Judah Warned against Egyptian Alliance

1“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord,

“Who execute a plan, but not Mine,

And make an alliance, but not of My Spirit,

In order to add sin to sin;

2Who proceed down to Egypt

Without consulting Me,

To take refuge in the safety of Pharaoh

And to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!

3Therefore the safety of Pharaoh will be your shame

And the shelter in the shadow of Egypt, your humiliation.

4For their princes are at Zoan

And their ambassadors arrive at Hanes.

5Everyone will be ashamed because of a people who cannot profit them,

Who are not for help or profit, but for shame and also for reproach.”

6The oracle concerning the beasts of the Negev.

Through a land of distress and anguish,

From where come lioness and lion, viper and flying serpent,

They carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys

And their treasures on camels’ humps,

To a people who cannot profit them;

7Even Egypt, whose help is vain and empty.

Therefore, I have called her

“Rahab who has been exterminated.”

8Now go, write it on a tablet before them

And inscribe it on a scroll,

That it may serve in the time to come

As a witness forever.

9For this is a rebellious people, false sons,

Sons who refuse to listen

To the instruction of the Lord;

10Who say to the seers, “You must not see visions”;

And to the prophets, “You must not prophesy to us what is right,

Speak to us pleasant words,

Prophesy illusions.

11Get out of the way, turn aside from the path,

Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”

12Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel,

“Since you have rejected this word

And have put your trust in oppression and guile, and have relied on them,

13Therefore this iniquity will be to you

Like a breach about to fall,

A bulge in a high wall,

Whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant,

14Whose collapse is like the smashing of a potter’s jar,

So ruthlessly shattered

That a sherd will not be found among its pieces

To take fire from a hearth

Or to scoop water from a cistern.”

God Is Gracious and Just

18Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you,

And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.

For the Lord is a God of justice;

How blessed are all those who long for Him.

19O people in Zion, inhabitant in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you. 20Although the Lord has given you bread of privation and water of oppression, He, your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. 21Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left. 22And you will defile your graven images overlaid with silver, and your molten images plated with gold. You will scatter them as an impure thing, and say to them, “Be gone!”

23Then He will give you rain for the seed which you will sow in the ground, and bread from the yield of the ground, and it will be rich and plenteous; on that day your livestock will graze in a roomy pasture. 24Also the oxen and the donkeys which work the ground will eat salted fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. 25On every lofty mountain and on every high hill there will be streams running with water on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 26The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day the Lord binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted.

27Behold, the name of the Lord comes from a remote place;

Burning is His anger and dense is His smoke;

His lips are filled with indignation

And His tongue is like a consuming fire;

28His breath is like an overflowing torrent,

Which reaches to the neck,

To shake the nations back and forth in a sieve,

And to put in the jaws of the peoples the bridle which leads to ruin.

29You will have songs as in the night when you keep the festival,

And gladness of heart as when one marches to the sound of the flute,

To go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.

30And the Lord will cause His voice of authority to be heard,

And the descending of His arm to be seen in fierce anger,

And in the flame of a consuming fire

In cloudburst, downpour and hailstones.

31For at the voice of the Lord Assyria will be terrified,

When He strikes with the rod.

32And every blow of the rod of punishment,

Which the Lord will lay on him,

Will be with the music of tambourines and lyres;

And in battles, brandishing weapons, He will fight them.

33For Topheth has long been ready,

Indeed, it has been prepared for the king.

He has made it deep and large,

A pyre of fire with plenty of wood;

The breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it afire.

A Scene of Heaven

1Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished.

2And I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God. 3And they *sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,

“Great and marvelous are Your works,

O Lord God, the Almighty;

Righteous and true are Your ways,

King of the nations!

4Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name?

For You alone are holy;

For all the nations will come and worship before You,

For Your righteous acts have been revealed.”

5After these things I looked, and the temple of the tabernacle of testimony in heaven was opened, 6and the seven angels who had the seven plagues came out of the temple, clothed in linen, clean and bright, and girded around their chests with golden sashes.

1) How does Isaiah’s rebuke and promise mirror the purpose of Moses’ witness to both judgment and mercy?

2) In what ways does Revelation 15 fulfill the prophetic pattern of songs declaring יהוה’s justice across ages?

3) How does remembering יהוה’s past faithfulness strengthen our resolve to remain loyal when others fall away?

Solomon’s Love Expressed

1“How beautiful you are, my darling,

How beautiful you are!

Your eyes are like doves behind your veil;

Your hair is like a flock of goats

That have descended from Mount Gilead.

2Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn ewes

Which have come up from their washing,

All of which bear twins,

And not one among them has lost her young.

3Your lips are like a scarlet thread,

And your mouth is lovely.

Your temples are like a slice of a pomegranate

Behind your veil.

4Your neck is like the tower of David,

Built with rows of stones

On which are hung a thousand shields,

All the round shields of the mighty men.

5Your two breasts are like two fawns,

Twins of a gazelle

Which feed among the lilies.

6Until the cool of the day

When the shadows flee away,

I will go my way to the mountain of myrrh

And to the hill of frankincense.

7“You are altogether beautiful, my darling,

And there is no blemish in you.

8Come with me from Lebanon, my bride,

May you come with me from Lebanon.

Journey down from the summit of Amana,

From the summit of Senir and Hermon,

From the dens of lions,

From the mountains of leopards.

9You have made my heart beat faster, my sister, my bride;

You have made my heart beat faster with a single glance of your eyes,

With a single strand of your necklace.

10How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride!

How much better is your love than wine,

And the fragrance of your oils

Than all kinds of spices!

11Your lips, my bride, drip honey;

Honey and milk are under your tongue,

And the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon.

12A garden locked is my sister, my bride,

A rock garden locked, a spring sealed up.

13Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates

With choice fruits, henna with nard plants,

14Nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,

With all the trees of frankincense,

Myrrh and aloes, along with all the finest spices.

15You are a garden spring,

A well of fresh water,

And streams flowing from Lebanon.”

16“Awake, O north wind,

And come, wind of the south;

Make my garden breathe out fragrance,

Let its spices be wafted abroad.

May my beloved come into his garden

And eat its choice fruits!”

Judgment on the Earth

1Behold, the Lord lays the earth waste, devastates it, distorts its surface and scatters its inhabitants. 2And the people will be like the priest, the servant like his master, the maid like her mistress, the buyer like the seller, the lender like the borrower, the creditor like the debtor. 3The earth will be completely laid waste and completely despoiled, for the Lord has spoken this word. 4The earth mourns and withers, the world fades and withers, the exalted of the people of the earth fade away. 5The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant. 6Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left.

7The new wine mourns,

The vine decays,

All the merry-hearted sigh.

8The gaiety of tambourines ceases,

The noise of revelers stops,

The gaiety of the harp ceases.

9They do not drink wine with song;

Strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.

10The city of chaos is broken down;

Every house is shut up so that none may enter.

11There is an outcry in the streets concerning the wine;

All joy turns to gloom.

The gaiety of the earth is banished.

12Desolation is left in the city

And the gate is battered to ruins.

13For thus it will be in the midst of the earth among the peoples,

As the shaking of an olive tree,

As the gleanings when the grape harvest is over.

14They raise their voices, they shout for joy;

They cry out from the west concerning the majesty of the Lord.

15Therefore glorify the Lord in the east,

The name of the Lord, the God of Israel,

In the coastlands of the sea.

16From the ends of the earth we hear songs, “Glory to the Righteous One,”

But I say, “Woe to me! Woe to me! Alas for me!

The treacherous deal treacherously,

And the treacherous deal very treacherously.”

17Terror and pit and snare

Confront you, O inhabitant of the earth.

18Then it will be that he who flees the report of disaster will fall into the pit,

And he who climbs out of the pit will be caught in the snare;

For the windows above are opened, and the foundations of the earth shake.

19The earth is broken asunder,

The earth is split through,

The earth is shaken violently.

20The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard

And it totters like a shack,

For its transgression is heavy upon it,

And it will fall, never to rise again.

21So it will happen in that day,

That the Lord will punish the host of heaven on high,

And the kings of the earth on earth.

22They will be gathered together

Like prisoners in the dungeon,

And will be confined in prison;

And after many days they will be punished.

23Then the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed,

For the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,

And His glory will be before His elders.