Isaías 10

Woe to those who write wicked statutes

¹Woe to those who make wicked statutes, and to the scribes who keep writing out misery, ²to push the needy away from a fair hearing and strip the poor among my people of their rights, so that widows become their spoil and orphans their loot. ³What will you do on the day you are called to account, when ruin comes sweeping in from far away? Whom will you flee to for help? And where will you leave your wealth behind? ⁴Nothing is left but to crouch down among the captives or to fall among the dead. Even so, his anger has not turned back; his hand is still stretched out.^a

Assyria, the rod of my anger

⁵Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger! The club they hold in their hand is my indignation. ⁶I send him against a corrupt nation; against the people who stir my wrath I give him orders, to carry off spoil and haul away plunder, and to stamp them into the ground like mud in the streets. ⁷But that is not what he has in view; that is not the plan in his heart. What he has at heart is to wipe out and cut down nations, and not a few. ⁸For he says, “My commanders, are they not kings, every one of them? ⁹Did Calno not go the way of Carchemish? Did Hamath not go the way of Arpad, and Samaria the way of Damascus? ¹⁰Just as my hand laid hold of kingdoms full of idols, whose carved images outnumbered those of Jerusalem and Samaria, ¹¹what I did to Samaria and its idols, will I not do the same to Jerusalem and its images?”

¹²When the Lord has completed everything he is doing on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I will punish what has grown from the swollen pride of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his haughty look. ¹³For he says, “My own strong hand has done this, and my wisdom, for I am shrewd. I wiped away the borders between peoples and stripped their storehouses bare; like a mighty bull I toppled those who sat on thrones.^{b 14}My hand found the riches of the peoples as easily as a bird’s nest; the way someone collects eggs that have been deserted, I collected the whole earth. No wing fluttered; no beak opened; no peep was heard.” ¹⁵Can an ax take pride over the one who chops with it, or a saw make itself greater than the one who works it? That would be like a stick swinging the hands that lift it, or a wooden club lifting someone who is not wood! ¹⁶So the Lord GOD of Armies will send a wasting disease into his well-fed troops, and beneath his splendor a blaze will flare up like a burning fire. ¹⁷The one who is Israel’s Light will turn to fire, its Holy One to flame; it will flare up and burn up his thornbushes and briers, all in a single day. ¹⁸The splendor of his forest and his orchard land it will wipe out, body and soul, and it will be as the strength drains out of a sick man.^{c 19}What is left of the trees in his forest will be so few that a child could list them.

A remnant will return

²⁰On that day the remnant of Israel, those of the house of Jacob who have escaped, will no longer lean on the one who struck them down. Their support will be the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in all faithfulness. ²¹A remnant will return, Jacob’s remnant, to the Mighty God. ²²Even if your people, Israel, are as many as the grains of sand by the sea, only a remnant within them will return. An end has been decided, and it comes flooding in with justice. ²³For the Lord GOD of Armies is about to bring a full and settled end within the whole land.

²⁴Therefore the Lord GOD of Armies says this: Do not fear Assyria, my people who live in Zion. He strikes you with the rod and raises his staff over you the way Egypt did. ²⁵For only a little while longer, and the fury will be spent; then my anger will turn to their ruin. ²⁶The LORD of Armies will crack a whip over him, as in the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb. His staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it up as he did in Egypt. ²⁷On that day the load he laid on your shoulder will be taken away, and his yoke off your neck. The yoke will snap because of fatness.^{d 28}He has reached Aiath and marched through Migron; at Michmash he leaves his baggage. ²⁹They have gone across the pass: “Geba will be our camp for the night!” Ramah is trembling; Gibeah of Saul has taken flight. ³⁰Raise your voice and cry, Daughter Gallim! Take heed, Laishah! Afflicted Anathoth!^{e 31}Madmenah has run away; those who live in Gebim have hurried their goods to safety. ³²Before this day is over he will stand at Nob, waving his fist toward the mountain of Daughter Zion, toward Jerusalem’s hill.

³³Look! The Lord GOD of Armies is about to strip away the boughs with a terrifying crash. The trees that tower highest will be cut down; the proud heights will be laid low. ³⁴He will hack down the tangled forest with iron, and Lebanon will come crashing down by a mighty one.^f