Yesaya 35:8

35:8 A thoroughfare will be there –

it will be called the Way of Holiness. ¹ 

The unclean will not travel on it;

it is reserved for those authorized to use it ²  –

fools ³  will not stray into it.

Yesaya 52:11

52:11 Leave! Leave! Get out of there!

Don’t touch anything unclean!

Get out of it!

Stay pure, you who carry the Lord’s holy items! ⁴ 

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. ⁵ 

We all wither like a leaf;

our sins carry us away like the wind.

[35:8]  ¹ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “and there will be there a road and a way, and the Way of Holiness it will be called.” וְדֶרֶךְ (vÿderekh, “and a/the way”) is accidentally duplicated; the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a does not reflect the repetition of the phrase.

[35:8]  ² tn The precise meaning of this line is uncertain. The text reads literally “and it is for them, the one who walks [on the] way.” In this context those authorized to use the Way of Holiness would be morally upright people who are the recipients of God’s deliverance, in contrast to the morally impure and foolish who are excluded from the new covenant community.

[35:8]  ³ tn In this context “fools” are those who are morally corrupt, not those with limited intellectual capacity.

[52:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “the vessels of the Lord” (so KJV, NAB).

[64:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “and like a garment of menstruation [are] all our righteous acts”; KJV, NIV “filthy rags”; ASV “a polluted garment.”