Yesaya 1:15

1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I look the other way; ¹ 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ² 

Yesaya 3:9

3:9 The look on their faces ³  testifies to their guilt; ⁴ 

like the people of Sodom they openly boast of their sin. ⁵ 

Too bad for them! ⁶ 

For they bring disaster on themselves.

Yesaya 3:16

Washing Away Impurity

3:16 The Lord says,

“The women ⁷  of Zion are proud.

They walk with their heads high ⁸ 

and flirt with their eyes.

They skip along ⁹ 

and the jewelry on their ankles jingles. ¹⁰ 

Yesaya 5:16

5:16 The Lord who commands armies will be exalted ¹¹  when he punishes, ¹² 

the sovereign God’s authority will be recognized when he judges. ¹³ 

Yesaya 6:9

6:9 He said, “Go and tell these people:

‘Listen continually, but don’t understand!

Look continually, but don’t perceive!’

Yesaya 9:2

9:2 (9:1) The people walking in darkness

see a bright light; ¹⁴ 

light shines

on those who live in a land of deep darkness. ¹⁵ 

Yesaya 14:8

14:8 The evergreens also rejoice over your demise, ¹⁶ 

as do the cedars of Lebanon, singing, ¹⁷ 

‘Since you fell asleep, ¹⁸ 

no woodsman comes up to chop us down!’ ¹⁹ 

Yesaya 14:19

14:19 But you have been thrown out of your grave

like a shoot that is thrown away. ²⁰ 

You lie among ²¹  the slain,

among those who have been slashed by the sword,

among those headed for ²²  the stones of the pit, ²³ 

as if you were a mangled corpse. ²⁴ 

Yesaya 15:1

The Lord Will Judge Moab

15:1 Here is a message about Moab:

Indeed, in a night it is devastated,

Ar of Moab is destroyed!

Indeed, in a night it is devastated,

Kir of Moab is destroyed!

Yesaya 15:9

15:9 Indeed, the waters of Dimon ²⁵  are full of blood!

Indeed, I will heap even more trouble on Dimon. ²⁶ 

A lion will attack ²⁷  the Moabite fugitives

and the people left in the land.

Yesaya 17:9

17:9 At that time ²⁸  their fortified cities will be

like the abandoned summits of the Amorites, ²⁹ 

which they abandoned because of the Israelites;

there will be desolation.

Yesaya 20:6

20:6 At that time ³⁰  those who live on this coast ³¹  will say, ‘Look what has happened to our source of hope to whom we fled for help, expecting to be rescued from the king of Assyria! How can we escape now?’”

Yesaya 21:5

21:5 Arrange the table,

lay out ³²  the carpet,

eat and drink! ³³ 

Get up, you officers,

smear oil on the shields! ³⁴ 

Yesaya 33:23

33:23 Though at this time your ropes are slack, ³⁵ 

the mast is not secured, ³⁶ 

and the sail ³⁷  is not unfurled,

at that time you will divide up a great quantity of loot; ³⁸ 

even the lame will drag off plunder. ³⁹ 

Yesaya 37:17

37:17 Pay attention, Lord, and hear! Open your eyes, Lord, and observe! Listen to this entire message Sennacherib sent and how he taunts the living God! ⁴⁰ 

Yesaya 38:3

38:3 “Please, Lord. Remember how I have served you ⁴¹  faithfully and with wholehearted devotion, ⁴²  and how I have carried out your will.” ⁴³  Then Hezekiah wept bitterly. ⁴⁴ 

Yesaya 41:22

41:22 “Let them produce evidence! Let them tell us what will happen!

Tell us about your earlier predictive oracles, ⁴⁵ 

so we may examine them ⁴⁶  and see how they were fulfilled. ⁴⁷ 

Or decree for us some future events!

Yesaya 43:13

43:13 From this day forward I am he;

no one can deliver from my power; ⁴⁸ 

I will act, and who can prevent it?”

Yesaya 43:24

43:24 You did not buy me aromatic reeds; ⁴⁹ 

you did not present to me ⁵⁰  the fat of your sacrifices.

Yet you burdened me with your sins;

you made me weary with your evil deeds. ⁵¹ 

Yesaya 44:24

The Lord Empowers Cyrus

44:24 This is what the Lord, your protector, ⁵²  says,

the one who formed you in the womb:

“I am the Lord, who made everything,

who alone stretched out the sky,

who fashioned the earth all by myself, ⁵³ 

Yesaya 46:11

46:11 who summons an eagle ⁵⁴  from the east,

from a distant land, one who carries out my plan.

Yes, I have decreed, ⁵⁵ 

yes, I will bring it to pass;

I have formulated a plan,

yes, I will carry it out.

Yesaya 47:12

47:12 Persist ⁵⁶  in trusting ⁵⁷  your amulets

and your many incantations,

which you have faithfully recited ⁵⁸  since your youth!

Maybe you will be successful ⁵⁹  –

maybe you will scare away disaster. ⁶⁰ 

Yesaya 48:5

48:5 I announced them to you beforehand;

before they happened, I predicted them for you,

so you could never say,

‘My image did these things,

my idol, my cast image, decreed them.’

Yesaya 49:13

49:13 Shout for joy, O sky! ⁶¹ 

Rejoice, O earth!

Let the mountains give a joyful shout!

For the Lord consoles his people

and shows compassion to the ⁶²  oppressed.

Yesaya 51:1

There is Hope for the Future

51:1 “Listen to me, you who pursue godliness, ⁶³ 

who seek the Lord!

Look at the rock from which you were chiseled,

at the quarry ⁶⁴  from which you were dug! ⁶⁵ 

Yesaya 54:6

54:6 “Indeed, the Lord will call you back

like a wife who has been abandoned and suffers from depression, ⁶⁶ 

like a young wife when she has been rejected,” says your God.

Yesaya 57:10

57:10 Because of the long distance you must travel, you get tired, ⁶⁷ 

but you do not say, ‘I give up.’ ⁶⁸ 

You get renewed energy, ⁶⁹ 

so you don’t collapse. ⁷⁰ 

Yesaya 57:18

57:18 I have seen their behavior, ⁷¹ 

but I will heal them and give them rest,

and I will once again console those who mourn. ⁷² 

Yesaya 60:21

60:21 All of your people will be godly; ⁷³ 

they will possess the land permanently.

I will plant them like a shoot;

they will be the product of my labor,

through whom I reveal my splendor. ⁷⁴ 

Yesaya 62:6

62:6 I ⁷⁵  post watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem;

they should keep praying all day and all night. ⁷⁶ 

You who pray to ⁷⁷  the Lord, don’t be silent!

Yesaya 62:9

62:9 But those who harvest the grain ⁷⁸  will eat it,

and will praise the Lord.

Those who pick the grapes will drink the wine ⁷⁹ 

in the courts of my holy sanctuary.”

Yesaya 64:6

64:6 We are all like one who is unclean,

all our so-called righteous acts are like a menstrual rag in your sight. ⁸⁰ 

We all wither like a leaf;

our sins carry us away like the wind.

[1:15]  ¹ tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”

[1:15]  ² sn This does not just refer to the blood of sacrificial animals, but also the blood, as it were, of their innocent victims. By depriving the poor and destitute of proper legal recourse and adequate access to the economic system, the oppressors have, for all intents and purposes, “killed” their victims.

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

[3:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “answers against them”; NRSV “bears witness against them.”

[3:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “their sin, like Sodom, they declare, they do not conceal [it].”

[3:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “woe to their soul.”

[3:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “daughters” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV).

[3:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “with an outstretched neck.” They proudly hold their heads high so that others can see the jewelry around their necks.

[3:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “walking and skipping, they walk.”

[3:16]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and with their feet they jingle.”

[5:16]  ¹¹ tn Or “elevated”; TEV “the Lord Almighty shows his greatness.”

[5:16]  ¹² tn Heb “by judgment/justice.” When God justly punishes the evildoers denounced in the preceding verses, he will be recognized as a mighty warrior.

[5:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “The holy God will be set apart by fairness.” In this context God’s holiness is his sovereign royal authority, which implies a commitment to justice (see the note on the phrase “the sovereign king of Israel” in 1:4). When God judges evildoers as they deserve, his sovereignty will be acknowledged.

[5:16]  sn The appearance of מִשְׁפָט (mishpat, “justice”) and צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah, “fairness”) here is rhetorically significant, when one recalls v. 7. There God denounces his people for failing to produce a society where “justice” and “fairness” are valued and maintained. God will judge his people for their failure, taking “justice” and “fairness” into his own hands.

[9:2]  ¹⁴ sn The darkness symbolizes judgment and its effects (see 8:22); the light represents deliverance and its effects, brought about by the emergence of a conquering Davidic king (see vv. 3-6).

[9:2]  ¹⁵ tn Traditionally צַלְמָוֶת (tsalmavet) has been interpreted as a compound noun, meaning “shadow of death” (so KJV, ASV, NIV), but usage indicates that the word, though it sometimes refers to death, means “darkness.” The term should probably be repointed as an abstract noun צַלְמוּת (tsalmut). See the note at Ps 23:4.

[14:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “concerning you.”

[14:8]  ¹⁷ tn The word “singing” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. Note that the personified trees speak in the second half of the verse.

[14:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “lay down” (in death); cf. NAB “laid to rest.”

[14:8]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the [wood]cutter does not come up against us.”

[14:19]  ²⁰ tn Heb “like a shoot that is abhorred.” The simile seems a bit odd; apparently it refers to a small shoot that is trimmed from a plant and tossed away. Some prefer to emend נֵצֶר (netser, “shoot”); some propose נֵפֶל (nefel, “miscarriage”). In this case one might paraphrase: “like a horrible-looking fetus that is delivered when a woman miscarries.”

[14:19]  ²¹ tn Heb “are clothed with.”

[14:19]  ²² tn Heb “those going down to.”

[14:19]  ²³ tn בּוֹר (bor) literally means “cistern”; cisterns were constructed from stones. On the metaphorical use of “cistern” for the underworld, see the note at v. 15.

[14:19]  ²⁴ tn Heb “like a trampled corpse.” Some take this line with what follows.

[15:9]  ²⁵ tc The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a reads “Dibon” instead of “Dimon” in this verse.

[15:9]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Indeed I will place on Dimon added things.” Apparently the Lord is speaking.

[15:9]  ²⁷ tn The words “will attack” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[17:9]  ²⁸ tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV).

[17:9]  ²⁹ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “like the abandonment of the wooded height and the top one.” The following relative clause appears to allude back to the Israelite conquest of the land, so it seems preferable to emend הַחֹרֶשׁ וְהָאָמִיר (hakhoresh vÿha’amir, “the wooded height and the top one”) to חֹרֵשֵׁי הָאֱמֹרִי (khoreshe ha’emori, “[like the abandonment] of the wooded heights of the Amorites”).

[20:6]  ³⁰ tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV).

[20:6]  ³¹ sn This probably refers to the coastal region of Philistia (cf. TEV).

[21:5]  ³² tn The precise meaning of the verb in this line is debated. Some prefer to derive the form from the homonymic צָפֹה (tsafoh, “keep watch”) and translate “post a guard” (cf. KJV “watch in the watchtower”; ASV “set the watch”).

[21:5]  ³³ tn The verbal forms in the first three lines are infinitives absolute, which are functioning here as finite verbs. It is uncertain if the forms should have an imperatival or indicative/descriptive force here.

[21:5]  ³⁴ sn Smearing the shields with oil would make them more flexible and effective in battle. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:394.

[33:23]  ³⁵ tn The words “though at this time” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The first half of the verse is addressed to Judah and contrasts the nation’s present weakness with its future prosperity. Judah is compared to a ship that is incapable of sailing.

[33:23]  ³⁶ tn Heb “they do not fasten the base of their mast.” On כֵּן (ken, “base”) see BDB 487 s.v. III כֵּן and HALOT 483 s.v. III כֵּן.

[33:23]  ³⁷ tn Or perhaps, “flag.”

[33:23]  ³⁸ tn Heb “then there will be divided up loot of plunder [in] abundance.”

[33:23]  ³⁹ sn Judah’s victory over its enemies will be so thorough there will be more than enough plunder for everyone, even slow-moving lame men who would normally get left out in the rush to gather the loot.

[37:17]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “Hear all the words of Sennacherib which he sent to taunt the living God.”

[38:3]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “walked before you.” For a helpful discussion of the background and meaning of this Hebrew idiom, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 254.

[38:3]  ⁴² tn Heb “and with a complete heart”; KJV, ASV “with a perfect heart.”

[38:3]  ⁴³ tn Heb “and that which is good in your eyes I have done.”

[38:3]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “wept with great weeping”; NCV “cried loudly”; TEV “began to cry bitterly.”

[41:22]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “As for the former things, tell us what they are!”

[41:22]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “so we might set [them to] our heart.”

[41:22]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “and might know their outcome.”

[43:13]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “hand” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “No one can oppose what I do.”

[43:24]  ⁴⁹ tn That is, “calamus” (so NIV); NCV, TEV, NLT “incense”; CEV “spices.”

[43:24]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “you did not saturate me”; NASB “Neither have you filled Me.”

[43:24]  ⁵¹ sn In vv. 22-24 the Lord appears to be condemning his people for failure to bring the proper sacrifices. However, this is problematic. If this refers to the nation’s behavior while in exile, such cultic service was impossible and could hardly be expected by the Lord. If this refers to the nation’s conduct before the exile, it contradicts other passages that depict Israel as bringing excessive sacrifices (see, e.g., Isa 1:11-14; Jer 6:20; Amos 4:4-5, 5:21-23). Rather than being a condemnation of Israel’s failure to bring sacrifices, these verses are better taken as a highly rhetorical comment on the worthlessness of Israel’s religious ritual. They may have brought sacrifices, but not to the Lord, for he did not accept them or even want them. See C. R. North, Second Isaiah, 127, and R. Whybray, Isaiah 40-66 (NCBC), 91.

[44:24]  ⁵² tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[44:24]  ⁵³ tn The consonantal text (Kethib) has “Who [was] with me?” The marginal reading (Qere) is “from with me,” i.e., “by myself.” See BDB 87 s.v. II אֵת 4.c.

[46:11]  ⁵⁴ tn Or, more generally, “a bird of prey” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV; see 18:6).

[46:11]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “spoken”; KJV “I have spoken it.”

[47:12]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “stand” (so KJV, ASV); NASB, NRSV “Stand fast.”

[47:12]  ⁵⁷ tn The word “trusting” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See v. 9.

[47:12]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “in that which you have toiled.”

[47:12]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “maybe you will be able to profit.”

[47:12]  ⁶⁰ tn Heb “maybe you will cause to tremble.” The object “disaster” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See the note at v. 9.

[49:13]  ⁶¹ tn Or “O heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[49:13]  ⁶² tn Heb “his” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[51:1]  ⁶³ tn Or “righteousness” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NAB “justice”; NLT “hope for deliverance.”

[51:1]  ⁶⁴ tn Heb “the excavation of the hole.”

[51:1]  ⁶⁵ sn The “rock” and “quarry” refer here to Abraham and Sarah, the progenitors of the nation.

[54:6]  ⁶⁶ tn Heb “like a woman abandoned and grieved in spirit.”

[57:10]  ⁶⁷ tn Heb “by the greatness [i.e., “length,” see BDB 914 s.v. רֹב 2] of your way you get tired.”

[57:10]  ⁶⁸ tn Heb “it is hopeless” (so NAB, NASB, NIV); NRSV “It is useless.”

[57:10]  ⁶⁹ tn Heb “the life of your hand you find.” The term חַיָּה (khayyah, “life”) is here used in the sense of “renewal” (see BDB 312 s.v.) while יָד (yad) is used of “strength.”

[57:10]  ⁷⁰ tn Heb “you do not grow weak.”

[57:18]  ⁷¹ tn Heb “his ways” (so KJV, NASB, NIV); TEV “how they acted.”

[57:18]  ⁷² tn Heb “and I will restore consolation to him, to his mourners.”

[60:21]  ⁷³ tn Or “righteous” (NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “just.”

[60:21]  ⁷⁴ tn Heb “a shoot of his planting, the work of my hands, to reveal splendor.”

[62:6]  ⁷⁵ sn The speaker here is probably the prophet.

[62:6]  ⁷⁶ tn Heb “all day and all night continually they do not keep silent.” The following lines suggest that they pray for the Lord’s intervention and restoration of the city.

[62:6]  ⁷⁷ tn Or “invoke”; NIV “call on”; NASB, NRSV “remind.”

[62:9]  ⁷⁸ tn Heb “it,” the grain mentioned in v. 8a.

[62:9]  ⁷⁹ tn Heb “and those who gather it will drink it.” The masculine singular pronominal suffixes attached to “gather” and “drink” refer back to the masculine noun תִּירוֹשׁ (tirosh, “wine”) in v. 8b.

[64:6]  ⁸⁰ tn Heb “and like a garment of menstruation [are] all our righteous acts”; KJV, NIV “filthy rags”; ASV “a polluted garment.”