard from the Lord God of Armiesa decree of destruction for the whole land.

Its collapse will be like the shatteringof a potter’s jar, crushed to pieces,so that not even a fragment of potterywill be found among its shattered remains—no fragment large enough to take fire from a hearthor scoop water from a cistern.”

Like hovering birds,so the Lord of Armies will protect Jerusalem—by protecting it, he will rescue it,by sparing it, he will deliver it.

Who among all the gods of these lands ever rescued his land from my power? So will the Lord rescue Jerusalem from my power?”

So the servants of King Hezekiah went to Isaiah,

The king had heard concerning King Tirhakah of Cush, “He has set out to fight against you.” So when he heard this, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

They have thrown their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but made from wood and stone by human hands. So they have destroyed them.

Now, Lord our God, save us from his power so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, Lord, are God—you alone.

So King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and left. He returned home and lived in Nineveh.