Isaiah Chapter 33

Isaiah 33 — English translation

Translation: THE JPS TANAKH: Gender-Sensitive Edition. Verse numbers match the Hebrew text below.

1. 1Ha, you ravager who are not ravaged, You betrayer who have not been betrayed! When you have done ravaging, you shall be ravaged; When you have finished betraying, you shall be betrayed.
2. 2O E TERNAL One, be gracious to us! It is to You we have looked; Be their arm every morning, Also our deliverance in time of stress.
3. 3At [Your] roaring, peoples have fled, Before Your majesty nations have scattered;
4. 4And spoil was gathered as locusts are gathered, It was amassed as a cognate of q-sh-sh . as grasshoppers are amassed.
5. 5G OD is exalted, Dwelling on high— [Of old] filling Zion With justice and righteousness.
6. 6Faithfulness to Your charge was [her] wealth, Wisdom and devotion [her] triumph, Reverence for G OD —that was her treasure.
7. 7Hark! The Arielites cry aloud; Shalom’s ), Ps. 76.3. messengers weep bitterly.
8. 8Highways are desolate, Wayfarers have ceased. A covenant has been renounced, Cities rejected Mortals despised.
9. 9The land is wilted and withered; Lebanon disgraced and moldering, Sharon is become like a desert, And Bashan and Carmel are stripped bare.
10. 10“Now I will arise,” says G OD , “Now I will exalt Myself, now raise Myself high.
11. 11You shall conceive hay, Give birth to straw; My breath will devour you like fire.
12. 12Peoples shall be burnings of lime, Thorns cut down that are set on fire.
13. 13Hear, you who are far, what I have done; You who are near, note My might.”
14. 14Sinners in Zion are frightened, The godless are seized with trembling: “Who of us can dwell with the devouring fire: Who of us can dwell with the never-dying blaze?”
15. 15Whoever walks in righteousness, Speaks uprightly, Spurns profit from fraudulent dealings, Waves away a bribe instead of grasping it, Stops their ears against listening to infamy, Shuts their eyes against looking at evil—
16. 16Such a one shall dwell in lofty security, With inaccessible cliffs for a stronghold, With food supplied And drink assured.
17. 17When your eyes behold a king in his beauty, When they contemplate the land round about,
18. 18Your throat shall murmur in awe, “Where is one who could count? Where is one who could weigh? Where is one who could count [all these] towers?”
19. 19No more shall you see the barbarian folk, The people of speech too obscure to comprehend, So stammering of tongue that they are not understood.
20. 20When you gaze upon Zion, our city of assembly, Your eyes shall behold Jerusalem As a secure homestead, A tent not to be transported, Whose pegs shall never be pulled up, And none of whose ropes shall break.
21. 21For there G OD in divine greatness shall be for us Like a region of rivers, of broad streams, Where no floating vessels can sail And no mighty craft can travel— Their ropes are slack, They cannot steady the sockets of their masts, They cannot spread a sail.
22. 22For G OD shall be our ruler, G OD shall be our monarch, G OD shall be our sovereign And shall deliver us.
23. 23Then shall indeed much spoil be divided, Even the lame shall seize booty.
24. 24And no one who lives there shall say, “I am sick”; It shall be inhabited by folk whose sin has been forgiven.

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