Isaiah 29:15–18

¹²Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth.

¹⁰¶ For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me.

¹WOE to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin:

⁷Yet they say, The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.

⁸Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise?

⁹He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?

⁹Then said he unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not.

¹⁵Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:

²⁴Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.

¹IN the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

²For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.

³Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

¹⁷¶ Ye have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?

¹¹He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.

¹²Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble.

¹³Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? he hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.

¹O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.

²Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

³Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

⁴For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.

⁵Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

⁷Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

⁸If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

⁷Behold, they belch out with their mouth: swords are in their lips: for who, say they, doth hear?

¹²And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil.

⁵Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

¹³And thou sayest, How doth God know? can he judge through the dark cloud?

¹⁴Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he walketh in the circuit of heaven.

¹³They are of those that rebel against the light; they know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof.

¹⁴The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief.

¹⁵The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me: and disguiseth his face.

¹⁶In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the daytime: they know not the light.

¹⁷For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death: if one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death.

²²There is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.

²But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

¹⁸Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:

¹⁹That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!

¹²I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works; for they shall not profit thee.

⁵They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily; they say, Who shall see them?

⁶They search out iniquities; they accomplish a diligent search: both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep.

¹¹And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?

¹⁷Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.

¹⁹And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

²³And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.

¹⁹Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

²⁰Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

²¹Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

⁸But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.

⁹Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?

¹⁰Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?

¹¹Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.

⁸Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise?

⁹He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?

¹THE word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

²Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.

³Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.

⁴And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

⁵Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁶O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

⁷At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;

⁸If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.

⁹And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;

¹⁰If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.

¹BEHOLD, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.

⁶And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also;

¹⁵Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest.

³⁰But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.

³⁷For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.

⁴⁶Son of man, set thy face toward the south, and drop thy word toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the south field;

⁴⁷And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the Lord; Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.

³For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

⁶For thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;

⁹Then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.

¹⁰¶ Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.

⁴For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim:

¹THE wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.

²It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God.

¹⁹I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together:

⁵¶ And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength.

⁶And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

⁶And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

¹³Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

¹⁸The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary.

¹²Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.

¹³Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed:

¹⁴Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit.

¹⁵And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name:

¹⁶That he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes.

¹⁸Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered.

¹⁹And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.

¹²Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.

³³He turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the watersprings into dry ground;

³⁵He turneth the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into watersprings.

⁶Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.

¹¹I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.

¹²Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?

¹³For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:

¹⁴If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.

¹⁵For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?

¹⁶For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.

¹⁷And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;

¹⁹Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.

²⁰Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:

²¹For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.

²²Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.

²³And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.

²⁴For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?

²⁵For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

²⁶And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

²⁷For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

¹OPEN thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.

²Howl, fir tree; for the cedar is fallen; because the mighty are spoiled: howl, O ye oaks of Bashan; for the forest of the vintage is come down.

⁴³Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

⁵Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.

⁵The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

¹²The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them.

¹⁷That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:

¹⁸The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

¹⁹And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,

³And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken.

³⁷And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.

¹⁸Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

¹⁸To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

²But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

³But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:

⁴In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

⁵For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.

⁶For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

¹⁶And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.

¹⁷¶ They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods.

¹⁸Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.

⁴Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.

¹⁰For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.

¹¹And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:

¹²And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

²⁴They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine.

²²Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.

⁹But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

¹⁴But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.

¹⁵But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.

¹⁶Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.

¹⁷Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

¹⁸But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

¹⁴Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

⁴⁵It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

¹⁸The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

¹⁴And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:

¹⁵For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

¹⁶But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.

¹⁷And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

¹⁸I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

³³But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

³⁴And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.