Isaiah 33

¹Ah, you destroyer,

who yourself have not been destroyed;

you treacherous one,

with whom no one has dealt treacherously!

When you have ceased to destroy,

you will be destroyed;

and when you have stopped dealing treacherously,

you will be dealt with treacherously.

²O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for you.

Be our arm every morning,

our salvation in the time of trouble.

³At the sound of tumult, peoples fled;

before your majesty, nations scattered.

⁴Spoil was gathered as the caterpillar gathers;

as locusts leap, they leaped upon it.

⁵The Lord is exalted, he dwells on high;

he filled Zion with justice and righteousness;

⁶he will be the stability of your times,

abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge;

the fear of the Lord is Zion’s treasure.

⁷Listen! the valiant cry in the streets;

the envoys of peace weep bitterly.

⁸The highways are deserted,

travelers have quit the road.

The treaty is broken,

its oaths are despised,

its obligation is disregarded.

⁹The land mourns and languishes;

Lebanon is confounded and withers away;

Sharon is like a desert;

and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.

¹⁰“Now I will arise,” says the Lord,

“now I will lift myself up;

now I will be exalted.

¹¹You conceive chaff, you bring forth stubble;

your breath is a fire that will consume you.

¹²And the peoples will be as if burned to lime,

like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”

¹³Hear, you who are far away, what I have done;

and you who are near, acknowledge my might.

¹⁴The sinners in Zion are afraid;

trembling has seized the godless:

“Who among us can live with the devouring fire?

Who among us can live with everlasting flames?”

¹⁵Those who walk righteously and speak uprightly,

who despise the gain of oppression,

who wave away a bribe instead of accepting it,

who stop their ears from hearing of bloodshed

and shut their eyes from looking on evil,

¹⁶they will live on the heights;

their refuge will be the fortresses of rocks;

their food will be supplied, their water assured.

¹⁷Your eyes will see the king in his beauty;

they will behold a land that stretches far away.

¹⁸Your mind will muse on the terror:

“Where is the one who counted?

Where is the one who weighed the tribute?

Where is the one who counted the towers?”

¹⁹No longer will you see the insolent people,

the people of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend,

stammering in a language that you cannot understand.

²⁰Look on Zion, the city of our appointed festivals!

Your eyes will see Jerusalem,

a quiet habitation, an immovable tent,

whose stakes will never be pulled up,

and none of whose ropes will be broken.

²¹But there the Lord in majesty will be for us

a place of broad rivers and streams,

where no galley with oars can go,

nor stately ship can pass.

²²For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our ruler,

the Lord is our king; he will save us.

²³Your rigging hangs loose;

it cannot hold the mast firm in its place,

or keep the sail spread out.

Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided;

even the lame will fall to plundering.

²⁴And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”;

the people who live there will be forgiven their iniquity.