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Isaiah 29 (CEV)

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¹ Jerusalem, city of David, the place of my altar, you are in for trouble! Celebrate your festivals year after year. ² I will still make you suffer, and your people will cry when I make an altar of you. ³ I will surround you and prepare to attack from all sides. ⁴ From deep in the earth, you will call out for help with only a faint whisper. ⁵ Then your cruel enemies will suddenly be swept away like dust in a windstorm. ⁶ I, the LORD All-Powerful, will come to your rescue with a thundering earthquake and a fiery whirlwind. ⁷ Every brutal nation that attacks Jerusalem and makes it suffer will disappear like a dream when night is over. ⁸ Those nations that attack Mount Zion will suffer from hunger and thirst. They will dream of food and drink but wake up weary and hungry and thirsty as ever. ⁹ Be shocked and stunned, you prophets! Refuse to see. Get drunk and stagger, but not from wine. ¹⁰ The LORD has made you drowsy; he put you into a deep sleep and covered your head. ¹¹ Now his message is like a sealed letter to you. Some of you say, "We can't read it, because it's sealed." ¹² Others say, "We can't read it, because we don't know how to read." ¹³ The Lord has said: "These people praise me with their words, but they never really think about me. They worship me by repeating rules made up by humans. ¹⁴ So once again I will do things that shock and amaze them, and I will destroy the wisdom of those who claim to know and understand." ¹⁵ You are in for trouble, if you try to hide your plans from the LORD! Or if you think what you do in the dark can't be seen. ¹⁶ You have it all backwards. A clay dish doesn't say to the potter, "You didn't make me. You don't even know how." ¹⁷ Soon the forest of Lebanon will become a field with crops, thick as a forest. ¹⁸ The deaf will be able to hear whatever is read to them; the blind will be freed from a life of darkness. ¹⁹ The poor and the needy will celebrate and shout because of the LORD, the holy God of Israel. ²⁰ All who are cruel and arrogant will be gone forever. Those who live by crime will disappear, ²¹ together with everyone who tells lies in court and keeps innocent people from getting a fair trial. ²² The LORD who rescued Abraham has this to say about Jacob's descendants: "They will no longer be ashamed and disgraced. ²³ When they see how great I have made their nation, they will praise and honor me, the holy God of Israel. ²⁴ Everyone who is confused will understand, and all who have complained will obey my teaching."