Isaiah 10
1 Woe to those who make unjust laws, who write oppressive decrees,
2 to deny the poor a fair hearing and rob the needy among my people of justice, making widows their prey and plundering the fatherless.
3 What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?
4 Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners and fall among the slain. Even after all this, his anger has not turned away, and his hand is still stretched out.
5 Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger! The staff in its hand is my indignation.
6 I send it against a godless nation; I command it against the people who anger me, to seize plunder, to take spoil, and to trample them like mud in the streets.
7 But that is not what it intends; that is not what its heart plans. Its aim is to destroy and wipe out many nations.
8 It says, “Are not all my commanders kings?
9 Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?
10 My hand has reached the kingdoms of idols, whose images were more numerous than those of Jerusalem and Samaria.
11 Shall I not do to Jerusalem and its idols what I did to Samaria and its idols?”
12 When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I will punish the proud heart of the king of Assyria and the arrogance in his haughty eyes.
13 For he said, “I have done this by the strength of my hand and by my wisdom, because I am clever. I removed the boundaries of peoples, plundered their treasures, and, like a mighty one, brought down those who sat on thrones.
14 My hand found the wealth of the peoples as one finds a nest. As one gathers abandoned eggs, I gathered the whole earth. No one flapped a wing, opened a beak, or chirped.”
15 Does the ax boast over the one who chops with it? Does the saw exalt itself over the one who wields it? As if a rod could wield the one who lifts it, as if a staff could lift one who is not made of wood!
16 Therefore the Lord, the LORD of Armies, will send wasting sickness upon its well-fed warriors, and beneath its glory a fire will blaze like a burning flame.
17 The Light of Israel will become a fire, and his Holy One a flame; it will burn and consume its thorns and weeds in a single day.
18 The glory of its forest and its orchard will be consumed, from life to flesh, and it will be like a sick person wasting away.
19 The remaining trees of its forest will be so few that a child could count them.
20 On that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer rely on the one who struck them, but will truly rely on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel.
21 A remnant will return—the remnant of Jacob—to God the Mighty One.
22 For though your people, Israel, are like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction has been decreed, overflowing with justice.
23 For the Lord GOD of Armies will carry out the destruction already decreed throughout the whole land.
24 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD of Armies says: “My people who live in Zion, do not be afraid of Assyria, which strikes you with a rod and raises its staff against you, as Egypt did.
25 For in just a little while the indignation will end, and my anger will turn to their destruction.”
26 The LORD of Armies will raise a whip against it, as when he struck Midian at the rock of Oreb; his staff will be over the sea, and he will raise it as he did in Egypt.
27 On that day its burden will be lifted from your shoulder, and its yoke from your neck; the yoke will be broken because of the fat.
28 He has come to Ai; he has passed through Migron; at Michmash he has left his baggage.
29 They have crossed the pass. “Geba is our lodging place.” Ramah trembles; Gibeah of Saul has fled.
30 Cry aloud, daughter of Gallim! Listen, Laishah! Poor Anathoth!
31 Madmenah has fled; the people of Gebim have run for shelter.
32 Today he will stop at Nob; he will shake his fist at the mountain of the daughter of Zion, at the hill of Jerusalem.
33 Look! The Lord, the LORD of Armies, is cutting down the branches with terrifying force; the tall trees are felled, and the lofty are brought low.
34 The dense thickets of the forest will be cut down with iron, and Lebanon will fall before a mighty one.
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