Yesaya 1:13

1:13 Do not bring any more meaningless ¹  offerings;

I consider your incense detestable! ² 

You observe new moon festivals, Sabbaths, and convocations,

but I cannot tolerate sin-stained celebrations! ³ 

Yesaya 1:31

1:31 The powerful will be like ⁴  a thread of yarn,

their deeds like a spark;

both will burn together,

and no one will put out the fire.

Yesaya 3:9

3:9 The look on their faces ⁵  testifies to their guilt; ⁶ 

like the people of Sodom they openly boast of their sin. ⁷ 

Too bad for them! ⁸ 

For they bring disaster on themselves.

Yesaya 5:8

Disaster is Coming

5:8 Those who accumulate houses are as good as dead, ⁹ 

those who also accumulate landed property ¹⁰ 

until there is no land left, ¹¹ 

and you are the only landowners remaining within the land. ¹² 

Yesaya 5:29

5:29 Their roar is like a lion’s;

they roar like young lions.

They growl and seize their prey;

they drag it away and no one can come to the rescue.

Yesaya 9:19-20

9:19 Because of the anger of the Lord who commands armies, the land was scorched, ¹³ 

and the people became fuel for the fire. ¹⁴ 

People had no compassion on one another. ¹⁵ 

9:20 They devoured ¹⁶  on the right, but were still hungry,

they ate on the left, but were not satisfied.

People even ate ¹⁷  the flesh of their own arm! ¹⁸ 

Yesaya 16:12

16:12 When the Moabites plead with all their might at their high places, ¹⁹ 

and enter their temples to pray, their prayers will be ineffective! ²⁰ 

Yesaya 29:21

29:21 those who bear false testimony against a person, ²¹ 

who entrap the one who arbitrates at the city gate ²² 

and deprive the innocent of justice by making false charges. ²³ 

Yesaya 30:15

30:15 For this is what the master, the Lord, the Holy One of Israel says:

“If you repented and patiently waited for me, you would be delivered; ²⁴ 

if you calmly trusted in me you would find strength, ²⁵ 

but you are unwilling.

Yesaya 32:10

32:10 In a year’s time ²⁶ 

you carefree ones will shake with fear,

for the grape ²⁷  harvest will fail,

and the fruit harvest will not arrive.

Yesaya 36:15

36:15 Don’t let Hezekiah talk you into trusting in the Lord by saying, “The Lord will certainly rescue us; this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.”

Yesaya 44:6

The Absurdity of Idolatry

44:6 This is what the Lord, Israel’s king, says,

their protector, ²⁸  the Lord who commands armies:

“I am the first and I am the last,

there is no God but me.

Yesaya 44:21

44:21 Remember these things, O Jacob,

O Israel, for you are my servant.

I formed you to be my servant;

O Israel, I will not forget you! ²⁹ 

Yesaya 47:15

47:15 They will disappoint you, ³⁰ 

those you have so faithfully dealt with since your youth. ³¹ 

Each strays off in his own direction, ³² 

leaving no one to rescue you.”

Yesaya 48:6

48:6 You have heard; now look at all the evidence! ³³ 

Will you not admit that what I say is true? ³⁴ 

From this point on I am announcing to you new events

that are previously unrevealed and you do not know about. ³⁵ 

Yesaya 48:21

48:21 They do not thirst as he leads them through dry regions;

he makes water flow out of a rock for them;

he splits open a rock and water flows out.’ ³⁶ 

Yesaya 60:18

60:18 Sounds of violence ³⁷  will no longer be heard in your land,

or the sounds of ³⁸  destruction and devastation within your borders.

You will name your walls, ‘Deliverance,’

and your gates, ‘Praise.’

[1:13]  ¹ tn Or “worthless” (NASB, NCV, CEV); KJV, ASV “vain.”

[1:13]  ² sn Notice some of the other practices that Yahweh regards as “detestable”: homosexuality (Lev 18:22-30; 20:13), idolatry (Deut 7:25; 13:15), human sacrifice (Deut 12:31), eating ritually unclean animals (Deut 14:3-8), sacrificing defective animals (Deut 17:1), engaging in occult activities (Deut 18:9-14), and practicing ritual prostitution (1 Kgs 14:23).

[1:13]  ³ tn Heb “sin and assembly” (these two nouns probably represent a hendiadys). The point is that their attempts at worship are unacceptable to God because the people’s everyday actions in the socio-economic realm prove they have no genuine devotion to God (see vv. 16-17).

[1:31]  ⁴ tn Heb “will become” (so NASB, NIV).

[3:9]  ⁵ sn This refers to their proud, arrogant demeanor.

[3:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “answers against them”; NRSV “bears witness against them.”

[3:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “their sin, like Sodom, they declare, they do not conceal [it].”

[3:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “woe to their soul.”

[5:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “Woe [to] those who make a house touch a house.” The exclamation הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) was used in funeral laments (see 1 Kgs 13:30; Jer 22:18; 34:5) and carries the connotation of death.

[5:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “[who] bring a field near a field.”

[5:8]  sn This verse does not condemn real estate endeavors per se, but refers to the way in which the rich bureaucrats of Judah accumulated property by exploiting the poor, in violation of the covenantal principle that the land belonged to God and that every family was to have its own portion of land. See the note at 1:23.

[5:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “until the end of the place”; NASB “until there is no more room.”

[5:8]  ¹² tn Heb “and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.”

[9:19]  ¹³ tn The precise meaning of the verb עְתַּם (’ÿtam), which occurs only here, is uncertain, though the context strongly suggests that it means “burn, scorch.”

[9:19]  ¹⁴ sn The uncontrollable fire of the people’s wickedness (v. 18) is intensified by the fire of the Lord’s judgment (v. 19). God allows (or causes) their wickedness to become self-destructive as civil strife and civil war break out in the land.

[9:19]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “men were not showing compassion to their brothers.” The idiom “men to their brothers” is idiomatic for reciprocity. The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite without vav (ו) consecutive or an imperfect used in a customary sense, describing continual or repeated behavior in past time.

[9:20]  ¹⁶ tn Or “cut.” The verb גָּזַר (gazar) means “to cut.” If it is understood here, then one might paraphrase, “They slice off meat on the right.” However, HALOT 187 s.v. I גזר, proposes here a rare homonym meaning “to devour.”

[9:20]  ¹⁷ tn The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite without vav consecutive or an imperfect used in a customary sense, describing continual or repeated behavior in past time.

[9:20]  ¹⁸ tn Some suggest that זְרֹעוֹ (zÿro’o, “his arm”) be repointed זַרְעוֹ (zar’o, “his offspring”). In either case, the metaphor is that of a desperately hungry man who resorts to an almost unthinkable act to satisfy his appetite. He eats everything he can find to his right, but still being unsatisfied, then turns to his left and eats everything he can find there. Still being desperate for food, he then resorts to eating his own flesh (or offspring, as this phrase is metaphorically understood by some English versions, e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, NLT). The reality behind the metaphor is the political turmoil of the period, as the next verse explains. There was civil strife within the northern kingdom; even the descendants of Joseph were at each other’s throats. Then the northern kingdom turned on their southern brother, Judah.

[16:12]  ¹⁹ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[16:12]  ²⁰ tn Heb “when he appears, when he grows tired, Moab on the high places, and enters his temple to pray, he will not prevail.” It is possible that “when he grows tired” is an explanatory gloss for the preceding “when he appears.”

[29:21]  ²¹ tn Heb “the ones who make a man a sinner with a word.” The Hiphil of חָטָא (khata’) here has a delocutive sense: “declare a man sinful/guilty.”

[29:21]  ²² sn Legal disputes were resolved at the city gate, where the town elders met. See Amos 5:10.

[29:21]  ²³ tn Heb “and deprive by emptiness the innocent.”

[30:15]  ²⁴ tn Heb “in returning and in quietness you will be delivered.” Many English versions render the last phrase “shall be saved” or something similar (e.g., NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[30:15]  ²⁵ tn Heb “in quietness and in trust is your strength” (NASB and NRSV both similar).

[32:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “days upon a year.”

[32:10]  ²⁷ tn Or perhaps, “olive.” See 24:13.

[44:6]  ²⁸ tn Heb “his kinsman redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[44:21]  ²⁹ tc The verb in the Hebrew text is a Niphal imperfect with a pronominal suffix. Although the Niphal ordinarily has the passive sense, it can have a reflexive nuance as well (see above translation). Some have suggested an emendation to a Qal form: “Do not forget me” (all the ancient versions, NEB, REB; see GKC 369 §117.x). “Do not forget me” would make a good parallel with “remember these things” in the first line. Since the MT is the harder reading and fits with Israel’s complaint that God had forgotten her (Isa 40:27), the MT reading should be retained (NASB, NKJV, NRSV, ESV). The passive has been rendered as an active in the translation in keeping with contemporary English style (so also NIV, NCV, TEV, NLT).

[47:15]  ³⁰ tn Heb “So they will be to you”; NIV “That is all they can do for you.”

[47:15]  ³¹ tn Heb “that for which you toiled, your traders from your youth.” The omen readers and star gazers are likened to merchants with whom Babylon has had an ongoing economic relationship.

[47:15]  ³² tn Heb “each to his own side, they err.”

[48:6]  ³³ tn Heb “gaze [at] all of it”; KJV “see all this.”

[48:6]  ³⁴ tn Heb “[as for] you, will you not declare?”

[48:6]  ³⁵ tn Heb “and hidden things, and you do not know them.”

[48:21]  ³⁶ sn The translation above (present tense) assumes that this verse describes God’s provision for returning Babylonian exiles (see v. 20; 35:6; 49:10) in terms reminiscent of the Exodus from Egypt (see Exod 17:6).

[60:18]  ³⁷ tn The words “sounds of” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[60:18]  ³⁸ tn The words “sounds of” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.