Isaiah 34-39
New International Version (NIV)
Isaiah 34
Judgment Against the Nations
1 Come near, you nations, and listen;
pay attention, you peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all that is in it,
the world, and all that comes out of it!
2 The LORD is angry with all nations;
his wrath is on all their armies.
He will totally destroy[a] them,
he will give them over to slaughter.
3 Their slain will be thrown out,
their dead bodies will stink;
the mountains will be soaked with their blood.
4 All the stars in the sky will be dissolved
and the heavens rolled up like a scroll;
all the starry host will fall
like withered leaves from the vine,
like shriveled figs from the fig tree.
5 My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;
see, it descends in judgment on Edom,
the people I have totally destroyed.
6 The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood,
it is covered with fat—
the blood of lambs and goats,
fat from the kidneys of rams.
For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah
and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 And the wild oxen will fall with them,
the bull calves and the great bulls.
Their land will be drenched with blood,
and the dust will be soaked with fat.
8 For the LORD has a day of vengeance,
a year of retribution, to uphold Zion’s cause.
9 Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch,
her dust into burning sulfur;
her land will become blazing pitch!
10 It will not be quenched night or day;
its smoke will rise forever.
From generation to generation it will lie desolate;
no one will ever pass through it again.
11 The desert owl[b] and screech owl[c] will possess it;
the great owl[d] and the raven will nest there.
God will stretch out over Edom
the measuring line of chaos
and the plumb line of desolation.
12 Her nobles will have nothing there to be called a kingdom,
all her princes will vanish away.
13 Thorns will overrun her citadels,
nettles and brambles her strongholds.
She will become a haunt for jackals,
a home for owls.
14 Desert creatures will meet with hyenas,
and wild goats will bleat to each other;
there the night creatures will also lie down
and find for themselves places of rest.
15 The owl will nest there and lay eggs,
she will hatch them, and care for her young
under the shadow of her wings;
there also the falcons will gather,
each with its mate.
16 Look in the scroll of the LORD and read:
None of these will be missing,
not one will lack her mate.
For it is his mouth that has given the order,
and his Spirit will gather them together.
17 He allots their portions;
his hand distributes them by measure.
They will possess it forever
and dwell there from generation to generation.
Isaiah 35
Joy of the Redeemed
1 The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.
3 Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
4 say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”
5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
7 The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
8 And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness;
it will be for those who walk on that Way.
The unclean will not journey on it;
wicked fools will not go about on it.
9 No lion will be there,
nor any ravenous beast;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,
10 and those the LORD has rescued will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
Isaiah 36
Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem
1 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of
Judah and captured them. 2 Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army from Lachish to
King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. When the commander stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the
Launderer’s Field, 3 Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph
the recorder went out to him.
4 The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah:
“‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours? 5 You
say you have counsel and might for war—but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you
rebel against me? 6 Look, I know you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces the
hand of anyone who leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him. 7 But if you say to me,
“We are depending on the LORD our God”—isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed,
saying to Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar”?
8 “‘Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can
put riders on them! 9 How then can you repulse one officer of the least of my master’s officials, even though you
are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemen[e]? 10 Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this land
without the LORD? The LORD himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’”
11 Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since
we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”
12 But the commander replied, “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and
not to the people sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?”
13 Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! 14
This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you! 15 Do not let Hezekiah
persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the
hand of the king of Assyria.’
16 “Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then
each of you will eat fruit from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own cistern, 17 until I come and
take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
18 “Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Have the gods of any nations ever
delivered their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria? 19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where
are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? 20 Who of all the gods of these countries
have been able to save their lands from me? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”
21 But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, “Do not answer
him.”
22 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary and Joah son of Asaph the recorder
went to Hezekiah, with their clothes torn, and told him what the field commander had said.
Isaiah 37
Jerusalem’s Deliverance Foretold
1 When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the LORD. 2
He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to
the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 3 They told him, “This is what Hezekiah says: This day is a day of distress and
rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the moment of birth and there is no strength to deliver them. 4 It
may be that the LORD your God will hear the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria,
has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the LORD your God has heard.
Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives.”
5 When King Hezekiah’s officials came to Isaiah, 6 Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master, ‘This is what the LORD
says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard—those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have
blasphemed me. 7 Listen! When he hears a certain report, I will make him want to return to his own country, and
there I will have him cut down with the sword.’”
8 When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting
against Libnah.
9 Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the king of Cush,[f] was marching out to fight against him.
When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word: 10 “Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the
god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.’
11 Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And
will you be delivered? 12 Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my predecessors deliver them—the
gods of Gozan, Harran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath or
the king of Arpad? Where are the kings of Lair, Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah?”
Hezekiah’s Prayer
14 Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the LORD and
spread it out before the LORD. 15 And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: 16 “LORD Almighty, the God of Israel,
enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven
and earth. 17 Give ear, LORD, and hear; open your eyes, LORD, and see; listen to all the words Sennacherib has
sent to ridicule the living God.
18 “It is true, LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands. 19 They have thrown
their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human
hands. 20 Now, LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you,
LORD, are the only God.[g]”
Sennacherib’s Fall
21 Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Because
you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 this is the word the LORD has spoken against
him:
“Virgin Daughter Zion
despises and mocks you.
Daughter Jerusalem
tosses her head as you flee.
23 Who is it you have ridiculed and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes in pride?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
24 By your messengers
you have ridiculed the Lord.
And you have said,
‘With my many chariots
I have ascended the heights of the mountains,
the utmost heights of Lebanon.
I have cut down its tallest cedars,
the choicest of its junipers.
I have reached its remotest heights,
the finest of its forests.
25 I have dug wells in foreign lands[h]
and drunk the water there.
With the soles of my feet
I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.’
26 “Have you not heard?
Long ago I ordained it.
In days of old I planned it;
now I have brought it to pass,
that you have turned fortified cities
into piles of stone.
27 Their people, drained of power,
are dismayed and put to shame.
They are like plants in the field,
like tender green shoots,
like grass sprouting on the roof,
scorched[i] before it grows up.
28 “But I know where you are
and when you come and go
and how you rage against me.
29 Because you rage against me
and because your insolence has reached my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth,
and I will make you return
by the way you came.
30 “This will be the sign for you, Hezekiah:
“This year you will eat what grows by itself,
and the second year what springs from that.
But in the third year sow and reap,
plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
31 Once more a remnant of the kingdom of Judah
will take root below and bear fruit above.
32 For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant,
and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.
33 “Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning the king of Assyria:
“He will not enter this city
or shoot an arrow here.
He will not come before it with shield
or build a siege ramp against it.
34 By the way that he came he will return;
he will not enter this city,”
declares the LORD.
35 “I will defend this city and save it,
for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!”
36 Then the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian
camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! 37 So Sennacherib king of
Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.
38 One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him
with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.
Isaiah 38
Hezekiah’s Illness
1 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and
said, “This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”
2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, 3 “Remember, LORD, how I have walked before you
faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4 Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: 5 “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of your
father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life. 6 And I will
deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city.
7 “‘This is the LORD’s sign to you that the LORD will do what he has promised: 8 I will make the shadow cast by the
sun go back the ten steps it has gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.’” So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had
gone down.
9 A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery:
10 I said, “In the prime of my life
must I go through the gates of death
and be robbed of the rest of my years?”
11 I said, “I will not again see the LORD himself
in the land of the living;
no longer will I look on my fellow man,
or be with those who now dwell in this world.
12 Like a shepherd’s tent my house
has been pulled down and taken from me.
Like a weaver I have rolled up my life,
and he has cut me off from the loom;
day and night you made an end of me.
13 I waited patiently till dawn,
but like a lion he broke all my bones;
day and night you made an end of me.
14 I cried like a swift or thrush,
I moaned like a mourning dove.
My eyes grew weak as I looked to the heavens.
I am being threatened; Lord, come to my aid!”
15 But what can I say?
He has spoken to me, and he himself has done this.
I will walk humbly all my years
because of this anguish of my soul.
16 Lord, by such things people live;
and my spirit finds life in them too.
You restored me to health
and let me live.
17 Surely it was for my benefit
that I suffered such anguish.
In your love you kept me
from the pit of destruction;
you have put all my sins
behind your back.
18 For the grave cannot praise you,
death cannot sing your praise;
those who go down to the pit
cannot hope for your faithfulness.
19 The living, the living—they praise you,
as I am doing today;
parents tell their children
about your faithfulness.
20 The LORD will save me,
and we will sing with stringed instruments
all the days of our lives
in the temple of the LORD.
21 Isaiah had said, “Prepare a poultice of figs and apply it to the boil, and he will recover.”
22 Hezekiah had asked, “What will be the sign that I will go up to the temple of the LORD?”
Isaiah 39
Envoys From Babylon
1 At that time Marduk-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had
heard of his illness and recovery. 2 Hezekiah received the envoys gladly and showed them what was in his
storehouses—the silver, the gold, the spices, the fine olive oil—his entire armory and everything found among his
treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.
3 Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, “What did those men say, and where did they come
from?”
“From a distant land,” Hezekiah replied. “They came to me from Babylon.”
4 The prophet asked, “What did they see in your palace?”
“They saw everything in my palace,” Hezekiah said. “There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show
them.”
5 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD Almighty: 6 The time will surely come when everything
in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing
will be left, says the LORD. 7 And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will
be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
8 “The word of the LORD you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “There will be peace and
security in my lifetime.”