Isaiah.
Isaiah KWL.
Isaiah 1.
11 “What are your many sacrifices to me?” says the LORD.
“I’m full of burnt-up rams and animal fat.
I’m not interested in the blood of bulls, lambs, or goats.
12 When you come before my face, walk in my courtyard, who requested this from your hand?
13 Don’t bring me empty offerings any more! Incense? It disgusts me.
Calling monthly and Sabbath assemblies? I can’t stand wasteful conferences.
14 My soul hates your monthly and special feasts. They’re a burden to me which I tire of carrying.
15 When you spread your hands, I hide my eyes from you.
When you pray ‘great’ prayers, I don’t listen:
Your hands are full of blood!
16 “Bathe! Get clean! Get rid of the evil deeds before my eyes.
Stop doing evil. 17 Learn to do good.
Seek right judgments. Straighten out oppressors.
Judge orphans fairly. Defend widows.
18 Come now; let’s decide,” says the LORD.
“Your sins are like scarlet dye. They can be made white like snow.
If they’re red like worms, they can become like wool.”
Isaiah 5.
20 How sad for those who say, “To do good is evil. To do evil is good.”
Who decide dark is light, and light dark. Who decide bitter is sweet, and sweet bitter.
21 How sad for those who are “wise” in their own eyes,
who “see what’s right in front of them.”
24 So, like tongues of fire eat up stubble, like dry grass wilts in the flame,
their roots will decay. Their flowers will go up like dust.
For they rejected the LORD of War’s Law.
They treat the Holy One of Israel’s word with contempt.
Isaiah 6.
9 He said, “Go. Tell these people, ‘Hear, hearers’—yet they’ll understand nothing.
‘See, seers,’—yet they’ll know nothing.
10 Grow fat, hearts of this people. Be heavy, ears. Be blind, eyes.
Lest there’s seeing in their eyes, hearing in their ears, understanding in their hearts,
and they repent and get cured.”
Isaiah 7.
10 The LORD’s word to Akhaz, saying, 11 “Request a sign from your LORD God,
made deep as a grave, or made high as outer space.”
12 Ahkaz said, “I won’t ask.
I won’t test the LORD.”
13 Isaiah said, “House of David, listen please.
It takes little for you to tire people, because you also tire God.
14 For this, my Master himself is giving you a sign.
Look, a pregnant maiden gave birth to a son.
She declared his name Immánuël/‘God with us.’
15 He’ll eat curds and honey,
and learn to reject evil and choose good.
16 But before the boy learns to reject evil and choose good,
the nations you fear will be laid waste before the face of two kings.
17 The LORD is bringing upon you, your people, and your father’s house days which haven’t been
since the days before Ephraim turned away from Judah to Assyria’s king.”
Isaiah 9.
2 Those people walking in darkness see a great light.
Those living in a land of deep darkness: A bright light is over you.
Isaiah 13.
9 “Look, the LORD’s Day, a fierce coming:
Wrath and flaring nostrils, to make the earth desolate. Sinners destroyed from it.
10 For heavenly stars and their constellations aren’t shining their light.
The sun went dark. The moon isn’t shining its light.
11 I dealt with the evil of civilization, the guilt of the wicked.
I stopped the arrogants’ pride. I’m lowering the high things of the ruthless.
12 People are more precious than refined gold;
humanity compares to Ofir’s gold.
13 For this reason the heavens are agitated, and earth shakes out of place
from the LORD of War’s wrath, on the day of his flaring nostrils.”
Isaiah 14.
3 On the day the LORD gives you rest from your pain, dread, the hard service you worked,
4 take up this saying to the king of Babylon.
Say, “How’d the oppressor stop? How’d the furious pace stop?
5 The LORD broke the wicked stick, the ruler’s scepter
6 which furiously beat ethnic groups with unending wounds,
which angrily ruled nations with nonstop persecution.
7 They rest. The land is quiet. They break forth in shouts of joy. 8 Fir trees rejoice at you.
Lebanese cedars likewise: ‘You laid down, so no one goes up to cut us down.’
9 The grave below trembles to meet you when you come.
Spirits of the dead are awakened as the ground is all prepared for you.
All the kings of nations rise from their thrones.
10 All tell you in reply, ‘You too are as weak as us! Just like us!’
11 Go down to the grave, your Majesty.
Instead of your harp music, spread worms under you, cover you in grubs.
12 “How’d you fall from heaven, shining one, son of the dawn?
You were cut to the ground, prostrate before nations.
13 In your heart you said, ‘I’ll go up to the heavens, above God’s stars.
I raise up my throne. I sit at the right time, in the right place.
14 I go up to the high places, the dark clouds, like the Highest God.’
15 But you go down to the grave, to the edge of the Abyss.
16 People see you, look at you, and know this about you: This man shook the earth.
Shook kingdoms. 17 Turned civilization into wilderness. Destroyed cities. Freed no prisoners.
18 Now every nation’s king, all of them, rest in glory in their own house,
19 and you were yanked out of your own burial plot like a hated weed.
Clothed with death, pierced by the sword,
gone down to the Abyss’s stones like a trampled corpse,
20 not joined with them in burial
because you ruined your land, destroyed your people.”
Don’t ever again call upon the descendants of evildoers.
21 Arrange the slaughter of his sons because of their ancestors’ evil.
They’ll never rise to inherit the land and fill the world with cities.
22 “I stand against them,” utters the LORD of War.
“I cut off from Babylon their name, remnant, offspring, and descendants,” utters the LORD.
23 “I make it a possession of hedgehogs and pools of water.
I sweep it with a broom and destroy it,” utters the LORD of War.
Isaiah 28.
11 For in a mocker’s lip, in a different tongue, he’ll tell this people 12 what he told them:
“This rest place is rest for the weary, and this is to invigorate you.”
They hadn’t consented to hear.
Isaiah 29.
11 To you this vision is like the words of a sealed book.
If it’s given to someone who can read, saying, “Read this aloud,” he can’t, because it’s sealed.
12 If it’s given to someone who can’t read, saying, “Read this aloud,” he says, “I can’t read.”
13 My Master says, “This is because the people approach me and honor me
only with their mouths and lips. Their heart is far away from me.
Their fear of me is a human command they memorized.”
14 Listen to me: God will add to his wonders for the people, wonderful wonders.
He will wreck the wisdom of his sages; whatever you thought you knew will become mystery.
Isaiah 40.
1 “Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God.
2 “Speak from your heart to Jerusalem.
Proclaim to her that her war is complete, that amends are made for her iniquity,
that she receives from the LORD’s hand double credit for all her sin offerings.”
3 A voice called from the wastes:
“Turn the LORD’s way! Straighten the desert highways for our God!”
4 All valleys are rising. All mountains and hills are lowering.
The crooked are being straightened. The rough are being planed.
5 The LORD’s glory is revealed. All flesh, together, see it.
For the LORD’s mouth has spoken.
Isaiah 43.
25 “I, I’m the one wiping out your transgression for my sake.
Your sins? I don’t remember them.”
Isaiah 44.
13 A craftsman stretches a measuring line against a tree. He outlines it with a stylus.
He makes it with a carving knife and compass:
He makes it like a man’s form, like Adam’s beauty, to sit in his house.
14 He cuts himself cedar and takes cypress and oak—the strongest forest trees for himself.
He plants a fir. Rain grows it. 15 It’s for humans, for burning.
He takes from the wood and warms himself. He kindles fire. He bakes bread—
and he makes a god, and worships. He makes himself an idol and bows down to it.
16 Half the wood he burnt in the fire, ate meat over it, roasts a roast, is filled.
He’s warm and says, “Ah. I’m warm. I’m watching my fire.”
17 He makes the rest of it into a god, his idol, bowing down to it, worshiping it.
He prays to it, saying, “Defend me because you’re my god!”
18 They don’t know. Don’t understand, because God smeared mud on their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes, lest they understand with their minds.
19 They don’t use their minds. Don’t know. Don’t think to say,
“Half I burned in the fire. I baked bread over its coals. I roasted meat. I ate.
I made the rest of it a disgusting thing. I bow down to a hunk of tree.”
20 His “friend” is ash. His deceived mind leads him astray.
He can’t defend his soul. He can’t say, “Isn’t there a lie in my right hand?”
Isaiah 45.
22 “Turn to me and be rescued, all the ends of the earth!
I’m God. There’s no one else.”
Isaiah 50.
3 “I make the skies wear dark clothes. I use sackcloth to cover them.”
6 I gave my body to those who hit me, my cheeks to those who shaved my face.
I didn’t cower from shame and from their spitting.
7 My master LORD will help me, so I’m not ashamed,
so I steady my face like a flint, knowing I will not be embarrassed.
Isaiah 52.
14 Many were horrified by you: His appearance was ruined more than any man;
his shape more ruined than any of Adam’s children.
Isaiah 53.
1 Does anyone believe what we’ve reported?
The LORD’s arm is on this person who’s been revealed:
2 He grew up in God’s presence like a sapling, like something rooted in dry ground.
We could see nothing honorable in his form. He wasn’t anything to look at.
3 People dismissed and refused to hear him.
A man in pain, familiar with illness, dismissed like one who hides his face from people.
We took no account of him, 4 but in fact he’d taken up our illness. He carried our pain.
We figured he’d been smited: God had struck him down to humble him.
5 But he was wounded for our rebellion, crushed for our evil deeds.
Our peace came from his punishment. His beating brought us healing.
6 Like sheep, all of us have wandered off. We all went our own way.
The LORD put all our evil deeds on him.
7 He was abused and humiliated, and didn’t open his mouth,
like a sheep to slaughter, or an ewe to her shearers, is silent, he didn’t open his mouth.
8 Arrested, judged, he was carried off.
His peers—who spoke up for him when he was cut off from the land of the living?
beaten for the evil deeds of my people?
9 They put him in the grave with evildoers, with the rich in death,
though he’d treated no one violently. No deceit was in his mouth.
10 The LORD was pleased to crush him, to make him unwell,
to make his soul a guilt offering, and see his seed survive. He will prolong its days.
11 The LORD is pleased to make it prosper in his hand.
He will be satisfied by the trouble of this servant’s soul:
He will be right in knowing the righteous one, my servant,
will bear the weight of both the great and the evildoers.
12 Therefore I will give him something from the great ones.
He’ll be given spoil with the mighty ones, for under them, his soul was poured out to death.
He was counted with the rebels. He carried the sin of the great.
He brings light to the rebels.
Isaiah 54.
10 “For the mountains might fall down and the hills shake,
but my love won’t fall away from you, and my covenantal peace won’t shake,”
says your compassionate LORD.
Isaiah 55.
1 “Oy, all you thirsty! Come to the waters!
You who have no silver: Come buy grain! Eat!
Come buy grain without silver! Wine and milk at no cost!
2 Why weigh out silver for what isn’t bread? Toil for what doesn’t fill you?
Listen, listen to me. Eat good food! Delight your souls with fat.
3 Stretch out your ear. Come to me. Listen. Let your soul live!
I offer an eternal relationship with you. Trustworthy David-style love.”
6 Ask the LORD when you find him; call him when he comes near.
7 Wicked people, abandon your way. Lawless people, quit your plans. Return to the LORD.
He’ll be compassionate. Return to our God, who forgives so much.
8 “My thinking isn’t your thinking. My ways aren’t your ways,” says the LORD.
9 “Skies are high above earth. Likewise my ways from your ways, my thinking from your thinking.
10 Rain and snow pour down from the sky. They don’t go back up.
Instead they soak the earth and make it grow and sprout.
It gives seed to the planter, which becomes bread for dinner.
11 My word works the same way. It goes forth from my mouth.
It doesn’t go back to me, empty. It does what I want. It achieves what I sent it to do.”
Isaiah 56.
6 “The sons of foreigners who join the LORD to serve him,
to love the LORD’s name, to be his slaves;
everyone who keeps Sabbath from being violated, who holds tight to my covenant:
7 I’ll bring them to my holy hill. I’ll have them rejoice in my prayer-house.
Their burn-offerings and sacrifices will be favorites on my altar.
For my house will be called a prayer-house for every people.”
8 So utters my Master LORD, who gathers up banished Israel again:
“I gather others to those already gathered.”
Isaiah 59.
17 The LORD puts on rightness like chain mail, a helmet of rescue on his head.
He puts on the coverings, coverings of vengeance. He wraps on jealousy like a robe.
Isaiah 66.
23 “From month to month, from Sabbath to Sabbath,
all flesh will come to worship before my face,” says the LORD.
24 “They go out. They see corpses: People who rebelled against me.
For their worms don’t die. Their burial-fire doesn’t go out. All flesh will find them disgusting.”