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2. The Mountain of the Lord

¹ This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:

² In the last days

   the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established
   as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
   and all nations will stream to it.

³ Many peoples will come and say,

   “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
   to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
   so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
   the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
⁴ He will judge between the nations
   and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
   and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
   nor will they train for war anymore.

⁵ Come, descendants of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the LORD.

The Day of the LORD

    ⁶ You, LORD, have abandoned your people,
   the descendants of Jacob.
They are full of superstitions from the East;
   they practice divination like the Philistines
   and embrace pagan customs.
⁷ Their land is full of silver and gold;
   there is no end to their treasures.
Their land is full of horses;
   there is no end to their chariots.
⁸ Their land is full of idols;
   they bow down to the work of their hands,
   to what their fingers have made.
⁹ So people will be brought low
   and everyone humbled—
   do not forgive them. Or not raise them up

    ¹⁰ Go into the rocks, hide in the ground
   from the fearful presence of the LORD
   and the splendor of his majesty!
¹¹ The eyes of the arrogant will be humbled
   and human pride brought low;
the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.

    ¹² The LORD Almighty has a day in store
   for all the proud and lofty,
for all that is exalted
   (and they will be humbled),
¹³ for all the cedars of Lebanon, tall and lofty,
   and all the oaks of Bashan,
¹⁴ for all the towering mountains
   and all the high hills,
¹⁵ for every lofty tower
   and every fortified wall,
¹⁶ for every trading ship Hebrew every ship of Tarshish
   and every stately vessel.
¹⁷ The arrogance of man will be brought low
   and human pride humbled;
the LORD alone will be exalted in that day,
    ¹⁸ and the idols will totally disappear.

    ¹⁹ People will flee to caves in the rocks
   and to holes in the ground
from the fearful presence of the LORD
   and the splendor of his majesty,
   when he rises to shake the earth.
²⁰ In that day people will throw away
   to the moles and bats
their idols of silver and idols of gold,
   which they made to worship.
²¹ They will flee to caverns in the rocks
   and to the overhanging crags
from the fearful presence of the LORD
   and the splendor of his majesty,
   when he rises to shake the earth.

    ²² Stop trusting in mere humans,
   who have but a breath in their nostrils.
   Why hold them in esteem?

21. And they shall enter into the clefts of the rocks This repetition is not superfluous, though Isaiah again employs the same words which he had lately used; for what is so difficult as to impress on the minds of men sincere fear of God? Nor is it only in hypocrites that we perceive this, but in ourselves, if we bestow careful attention; for how many things are presented to us by which our minds ought to be deeply affected, and yet we are scarcely moved! More especially, it was necessary that this judgment of God should be earnestly placed before hypocrites, who took delight in wickedness. But now he points out the severity of God’s vengeance by this consideration, that the ungodly choose rather to be swallowed up by the deepest gulfs than to come under the eye of God. This, too, is the passage from which Christ borrowed the threatening which he pronounces on the Jews,

In that day shall they say to the mountains cover us; and to the hills, Hide us. (Luke 23:30.)