Isaiah 29:17–19

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.

⁵Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?

¹THE Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

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.

⁵Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

⁹The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.

⁹Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:

³Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

⁴But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.

¹⁰I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.

⁵For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.

³Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.

²⁶For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

²⁷But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

²⁸And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

²⁹That no flesh should glory in his presence.

¹WHEREFORE laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,

²As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:

³If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

²With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;

²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

²³Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

¹⁸Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

³⁰And the firstborn of the poor shall feed, and the needy shall lie down in safety: and I will kill thy root with famine, and he shall slay thy remnant.

³²What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation? That the Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it.

¹⁶Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁷When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

¹⁸I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.

¹⁵For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

²For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.

²¹Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

¹³Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.

¹⁴But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.

¹⁵This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.

¹⁶For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.

¹⁷But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

¹⁸And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

¹IF there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,

²Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

³Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

¹FINALLY, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.

²Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.

³For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

⁴Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.

⁴For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation.

¹⁸For the needy shall not alway be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.

¹²I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord.

¹³The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.

¹⁴¶ Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.

¹⁵The Lord hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more.

¹⁶In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack.

¹⁷The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

¹⁸I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden.