The Living Bible (224 page)

Isaiah
20

In the year when Sargon, king of Assyria, sent the commander-in-chief of his army against the Philistine city of Ashdod and captured it,
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 the Lord told Isaiah, the son of Amoz, to take off his clothing, including his shoes, and to walk around naked and barefoot. And Isaiah did as he was told.

    
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 Then the Lord said, My servant Isaiah, who has been walking naked and barefoot for the last three years, is a symbol of the terrible troubles I will bring upon Egypt and Ethiopia.
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 For the king of Assyria will take away the Egyptians and Ethiopians as prisoners, making them walk naked and barefoot, both young and old, their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.
^5-6
 Then how dismayed the Philistines
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will be, who counted on “Ethiopia’s power” and their “glorious ally,” Egypt! And they will say, “If this can happen to Egypt, what chance have we?”

Isaiah
21

This is God’s message concerning Babylon:
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Disaster is roaring down upon you from the terrible desert, like a whirlwind sweeping from the Negeb.
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 I see an awesome vision: oh, the horror of it all! God is telling me what he is going to do. I see you plundered and destroyed. Elamites and Medes will take part in the siege. Babylon will fall, and the groaning of all the nations she enslaved will end.
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 My stomach constricts and burns with pain; sharp pangs of horror are upon me, like the pangs of a woman giving birth to a child. I faint when I hear what God is planning; I am terrified, blinded with dismay.
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 My mind reels; my heart races; I am gripped by awful fear. All rest at night—so pleasant once—is gone; I lie awake, trembling.

    
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 Look! They are preparing a great banquet! They load the tables with food; they pull up their chairs
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to eat. . . . Quick, quick, grab your shields and prepare for battle! You are being attacked!
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^6-7
 Meanwhile (in my vision)
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the Lord had told me, “Put a watchman on the city wall to shout out what he sees. When he sees riders in pairs on donkeys and camels,
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tell him, ‘This is it!’”

    
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 So I put the watchman on the wall, and at last he shouted, “Sir, day after day and night after night I have been here at my post. Now at last—look! Here come riders in pairs!”

    
Then I heard a voice shout out, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the idols of Babylon lie broken on the ground.”

    
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 O my people, threshed and winnowed, I have told you all that the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, has said.

    
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 This is God’s message to Edom:
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Someone from among you keeps calling, calling to me: “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? How much time is left?”
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 The watchman replies, “Your judgment day is dawning now. Turn again to God, so that I can give you better news. Seek for him, then come and ask again!”

    
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 This is God’s message concerning Arabia:

    
O caravans from Dedan, you will hide in the deserts of Arabia.
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 O people of Tema, bring food and water to these weary fugitives!
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 They have fled from drawn swords and sharp arrows and the terrors of war!
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 “But a long year from now,”
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says the Lord, “the great power of their enemy,
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the mighty tribe of Kedar, will end.
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 Only a few of its stalwart archers will survive.” The Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken.

Isaiah
22

This is God’s message concerning Jerusalem:
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What is happening? Where is everyone going? Why are they running to the rooftops? What are they looking at?
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 The whole city is in terrible uproar. What’s the trouble in this busy, happy city?
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Bodies! Lying everywhere, slain by plague
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and not by sword.
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 All your leaders flee; they surrender without resistance. The people slip away but they are captured too.
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 Leave me alone to weep. Don’t try to comfort me—let me cry for my people as I watch them being destroyed.
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 Oh, what a day of crushing trouble! What a day of confusion and terror from the Lord God of heaven’s armies! The walls of Jerusalem are breached, and the cry of death echoes from the mountainsides.
^6-7
 Elamites are the archers; Syrians drive the chariots; the men of Kir hold up the shields. They fill your choicest valleys and crowd against your gates.

    
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 God has removed his protecting care. You run to the armory for your weapons!
^9-11
 You inspect the walls of Jerusalem to see what needs repair! You check over the houses and tear some down for stone for fixing walls. Between the city walls, you build a reservoir for water from the lower pool! But all your feverish plans will not avail, for you never ask for help from God, who lets this come upon you. He is the one who planned it long ago.
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 The Lord God called you to repent, to weep and mourn, to shave your heads in sorrow for your sins, and to wear clothes made of sackcloth to show your remorse.
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 But instead, you sing and dance and play, and feast and drink. “Let us eat, drink, and be merry,” you say: “What’s the difference, for tomorrow we die.”
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 The Lord Almighty has revealed to me that this sin will never be forgiven you until the day you die.

    
^15-16
 Furthermore, the same Lord God of the armies of heaven has told me this: Go and say to Shebna, the palace administrator: “And who do you think you are, building this beautiful sepulchre in the rock for yourself?
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 For the Lord who allowed you to be clothed so gorgeously will hurl you away, sending you into captivity, O strong man!
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 He will wad you up in his hands like a ball and toss you away into a distant, barren land; there you will die, O glorious one—you who disgrace your nation!

    
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 “Yes, I will drive you out of office,” says the Lord, “and pull you down from your high position.
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 And then I will call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, to replace you.
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 He shall have your uniform and title and authority, and he will be a father to the people of Jerusalem and all Judah.
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 I will give him responsibility over all my people; whatever he says will be done; none will be able to stop him.
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 I will make of him a strong and steady peg to support my people; they will load him with responsibility, and he will be an honor to his family name.”
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 But the Lord will pull out that other peg that seems to be so firmly fastened to the wall! It will come out and fall to the ground, and everything it supports will fall with it, for the Lord has spoken.

Isaiah
23

This is God’s message to Tyre:

    
Weep, O ships of Tyre,
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returning home from distant lands! Weep for your harbor, for it is gone! The rumors that you heard in Cyprus are all true.
^2-3
 Deathly silence is everywhere. Stillness reigns where once your hustling port was full of ships from Sidon, bringing merchandise from far across the ocean, from Egypt and along the Nile. You were the merchandise mart of the world.
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 Be ashamed, O Sidon,
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stronghold of the sea. For you are childless now!
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 When Egypt hears the news, there will be great sorrow.
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 Flee to Tarshish, men of Tyre, weeping as you go.
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 This silent ruin is all that’s left of your once joyous land. What a history was yours! Think of all the colonists you sent to distant lands!

    
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 Who has brought this disaster on Tyre, empire builder and top trader of the world?
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 The Commander of the armies of heaven has done it to destroy your pride and show his contempt for all the greatness of mankind.
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 Sail on, O ships of Tarshish, for your harbor is gone.
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 The Lord holds out his hand over the seas; he shakes the kingdoms of the earth; he has spoken out against this great merchant city, to destroy its strength.

    
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 He says, “Never again, O dishonored virgin, daughter of Sidon, will you rejoice, will you be strong. Even if you flee to Cyprus, you will find no rest.”

    
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 It will be the Babylonians, not the Assyrians, who consign Tyre to the wild beasts. They will lay siege to it, raze its palaces, and make it a heap of ruins.
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 Wail, you ships that ply the oceans, for your home port is destroyed!

    
^15-16
 For seventy years Tyre will be forgotten. Then, in the days of another king, the city will come back to life again; she will sing sweet songs as a harlot sings who, long absent from her lovers, walks the streets to look for them again and is remembered.
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 Yes, after seventy years, the Lord will revive Tyre, but she will be no different than she was before; she will return again to all her evil ways around the world.
¹⁸
 Yet the distant time will come when
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her businesses will give their profits to the Lord! They will not be hoarded but used for good food and fine clothes for the priests of the Lord!