Isaiah 29

Thomson^{(i) 1} Hold consultation; exalt vain comfort. Ah city Ariel, against which David fought! collect provisions year after year; eat; for you shall eat with Moab; ² for I will bring distress upon Ariel, and her strength and her riches shall be for me. ³ I will indeed encompass thee as David did; and surround thee with a rampire; and erect towers around thee. ⁴ But when thy words shall be brought down to the ground; and shall be as if they sounded out of the earth; and thy voice on the ground shall be feeble; ⁵ then shall the riches of the wicked be as the dust of a wheel, and the multitude of thine oppressors as chaff blown away: and this shall be as in a moment, suddenly. ⁶ For from the Lord of Hosts there will be a visitation: a hurricane and a devouring flame of fire, with thunder and an earthquake and a mighty noise; ⁷ and the wealth of all the nations which encamped against Ariel, and all they who are warring against Jerusalem, and all who have been assembled against her, and those distressing her, shall be like one dreaming dreams by night: ⁸ and like men who in sleep are eating and drinking, but when they awake the dream is vain: even as a thirsty man dreameth that he drinketh, and when he waketh he is still athirst, his soul having trusted in a shadow: so shall be the wealth of all the nations, who have warred against mount Sion. ⁹ [p] Be sunk in dejection and stand astonished; be drunk and reel, not with wine nor strong drink; ¹⁰ for the Lord hath drenched you with a spirit of stupefaction, and will close up the eyes of them and of their prophets and their rulers. As for your seers of hidden things, ¹¹ all these prophesies will be to you like the words of a book which is sealed: which when they give to a man skilled in letters, saying, Read this: He will say, I cannot read it, for it is sealed. ¹² And should the book be put in the hands of an illiterate man, and they say to him, Bead that, he will say, I do not know letters. ¹³ The Lord hath indeed said, [J] "This people draw near to me with their mouth; and with their lips they honour me; but their heart is far from me: and in vain do they worship me, teaching the commands and doctrines of men: ¹⁴ therefore, behold, I will proceed to the removal of this people and I will remove them; and destroy the wisdom of the wise, and darken the understanding of the prudent." ¹⁵ Alas! for them, who deeply form a design, but not by the Lord. Alas! for them, who form designs in secret, that their works may be in darkness; and who will say, "Who hath seen us, and who can find out us, or what we do?" ¹⁶ Are not you to be considered as the potter's clay? Shall the thing formed say to the former of it, thou hast not made me. Or shall the work say to the Workman thou hast not made me wisely? ¹⁷ Is it not a little while, ere Libanus shall be changed to a likeness of Mount Carmel? And Carmel be accounted a forest? ¹⁸ And in that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and they in darkness, even they in thick darkness; the eyes even of the blind shall see; ¹⁹ and the distressed shall exult with joy because of the Lord; and the disconsolate among men shall be filled with joy. ²⁰ The lawless one hath failed, and the haughty one is destroyed, and these are utterly cut off who maliciously commit iniquity, ²¹ and who by reasoning cause men to err. But as for all them who reprove in the gates they will indeed lay a stumbling block, because of their having turned aside the righteous one for the unrighteous, ²² therefore, thus saith the Lord respecting the house of Jacob, whom he set apart from Abraham; "Jacob will not be ashamed now, nor will he now change his countenance; ²³ but when his children shall see my works, because of me they will hallow my name. They will hallow the Holy One of Jacob, and tremble before the God of Israel. ²⁴ And they who have erred in spirit will gain knowledge, and the murmurers shall be taught obedience, and the trifling tongues will learn to speak peace."