Isaiah 29
1 Woe to Ariel, Ariel, the city where David camped! Add year to year; let the festivals run their cycle.
2 But I will press Ariel hard, and there will be groaning and lament. She will become for me like an Ariel.
3 I will camp in a ring around you, surround you with a guard post, and raise siegeworks against you.
4 Then, brought low, you will speak from the ground; your words will be muffled in the dust. Your voice will be like a ghost's, coming from the earth, and from the dust your words will whisper.
5 But the crowd of your foreigners will be like fine dust, and the crowd of tyrants like passing chaff. It will happen in an instant, suddenly.
6 You will be punished by the LORD of Armies, with thunder, earthquake, and a great roar; with whirlwind, storm, and a consuming flame of fire.
7 The multitude of all the nations fighting against Ariel—all who wage war against her, her strongholds, and those pressing her—will be like a dream, a vision in the night.
8 It will be like a hungry person dreaming of eating, then waking with an empty stomach; or like a thirsty person dreaming of drinking, then waking exhausted, still thirsty. So it will be with the multitude of all the nations fighting against Mount Zion.
9 Stand still and be amazed; blind yourselves and remain blind! They are drunk, but not with wine; they stagger, but not from strong drink.
10 For the LORD has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep. He has shut your eyes—the prophets—and covered your heads—the seers.
11 The vision of all this has become for you like the words of a sealed book. If it is given to someone who can read, with the words, “Please read this,” that person will answer, “I can’t, because it is sealed.”
12 If the book is given to someone who cannot read, with the words, “Please read this,” that person will answer, “I can’t read.”
13 The Lord said: “It is because this people draws near with their mouths and honors me with their lips, while keeping their hearts far from me. Their fear of me is a command taught by people, learned by rote.
14 So I will go on astonishing this people with wonder upon wonder. The wisdom of their wise will be lost, and the understanding of their discerning will be hidden.”
15 Woe to those who hide their plans deep from the LORD, who do their deeds in the dark and say, “Who sees us? Who knows about us?”
16 How you have turned things upside down! Is the potter regarded as equal to the clay? Will the work say to its maker, “He did not make me”? Will the vessel say to the one who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
17 Is it not true that in just a little while Lebanon will become an orchard, and the orchard will be regarded as a forest?
18 On that day the deaf will hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind will see, coming out of darkness and gloom.
19 The humble will have even greater joy in the LORD, and the poorest among people will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the tyrant will come to an end, the mocker will disappear, and all who lie in wait to do evil will be cut off.
21 They make a person sin by a word, lay a trap for whoever reproves at the gate, and bring down the righteous for nothing.
22 Therefore, this is what the LORD says to the house of Jacob—the LORD who redeemed Abraham: “Now Jacob will no longer be ashamed; now his face will no longer grow pale.
23 For when he sees his children, the work of my hands among them, they will make my name holy; they will make holy the Holy One of Jacob and stand in awe of the God of Israel.”
24 Those who have gone astray in spirit will gain understanding, and those who complain will learn instruction.
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