Isaiah 29

¹ Woe, Ariel, Ariel, city where David encamped. Let year after year pass, let the feasts make their fulround,

² then I shall inflict trouble on Ariel, and there wil be sighing and sobbing, and I shal make it truly Ariel.

³ I shal encamp all round you, I shall lay siege to you and mount siege-works against you.

⁴ You will be laid low, wil speak from the underworld, your words wil rise like a murmur from the dust.Your voice from the earth wil be like a ghost's, it wil whisper as though coming from the dust.

⁵ The horde of your enemies will be like fine dust, the horde of the warriors like flying chaff. Andsuddenly, in an instant,

⁶ you wil be visited by Yahweh Sabaoth with thunder, earthquake, mighty din, hurricane, tempest, flameof devouring fire.

⁷ It wil be like a dream, like a vision at night: the horde of al the nations at war with Ariel, al thosefighting, besieging and troubling it.

⁸ It wil be like the dream of a hungry man: he eats, then wakes up with an empty bel y; or like the dreamof a thirsty man: he drinks, then wakes up exhausted with a parched throat. So wil it be with the horde of all thenations making war on Mount Zion.

⁹ Be stupefied and stunned, go blind, unseeing, drunk but not on wine, staggering but not through liquor.

¹⁰ For Yahweh has infused you with a spirit of lethargy, he has closed your eyes (the prophets), he hasveiled your heads (the seers).

¹¹ For to you every vision has become like the words of a sealed book. You give it to someone able toread and say, 'Read that.' He replies, 'I cannot, because it is sealed.'

¹² You then give the book to someone who cannot read, and say, 'Read that.' He replies, 'I cannot read.'

¹³ The Lord then said: Because this people approaches me only in words, honours me only with lip-service while their hearts are far from me, and reverence for me, as far as they are concerned, is nothing buthuman commandment, a lesson memorised,

¹⁴ very well, I shal have to go on astounding this people with prodigies and wonders: for the wisdom ofits wise men is doomed, the understanding of any who understand will vanish.

¹⁵ Woe to those who burrow down to conceal their plans from Yahweh, who scheme in the dark and say,'Who can see us? Who knows who we are?'

¹⁶ How perverse you are! Is the potter no better than the clay? Something that was made, can it say ofits maker, 'He did not make me'? Or a pot say of the potter, 'He does not know his job'?

¹⁷ Is it not true that in a very short time the Lebanon wil become productive ground, so productive youmight take it for a forest?

¹⁸ That day the deaf wil hear the words of the book and, delivered from shadow and darkness, the eyesof the blind wil see.

¹⁹ The lowly wil find ever more joy in Yahweh and the poorest of people wil delight in the Holy One ofIsrael;

²⁰ for the tyrant will be no more, the scoffer has vanished and al those on the look-out for evil have beendestroyed:

²¹ those who incriminate others by their words, those who lay traps for the arbitrator at the gate andgroundlessly deprive the upright of fair judgement.

²² That is why Yahweh, God of the House of Jacob, Abraham's redeemer, says this, 'No longer shallJacob be disappointed, no more shal his face grow pale,

²³ for when he sees his children, my creatures, home again with him, he will acknowledge my name asholy, he wil acknowledge the Holy One of Jacob to be holy and wil hold the God of Israel in awe.

²⁴ Erring spirits wil learn to understand and murmurers accept instruction.'