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30. Woe to Obstinate Nation

¹ “Woe to the obstinate children,”
   declares the LORD,
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
   forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
   heaping sin upon sin;
² who go down to Egypt
   without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection,
   to Egypt’s shade for refuge.
³ But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame,
   Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace.
⁴ Though they have officials in Zoan
   and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,
⁵ everyone will be put to shame
   because of a people useless to them,
who bring neither help nor advantage,
   but only shame and disgrace.”

⁶ A prophecy concerning the animals of the Negev:

   Through a land of hardship and distress,
   of lions and lionesses,
   of adders and darting snakes,
the envoys carry their riches on donkeys’ backs,
   their treasures on the humps of camels,
to that unprofitable nation,
    ⁷ to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless.
Therefore I call her
   Rahab the Do-Nothing.

    ⁸ Go now, write it on a tablet for them,
   inscribe it on a scroll,
that for the days to come
   it may be an everlasting witness.
⁹ For these are rebellious people, deceitful children,
   children unwilling to listen to the LORD’s instruction.
¹⁰ They say to the seers,
   “See no more visions!”
and to the prophets,
   “Give us no more visions of what is right!
Tell us pleasant things,
   prophesy illusions.
¹¹ Leave this way,
   get off this path,
and stop confronting us
   with the Holy One of Israel!”

¹² Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says:

   “Because you have rejected this message,
   relied on oppression
   and depended on deceit,
¹³ this sin will become for you
   like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
   that collapses suddenly, in an instant.
¹⁴ It will break in pieces like pottery,
   shattered so mercilessly
that among its pieces not a fragment will be found
   for taking coals from a hearth
   or scooping water out of a cistern.”

¹⁵ This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:

   “In repentance and rest is your salvation,
   in quietness and trust is your strength,
   but you would have none of it.
¹⁶ You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’
   Therefore you will flee!
You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’
   Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
¹⁷ A thousand will flee
   at the threat of one;
at the threat of five
   you will all flee away,
till you are left
   like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
   like a banner on a hill.”

    ¹⁸ Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
   therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
   Blessed are all who wait for him!

¹⁹ People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. ²⁰ Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. ²¹ Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” ²² Then you will desecrate your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!”

²³ He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. ²⁴ The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. ²⁵ In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. ²⁶ The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

    ²⁷ See, the Name of the LORD comes from afar,
   with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke;
his lips are full of wrath,
   and his tongue is a consuming fire.
²⁸ His breath is like a rushing torrent,
   rising up to the neck.
He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction;
   he places in the jaws of the peoples
   a bit that leads them astray.
²⁹ And you will sing
   as on the night you celebrate a holy festival;
your hearts will rejoice
   as when people playing pipes go up
to the mountain of the LORD,
   to the Rock of Israel.
³⁰ The LORD will cause people to hear his majestic voice
   and will make them see his arm coming down
with raging anger and consuming fire,
   with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail.
³¹ The voice of the LORD will shatter Assyria;
   with his rod he will strike them down.
³² Every stroke the LORD lays on them
   with his punishing club
will be to the music of timbrels and harps,
   as he fights them in battle with the blows of his arm.
³³ Topheth has long been prepared;
   it has been made ready for the king.
Its fire pit has been made deep and wide,
   with an abundance of fire and wood;
the breath of the LORD,
   like a stream of burning sulfur,
   sets it ablaze.

22. Then shall you profane the covering. This shews that the heavenly direction will not be without effect; for they will bid adieu to their errors, and devote their minds to the pure worship of God; and the Prophet expressly mentions the outward profession of true godliness, by which they will openly proclaim that they have renounced idolatry. For, since statues and images are instruments of idolatry and superstition, they who are truly converted to God detest and abhor them, and, as far as lies in their power, profane them as we read that Jehu did, who profaned the altars of Baal, and turned his temple into a common sewer. (2 Kings 10:27.) The example given by him and by others of the same class ought to be followed by godly princes and magistrates, if they wish to give a genuine proof of their repentance; for, although repentance is seated in the heart, and has God for a witness, it is shewn by its fruits. Isaiah has mentioned one class of them instead of the whole; for in general he shews that the proof of true repentance is, when men make it appear that they hold in abhorrence everything that is opposed to the worship of God. When he says that the idols are profaned, he does not mean that they were formerly sacred; for how could anything be sacred that dishonors God, and defiles men by its pollution? But, as men falsely imagine that they possess some sacredness, that is the reason why he says that they are “profaned,” and that they ought to be despised and rejected as things of no value and altogether unclean.

The covering ³⁰³³⁰³ {Bogus footnote} of the graven images of thy silver. When he speaks of the “silver” and “gold” of the graven images, he means that no loss or damage prevents believers from abhorring the worship of idols. Such considerations restrain many from casting away idols altogether, because they see that “gold” or “silver” or something else is lost, and they choose rather to keep their idols than to sustain the smallest loss. Covetousness holds them in its net, so that they are more willing to sin of their own accord, and to pollute themselves with these abominations, than to lose this or that. But we ought to prefer the worship of God to everything else, to set little value on gold, to cast away pearls, and to loathe everything that is accounted precious, rather than defile ourselves with such crimes. In short, nothing can be so valuable that it ought not to be despised and reckoned worthless by us, when it comes into competition with overturning the kingdom of Satan and restoring the worship of God. In this manner we actually shew whether the love of God and of religion dwells in our hearts, when a sincere abhorrence of our wicked ignorance drives us to throw away all that is polluted.