Isaiah 3:12–24

⁴And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.

¹³Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars.

¹AND when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal.

¹⁴¶ Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.

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:

¹⁵The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.

¹⁶For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.

³¹The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?

¹⁴Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

²³Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them,

²⁴The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:

²⁵The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:

²⁶The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

²⁷And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them.

¹³¶ But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

²Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord’s controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the Lord hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel.

¹HEAR the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.

²By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.

²²Rob not the poor, because he is poor: neither oppress the afflicted in the gate:

²³For the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them.

¹⁰Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:

¹¹For their redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee.

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.

⁴Will he reprove thee for fear of thee? will he enter with thee into judgment?

¹HEAR this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

²The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,

³The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counseller, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.

⁷For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

⁶But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?

²⁷As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich.

⁹They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor.

⁴Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord.

²And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.

²Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks, and feed thereof.

³They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.

⁴They turn the needy out of the way: the poor of the earth hide themselves together.

⁵Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work; rising betimes for a prey: the wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children.

⁶They reap every one his corn in the field: and they gather the vintage of the wicked.

⁷They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, that they have no covering in the cold.

²³For he will not lay upon man more than right; that he should enter into judgment with God.

³³¶ Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:

²And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

¹⁰¶ Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable?

²Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;

³Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.

⁵They break in pieces thy people, O Lord, and afflict thine heritage.

⁶¶ Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;

⁷That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name:

⁴¶ Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,

⁵Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

⁶That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?

¹⁴And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and to day, as heretofore?

²What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?

⁴Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.

⁶So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.

⁹¶ Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech.

¹⁰Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come.

¹¹Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones: strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins.

⁴⁹Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

⁵⁰And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.

¹³There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.

⁴When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

²⁸But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.

⁸And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

⁴The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish.

¹⁸In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon,

⁵Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.

¹⁸Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

¹¹Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart.

¹¹In that day shalt thou not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast transgressed against me: for then I will take away out of the midst of thee them that rejoice in thy pride, and thou shalt no more be haughty because of my holy mountain.

²²¶ And if thou say in thine heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered, and thy heels made bare.

⁴So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

²⁹¶ If a man or woman have a plague upon the head or the beard;

³⁰Then the priest shall see the plague: and, behold, if it be in sight deeper than the skin; and there be in it a yellow thin hair; then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is a dry scall, even a leprosy upon the head or beard.

⁴³Then the priest shall look upon it: and, behold, if the rising of the sore be white reddish in his bald head, or in his bald forehead, as the leprosy appeareth in the skin of the flesh;

⁴⁴He is a leprous man, he is unclean: the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean; his plague is in his head.

¹¹Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, having thy shame naked: the inhabitant of Zaanan came not forth in the mourning of Beth-ezel; he shall receive of you his standing.

²And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.

²⁷The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.

³⁶Thus saith the Lord God; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them;

³⁷Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness.

²⁵And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.

²⁶They shall also strip thee out of thy clothes, and take away thy fair jewels.

²⁷Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt: so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more.

²⁸For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy mind is alienated:

²⁹And they shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare: and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.

²Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.

³Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man.

⁵Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame.

²¹Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, Rise thou, and fall upon us: for as the man is, so is his strength. And Gideon arose, and slew Zebah and Zalmunna, and took away the ornaments that were on their camels’ necks.

²⁶And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold; beside ornaments, and collars, and purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian, and beside the chains that were about their camels’ necks.

¹¹I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck.

²²And they came, both men and women, as many as were willing hearted, and brought bracelets, and earrings, and rings, and tablets, all jewels of gold: and every man that offered offered an offering of gold unto the Lord.

²²And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold;

³⁰And it came to pass, when he saw the earring and bracelets upon his sister’s hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, Thus spake the man unto me; that he came unto the man; and, behold, he stood by the camels at the well.

⁵³And the servant brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah: he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things.

¹⁸And he said, What pledge shall I give thee? And she said, Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and thy staff that is in thine hand. And he gave it her, and came in unto her, and she conceived by him.

⁵⁰We have therefore brought an oblation for the Lord, what every man hath gotten, of jewels of gold, chains, and bracelets, rings, earrings, and tablets, to make an atonement for our souls before the Lord.

²⁵When she was brought forth, she sent to her father in law, saying, By the man, whose these are, am I with child: and she said, Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, and bracelets, and staff.

²⁸And a mitre of fine linen, and goodly bonnets of fine linen, and linen breeches of fine twined linen,

²And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.

¹²And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head.

⁴And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.

¹³And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the Lord.

⁴⁷And I asked her, and said, Whose daughter art thou? And she said, The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bare unto him: and I put the earring upon her face, and the bracelets upon her hands.

³Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;

⁴But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

⁹In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;

¹⁰But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.

¹²Upon one day in all the provinces of king Ahasuerus, namely, upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar.

¹²And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head.

⁴²And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck;

²For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;

²²But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:

¹⁴His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires.

²⁷And David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, and all the Levites that bare the ark, and the singers, and Chenaniah the master of the song with the singers: David also had upon him an ephod of linen.

⁸¶ And he made the laver of brass, and the foot of it of brass, of the lookingglasses of the women assembling, which assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

¹⁰I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk.

⁶⁵For she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, It is my master: therefore she took a vail, and covered herself.

⁴²And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck;

¹⁹¶ There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:

¹⁴And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

⁸And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

¹⁵Also he said, Bring the vail that thou hast upon thee, and hold it. And when she held it, he measured six measures of barley, and laid it on her: and she went into the city.

⁷The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.

³¹And they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing.

¹⁰The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

³Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;

³In their streets they shall gird themselves with sackcloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their streets, every one shall howl, weeping abundantly.

¹²And in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:

¹⁶Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from thee.

¹⁰And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.

¹²¶ Now when every maid’s turn was come to go in to king Ahasuerus, after that she had been twelve months, according to the manner of the women, (for so were the days of their purifications accomplished, to wit, six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with sweet odours, and with other things for the purifying of the women;)

⁹¶ Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech.

¹⁰Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come.

¹¹Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones: strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins.

¹⁶I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

⁹And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

²²The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.

²⁴They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.

¹⁸They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads.

⁹And thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thy messengers far off, and didst debase thyself even unto hell.

⁸For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned back from us.

³⁷For every head shall be bald, and every beard clipped: upon all the hands shall be cuttings, and upon the loins sackcloth.

²⁶¶ O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes: make thee mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation: for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us.

¹⁵I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust.

⁸¶ Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

²⁴She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.

¹⁷I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

³And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.

⁹And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.

⁴When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

³Howl, O Heshbon, for Ai is spoiled: cry, ye daughters of Rabbah, gird you with sackcloth; lament, and run to and fro by the hedges; for their king shall go into captivity, and his priests and his princes together.