Isaiah 29

1 Woe to Ariel, the city David besieged. Gather fruit year after year. Eat, because you will eat with Moab.

2 I will severely afflict Ariel, and her strength and wealth will belong to me.

3 I will surround you as David did, raise a mound around you, and set towers around you.

4 Your words will be brought down and sink into the earth. Your voice will sound like people speaking from the earth and will be lowered to the ground.

5 The ungodly people’s wealth will become like dust from a wheel, and the multitude of those oppressing you like flying chaff. This will happen suddenly, in a moment,

6 from the Lord of armies. For there will be a reckoning with thunder, earthquake, loud noise, rushing storm, and a flame of consuming fire.

7 The combined wealth of every nation that fought Ariel, everyone who fought Jerusalem, gathered against her, and distressed her, will become like a dream at night.

8 It will be like people who eat and drink in their sleep but wake to find the dream empty, or like a thirsty person who dreams of drinking but wakes still thirsty, his desire unfulfilled. This is how the wealth of every nation that fought Mount Zion will be.

9 Grow faint, be amazed, and be overcome, but not by strong drink or wine.

10 The Lord made you drink a spirit of deep sleep. He will close their eyes—the eyes of their prophets and rulers who see hidden things.

11 All these things will become for you like the words of a sealed book. If they hand it to an educated person and say, ‘Read this,’ he will answer, ‘I cannot, because it is sealed.’

12 If the book is handed to an uneducated person and someone says, ‘Read this,’ he will answer, ‘I cannot read.’

13 The Lord said, ‘These people approach me with their mouths and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me for nothing, teaching human commands and doctrines.’

14 Look, I will proceed to remove these people, and I will remove them. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and hide the understanding of the intelligent.

15 Woe to those who make deep plans without the Lord, who make secret plans and work in darkness. They say, ‘Who saw us? Who will know us or what we do?’

16 Will you not be regarded as clay in the potter’s hands? Will what was formed say to the one who formed it, You did not form me? Will the work say to its maker, You did not make me wisely?

17 In only a little while, Lebanon will become like the mountains of Carmel, and Carmel will be regarded as a forest.

18 On that day the deaf will hear the book’s words, and the eyes of the blind, in darkness and mist, will see.

19 The poor will rejoice because of the Lord, and people who had no human hope will be filled with joy.

20 The lawless person was brought to nothing, the proud person died, and those who rebelled maliciously were completely destroyed,

21 including people who caused others to sin by a word and made everyone correcting them at the gates into an offender, because they unjustly turned the righteous aside.

22 Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the house of Jacob, whom he set apart from Abraham: Jacob will no longer be ashamed, and Israel’s face will no longer grow pale.

23 When their children see my works, they will make my name holy for my sake. They will make the Holy One of Jacob holy and revere the God of Israel.

24 Those who wandered in spirit will gain understanding, grumblers will learn obedience, and stammering tongues will learn to speak peace.