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Government with Justice Predicted

See, a king will reign in righteousness,

and princes will rule with justice.

Each will be like a hiding place from the wind,

a covert from the tempest,

like streams of water in a dry place,

like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.

Then the eyes of those who have sight will not be closed,

and the ears of those who have hearing will listen.

The minds of the rash will have good judgment,

and the tongues of stammerers will speak readily and distinctly.

A fool will no longer be called noble,

nor a villain said to be honorable.

For fools speak folly,

and their minds plot iniquity:

to practice ungodliness,

to utter error concerning the L ord,

to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied,

and to deprive the thirsty of drink.

The villainies of villains are evil;

they devise wicked devices

to ruin the poor with lying words,

even when the plea of the needy is right.

But those who are noble plan noble things,

and by noble things they stand.

Complacent Women Warned of Disaster

Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice;

you complacent daughters, listen to my speech.

In little more than a year

you will shudder, you complacent ones;

for the vintage will fail,

the fruit harvest will not come.

Tremble, you women who are at ease,

shudder, you complacent ones;

strip, and make yourselves bare,

and put sackcloth on your loins.

Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields,

for the fruitful vine,

for the soil of my people

growing up in thorns and briers;

yes, for all the joyous houses

in the jubilant city.

For the palace will be forsaken,

the populous city deserted;

the hill and the watchtower

will become dens forever,

the joy of wild asses,

a pasture for flocks;

until a spirit from on high is poured out on us,

and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,

and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.

The Peace of God’s Reign

Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,

and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.

The effect of righteousness will be peace,

and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.

My people will abide in a peaceful habitation,

in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.

The forest will disappear completely,

and the city will be utterly laid low.

Happy will you be who sow beside every stream,

who let the ox and the donkey range freely.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

16. And judgment shall dwell in the wilderness. The Prophet shews what is the actual condition of the Church, that is, when justice and judgment prevail; for men ought not to be like cattle, which seek nothing but plenty of food and abundance of outward things. And hence it is plain enough that the Jews were not confined to transitory enjoyments, so as to have their hope fixed exclusively on earthly blessings, as some fanatics imagine. They were enjoined to attend to that which was of the greatest importance, that justice and judgment should prevail; and undoubtedly they knew that true happiness consists in it. It is therefore our duty to look chiefly to this, that we should not, like hogs in a sty, judge of the happiness of life by abundance of bread and wine; for this is the end of all the blessings which the Lord bestows upon us, this is the object of our deliverance, “that we should serve him,” as Zacharias says, “in holiness and righteousness.” (Luke 1:74, 75.)

Under the terms “justice” and “judgment,” as we have already seen, he includes all that belongs to uprightness; for although these two words relate strictly to that equity which ought to be mutually cultivated among us, yet, since it is customary to describe the observation of the whole law by the duties of the second table, here the Prophet, by a figure of speech in which a part is taken for the whole, embraces also piety and the worship of God. The Prophets are accustomed to notice the chief duties of brotherly kindness, and those which belong to the second table, because by these, more than by any others, we manifest the real state of our feelings towards God.

When he declares that justice and judgment have their abode in the wilderness, as well as in the cultivated fields, this shews more clearly that the abundance of blessings promised a little before was so great that, when men saw it, they would consider that those fields which they formerly looked upon as very excellent had been comparatively barren.