Isaiah

To Hezekiah. The LORD has heard your prayer about Sennacherib. Jerusalem shakes her head and laughs at you, Assyria. I’ll put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and send you home the way you came. He won’t enter this city or shoot one arrow here. I’ll defend this city, for my sake and for David’s.

Replying to @king.hezekiah

I hadn’t even got out of the middle courtyard when the LORD sent me back to him. I’ve heard your prayer, I’ve seen your tears. I’ll heal you. Fifteen more years.

Envoys came from Babylon with letters and a gift, having heard the king was ill. He showed them everything: silver, gold, spices, oil, the armoury. Nothing in the palace he didn’t show them. I told him: the day is coming when all of it will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left.

Isaiah son of Amoz. I live in Jerusalem, and I’ve been seeing what the LORD shows me about Judah and Jerusalem through four kings: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and now Hezekiah. This is what I saw.

The LORD says he raised children and they turned on him. An ox knows who owns it. A donkey knows where its feeding trough is. His own people don’t know him.

He’s had enough of your sacrifices. The festivals, the incense, the endless prayers. You lift your hands to pray and they’re covered in blood. Wash. Stop doing evil. Learn to do what’s right. Stand up for the orphan. Take the widow’s side.

Come on, let’s talk this through, the LORD says. Your sins are scarlet? They can be white as snow. Red as crimson? They’ll be like wool.

One day every nation will stream up to the LORD’s mountain to learn his ways. They’ll beat their swords into ploughs and their spears into pruning hooks. Nobody will even train for war any more.

Wrote a song about my friend’s vineyard. Best hillside around. He dug it over, cleared the stones, planted the finest vines, built a watchtower, cut a winepress. Then waited for grapes. Sour. Every one. People of Jerusalem, you tell me. What more could he have done?

Replying to @isaiah

The vineyard is Israel. He looked for justice and found bloodshed. He listened for what’s right and heard people crying for help.

Calling evil good and good evil. Darkness light. Bitter sweet. Some people have it all back to front.

The year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a throne, high up, raised above everything, and the edge of his robe filled the whole temple. Above him were seraphim, fiery angels with six wings each: two over their faces, two over their feet, two for flying. They were calling to each other, “Holy, holy, holy,” and that the whole earth is full of his glory. The doorposts shook. The temple filled with smoke.

Replying to @isaiah

I thought, that’s it, I’m finished. My lips aren’t clean, and I live among people whose lips aren’t clean either. And I’d just seen the King, the LORD of armies, with my own eyes.

Replying to @isaiah

One of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal he’d taken off the altar with tongs. Touched my mouth with it. Told me my guilt was gone and my sin was paid for.

Then I heard the Lord asking who he should send. Who’ll go for us? I said, “Here I am. Send me.”

Replying to @isaiah

The message he gave me is a hard one. Tell them: keep hearing, never understanding; keep looking, never seeing. Make their hearts dull, their ears heavy, their eyes shut, or they might see and turn and be healed. I asked how long. Until the towns are empty and the land’s a ruin, he said. Like an oak that’s been cut down. But a stump will be left. A holy seed in it.

Ahaz is king now, Uzziah’s grandson. Two kings have teamed up against Jerusalem: Rezin of Aram, and Pekah of Israel, the northern kingdom. When the news reached the palace, the king and everyone else shook like trees in the wind.

The LORD sent me out with my son Shear-jashub to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct by the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field. Message: calm down. Don’t be scared of these two kings. They’re a couple of smouldering stubs of firewood. Their plan won’t happen. But if you don’t stand firm in your faith, you won’t stand at all.

Then the LORD told Ahaz to ask him for a sign. Anything. As deep as the grave or as high as the sky.

Replying to @king.ahaz

Told him straight: you wear people out, and now you’re wearing out my God as well.

So the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will be pregnant and give birth to a son, and she’ll call him Immanuel, God with us. Before that boy is old enough to know right from wrong, the land of the two kings you’re so afraid of will be empty.

Replying to @isaiah

And the rest of it: the LORD is going to bring the king of Assyria down on you. Days like nobody’s seen since the north split from Judah.

The LORD told me to take a big scroll and write one thing on it, in ordinary letters: Maher-shalal-hash-baz. Two reliable witnesses watched me do it, Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah.

He’s here! My wife, a prophet herself, has had a boy. The LORD told me his name: Maher-shalal-hash-baz. Yes, the name on the scroll. It means something like “quick to the plunder, fast to the spoil”. Before he can say Dad or Mum, the king of Assyria will have carried off the wealth of Damascus and Samaria.

Replying to @isaiah

Me and the children the LORD has given me. We’re signs, all of us.

Zebulun and Naphtali, up in Galilee, were humiliated first. That isn’t the end of their story. The people walking in the dark have seen a great light. For everyone living in death’s shadow, a light has come up.

A child is born to us. A son is given to us. The government will be on his shoulders, and these will be his names: Wonderful Counsellor. Mighty God. Everlasting Father. Prince of Peace. He’ll rule from David’s throne, and his peace will never end. The LORD’s own passion will make it happen.

Assyria thinks it’s doing all this by its own strength. Does an axe brag that it’s better than the man swinging it? Does a saw show off to the one sawing?

A shoot is going to grow out of the stump of Jesse, David’s father. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him: wisdom, understanding, good advice, strength. He won’t judge by what he sees or by what he hears. He’ll judge the poor fairly.

The books of Samuel@booksofsamuelHe comes in, red-cheeked, with bright eyes. The LORD says: “That’s the one.” Samuel anoints David in front of his brothers, and the Spirit of the LORD comes powerfully on him from that day on.

The wolf will live with the lamb. The leopard will lie down with the young goat. Calf and lion together, and a little child leading them. A toddler playing by a cobra’s hole. Nothing will hurt or destroy on all the LORD’s holy mountain, because the earth will be as full of knowing the LORD as the sea is full of water.

You’ll draw water from the wells of salvation, and you’ll be full of joy doing it.

I’ve had messages for the nations round us too. Babylon, Moab, Damascus, Egypt, Tyre. For the king of Babylon: how you’ve fallen from the sky, morning star, son of the dawn. Cut down to the ground.

For three years the LORD had me go about naked and barefoot. Sackcloth off, sandals off. A sign against Egypt and Cush: this is how the king of Assyria will march their people away, young and old, naked and barefoot. To Egypt’s shame.

Replying to @isaiah

Everyone on this coast who’s counting on Egypt and Cush to save them from Assyria, that’s who this is for.

Replying to @someone.in.seir

Morning’s coming. And night as well. If you want to ask, ask. Come back again.

Replying to @jerusalem.rooftop

The Lord called for weeping today. Sackcloth. Shaved heads. And you’re throwing a party. He told me this one won’t be wiped clean as long as you live.

The LORD sent me to Shebna, the steward who runs the palace. Found him having a tomb cut for himself, high up in the rock. Who said you could do that? The LORD is going to roll you up like a ball and throw you into a wide country, and you’ll die there. You’re out of your job.

Replying to @isaiah

His robe, his sash and his authority will go to Eliakim son of Hilkiah, with the key to David’s house on his shoulder. What he opens, nobody shuts. What he shuts, nobody opens.

On this mountain the LORD will throw a feast for every nation. The best meat, the finest aged wine. He’ll swallow up death for ever. He’ll wipe the tears from every face.

You keep in perfect peace the one whose mind stays on you, because they trust you.

Replying to @priest.jerusalem

Priests and prophets, staggering from the wine. Muddled in your visions, stumbling over your rulings. The LORD offered you rest, and you wouldn’t listen.

The LORD says he’s laying a stone in Zion. Tested. A precious cornerstone, a firm foundation. Whoever trusts in it will never be shaken.

What the LORD says about us: these people come near me with their mouths and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far away. Their worship is just rules people made up.

You’ve turned everything upside down. As if the clay could tell the potter, “You didn’t make me.” Or the pot could say the potter has no idea what he’s doing.

Off to Egypt for help, and nobody’s asked the LORD. Horses, chariots, lots of them, and not one look towards the Holy One of Israel. The Egyptians are people, not God. Their horses are flesh, not spirit.

Replying to @someone.in.judah

Here’s what the Holy One of Israel says. Turn back and rest, and you’ll be saved. Quiet trust would be your strength. But you didn’t want it.

Replying to @someone.in.judah

Then the ones chasing you will be faster.

And still the LORD is waiting to be kind to you. Whether you turn right or left, you’ll hear a voice behind you: this is the way. Walk in it.

What’s coming: 1. The desert bursting into flower. 2. Blind eyes opened, deaf ears unblocked. 3. The lame leaping like deer. 4. Streams in the wilderness. 5. A road called the Way of Holiness, and the people the LORD has rescued walking it home to Zion, singing. Sorrow and sighing will run away.

Hezekiah’s fourteenth year as king. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, has attacked every walled town in Judah and taken them all.

Replying to @eliakim

What I told them to take back to the king: don’t be afraid of what you heard. The LORD will make Sennacherib hear a rumour and go home, and in his own land he’ll be killed.

Replying to @king.hezekiah

The LORD’s answer, because you prayed. Jerusalem is laughing at Sennacherib behind his back. The LORD will put a hook in his nose and a bit in his mouth and turn him round the way he came. He won’t come into this city. Won’t shoot a single arrow at it. Won’t build a siege ramp. The LORD will defend it, for his own sake and for David’s.

Replying to @king.hezekiah

And a sign for you. This year, eat what comes up on its own. Next year, what grows from that. The year after, sow and harvest and plant vineyards again.

Then the angel of the LORD went out and struck the Assyrian camp. 185,000 men. When people got up in the morning, they were all dead. Sennacherib broke camp, went home to Nineveh, and stayed there.

Later, while Sennacherib was worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch, two of his own sons killed him and escaped. In his own land, as the LORD had said.

Around that time Hezekiah fell very ill. I had to go and tell him what the LORD said. Put your affairs in order. You’re going to die. You won’t get better.

Replying to @king.hezekiah

Then the LORD sent me back to him. He’s heard your prayer. He’s seen your tears. Fifteen more years. And he’ll rescue you and this city from the king of Assyria.

Replying to @king.hezekiah

The shadow on Ahaz’s stairway. The LORD would make it go back ten steps. And it did. The sunlight went back up the ten steps it had come down.

Replying to @isaiah

Also told them to put a paste of pressed figs on the boil. He’ll recover.

Replying to @joah.recorder

Went and asked him who those men were and what they’d seen. From a long way off, he said. From Babylon. They’ve seen everything. There’s nothing I didn’t show them.

Replying to @isaiah

So I told him what the LORD of armies says. The day is coming when everything in this palace, everything your ancestors stored up, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing left. And some of your own descendants will be taken away to be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.

What he was really thinking: at least there’ll be peace and safety in my lifetime.

Hezekiah, king of Judah@king.hezekiahWhat you’ve told me from the LORD is good.

From here on, these words are for God’s people far in the future, carried off to Babylon, just as the LORD said. And the first word for them is this: “Comfort, comfort my people.” Speak gently to Jerusalem. Tell her the hard years are over and her wrongdoing is forgiven.

A voice is calling: clear a road through the wilderness for the LORD. Make a straight highway in the desert for our God. Fill in every valley. Bring down every mountain. And everyone will see his glory together.

A voice told me to shout. I asked, shout what? That people are like grass, all their beauty like wildflowers. The grass dries up and the flowers drop. The word of our God stands for ever.

He looks after his flock like a shepherd. Gathers the lambs up in his arms and carries them close to his heart.

Who’s measured the oceans in the hollow of his hand? Weighed the mountains on scales? To him, the nations are a drop in a bucket.

And who are you going to compare him to? An idol? If you can afford it, you get a smith to cover one in gold. If you can’t, you pick a bit of wood that won’t rot and find a good craftsman to make you a god that won’t fall over.

Look up. Who made all those? He brings out the stars one by one and calls every one of them by name. Not one is missing.

Replying to @exile.babylon

Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard? The LORD is the everlasting God. He made the ends of the earth. He never gets tired. He gives strength to people who are worn out. Even the young get tired and trip and fall. But those who wait for the LORD will get their strength back. They’ll rise up on wings like eagles. They’ll run and not get tired. They’ll walk and not faint.

Don’t be afraid, the LORD says. He’s with you. Don’t be anxious. He’s your God. He’ll make you strong, he’ll help you, he’ll hold you up with his right hand.

The LORD has a servant he’s chosen and delights in. He’ll put his Spirit on him, and he’ll bring justice to the nations. He won’t shout or raise his voice in the street. He won’t break a bent reed or snuff out a wick that’s barely burning.

He made you. He’s bought you back. Don’t be afraid. He’s called you by name: you’re his. When you go through deep water, he’ll be with you. The rivers won’t sweep you away. Walk through the fire and you won’t get burnt.

He’s the LORD who once made a road through the sea. And now he says: stop dwelling on the past. He’s doing something new. It’s already springing up. Can’t you see it? A road through the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

Moses@moses · The Red SeaI stretched out my hand over the sea. All night the LORD drove it back with an east wind. We walked through on dry ground. A wall of water on our right, a wall of water on our left.

A man cuts down a tree. 1. Half of it goes on the fire. He warms his hands: “Ah, that’s nice. I can feel the heat.” 2. He roasts his meat over it and eats his fill. 3. Out of the other half he carves a god, bows down to it and prays, “Save me, you’re my god.” Nobody stops to think: I cooked my dinner on the other half of this.

The LORD says of Cyrus: he’s my shepherd, and he’ll do everything I want. He’ll say Jerusalem will be rebuilt and the temple’s foundations laid. The LORD even calls him his chosen king.

Babylon’s gods, Bel and Nebo, have to be loaded onto animals to be carried off, and the animals are exhausted. The LORD is the other way round. He’s carried you since the day you were born. When you’re old and your hair is grey, he’ll still carry you.

Replying to @exile.babylon

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast? Stop caring for the child she carried? Even if she could, he won’t forget you. He’s written you on the palms of his hands.

Look at the rock you were cut from. Abraham, and Sarah who gave birth to you. When the LORD called him he was one man. Look what he made of him.

Moses@moses · HaranThen this. The LORD tells Abram to leave his country, his relatives and his father’s house, and go to a land he’ll show him. He’ll make him into a great nation, and every family on earth will be blessed through him.

The feet of the one running over the mountains with good news: how beautiful they are. Peace. Rescue. “Your God reigns!” And the watchmen on the walls shouting for joy.

About the LORD’s servant again. He’ll be lifted up, raised very high. But people were shocked when they saw him. He was so disfigured he hardly looked human. Kings will be left speechless.

Who would believe what we’re about to say? He grew up like a small shoot out of dry ground. Nothing about the way he looked would make you look twice. People despised him and turned away from him. He knew pain. He knew grief. And we didn’t think much of him either.

It was our pain he carried. Our sorrows. And we thought God was punishing him. He was pierced for the wrong we did. Crushed for our sins. The punishment that brings us peace fell on him, and his wounds have healed us.

We’d all wandered off like sheep, every one of us going our own way. And the LORD put all our wrongdoing on him.

He was treated cruelly and didn’t say a word. Like a lamb led off to be killed. Like a sheep that stays silent while it’s sheared. They condemned him and took him away, and his life was cut short. They gave him a grave with the wicked, and with a rich man, though he’d never done anything violent or said anything false.

It was the LORD’s will to crush him and make him suffer. But after all that anguish, he’ll see the light of life and be satisfied. He’ll make many people right with God, and carry their sins. He poured out his life to death. He was counted with the criminals. He carried the sin of many, and prayed for the ones who’d done wrong.

You who could never have children, sing! Make your tent bigger. Longer ropes, deeper pegs. Don’t hold back. You’re going to need the room.

For a moment he turned away from you. With huge compassion he’ll bring you back. To him this is like Noah’s day: he swore the flood would never cover the earth again, and now he’s sworn he won’t be angry with you. The mountains may move and the hills may shake, but his love for you won’t.

Moses@mosesThen God makes a covenant, which means he binds himself to a promise. Never again will a flood destroy all life on the earth. And the sign is his rainbow in the clouds. Whenever it shows up, he says, he’ll see it and remember.

Everyone who’s thirsty, come to the water! No money? Come anyway, buy and eat. Wine and milk, and it costs nothing. Why spend money on what isn’t bread, and work for what never fills you up?

Look for the LORD while he can be found. Call on him while he’s near. His thoughts aren’t your thoughts, and his ways aren’t your ways. As high as the sky is above the earth, that’s how far above yours they are.

Rain and snow don’t go back up into the sky without soaking the ground and making things grow. His word is the same. It won’t come back to him empty. You’ll go out with joy. The mountains will sing, and all the trees will clap their hands.

If you’re a foreigner who’s given yourself to the LORD, don’t say he’ll shut you out. If you’re a eunuch, don’t say you’re just a dried-up tree. He’ll give you a place and a name in his house better than sons and daughters. His house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.

Replying to @keeping.the.fast

On your fast days you do whatever you like and drive your workers hard. Your fasts end in arguments and fist fights.

Replying to @keeping.the.fast

The fast the LORD wants: break the chains of injustice. Set people free. Share your food with the hungry. Bring the homeless poor into your house. When you see someone with nothing to wear, clothe them. Then your light will break out like the dawn.

The LORD’s arm isn’t too short to save. His ear isn’t too dull to hear. It’s your wrongdoing that’s put a wall between you and him.

Get up. Shine. Your light has come. Darkness covers the earth, but the LORD is rising over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

The Spirit of the Lord God is on me. He’s anointed me to bring good news to the poor. To heal broken hearts. To tell captives they’re free and prisoners they’re out. To comfort everyone who mourns. A crown of beauty instead of ashes. The oil of joy instead of grief. Praise to wear instead of despair.

Nobody will call you Forsaken again. Your new name is Hephzibah, “my delight is in her”. As a groom is happy over his bride, your God will be happy over you.

If only you’d tear the sky open and come down. All the good we’ve done is like filthy rags. And still, LORD, you’re our Father. We’re the clay, you’re the potter. All of us are your work.

Isaiah@isaiahYou’ve turned everything upside down. As if the clay could tell the potter, “You didn’t make me.” Or the pot could say the potter has no idea what he’s doing.

The LORD is going to create new heavens and a new earth. Nobody will even remember the old ones. No more crying heard in Jerusalem. No more babies who only live a few days. People will build houses and live in them, plant vineyards and eat the grapes themselves. Before they call, he’ll answer.

The wolf and the lamb eating together. The lion eating straw like an ox. Nothing hurting or destroying anything on his holy mountain. Said it before. Saying it again.

Isaiah@isaiahThe wolf will live with the lamb. The leopard will lie down with the young goat. Calf and lion together, and a little child leading them. A toddler playing by a cobra’s hole. Nothing will hurt or destroy on all the LORD’s holy mountain, because the earth will be as full of knowing the LORD as the sea is full of water.

Heaven is his throne and the earth is his footstool. What house could you build for him? The one he looks to is the humble person, sorry for what they’ve done, who trembles at his word.

As a mother comforts her child, he’ll comfort you.

The new heavens and the new earth he makes will last. So will your family and your name. And every new moon, every Sabbath, everyone on earth will come and worship him.