Title: The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Book 27: Isaias - The Challoner Revision
Author: - To be updated
Language: English
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THE HOLY BIBLE



Translated from the Latin Vulgate


Diligently Compared with the Hebrew, Greek,
and Other Editions in Divers Languages


THE OLD TESTAMENT
First Published by the English College at Douay
A.D. 1609 & 1610

and

THE NEW TESTAMENT
First Published by the English College at Rheims
A.D. 1582


With Annotations


The Whole Revised and Diligently Compared with
the Latin Vulgate by Bishop Richard Challoner
A.D. 1749-1752



THE PROPHECY OF ISAIAS

This inspired writer is called by the Holy Ghost, the great prophet,
(Ecclesiasticus:48.25,) from the greatness of his prophetic spirit, by
which he hath foretold so long before, and in so clear a manner, the
coming of Christ, the mysteries of our redemption, the calling of the
Gentiles, and the glorious establishment, and perpetual flourishing of
the church of Christ: insomuch that he may seem to have been rather an
evangelist than a prophet. His very name is not without mystery; for
Isaias in Hebrew signifies the salvation of the Lord, or Jesus is the
Lord. He was, according to the tradition of the Hebrews, of the blood
royal of the kings of Juda: and after a most holy life, ended his days
by a glorious martyrdom; being sawed in two, at the command of his
wicked son in law, King Manasses, for reproving his evil ways.


Isaias Chapter 1

The prophet complains of the sins of Juda and Jerusalem, and exhorts
them to a sincere conversion.

1:1. The vision of Isaias the Son of Amos, which he saw concerning Juda
and Jerusalem in the days of Ozias, Joathan, Achaz, and Ezechias, kings
of Juda.

1:2. Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath
spoken. I have brought up children, and exalted them: but they have
despised me.

1:3. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel
hath not known me, and my people hath not understood.

1:4. Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked
seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have
blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they are gone away backwards.

1:5. For what shall I strike you any more, you that increase
transgression? the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is sad.

1:6. From the sole of the foot unto the top of the head, there is no
soundness therein: wounds and bruises and swelling sores: they are not
bound up, nor dressed, nor fomented with oil.

1:7. Your land is desolate, your cities are burnt with fire: your
country strangers devour before your face, and it shall be desolate as
when wasted by enemies.

1:8. And the daughter of Sion shall be left as a covert in a vineyard,
and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and as a city that is laid
waste.

1:9. Except the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we had been as Sodom,
and we should have been like to Gomorrha.

1:10. Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law
of our God, ye people of Gomorrha.

1:11. To what purpose do you offer me the multitude of your victims,
saith the Lord? I am full, I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of
fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck goats.

1:12. When you came to appear before me, who required these things at
your hands, that you should walk in my courts?

1:13. Offer sacrifice no more in vain: incense is an abomination to me.
The new moons, and the sabbaths and other festivals I will not abide,
your assemblies are wicked.

1:14. My soul hateth your new moons, and your solemnities: they are
become troublesome to me, I am weary of bearing them.

1:15. And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away my eyes
from you: and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: for your hands
are full of blood.

1:16. Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your devices from
my eyes, cease to do perversely,

1:17. Learn to do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge for
the fatherless, defend the widow.

1:18. And then come, and accuse me, saith the Lord: if your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as
crimson, they shall be white as wool.

1:19. If you be willing, and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good
things of the land.

1:20. But if you will not, and will provoke me to wrath: the sword shall
devour you because the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

1:21. How is the faithful city, that was full of judgment, become a
harlot? justice dwelt in it, but now murderers.

1:22. Thy silver is turned into dross: thy wine is mingled with water.

1:23. Thy princes are faithless, companions of thieves: they all love
bribes, they run after rewards. They judge not for the fatherless: and
the widow's cause cometh not in to them.

1:24. Therefore saith the Lord the God of hosts, the mighty one of
Israel: Ah! I will comfort myself over my adversaries: and I will be
revenged of my enemies.

1:25. And I will turn my hand to thee, and I will clean purge away thy
dross, and I will take away all thy tin.

1:26. And I will restore thy judges as they were before, and thy
counsellors as of old. After this thou shalt be called the city of the
just, a faithful city.

1:27. Sion shall be redeemed in judgment, and they shall bring her back
in justice.

1:28. And he shall destroy the wicked, and the sinners together: and
they that have forsaken the Lord, shall be consumed.

1:29. For they shall be confounded for the idols, to which they have
sacrificed: and you shall be ashamed of the gardens which you have
chosen.

1:30. When you shall be as an oak with the leaves falling off, and as a
garden without water.

1:31. And your strength shall be as the ashes of tow, and your work as a
spark: and both shall burn together, and there shall be none to quench
it.

Isaias Chapter 2

All nations shall flow to the church of Christ. The Jews shall be
rejected for their sins. Idolatry shall be destroyed.

2:1. The word that Isaias the son of Amos saw, concerning Juda and
Jerusalem.

2:2. And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be
prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the
hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.

The last days... The whole time of the new law, from the coming of
Christ till the end of the world, is called in the scripture the last
days; because no other age or time shall come after it, but only
eternity.-Ibid. On the top of mountains, etc... This shews the perpetual
visibility of the church of Christ: for a mountain  upon the top of
mountains cannot be hid.

2:3. And many people shall go, and say: Come and let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will
teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall come
forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

2:4. And he shall judge the Gentiles, and rebuke many people: and they
shall turn their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into
sickles: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall
they be exercised any more to war.

2:5. O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the
Lord.

2:6. For thou hast cast off thy people, the house of Jacob: because they
are filled as in times past, and have had soothsayers as the
Philistines, and have adhered to strange children.

2:7. Their land is filled with silver and gold: and there is no end of
their treasures.

2:8. And their land is filled with horses: and their chariots are
innumerable. Their land also is full of idols: they have adored the work
of their own hands, which their own fingers have made.

2:9. And man hath bowed himself down, and man hath been debased:
therefore forgive them not.

2:10. Enter thou into the rock, and hide thee in the pit from the face
of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty.

2:11. The lofty eyes of man are humbled, and the haughtiness of men
shall be made to stoop: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

2:12. Because the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that
is proud and highminded, and upon every one that is arrogant, and he
shall be humbled.

2:13. And upon all the tall and lofty cedars of Libanus, and upon all
the oaks of Basan.

2:14. And upon all the high mountains and upon all the elevated hills.

2:15. And upon every high tower, and every fenced wall.

2:16. And upon all the ships of Tharsis, and upon all that is fair to
behold.

2:17. And the loftiness of men shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness
of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that
day.

2:18. And idols shall be utterly destroyed.

Idols shall be utterly destroyed... or utterly pass away. This was
verified by the establishment of Christianity. And by this and other
texts of the like nature, the wild system of some modern sectaries is
abundantly confuted, who charge the whole Christian church with
worshipping idols, for many ages.

2:19. And they shall go into the holes of rocks, and into the caves of
the earth from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of
his majesty, when he shall rise up to strike the earth.

2:20. In that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his
idols of gold, which he had made for himself to adore, moles and bats.

2:21. And he shall go into the clefts of rocks, and into the holes of
stones from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of his
majesty, when he shall rise up to strike the earth.

2:22. Cease ye therefore from the man, whose breath is in his nostrils,
for he is reputed high.

Isaias Chapter 3

The confusion and other evils that shall come upon the Jews for their
sins. The pride of their women shall be punished.

3:1. For behold the sovereign Lord of hosts shall take away from
Jerusalem, and from Juda the valiant and the strong, the whole strength
of bread, and the whole strength of water.

3:2. The strong man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet and
the cunning man, and the ancient.

3:3. The captain over fifty, and the honourable in countenance, and the
counsellor, and the architect, and the skilful in eloquent speech.

3:4. And I will give children to be their princes, and the effeminate
shall rule over them.

3:5. And the people shall rush one upon another, and every man against
his neighbour: the child shall make a tumult against the ancient, and
the base against the honourable.

3:6. For a man shall take hold of his brother, one of the house of his
father, saying: Thou hast a garment, be thou our ruler, and let this
ruin be under thy hand.

3:7. In that day he shall answer, saying: I am no healer, and in my
house there is no bread, nor clothing: make me not ruler of the people.

3:8. For Jerusalem is ruined, and Juda is fallen: because their tongue,
and their devices are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his
majesty.

3:9. The shew of their countenance hath answered them: and they have
proclaimed abroad their sin as Sodom, and they have not hid it: woe to
their souls, for evils are rendered to them.

3:10. Say to the just man that it is well, for he shall eat the fruit of
his doings.

3:11. Woe to the wicked unto evil: for the reward of his hands shall be
given him.

3:12. As for my people, their oppressors have stripped them, and women
have ruled over them. O my people, they that call thee blessed, the same
deceive thee, and destroy the way of thy steps.

3:13. The Lord standeth up to judge, and he standeth to judge the
people.

3:14. The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people,
and its princes: for you have devoured the vineyard, and the spoil of
the poor is in your house.

3:15. Why do you consume my people, and grind the faces of the poor?
saith the Lord the God of hosts.

3:16. And the Lord said: Because the daughters of Sion are haughty, and
have walked with stretched out necks, and wanton glances of their eyes,
and made a noise as they walked with their feet and moved in a set pace:

3:17. The Lord will make bald the crown of the head of the daughters of
Sion, and the Lord will discover their hair.

3:18. In that day the Lord will take away the ornaments of shoes, and
little moons,

3:19. And chains and necklaces, and bracelets, and bonnets,

3:20. And bodkins, and ornaments of the legs, and tablets, and sweet
balls, and earrings,

3:21. And rings, and jewels hanging on the forehead,

3:22. And changes of apparel, and short cloaks, and fine linen, and
crisping pins,

3:23. And lookingglasses, and lawns, and headbands, and fine veils.

3:24. And instead of a sweet smell there shall be stench, and instead of
a girdle, a cord, and instead of curled hair, baldness, and instead of a
stomacher, haircloth.

3:25. Thy fairest men also shall fall by the sword, and thy valiant ones
in battle.

3:26. And her gates shall lament and mourn, and she shall sit desolate
on the ground.

Isaias Chapter 4

After an extremity of evils that shall fall upon the Jews, a remnant
shall be comforted by Christ.

4:1. And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying: We
will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called
by thy name, take away our reproach.

4:2. In that day the bud of the Lord shall be in magnificence and glory,
and the fruit of the earth shall be high, and a great joy to them that
shall have escaped of Israel.

The bud of the Lord... That is, Christ.

4:3. And it shall come to pass, that every one that shall be left in
Sion, and that shall remain in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, every
one that is written in life in Jerusalem.

4:4. If the Lord shall wash away the filth of the daughters of Sion, and
shall wash away the blood of Jerusalem out of the midst thereof, by the
spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

4:5. And the Lord will create upon every place of mount Sion, and where
he is called upon, a cloud by day, and a smoke and the brightness of a
flaming fire in the night: for over all the glory shall be a protection.

4:6. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shade in the daytime from the
heat, and for a security and covert from the whirlwind, and from rain.

Isaias Chapter 5

The reprobation of the Jews is foreshewn under the parable of a
vineyard. A woe is pronounced against sinners: the army of God shall
send against them.

5:1. I will sing to my beloved the canticle of my cousin concerning his
vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a hill in a fruitful place.

My cousin... So the prophet calls Christ, as being of his family and
kindred, by descending from the house of David. Ibid. On a hill, etc...
Literally, in the horn, the son of oil.

5:2. And he fenced it in, and picked the stones out of it, and planted
it with the choicest vines, and built a tower in the midst thereof, and
set up a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth
grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

5:3. And now, O ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and ye men of Juda, judge
between me and my vineyard.

5:4. What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have
not done to it? was it that I looked that it should bring forth grapes,
and it hath brought forth wild grapes?

5:5. And now I will shew you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take
away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted: I will break down the
wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down.

5:6. And I will make it desolate: it shall not be pruned, and it shall
not be digged: but briers and thorns shall come up: and I will command
the clouds to rain no rain upon it.

5:7. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel: and
the man of Juda, his pleasant plant: and I looked that he should do
judgment, and behold iniquity: and do justice, and behold a cry.

5:8. Woe to you that join house to house and lay field to field, even to
the end of the place: shall you alone dwell in the midst of the earth?

5:9. These things are in my ears, saith the Lord of hosts: Unless many
great and fair houses shall become desolate, without an inhabitant.

5:10. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one little measure, and
thirty bushels of seed shall yield three bushels.

5:11. Woe to you that rise up early in the morning to follow
drunkenness, and to drink in the evening, to be inflamed with wine.

5:12. The harp, and the lyre, and, the timbrel and the pipe, and wine
are in your feasts: and the work of the Lord you regard not, nor do you
consider the works of his hands.

5:13. Therefore is my people led away captive, because they had not
knowledge, and their nobles have perished with famine, and their
multitude were dried up with thirst.

5:14. Therefore hath hell enlarged her soul, and opened her mouth
without any bounds, and their strong ones, and their people, and their
high and glorious ones shall go down into it.

5:15. And man shall be brought down, and man shall be humbled, and the
eyes of the lofty shall be brought low.

5:16. And the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy
God shall be sanctified in justice.

5:17. And the lambs shall feed according to their order, and strangers
shall eat the deserts turned into fruitfulness.

5:18. Woe to you that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as the
rope of a cart.

5:19. That say: Let him make haste, and let his work come quickly, that
we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that
we may know it.

5:20. Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness
for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet
for bitter.

5:21. Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes, and prudent in your own
conceits.

5:22. Woe to you that are mighty to drink wine, and stout men at
drunkenness.

5:23. That justify the wicked for gifts, and take away the justice of
the just from him.

5:24. Therefore as the tongue of the fire devoureth the stubble, and the
heat of the flame consumeth it: so shall their root be as ashes, and
their bud shall go up as dust: for they have cast away the law of the
Lord of hosts, and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One of Israel.

5:25. Therefore is the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, and
he hath stretched out his hand upon them, and struck them: and the
mountains were troubles, and their carcasses became as dung in the midst
of the streets. For after this his anger is not turned away, but his
hand is stretched out still.

5:26. And he will lift up a sign to the nations afar off, and will
whistle to them from the ends of the earth: and behold they shall come
with speed swiftly.

5:27. There is none that shall faint, nor labour among them: they shall
not slumber nor sleep, neither shall the girdle of their loins be
loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken.

5:28. Their arrows are sharp, and all their bows are bent. The hoofs of
their horses shall be like the flint, and their wheels like the violence
of a tempest.

5:29. Their roaring like that of a lion, they shall roar like young
lions: yea they shall roar, and take hold of the prey, and they shall
keep fast hold of it, and there shall be none to deliver it.

5:30. And they shall make a noise against them that day, like the
roaring of the sea; we shall look towards the land, and behold darkness
of tribulation, and the light is darkened with the mist thereof.

Isaias Chapter 6

A glorious vision, in which the prophet's lips are cleansed: he
foretelleth the obstinacy of the Jews.

6:1. In the year that king Ozias died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a
throne high and elevated: and his train filled the temple.

6:2. Upon it stood the seraphims: the one had six wings, and the other
had six wings: with two they covered his face, and with two they covered
his feet, and with two they flew.

6:3. And they cried one to another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord
God of hosts, all the earth is full of his glory,

6:4. And the lintels of the doors were moved at the voice of him that
cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

6:5. And I said: Woe is me, because I have held my peace; because I am a
man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people that hath
unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King the Lord of hosts.

6:6. And one of the seraphims flew to me, and in his hand was a live
coal, which he had taken with the tongs off the altar.

6:7. And he touched my mouth, and said: Behold this hath touched thy
lips, and thy iniquities shall be taken away, and thy sin shall be
cleansed.

6:8. And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send? and
who shall go for us? And I said: Lo, here am I, send me.

6:9. And he said: Go, and thou shalt say to this people: Hearing, hear,
and understand not: and see the vision, and know it not.

6:10. Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and
shut their eyes: lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their
ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and I heal them.

6:11. And I said: How long, O Lord? And he said: Until the cities be
wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land
shall be left desolate.

6:12. And the Lord shall remove men far away, and she shall be
multiplied that was left in the midst of the earth.

6:13. And there shall be still a tithing therein, and she shall turn,
and shall be made a show as a turpentine tree, and as an oak that
spreadeth its branches: that which shall stand therein, shall be a holy
seed.

Isaias Chapter 7

The prophet assures king Achaz that the two kings his enemies shall not
take Jerusalem. A virgin shall conceive and bear a son.

7:1. And it came to pass in the days of Achaz the son of Joathan, the
son of Ozias, king of Juda, that Rasin king of Syria and Phacee the son
of Romelia king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem, to fight against it:
but they could not prevail over it.

7:2. And they told the house of David, saying: Syria hath rested upon
Ephraim, and his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the
trees of the woods are moved with the wind.

7:3. And the Lord said to Isaias: Go forth to meet Achaz, thou and Jasub
thy son that is left, to the conduit of the upper pool in the way of the
fuller's field.

7:4. And thou shalt say to him: See thou be quiet: fear not, and let not
thy heart be afraid of the two tails of these firebrands, smoking with
the wrath of the fury of Rasin king of Syria, and of the son of Romelia.

7:5. Because Syria hath taken counsel against thee, unto the evil of
Ephraim and the son of Romelia, saying:

7:6. Let us go up to Juda, and rouse it up, and draw it away to us, and
make the son of Tabeel king in the midst thereof.

7:7. Thus saith the Lord God: It shall not stand, and this shall not be.

7:8. But the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is
Rasin: and within threescore and five years, Ephraim shall cease to be a
people:

7:9. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the
son of Romelia. If you will not believe, you shall not continue.

7:10. And the Lord spoke again to Achaz, saying:

7:11. Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God, either unto the depth of
hell, or unto the height above.

7:12. And Achaz said: I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord.

7:13. And he said: Hear ye therefore, O house of David: Is it a small
thing for you to be grievous to men, that you are grievous to my God
also?

7:14. Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin
shall conceive, and bear a son and his name shall be called Emmanuel.

7:15. He shall eat butter and honey, that he may know to refuse the
evil, and to choose the good.

7:16. For before the child know to refuse the evil and to choose the
good, the land which thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of the face of her
two kings.

7:17. The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon the
house of thy father, days that have not come since the time of the
separation of Ephraim from Juda with the king of the Assyrians.

7:18. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss
for the fly, that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt, and
for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.

7:19. And they shall come, and shall all of them rest in the torrents of
the valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all places set with
shrubs, and in all hollow places.

7:20. In that day the Lord shall shave with a razor that is hired by
them that are beyond the river, by the king of the Assyrians, the head
and the hairs of the feet, and the whole beard.

7:21. And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a
young cow, and two sheep.

7:22. And for the abundance of milk he shall eat butter: for butter and
honey shall every one eat that shall be left in the midst of the land.

7:23. And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place where
there were a thousand vines, at a thousand pieces of silver, shall
become thorns and briers.

7:24. With arrows and with bows they shall go in thither: for briers and
thorns shall be in all the land.

7:25. And as for the hills that shall be raked with a rake, the fear of
thorns and briers shall not come thither, but they shall be for the ox
to feed on, and the lesser cattle to tread upon.

Isaias Chapter 8

The name of a child that is to be born: many evils shall come upon the
Jews for their sins.

8:1. And the Lord said to me: Take thee a great book, and write in it
with a man's pen. Take away the spoils with speed, quickly take the
prey.

8:2. And I took unto me faithful witnesses, Urias the priest, and
Zacharias the son of Barachias.

8:3. And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived, and bore a son.
And the Lord said to me: Call his name, Hasten to take away the spoils:
Make hast to take away the prey.

8:4. For before the child know to call his father and his mother, the
strength of Damascus, and the spoils of Samaria shall be taken away
before the king of the Assyrians.

8:5. And the Lord spoke to me again, saying:

8:6. Forasmuch as this people hath cast away the waters of Siloe, that
go with silence, and hath rather taken Rasin, and the son of Romelia:

8:7. Therefore behold the Lord will bring upon them the waters of the
river strong and many, the king of the Assyrians, and all his glory: and
he shall come up over all his channels, and shall overflow all his
banks.

8:8. And shall pass through Juda, overflowing, and going over shall
reach even to the neck. And the stretching out of his wings shall fill
the breadth of thy, land, O Emmanuel.

8:9. Gather yourselves together, O ye people, and be overcome, and give
ear, all ye lands afar off: strengthen yourselves, and be overcome, gird
yourselves, and be overcome.

8:10. Take counsel together, and it shall be defeated: speak a word, and
it shall not be done: because God is with us.

8:11. For thus saith the Lord to me: As he hath taught me, with a strong
arm, that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying:

8:12. Say ye not: A conspiracy: for all that this people speaketh, is a
conspiracy: neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid.

8:13. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself: and let him be your fear, and
let him be your dread.

8:14. And he shall be a sanctification to you. But for a stone of
stumbling, and for a rock of offence to the two houses of Israel, for a
snare and a ruin to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

8:15. And very many of them shall stumble and fall, and shall be broken
in pieces, and shall be snared, and taken.

8:16. Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.

8:17. And I will wait for the Lord, who hath hid his face from the house
of Jacob, and I will look for him.

8:18. Behold I and my children, whom the Lord hath given me for a sign,
and for a wonder in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwelleth in mount
Sion.

8:19. And when they shall say to you: Seek of pythons, and of diviners,
who mutter in their enchantments: should not the people seek of their
God, for the living of the dead?

Seek of pythons... That is, people pretending to tell future things by a
prophesying spirit.-Ibid.  Should not the people seek of their God, for
the living of the dead?... Here is signified, that it is to God we
should pray to be directed, and not to seek of the dead, (that is, of
fortune-tellers dead in sin,) for the health of the living.

8:20. To the law rather, and to the testimony. And if they speak not
according to this word, they shall not have the morning light.

8:21. And they shall pass by it, they shall fall, and be hungry: and
when they shall be hungry, they will be angry, and curse their king, and
their God, and look upwards.

8:22. And they shall look to the earth, and behold trouble and darkness,
weakness and distress, and a mist following them, and they cannot fly
away from their distress.

Isaias Chapter 9

What joy shall come after afflictions by the birth and kingdom of
Christ; which shall flourish for ever. Judgments upon Israel for their
sins.

9:1. At the first time the land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephtali was
lightly touched: and at the last the way of the sea beyond the Jordan of
the Galilee of the Gentiles was heavily loaded.

9:2. The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: to
them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen.

9:3. Thou hast multiplied the nation, and hast not increased the joy.
They shall rejoice before thee, as they that rejoice in the harvest, as
conquerors rejoice after taking a prey, when they divide the spoils.

9:4. For the yoke of their burden, and the rod of their shoulder, and
the sceptre of their oppressor thou hast overcome, as in the day of
Madian.

9:5. For every violent taking of spoils, with tumult, and garment
mingled with blood, shall be burnt, and be fuel for the fire.

9:6. For a CHILD IS BORN to us, and a son is given to us, and the
government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince
of Peace.

9:7. His empire shall be multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace:
he shall sit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom; to
establish it and strengthen it with judgment and with justice, from
henceforth and for ever: the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform
this.

9:8. The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel.

9:9. And all the people of Ephraim shall know, and the inhabitants of
Samaria that say in the pride and haughtiness of their heart:

9:10. The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with square stones:
they have cut down the sycamores, but we will change them for cedars.

9:11. And the Lord shall set up the enemies of Rasin over him, and shall
bring on his enemies in a crowd:

9:12. The Syrians from the east, and, the Philistines from the west: and
they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his indignation
is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

9:13. And the people are not returned to him who hath struck them, and
have not sought after the Lord of hosts.

9:14. And the Lord shall destroy out of Israel the head and the tail,
him that bendeth down, and him that holdeth back, in one day.

9:15. The aged and honourable, he is the head: and the prophet that
teacheth lies, he is the tail.

9:16. And they that call this people blessed, shall cause them to err:
and they that are called blessed, shall be thrown down, headlong.

9:17. Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men: neither
shall he have mercy on their fatherless, and widows: for every one is a
hypocrite and wicked, and every mouth hath spoken folly. For all this
his indignation is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

9:18. For wickedness is kindled as a fire, it shall devour the brier and
the thorn: and shall kindle in the thicket of the forest, and it shall
be wrapped up in smoke ascending on high.

9:19. By the wrath of the Lord of hosts the land is troubled, and the
people shall be as fuel for the fire: no man shall spare his brother.

9:20. And he shall turn to the right hand, and shall be hungry: and
shall eat on the left hand, and shall not be filled: every one shall eat
the flesh of his own arm: Manasses Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasses, and
they together shall be against Juda.

9:21. After all these things his indignation is not turned away, but his
hand is stretched out still.

Isaias Chapter 10

Woe to the makers of wicked laws. The Assyrian shall be a rod for
punishing Israel: but for their pride they shall be destroyed: and a
remnant of Israel saved.

10:1. Woe to them that make wicked laws: and when they write, write
injustice:

10:2. To oppress the poor in judgment, and do violence to the cause of
the humble of my people: that widows might be their prey, and that they
might rob the fatherless.

10:3. What will you do in the day of visitation, and of the calamity
which cometh from afar? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye
leave your glory?

10:4. That you be not bowed down under the bond, and fall with the
slain? In all these things his anger is not turned away, but his hand is
stretched out still.

10:5. Woe to the Assyrian, he is the rod and the staff of my anger, and
my indignation is in their hands.

10:6. I will send him to a deceitful nation, and I will give him a
charge against the people of my wrath, to take away the spoils, and to
lay hold on the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the
streets.

10:7. But he shall not take it so, and his heart shall not think so: but
his heart shall be set to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few.

10:8. For he shall say:

10:9. Are not my princes as so many kings? is not Calano as Charcamis:
and Emath as Arphad? is not Samaria as Damascus?

10:10. As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idol, so also their
idols of Jerusalem, and of Samaria.

10:11. Shall I not, as I have done to Samaria and her idols, so do to
Jerusalem and her idols?

10:12. And it shall come to pass, that when the Lord shall have
performed all his works in mount Sion, and in Jerusalem, I will visit
the fruit of the proud heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of
the haughtiness of his eyes.

10:13. For he hath said: By the strength of my own hand I have done it,
and by my own wisdom I have understood: and I have removed the bounds of
the people, and have taken the spoils of the princes, and as a mighty
man hath pulled down them that sat on high.

10:14. And my hand hath found the strength of the people as a nest; and
as eggs are gathered, that are left, so have I gathered all the earth:
and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or made the
least noise.

10:15. Shall the axe boast itself against him that cutteth with it?  or
shall the saw exalt itself against him by whom it is drawn? as if a rod
should lift itself up against him that lifteth it up, and a staff exalt
itself, which is but wood.

10:16. Therefore the sovereign Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall send
leanness among his fat ones: and under his glory shall be kindled a
burning, as it were the burning of a fire.

10:17. And the light of Israel shall be as a fire, and the Holy One
thereof as a flame: and his thorns and his briers shall be set on fire,
and shall be devoured in one day.

10:18. And the glory of his forest, and of his beautiful hill, shall be
consumed from the soul even to the flesh, and he shall run away through
fear.

10:19. And they that remain of the trees of his forest shall be so few,
that they shall easily be numbered, and a child shall write them down.

10:20. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of
Israel, and they that shall escape of the house of Jacob, shall lean no
more upon him that striketh them: but they shall lean upon the Lord the
Holy One of Israel, in truth.

10:21. The remnant shall be converted, the remnant, I say, of Jacob, to
the mighty God.

10:22. For if thy people, O Israel, shall be as the sand of the sea, a
remnant of them shall be converted, the consumption abridged shall
overflow with justice.

A remnant of them shall be converted... This was partly verified in the
children of Israel who remained after the devastations of the Assyrians,
in the time of king Ezechias: and partly in the conversion of a remnant
of the Jews to the faithful of Christ.-Ibid. The consumption abridged,
etc... That is, the number of them cut short, and reduced to few, shall
flourish in abundance of justice.

10:23. For the Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption, and an
abridgment in the midst of all the land.

10:24. Therefore, thus saith the Lord the God of hosts: O my people that
dwellest in Sion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall strike thee
with his rod, and he shall lift up his staff over thee in the way of
Egypt.

10:25. For yet a little and a very little while, and my indignation
shall cease, and my wrath shall be upon their wickedness.

10:26. And the Lord of hosts shall raise up a scourge against him,
according to the slaughter of Madian in the rock of Oreb, and his rod
over the sea, and he shall lift it up in the way of Egypt.

10:27. And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be
taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and
the yoke shall putrefy at the presence of the oil.

At the presence of the oil... That is, by the sweet unction of divine
mercy.

10:28. He shall come into Aiath, he shall pass into Magron: at Machmas
he shall lay up his carriages.

Into Aiath, etc... Here the prophet describes the march of the Assyrians
under Sennacherib; and the terror they should carry with them; and how
they should suddenly be destroyed.

10:29. They have passed in haste, Gaba is our lodging: Rama was
astonished, Gabaath of Saul fled away.

10:30. Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim, attend, O Laisa, poor
Anathoth.

10:31. Medemena is removed: ye inhabitants of Gabim, take courage.

10:32. It is yet day enough, to remain in Nobe: he shall shake his hand
against the mountain of the daughter of Sion, the hill of Jerusalem.

10:33. Behold the sovereign Lord of hosts shall break the earthen vessel
with terror, and the tall of stature shall be cut down, and the lofty
shall be humbled.

10:34. And the thickets of the forest shall be cut down with iron, and
Libanus with its high ones shall fall.

Isaias Chapter 11

Of the spiritual kingdom of Christ, to which all nations shall repair.

11:1. And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a
flower shall rise up out of his root.

11:2. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of
wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude,
the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness.

11:3. And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord, He
shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove
according to the hearing of the ears.

11:4. But he shall judge the poor with justice, and shall reprove with
equity the meek of the earth: and he shall strike the earth with the rod
of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.

11:5. And justice shall be the girdle of his loins: and faith the girdle
of his reins.

11:6. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb: and the leopard shall lie down
with the kid: the calf and the lion, and the sheep shall abide together,
and a little child shall lead them.

11:7. The calf and the bear shall feed: their young ones shall rest
together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

11:8. And the sucking child shall play on other hole of the asp: and the
weaned child shall thrust his hand into the den of the basilisk.

11:9. They shall not hurt, nor shall they kill in all my holy mountain,
for the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering
waters of the sea.

11:10. In that day the root of Jesse, who standeth for an ensign of the
people, him the Gentiles shall beseech, and his sepulchre shall be
glorious.

11:11. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set
his hand the second time to possess the remnant of his people, which
shall be left from the Assyrians, and from Egypt, and from Phetros, and
from Ethiopia, and from Elam, and from Sennaar, and from Emath, and from
the islands of the sea.

11:12. And he shall set up a standard unto the nations, and shall
assemble the fugitives of Israel, and shall gather together the
dispersed of Juda from the four quarters of the earth.

11:13. And the envy of Ephraim shall be taken away, and the enemies of
Juda shall perish: Ephraim shall not envy Juda, and Juda shall not fight
against Ephraim.

11:14. But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines by the
sea, they together shall spoil the children of the east: Edom, till Moab
shall be under the rule of their hand, and the children of Ammon shall
be obedient.

11:15. And the Lord shall lay waste the tongue of the sea of Egypt, and
shall lift up his hand over the river in the strength of his spirit: and
he shall strike it in the seven streams, so that men may pass through it
in their shoes.

11:16. And there shall be a highway for the remnant of my people, which
shall be left from the Assyrians: as there was for Israel in the day
that he came up out of the land of Egypt.

Isaias Chapter 12

A canticle of thanksgiving for the benefits of Christ.

12:1. And thou shalt say in that day: I will give thanks to thee, O
Lord, for thou wast angry with me: thy wrath is turned away, and thou
hast comforted me.

12:2. Behold, God is my saviour, I will deal confidently, and will not
fear: because the Lord is my strength, and my praise, and he is become
my salvation.

12:3. Thou shall draw waters with joy out of the saviour's fountains:

12:4. And you shall say in that day: Praise ye the Lord, and call upon
his name: make his works known among the people: remember that his name
is high.

12:5. Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath done great things: shew this
forth in all the earth.

12:6. Rejoice, and praise, O thou habitation of Sion: for great is he
that is in the midst of thee, the Holy One of Israel.

Isaias Chapter 13

The desolation of Babylon.

13:1. The burden of Babylon which Isaias the son of Amos saw.

The burden of Babylon... That is, a prophecy against Babylon.

13:2. Upon the dark mountain lift ye up a banner, exalt the voice, lift
up the hand, and let the rulers go into the gates.

13:3. I have commanded my sanctified ones, and have called my strong
ones in my wrath, them that rejoice in my glory.

13:4. The noise of a multitude in the mountains, as it were of many
people, the noise of the sound of kings, of nations gathered together:
the Lord of hosts hath given charge to the troops of war.

13:5. To them that come from a country afar off, from the end of heaven:
the Lord and the instruments of his wrath, to destroy the whole land.

13:6. Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is near: it shall come as a
destruction from the Lord.

13:7. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every heart of man shall
melt,

13:8. And shall be broken. Gripings and pains, shall take hold of them,
they shall be in pain as a woman in labour. Every one shall be amazed at
his neighbour, their countenances shall be as faces burnt.

13:9. Behold, the day of the Lord shall come, a cruel day, and full of
indignation, and of wrath, and fury, to lay the land desolate, and to
destroy the sinners thereof out of it.

13:10. For the stars of heaven, and their brightness shall not display
their light: the sun shall be darkened in his rising, and the moon shall
not shine with her light.

13:11. And I will visit the evils of the world, and against the wicked
for their iniquity: and I will make the pride of infidels to cease, and
will bring down the arrogancy of the mighty.

13:12. A man shall be more precious than gold, yea a man than the finest
of gold.

13:13. For this I will trouble the heaven: and the earth shall be moved
out of her place, for the indignation of the Lord of hosts, and for the
day of his fierce wrath.

13:14. And they shall be as a doe fleeing away, and as a sheep: and
there shall be none to gather them together: every man shall turn to his
own people, and every one shall flee to his own land.

13:15. Every one that shall be found, shall be slain: and every one that
shall come to their aid, shall fall by the sword.

13:16. Their inhabitants shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes:
their houses shall be pillaged, and their wives shall be ravished.

13:17. Behold I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not seek
silver, nor desire gold:

13:18. But with their arrows they shall kill the children, and shall
have no pity upon the sucklings of the womb, and their eye shall not
spare their sons.

13:19. And that Babylon, glorious among kingdoms, the famous pride of
the Chaldeans, shall be even as the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha.

13:20. It shall no more be inhabited for ever, and it shall not be
founded unto generation and generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch
his tents there, nor shall shepherds rest there.

13:21. But wild beasts shall rest there, and their houses shall be
filled with serpents, and ostriches shall dwell there, and the hairy
ones shall dance there:

13:22. And owls shall answer one another there, in the houses thereof,
and sirens in the temples of pleasure.

Isaias Chapter 14

The restoration of Israel after their captivity. The parable or song
insulting over the king of Babylon. A prophecy against the Philistines.

14:1. Her time is near at hand, and her days shall not be prolonged. For
the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose out of Israel,
and will make them rest upon their own ground: and the stranger shall be
joined with them, and shall adhere to the house of Jacob.

14:2. And the people shall take them, and bring them into their place:
and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for
servants and handmaids: and they shall make them captives that had taken
them, and shall subdue their oppressors.

14:3. And it shall come to pass in that day, that when God shall give
thee rest from thy labour, and from thy vexation, and from the hard
bondage, wherewith thou didst serve before,

14:4. Thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and
shalt say: How is the oppressor come to nothing, the tribute hath
ceased?

14:5. The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, the rod of the
rulers,

14:6. That struck the people in wrath with an incurable wound, that
brought nations under in fury, that persecuted in a cruel manner.

14:7. The whole earth is quiet and still, it is glad and hath rejoiced.

14:8. The fir trees also have rejoiced over thee, and the cedars of
Libanus, saying: Since thou hast slept, there hath none come up to cut
us down.

14:9. Hell below was in an uproar to meet thee at thy coming, it stirred
up the giants for thee. All the princes of the earth are risen up from
their thrones, all the princes of nations.

14:10. All shall answer, and say to thee: Thou also art wounded as well
as we, thou art become like unto us.

14:11. Thy pride is brought down to hell, thy carcass is fallen down:
under thee shall the moth be strewed, and worms shall be thy covering.

14:12. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the
morning? how art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations?

O Lucifer... O day star. All this, according to the letter, is spoken of
the king of Babylon. It may also be applied, in a spiritual sense, to
Lucifer the prince of devils, who was created a bright angel, but fell
by pride and rebellion against God.

14:13. And thou saidst in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will
exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of
the covenant, in the sides of the north.

14:14. I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the
most High.

14:15. But yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, into the depth of the
pit.

14:16. They that shall see thee, shall turn toward thee, and behold
thee. Is this the man that troubled the earth, that shook kingdoms,

14:17. That made the world a wilderness, and destroyed the cities
thereof, that opened not the prison to his prisoners?

14:18. All the kings of the nations have all of them slept in glory,
every one in his own house.

14:19. But thou art cast out of thy grave, as an unprofitable branch
defiled, and wrapped up among them that were slain by the sword, and art
gone down to the bottom of the pit, as a rotten carcass.

14:20. Thou shalt not keep company with them, even in burial: for thou
hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people: the seed of the
wicked shall not be named for ever.

14:21. Prepare his children for slaughter for the iniquity of their
fathers: they shall not rise up, nor inherit the land, nor fill the face
of the world with cities.

14:22. And I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts: and I
will destroy the name of Babylon, and the remains, and the bud, and the
offspring, saith the Lord.

14:23. And I will make it a possession for the ericius and pools of
waters, and I will sweep it and wear it out with a besom, saith the Lord
of hosts.

14:24. The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying: Surely as I have thought,
so shall it be: and as I have purposed,

14:25. So shall it fall out: That I will destroy the Assyrian in my
land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: and his yoke shall be
taken away from them, and his burden shall be taken off their shoulder.

14:26. This is the counsel, that I have purposed upon all the earth, and
this is the hand that is stretched out upon all nations.

14:27. For the Lord of hosts hath decreed, and who can disannul it? and
his hand is stretched out: and who shall turn it away?

14:28. In the year that king Achaz died, was this burden:

14:29. Rejoice not thou, whole Philistia, that the rod of him that
struck thee is broken in pieces: for out of the root of the serpent
shall come forth a basilisk, and his seed shall swallow the bird.

14:30. And the firstborn of the poor shall be fed, and the poor shall
rest with confidence: and I will make thy root perish with famine, and I
will kill thy remnant.

14:31. Howl, O gate; cry, O city: all Philistia is thrown down: for a
smoke shall come from the north, and there is none that shall escape his
troop.

14:32. And what shall be answered to the messengers of the nations? That
the Lord hath founded Sion, and the poor of his people shall hope in
him.

Isaias Chapter 15

A prophecy of the desolation of the Moabites.

15:1. The burden of Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste,
it is silent: because the wall of Moab is destroyed in the night, it is
silent.

15:2. The house is gone up, and Dibon to the high places to mourn over
Nabo, and over Medaba, Moab hath howled: on all their heads shall be
baldness, and every beard shall be shaven.

15:3. In their streets they are girded with sackcloth: on the tops of
their houses, and in their streets all shall howl and come down weeping.

15:4. Hesebon shall cry, and Eleale, their voice is heard even to Jasa.
For this shall the well appointed men of Moab howl, his soul shall howl
to itself.

15:5. My heart shall cry to Moab, the bars thereof shall flee unto Segor
a heifer of three years old: for by the ascent of Luith they shall go up
weeping: and in the way of Oronaim they shall lift up a cry of
destruction.

15:6. For the waters of Nemrim shall be desolate, for the grass is
withered away, the spring is faded, all the greenness is perished.

15:7. According to the greatness of their work, is their visitation
also: they shall lead them to the torrent of the willows.

Torrent of the willows... That is, as some say, the waters of Babylon:
others render it, a valley of the Arabians.

15:8. For the cry is gone round about the border of Moab: the howling
thereof unto Gallim, and unto the well of Elim the cry thereof.

15:9. For the waters of Dibon are filled with blood: for I will bring
more upon Dibon: the lion upon them that shall flee of Moab, and upon
the remnant of the land.

Isaias Chapter 16

The prophet prayeth for Christ's coming. The affliction of the Moabites
for their pride.

16:1. Send forth, O Lord, the lamb, the ruler of the earth, from Petra
of the desert, to the mount of the daughter of Sion.

16:2. And it shall come to pass, that as a bird fleeing away, and as
young ones flying out of the nest, so shall the daughters of Moab be in
the passage of Arnon.

16:3. Take counsel, gather a council: make thy shadow as the night in
the midday: hide them that flee, and betray not them that wander about.

16:4. My fugitives shall dwell with thee: O Moab, be thou a covert to
them from the face of the destroyer: for the dust is at an end, the
wretch is consumed: he hath failed, that trod the earth under foot.

16:5. And a throne shall be prepared in mercy, and one shall sit upon it
in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking judgment and
quickly rendering that which is just.

16:6. We have heard of the pride of Moab, he is exceeding proud: his
pride and his arrogancy, and his indignation is more than his strength.

16:7. Therefore shall Moab howl to Moab, every one shall howl: to them
that rejoice upon the brick walls, tell ye their stripes.

16:8. For the suburbs of Hesebon are desolate, and the lords of the
nations have destroyed the vineyard of Sabama: the branches thereof have
reached even to Jazer: they have wandered in the wilderness, the
branches thereof are left, they are gone over the sea.

16:9. Therefore I will lament with the weeping of Jazer the vineyard of
Sabama: I will water thee with my tears, O Hesebon, and Eleale: for the
voice of the treaders hath rushed in upon thy vintage, and upon thy
harvest.

16:10. And gladness and joy shall be taken away from Carmel, and there
shall be no rejoicing nor shouting in the vineyards. He shall not tread
out wine in the press that was wont to tread it out: the voice of the
treaders I have taken away.

Carmel... This name is often taken to signify a fair and fruitful hill
or field, such as mount Carmel is.

16:11. Wherefore my bowels shall sound like a harp for Moab, and my
inward parts for the brick wall.

16:12. And it shall come to pass, when it is seen that Moab is wearied
on his high places, that he shall go in to his sanctuaries to pray, and
shall not prevail.

16:13. This is the word, that the Lord spoke to Moab from that time:

16:14. And now the Lord hath spoken, saying: In three years, as the
years of a hireling, the glory of Moab shall be taken away for all the
multitude of the people, and it shall be left small and feeble, not
many.

Isaias Chapter 17

Judgments upon Damascus and Samaria. The overthrow of the Assyrians.

17:1. The burden of Damascus. Behold Damascus shall cease to be a city,
and shall be as a ruinous heap of stones.

17:2. The cities of Aroer shall be left for flocks, and they shall rest
there, and there shall be none to make them afraid.

17:3. And aid shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus:
and the remnant of Syria shall be as the glory of the children of
Israel: saith the Lord of hosts.

17:4. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the glory of Jacob
shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall grow lean.

17:5. And it shall be as when one gathereth in the harvest that which
remaineth, and his arm shall gather the ears of corn: and it shall be as
he that seeketh ears in the vale of Raphaim.

17:6. And the fruit thereof that shall be left upon it, shall be as one
cluster of grapes, and as the shaking of the olive tree, two or three
berries in the top of a bough, or four or five upon the top of the tree,
saith the Lord the God of Israel.

17:7. In that day man shall bow down himself to his Maker, and his eyes
shall look to the Holy One of Israel.

17:8. And he shall not look to the altars which his hands made; and he
shall not have respect to the things that his fingers wrought, such as
groves and temples.

17:9. In that day his strong cities shall be forsaken, as the ploughs,
and the corn that were left before the face of the children of Israel,
and thou shalt be desolate.

That were left... Viz., by the Chanaanites, when the children of Israel
came into their land.

17:10. Because thou hast forgotten God thy saviour, and hast not
remembered thy strong helper: therefore shalt thou plant good plants,
and shalt sow strange seed.

17:11. In the day of thy planting shall be the wild grape, and in the
morning thy seed shall flourish: the harvest is taken away in the day of
inheritance, and shall grieve thee much.

17:12. Woe to the multitude of many people, like the multitude of the
roaring sea: and the tumult of crowds, like the noise of many waters.

The multitude, etc... This and all that follows to the end of the
chapter, relates to the Assyrian army under Sennacherib.

17:13. Nations shall make a noise like the noise of waters overflowing,
but he shall rebuke him, and he shall flee far off: and he shall be
carried away as the dust of the mountains before the wind, and as a
whirlwind before a tempest.

17:14. In the time of the evening, behold there shall be trouble: the
morning shall come, and he shall not be: this is the portion of them
that have wasted us, and the lot of them that spoiled us.

Isaias Chapter 18

A woe to the Ethiopians, who fed Israel with vain hopes, their future
conversion.

18:1. Woe to the land, the winged cymbal, which is beyond the rivers of
Ethiopia,

18:2. That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, and in vessels of bulrushes
upon the waters. Go, ye swift angels, to a nation rent and torn in
pieces: to a terrible people, after which there is no other: to a nation
expecting and trodden underfoot, whose land the rivers have spoiled.

Angels... Or messengers.

18:3. All ye inhabitants of the world, who dwell on the earth, when the
sign shall be lifted up on the mountains, you shall see, and you shall
hear the sound of the trumpet.

18:4. For thus saith the Lord to me: I will take my rest, and consider
in my place, as the noon light is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the
day of harvest.

18:5. For before the harvest it was all flourishing, and it shall bud
without perfect ripeness, and the sprigs thereof shall be cut off with
pruning hooks: and what is left shall be cut away and shaken out.

18:6. And they shall be left together to the birds of the mountains, and
the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall be upon them all the
summer, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.

18:7. At that time shall a present be brought to the Lord of hosts, from
a people rent and torn in pieces: from a terrible people, after which
there hath been no other: from a nation expecting, expecting and trodden
under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name
of the Lord of hosts, to mount Sion.

Isaias Chapter 19

The punishment of Egypt: their call to the church.

19:1. The burden of Egypt. Behold the Lord will ascend upon a swift
cloud, and will enter into Egypt, and the idols of Egypt shall be moved
at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst thereof.

19:2. And I will set the Egyptians to fight against the Egyptians: and
they shall fight brother against brother, and friend against friend,
city against city, kingdom against kingdom.

19:3. And the spirit of Egypt shall be broken in the bowels thereof, and
I will cast down their counsel: and they shall consult their idols, and
their diviners, and their wizards, and soothsayers.

19:4. And I will deliver Egypt into the hand of cruel masters, and a
strong king shall rule over them, saith the Lord the God of hosts.

19:5. And the water of the sea shall be dried up, and the river shall be
wasted and dry.

19:6. And the rivers shall fail: the streams of the banks shall be
diminished, and be dried up. The reed and the bulrush shall wither away.

19:7. The channel of the river shall be laid bare from its fountain, and
every thing sown by the water shall be dried up, it shall wither away,
and shall be no more.

19:8. The fishers also shall mourn, and all that cast a hook into the
river shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall
languish away.

19:9. They shall be confounded that wrought in flax, combing and weaving
fine linen.

19:10. And its watery places shall be dry, all they shall mourn that
made pools to take fishes.

19:11. The princes of Tanis are become fools, the wise counsellors of
Pharao have given foolish counsel: how will you say to Pharao: I am the
son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?

19:12. Where are now thy wise men? let them tell thee, and shew what the
Lord of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt.

19:13. The princes of Tanis are become fools, the princes of Memphis are
gone astray, they have deceived Egypt, the stay of the people thereof.

19:14. The Lord hath mingled in the midst thereof the spirit of
giddiness: and they have caused Egypt to err in all its works, as a
drunken man staggereth and vomiteth.

19:15. And there shall be no work for Egypt, to make head or tail, him
that bendeth down, or that holdeth back.

19:16. In that day Egypt shall be like unto women, and they shall be
amazed, and afraid, because of the moving of the hand of the Lord of
hosts, which he shall move over it.

19:17. And the land of Juda shall be a terror to Egypt: everyone that
shall remember it shall tremble because of the counsel of the Lord of
hosts, which he hath determined concerning it.

19:18. In that day there shall be five cities in the land of Egypt,
speaking the language of Chanaan, and swearing by the Lord of hosts: one
shall be called the city of the sun.

19:19. In that day there shall be an altar of the Lord in the midst of
the land of Egypt, and a monument of the Lord at the borders thereof:

19:20. It shall be for a sign, and for a testimony to the Lord of hosts
in the land of Egypt. For they shall cry to the Lord because of the
oppressor, and he shall send them a Saviour and a defender to deliver
them.

19:21. And the Lord shall be known by Egypt, and the Egyptians shall
know the Lord in that day, and shall worship him with sacrifices and
offerings: and they shall make vows to the Lord, and perform them.

19:22. And the Lord shall strike Egypt with a scourge, and shall heal
it, and they shall return to the Lord, and he shall be pacified towards
them, and heal them.

19:23. In that day there shall be a way from Egypt to the Assyrians, and
the Assyrian shall enter into Egypt, and the Egyptian to the Assyrians,
and the Egyptians shall serve the Assyrian.

19:24. In that day shall Israel be the third to the Egyptian and the
Assyrian: a blessing in the midst of the land,

19:25. Which the Lord of hosts hath blessed, saying: Blessed be my
people of Egypt, and the work of my hands to the Assyrian: but Israel is
my inheritance.

Isaias Chapter 20

The ignominious captivity of the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians.

20:1. In the year that Tharthan entered into Azotus, when Sargon the
king of the Assyrians had sent him, and he had fought against Azotus,
and had taken it:

20:2. At that same time the Lord spoke by the hand of Isaias the son of
Amos, saying Go, and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and take
off thy shoes from thy feet. And he did so, and went naked, and
barefoot.

20:3. And the Lord said: As my servant Isaias hath walked, naked and
barefoot, it shall be a sign and a wonder of three years upon Egypt, and
upon Ethiopia,

20:4. So shall the king of the Assyrians lead away the prisoners of
Egypt, and the captivity of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot,
with their buttocks uncovered to the shame of Egypt.

20:5. And they shall be afraid, and ashamed of Ethiopia their hope, and
of Egypt their glory.

20:6. And the inhabitants of this isle shall say in that day: Lo this
was our hope, to whom we fled for help, to deliver us from the face of
the king of the Assyrians: and how shall we be able to escape?

Isaias Chapter 21

The destruction of Babylon by the Medes and Persians: a prophecy against
the Edomites and the Arabians.

21:1. The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds come from the
south, it cometh from the desert from a terrible land.

The desert of the sea... So Babylon is here called, because from a city
as full of people as the sea is with water, it was become a desert.

21:2. A grievous vision is told me: he that is unfaithful dealeth
unfaithfully: and he that is a spoiler, spoileth. Go up, O Elam,
besiege, O Mede: I have made all the mourning thereof to cease.

O Elam... That is, O Persia.

21:3. Therefore are my loins filled with pain, anguish hath taken hold
of me, as the anguish of a woman in labour: I fell down at the hearing
of it, I was troubled at the seeing of it.

21:4. My heart failed, darkness amazed me: Babylon my beloved is become
a wonder to me.

21:5. Prepare the table, behold in the watchtower them that eat and
drink: arise, ye princes, take up the shield.

21:6. For thus hath the Lord said to me: Go, and set a watchman: and
whatsoever he shall see, let him tell.

21:7. And he saw a chariot with two horsemen, a rider upon an ass, and a
rider upon a camel: and he beheld them diligently with much heed.

A rider upon an ass, etc... These two riders are the kings of the
Persians and Medes.

21:8. And a lion cried out: I am upon the watchtower of the Lord,
standing continually by day: and I am upon my ward, standing whole
nights.

And a lion cried out... That is, I Isaias seeing the approaching ruin of
Babylon, have cried out as a lion roaring.

21:9. Behold this man cometh, the rider upon the chariot with two
horsemen, and he answered, and said: Babylon is fallen, she is fallen,
and all the graven gods thereof are broken unto the ground.

21:10. O my thrashing, and the children of my floor, that which I have
heard of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared unto you.

21:11. The burden of Duma calleth to me out of Seir: Watchman, what of
the night? watchman, what of the night?

Duma... That is, Idumea, or Edom.

21:12. The watchman said: The morning cometh, also the night: if you
seek, seek: return, come.

21:13. The burden in Arabia. In the forest at evening you shall sleep,
in the paths of Dedanim.

21:14. Meeting the thirsty bring him water, you that inhabit the land of
the south, meet with bread him that fleeth.

21:15. For they are fled from before the swords, from the sword that
hung over them, from the bent bow, from the face of a grievous battle.

21:16. For thus saith the Lord to me: Within a year, according to the
years of a hireling, all the glory of Cedar shall be taken away.

Cedar... Arabia.

21:17. And the residue of the number of strong archers of the children
of Cedar shall be diminished: for the Lord the God of Israel hath spoken
it.

Isaias Chapter 22

The prophet laments the devastation of Juda. He foretells the
deprivation of Sobna, and the substitution of Eliacim, a figure of
Christ.

22:1. The burden of the valley of vision. What aileth thee also, that
thou too art wholly gone up to the housetops?

The valley of vision... Jerusalem. The temple of Jerusalem was built
upon mount Moria, or the mountain of vision. But the city is here called
the valley of vision; either because it was lower than the temple, or
because of the low condition to which it was to be reduced.

22:2. Full of clamour, a populous city, a joyous city: thy slain are not
slain by the sword, nor dead in battle.

22:3. All the princes are fled together, and are bound hard: all that
were found, are bound together, they are fled far off.

22:4. Therefore have I said: Depart from me, I will weep bitterly:
labour not to comfort me, for the devastation of the daughter of my
people.

22:5. For it is a day of slaughter and of treading down, and of weeping
to the Lord the God of hosts in the valley of vision, searching the
wall, and magnificent upon the mountain.

22:6. And Elam took the quiver, the chariot of the horseman, and the
shield was taken down from the wall.

22:7. And thy choice valleys shall be full of chariots, and the horsemen
shall place themselves in the gate.

22:8. And the covering of Juda shall be discovered, and thou shalt see
in that day the armoury of the house of the forest.

22:9. And you shall see the breaches of the city of David, that they are
many: and you have gathered together the waters of the lower pool,

22:10. And have numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and broken down houses
to fortify the wall.

22:11. And you made a ditch between the two walls for the water of the
old pool: and you have not looked up to the maker thereof, nor regarded
him even at a distance, that wrought it long ago.

22:12. And the Lord, the God of hosts, in that day shall call to
weeping, and to mourning, to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:

22:13. And behold joy and gladness, killing calves, and slaying rams,
eating flesh, and drinking wine: Let us eat and drink; for to morrow we
shall die.

22:14. And the voice of the Lord of hosts was revealed in my ears:
Surely this iniquity shall not be forgiven you till you die, saith the
Lord God of hosts.

22:15. Thus saith the Lord God of hosts: Go, get thee in to him that
dwelleth in the tabernacle, to Sobna who is over the temple: and thou
shalt say to him:

22:16. What dost thou here, or as if thou wert somebody here? for thou
hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, thou hast hewed out a monument
carefully in a high place, a dwelling for thyself in a rock.

22:17. Behold the Lord will cause thee to be carried away, as a cock is
carried away, and he will lift thee up as a garment.

22:18. He will crown thee with a crown of tribulation, he will toss thee
like a ball into a large and spacious country: there shalt thou die, and
there shall the chariot of thy glory be, the shame of the house of thy
Lord.

22:19. And I will drive thee out from thy station, and depose thee from
thy ministry.

22:20. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my
servant Eliacim the son of Helcias,

22:21. And I will clothe him with thy robe, and will strengthen him with
thy girdle, and will give thy power into his hand: and he shall be as a
father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Juda.

22:22. And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder:
and he shall open, and none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none
shall open.

22:23. And I will fasten him as a peg in a sure place, and he shall be
for a throne of glory to the house of his father.

22:24. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house,
divers kinds of vessels, every little vessel, from the vessels of cups
even to every instrument of music.

22:25. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall the peg be removed,
that was fastened in the sure place: and it shall be broken and shall
fall: and that which hung thereon, shall perish, because the Lord hath
spoken it.

Isaias Chapter 23

The destruction of Tyre. It shall be repaired again after seventy years.

23:1. The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of the sea, for the house is
destroyed, from whence they were wont to come: from the land of Cethim
it is revealed to them.

23:2. Be silent, you that dwell in the island: the merchants of Sidon
passing over the sea, have filled thee.

23:3. The seed of the Nile in many waters, the harvest of the river is
her revenue: and she is become the mart of the nations.

23:4. Be thou ashamed, O Sidon: for the sea speaketh, even the strength
of the sea, saying: I have not been in labour, nor have I brought forth,
nor have I nourished up young men, nor brought up virgins.

23:5. When it shall be heard in Egypt, they will be sorry when they
shall hear of Tyre:

23:6. Pass over the seas, howl, ye inhabitants of the island.

23:7. Is not this your city, which gloried from of old in her antiquity?
her feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn.

23:8. Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, that was formerly
crowned, whose merchants were princes, and her traders the nobles of the
earth?

23:9. The Lord of hosts hath designed it, to pull down the pride of all
glory, and bring to disgrace all the glorious ones of the earth.

23:10. Pass thy land as a river, O daughter of the sea, thou hast a
girdle no more.

23:11. He stretched out his hand over the sea, he troubled kingdoms: the
Lord hath given a charge against Chanaan, to destroy the strong ones
thereof.

23:12. And he said: Thou shalt glory no more, O virgin daughter of
Sidon, who art oppressed: arise and sail over to Cethim, there also thou
shalt have no rest.

23:13. Behold the land of the Chaldeans, there was not such a people,
the Assyrians founded it: they have led away the strong ones thereof
into captivity, they have destroyed the houses thereof, they have,
brought it to ruin.

23:14. Howl, O ye ships of the sea, for your strength is laid waste.

23:15. And it shall come to pass in that day that thou, O Tyre, shalt be
forgotten, seventy years, according to the days of one king: but after
seventy years, there shall be unto Tyre as the song of a harlot.

23:16. Take a harp, go about the city, harlot that hast been forgotten:
sing well, sing many a song, that thou mayst be remembered.

23:17. And it shall come to pass after seventy years, that the Lord will
visit Tyre, and will bring her back again to her traffic: and she shall
commit fornication again with all the kingdoms of the world upon the
face of the earth.

23:18. And her merchandise and her hire shall be sanctified to the Lord:
they shall not be kept in store, nor laid up: for her merchandise shall
be for them that shall dwell before the Lord, that they may eat unto
fulness, and be clothed for a continuance.

Sanctified to the Lord... This alludes to the conversion of the
Gentiles.

Isaias Chapter 24

The judgments of God upon all the sinners of the world. A remnant shall
joyfully praise him.

24:1. Behold the Lord shall lay waste the earth, and shall strip it, and
shall afflict the face thereof, and scatter abroad the inhabitants
thereof.

24:2. And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest: and as
with the servant so with his master: as with the handmaid, so with her
mistress: as with the buyer, so with the seller: as with the lender, so
with the borrower: as with him that calleth for his money, so with him
that oweth.

24:3. With desolation shall the earth be laid waste, and it shall be
utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word.

24:4. The earth mourned, and faded away, and is weakened: the world
faded away, the height of the people of the earth is weakened.

24:5. And the earth is infected by the inhabitants thereof: because they
have transgressed the laws, they have changed the ordinance, they have
broken the everlasting covenant.

24:6. Therefore shall a curse devour the earth, and the inhabitants
thereof shall sin: and therefore they that dwell therein shall be mad,
and few men shall be left.

24:7. The vintage hath mourned, the vine hath languished away, all the
merry have sighed.

24:8. The mirth of timbrels hath ceased, the noise of them that rejoice
is ended, the melody of the harp is silent.

24:9. They shall not drink wine with a song: the drink shall be bitter
to them that drink it.

24:10. The city of vanity is broken down, every house is shut up, no man
cometh in.

24:11. There shall be a crying for wine in the streets: all mirth is
forsaken: the joy of the earth is gone away.

24:12. Desolation is left in the city, and calamity shall oppress the
gates.

24:13. For it shall be thus in the midst of the earth, in the midst of
the people, as if a few olives, that remain, should be shaken out of the
olive tree: or grapes, when the vintage is ended.

24:14. These shall lift up their voice, and shall give praise: when the
Lord shall be glorified, they shall make a joyful noise from the sea.

24:15. Therefore glorify ye the Lord in instruction: the name of the
Lord God of Israel in the islands of the sea.

24:16. From the ends of the earth we have heard praises, the glory of
the just one. And I said: My secret to myself, my secret to myself, woe
is me: the prevaricators have prevaricated, and with the prevarication
of transgressors they have prevaricated.

24:17. Fear, and the pit, and the snare are upon thee, O thou inhabitant
of the earth.

24:18. And it shall come to pass, that he that shall flee from the noise
of the fear, shall fall into the pit: and he that shall rid himself out
of the pit, shall be taken in the snare: for the flood-gates from on
high are opened, and the foundations of the earth shall be shaken.

24:19. With breaking shall the earth be broken, with crushing shall the
earth be crushed, with trembling shall the earth be moved.

24:20. With shaking shall the earth be shaken as a drunken man, and
shall be removed as the tent of one night: and the iniquity thereof
shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again.

24:21. And it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord shall visit
upon the host of heaven on high, and upon the kings of the earth, on the
earth.

The host of heaven on high... The stars, which in many places of the
Scripture are so called. Some commentators explain that these words here
signify the demons of the air.

24:22. And they shall be gathered together as in the gathering of one
bundle into the pit, and they shall be shut up there in prison: and
after many days they shall be visited.

24:23. And the moon shall blush, and the sun shall be ashamed, when the
Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Sion, and in Jerusalem, and shall be
glorified in the sight of his ancients.

Isaias Chapter 25

A canticle of thanksgiving for God's judgments and benefits.

25:1. O Lord, thou art my God, I will exalt O thee, and give glory to
thy name: for thou hast done wonderful things, thy designs of old
faithful, amen.

25:2. For thou hast reduced the city to a heap, the strong city to ruin,
the house of strangers, to be no city, and to be no more built up for
ever.

25:3. Therefore shall a strong people praise thee, the city of mighty
nations shall fear thee.

25:4. Because thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the
needy in his distress: a refuge from the whirlwind, a shadow from the
heat. For the blast of the mighty is like a whirlwind beating against a
wall.

25:5. Thou shalt bring down the tumult of strangers, as heat in thirst:
and as with heat under a burning cloud, thou shalt make the branch of
the mighty to wither away.

25:6. And the Lord of hosts shall make unto all people in this mountain,
a feast of fat things, a feast of wine, of fat things full of marrow, of
wine purified from the lees.

25:7. And he shall destroy in this mountain the face of the bond with
which all people were tied, and the web that he began over all nations.

25:8. He shall cast death down headlong for ever: and the Lord God shall
wipe away tears from every face, and the reproach of his people he shall
take away from off the whole earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.

25:9. And they shall say in that day: Lo, this is our God, we have
waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord, we have patiently
waited for him, we shall rejoice and be joyful in his salvation.

25:10. For the hand of the Lord shall rest in this mountain: and Moab
shall be trodden down under him, as straw is broken in pieces with the
wain.

Moab... That is, the reprobate, whose eternal punishment, from which
they can no way escape, is described under these figures.

25:11. And he shall stretch forth his hands under him, as he that
swimmeth stretcheth forth his hands to swim: and he shall bring down his
glory with the dashing of his hands.

25:12. And the bulwarks of thy high walls shall fall, and be brought
low, and shall be pulled down to the ground, even to the dust.

Isaias Chapter 26

A canticle of thanks for the deliverance of God's people.

26:1. In that day shall this canticle be sung in the land of Juda.  Sion
the city of our strength a saviour, a wall and a bulwark shall be set
therein.

26:2. Open ye the gates, and let the just nation, that keepeth the
truth, enter in.

26:3. The old error is passed away: thou wilt keep peace: peace, because
we have hoped in thee.

26:4. You have hoped in the Lord for evermore, in the Lord God mighty
for ever.

26:5. For he shall bring down them that dwell on high, the high city he
shall lay low. He shall bring it down even to the ground, he shall pull
it down even to the dust.

26:6. The foot shall tread it down, the feet of the poor, the steps of
the needy.

26:7. The way of the just is right, the path of the just is right to
walk in.

26:8. And in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, we have patiently waited
for thee: thy name, and thy remembrance are the desire of the soul.

26:9. My soul hath desired thee in the night: yea, and with my spirit
within me in the morning early I will watch to thee. When thou shalt do
thy judgments on the earth, the inhabitants of the world shall learn
justice.

26:10. Let us have pity on the wicked, but he will not learn justice: in
the land of the saints he hath done wicked things, and he shall not see
the glory of the Lord.

26:11. Lord, let thy hand be exalted, and let them not see: let the
envious people see, and be confounded: and let fire devour thy enemies.

26:12. Lord, thou wilt give us peace: for thou hast wrought all our
works for us.

26:13. O Lord our God, other lords besides thee have had dominion over
us, only in thee let us remember thy name.

26:14. Let not the dead live, let not the giants rise again: therefore
hast visited and destroyed them, and hast destroyed all their memory.

26:15. Thou hast been favourable to the nation, O Lord, thou hast been
favourable to the nation: art thou glorified? thou hast removed all the
ends of the earth far off.

26:16. Lord, they have sought after thee in distress, in the tribulation
of murmuring thy instruction was with them.

26:17. As a woman with child, when she draweth near the time of her
delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs: so are we become in
thy presence, O Lord.

26:18. We have conceived, and been as it were in labour, and have
brought forth wind: we have not wrought salvation on the earth,
therefore the inhabitants of the earth have not fallen.

26:19. Thy dead men shall live, my slain shall rise again: awake, and
give praise, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is the dew of the
light: and the land of the giants thou shalt pull down into ruin.

26:20. Go, my people, enter into thy chambers, shut thy doors upon thee,
hide thyself a little for a moment, until the indignation pass away.

26:21. For behold the Lord will come out of his place, to visit the
iniquity of the inhabitant of the earth against him: and the earth shall
disclose her blood, and shall cover her slain no more.

Shall cover her slain no more... This is said with relation to the
martyrs, and their happy resurrection.

Isaias Chapter 27

The punishment of the oppressors of God's people. The Lord's favour to
his church.

27:1. In that day the Lord with his hard, and great, and strong sword
shall visit leviathan the bar serpent, and leviathan the crooked
serpent, and shall slay the whale that is in the sea.

Leviathan... That is, the devil, the great enemy of the people of God.
He is called the bar serpent from his strength, and the crooked serpent
from his wiles; and the whale of the sea, from the tyranny he exercises
in the sea of this world. He was spiritually slain by the death of
Christ, when his power was destroyed.

27:2. In that day there shall be singing to the vineyard of pure wine.

The vineyard, etc... The church of Christ.

27:3. I am the Lord that keep it, I will suddenly give it drink: lest
any hurt come to it, I keep it night and day.

I will suddenly give it drink... Or, as the Hebrew may also be rendered,
I will continually water it.

27:4. There is no indignation in me: who shall make me a thorn and a
brier in battle: shall I march against it, shall, I set it on fire
together?

No indignation in me, etc... Viz., against the church: nor shall I
become as a thorn or brier in its regard; or march against it, or set it
on fire: but it shall always take fast hold of me, and keep an
everlasting peace with me.

27:5. Or rather shall it take hold of my strength, shall it make peace
with me, shall it make peace with me?

27:6. When they shall rush in unto Jacob, Israel shall blossom and bud,
and they shall fill the face of the world with seed.

When they shall rush in, etc... Some understand this of the enemies of
the true Israel, that shall invade it in vain. Others of the spiritual
invasion made by the apostles of Christ.


27:7. Hath he struck him according to the stroke of him that struck him?
or is he slain, as he killed them that were slain by him?

Hath he struck him, etc... Hath God punished the carnal persecuting
Jews, in proportion to their doings against Christ and his saints?

27:8. In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, thou shalt
judge it. He hath meditated with his severe spirit in the day of heat.

When it shall be cast off, etc... When the synagogue shall be cast off,
thou shalt judge it in measure, and in proportion to its crimes.-Ibid.
He hath meditated, etc... God hath designed severe punishments in the
day of his wrath.

27:9. Therefore upon this shall the iniquity of the house of Jacob be
forgiven: and this is all the fruit, that the sin thereof should be
taken away, when he shall have made all the stones of the altar, as
burnt stones broken in pieces, the groves and temples shall not stand.

Of the house of Jacob... Viz., of such of them as shall be converted.

27:10. For the strong city shall be desolate, the beautiful city shall
be forsaken, and shall be left as a wilderness: there the calf shall
feed, and there shall he lie down, and shall consume its branches.

The strong city... Jerusalem.

27:11. Its harvest shall be destroyed with drought, women shall come and
teach it: for it is not a wise people, therefore he that made it, shall
not have mercy on it: and he that formed it, shall not spare it.

27:12. And it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord will strike
from the channel of the river even to the torrent of Egypt, and you
shall be gathered together one by one, O ye children of Israel.

27:13. And it shall come to pass, that in that day a noise shall be made
with a great trumpet, and they that were lost, shall come from the land
of the Assyrians, and they that were outcasts in the land of Egypt, and
they shall adore the Lord in the holy mount in Jerusalem.

A great trumpet... The preaching of the gospel for the conversion of the
Jews.

Isaias Chapter 28

The punishment of the Israelites, for their pride, intemperance, and
contempt of religion. Christ the cornerstone.

28:1. Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the
fading flower the glory his joy, who were on the head of the fat valley,
staggering with wine.

Ephraim... That is, the kingdom of the ten tribes.-Ibid. The head of the
fat valley... Samaria, situate on a hill, having under it a most fertile
valley.

28:2. Behold the Lord is mighty and strong, as a storm of hail: a
destroying whirlwind, as the violence of many waters overflowing, and
sent forth upon a spacious land.

28:3. The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden
under feet.

28:4. And the fading tower the glory of his joy, who is on the head of
the fat valley, shall be as a hasty fruit before the ripeness of autumn:
which when he that seeth it shall behold, as soon he taketh it in his
hand, he will eat it up.

28:5. In that day the Lord of hosts shall be a crown of glory, and a
garland of joy to the residue of his people:

28:6. And a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and
strength to them that return out of the battle to the gate.

28:7. But these also have been ignorant through wine, and through
drunkenness have erred: the priest and the prophet have been ignorant
through drunkenness, they are swallowed up with wine, they have gone
astray in drunkenness, they have not known him that seeth, they have
been ignorant of judgment.

These also... The kingdom of Juda.

28:8. For all the tables were full of vomit and filth, so that there was
no more place.

28:9. Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to
understand the hearing? them that are weaned from the milk, that are
drawn away from the breasts.

28:10. For command, command again; command, command again; expect,
expect again; a little there, a little there.

Command, command again, etc... This is said in the person of the Jews,
resisting the repeated commands of God, and still putting him off.

28:11. For with the speech of lips, and with another tongue he will
speak to this people.

28:12. To whom he said: This is my rest, refresh the weary, and this is
my refreshing: and they would not hear.

28:13. And the word of the Lord shall be to them: Command, command
again; command, command again; expect, expect again; a little there, a
little there: that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and
snared, and taken.

28:14. Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, who rule
over my people that is in Jerusalem.

28:15. For you have said: We have entered into a league with death, and
we have made a covenant with hell. When the overflowing scourge shall
pass through, it shall not come upon us: for we have placed our hope in
lies, and by falsehood we are protected.

28:16. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will lay a stone in
the foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious
stone, founded in the foundation. He that believeth, let him not hasten.

A stone in the foundations... Viz., Christ.-Ibid. Let him not hasten,
etc... Let him expect his coming with patience.

28:17. And I will set judgment in weight, and justice in measure: and
hail shall overturn the hope of falsehood: and waters shall overflow its
protection.

28:18. And your league with death shall be abolished, and your covenant
with hell shall not stand: when the overflowing scourge shall pass, you
shall be trodden down by it.

28:19. Whensoever it shall pass through, it shall take you away: because
in the morning early it shall pass through, in the day and in the night,
and vexation alone shall make you understand what you hear.

28:20. For the bed is straitened, so that one must fall out, and a short
covering cannot cover both.

The bed is straitened, etc... It is too narrow to hold two: God will
have the bed of our heart all to himself.

28:21. For the Lord shall stand up as in the mountain of divisions: he
shall be angry as in the valley which is in Gabaon: that he may do his
work, his strange work: that he may perform his work, his work is
strange to him.

As in the mountain, etc... As the Lord fought against the Philistines in
Baal Pharasim, 2 Kings 5., and against the Chanaanites, in the valley of
Gabaon, Jos. 10.

28:22. And now do not mock, lest your bonds be tied strait. For I have
heard of the Lord the God of hosts a consumption and a cutting short
upon all the earth.

28:23. Give ear, and hear my voice, hearken, and hear my speech.

28:24. Shall the ploughman plough all the day to sow, shall he open and
harrow his ground?

28:25. Will he not, when he hath made plain the surface thereof, sow
gith, and scatter cummin, and put wheat in order, and barley, and
millet, and vetches in their bounds?

28:26. For he will instruct him in judgment: his God will teach him.

28:27. For gith shall not be thrashed with saws, neither shall the cart
wheel turn about upon cummin: but gith shall be beaten out with a rod,
and cumin with a staff.

28:28. But breadcorn shall be broken small: but the thrasher shall not
thrash it for ever, neither shall the cart wheel hurt it, nor break it
with its teeth.

28:29. This also is come forth from the Lord God of hosts, to make his
counsel wonderful, and magnify justice.

This also, etc... Such also is the proceeding of the Lord with his land,
and the divers seeds he throws therein.

Isaias Chapter 29

God's heavy judgments upon Jerusalem, for their obstinacy: with a
prophecy of the conversion of the Gentiles.

29:1. Woe to Ariel, to Ariel the city which David took: year is added to
year the solemnities are at an end.

Ariel... This word signifies, the lion of God, and here is taken for the
strong city of Jerusalem.

29:2. And I will make a trench about Ariel, and it shall be in sorrow
and mourning, and it shall be to me as Ariel.

29:3. And I will make a circle round about thee, and I will cast up a
rampart against thee, and raise up bulwarks to besiege thee.

29:4. Thou shalt be brought down, thou shall speak out of the earth, and
thy speech shall be heard out of the ground: and thy voice shall be from
the earth like that of the python, and out of the earth thy speech shall
mutter.

29:5. And the multitude of them that fan thee, shall be like small dust:
and as ashes passing away, the multitude of them that have prevailed
against thee.

29:6. And it shall be at an instant suddenly. A visitation shall come
from the Lord of hosts in thunder, and with earthquake, and with a great
noise of whirlwind and tempest; and with the flame of devouring fire.

29:7. And the multitude of all nations that have fought against Ariel,
shall be as the dream of a vision by night, and all that have fought,
and besieged and prevailed against it.

29:8. And as he that is hungry dreameth, and eateth, but when he is
awake, his soul is empty: and as he that is thirsty dreameth, and
drinketh and after he is awake, is yet faint with thirst, and his soul
is empty: so shall be the multitude of all the Gentiles, that have
fought against mount Sion.

29:9. Be astonished, and wonder, waver, and stagger: be drunk, and not
with wine: stagger, and not with drunkenness.

29:10. For the Lord hath mingled for you the spirit of a deep sleep, he
will shut up your eyes, he will cover your prophets and princes, that
see visions.

29:11. And the vision of all shall be unto you as the words of a book
that is sealed which when they shall deliver to one that is learned,
they shall say: Read this: and he shall answer: I cannot, for it is
sealed.

29:12. And the book shall be given to one that knoweth no letters, and
it shall be said to him: Read: and he shall answer: I know no letters.

29:13. And the Lord said: Forasmuch as this people draw near me with
their mouth, and with their lips glorify me, but their heart is far from
me, and they have feared me with the commandment and doctrines of men:

29:14. Therefore behold I will proceed to cause an admiration in this
people, by a great and wonderful miracle: for wisdom shall perish from
their wise men, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.

29:15. Woe to you that are deep of heart, to hide your counsel from the
Lord: and their works are in the dark, and they say: Who seeth us, and
who knoweth us?

29:16. This thought of yours is perverse: as if the clay should think
against the potter, and the work should say to the maker thereof: Thou
madest me not: or the thing framed should say to him that fashioned it:
Thou understandest not.

29:17. Is it not yet a very little while, and Libanus shall be turned
into charmel, and charmel shall be esteemed as a forest?

Charmel... This word signifies a fruitful field.

29:18. And in that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and
out of darkness and obscurity the eyes of the blind shall see.

29:19. And the meek shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor
men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

29:20. For he that did prevail hath failed, the scorner is consumed, and
they are all cut off that watched for iniquity:

29:21. That made men sin by word, and supplanted him that reproved them
in the gate, and declined in vain from the just.

29:22. Therefore thus saith the Lord to the house of Jacob, he that
redeemed Abraham: Jacob shall not now be confounded, neither shall his
countenance now be ashamed:

29:23. But when he shall see his children, the work of my hands in the
midst of him sanctifying my name, and they shall sanctify the Holy One
of Jacob, and shall glorify the God of Israel:

29:24. And they that erred in spirit, shall know understanding, and they
that murmured, shall learn the law.

Isaias Chapter 30

The people are blamed for their confidence in Egypt. God's mercies
towards his church. The punishment of sinners.

30:1. Woe to you, apostate children, saith the Lord, that you would take
counsel, and not of me: and would begin a web, and not by my spirit,
that you might add sin upon sin:

30:2. Who walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth,
hoping for help in the strength of Pharao, and trusting in the shadow of
Egypt.

30:3. And the strength of Pharao shall be to your confusion, and the
confidence of the shadow of Egypt to your shame.

30:4. For thy princes were in Tanis, and thy messengers came even to
Hanes.

30:5. They were all confounded at a people that could not profit them:
they were no help, nor to any profit, but to confusion and to reproach.

30:6. The burden of the beasts of the south. In a land of trouble and
distress, from whence come the lioness, and the lion, the viper and the
flying basilisk, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of beasts,
and their treasures upon the bunches of camels to a people that shall
not be able to profit them.

30:7. For Egypt shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I
cried concerning this: It is pride only, sit still.

30:8. Now therefore go in and write for them upon box, and note it
diligently in a book, and it shall be in the latter days for a testimony
for ever.

30:9. For it is a people that provoketh to wrath, and lying children
that will not hear the law of God.

30:10. Who say to the seers: See not: and to them that behold: Behold
not for us those things that are right: speak unto us pleasant things,
see errors for us.

30:11. Take away from me the way, turn away the path from me, let the
Holy One of Israel cease from before us.

30:12. Therefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel: Because you have
rejected this word, and have trusted in oppression and tumult, and have
leaned upon it:

30:13. Therefore shall this iniquity be to you as a breach that falleth,
and is found wanting in a high wall, for the destruction thereof shall
come on a sudden, when it is not looked for.

30:14. And it shall be broken small, as the potter's vessel is broken
all to pieces with mighty breaking, and there shall not a sherd be found
of the pieces thereof, wherein a little fire may be carried from the
hearth, or a little water be drawn out of the pit.

30:15. For thus saith the Lord God the Holy One of Israel: If you return
and be quiet, you shall be saved: in silence and in hope shall your
strength be. And you would not:

30:16. But have said: No, but we will flee to horses: therefore shall
you flee. And we will mount upon swift ones: therefore shall they be
swifter that shall pursue after you.

30:17.  A thousand men shall flee for fear of one: and for fear of five
shall you flee, till you be left as the mast of ship on the top of a
mountain, and as an ensign upon a hill.

30:18. Therefore the Lord waiteth that he may have mercy on you: and
therefore shall he be exalted sparing you: because the Lord is the God
of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.

30:19. For the people of Sion shall dwell in Jerusalem: weeping thou
shalt not weep, he will surely have pity on thee: at the voice of thy
cry, as soon as he shall hear, he will answer thee.

30:20. And the Lord will give you spare bread, and short water: and will
not cause thy teacher to flee away from thee any more, and thy eyes
shall see thy teacher.

30:21. And thy ears shall hear the word of one admonishing thee behind
thy back: This is the way, walk ye in it: and go not aside neither to
the right hand, nor to the left.

30:22. And thou shalt defile the plates of thy graven things of silver,
and the garment of thy molten things of gold, and shalt cast them away
as the uncleanness of a menstruous woman.  Thou shalt say to it: Get
thee hence.

30:23. And rain shall be given to thy seed, wheresoever thou shalt sow
in the land: and the bread of the corn of the land shall be most
plentiful, and fat. The lamb in that day shall feed at large in thy
possession:

30:24. And thy oxen, and the ass colts that till the ground, shall eat
mingled provender as it was winnowed in the floor.

30:25. And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every
elevated hill rivers of running waters in the day of the slaughter of
many, when the tower shall fall.

30:26. And the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and
the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days: in
the day when the Lord shall bind up the wound of his people, and shall
heal the stroke of their wound.

30:27. Behold the name of the Lord cometh from afar, his wrath burneth,
and is heavy to bear: his lips are filled with indignation, and his
tongue as a devouring fire.

30:28. His breath as a torrent overflowing even to the midst of the
neck, to destroy the nations unto nothing, and the bridle of error that
was in the jaws of the people.

30:29. You shall have a song as in the night of the sanctified
solemnity, and joy of heart, as where one goeth with a pipe, to come
into the mountain of the Lord, to the Mighty One of Israel.

30:30. And the Lord shall make the glory of his voice to be heard, and
shall shew the terror of his arm, in the threatening of wrath, and the
flame of devouring fire: he shall crush to pieces with whirlwind, and
hailstones.

30:31. For at the voice of the Lord the Assyrian shall fear being struck
with the rod.

30:32. And the passage of the rod shall be strongly grounded, which the
Lord shall make to rest upon him with timbrels and harps, and in great
battles he shall overthrow them.

30:33. For Topheth is prepared from yesterday, prepared by the king,
deep, and wide. The nourishment thereof is fire and much wood: the
breath of the Lord as a torrent of brimstone kindling it.

Topheth... It is the same as Gehenna, and is taken for hell.

Isaias Chapter 31

The folly of trusting to Egypt, and forgetting God. He will fight for
his people against the Assyrians.

31:1. Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, trusting in horses,
and putting their confidence in chariots, because they are many: and in
horsemen, because they are very strong: and have not trusted in the Holy
One of Israel, and have not sought after the Lord.

31:2. But he that is the wise one hath brought evil, and hath not
removed his words: and he will rise up against the house of the wicked,
and against the aid of them that work iniquity.

31:3. Egypt is man, and not God: and their horses, flesh, and not
spirit: and the Lord shall put down his hand, and the helper shall fall,
and he that is helped shall fall, and they shall all be confounded
together.

31:4. For thus saith the Lord to me: Like as the lion roareth, and the
lions whelp upon his prey, and when a multitude of shepherds shall come
against him, he will not fear at their voice, nor be afraid of their
multitude: so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight upon mount
Sion, and upon the hill thereof.

31:5. As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts protect Jerusalem,
protecting and delivering, passing over and saving.

31:6. Return as you had deeply revolted, O children of Israel.

31:7. For in that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his
idols of gold, which your hands have made for you to sin.

31:8. And the Assyrian shall fall by the sword not of a man, and the
sword not of a man shall devour him, and he shall flee not at the face
of the sword, and his young men shall be tributaries.

31:9. And his strength shall pass away with dread, and his princes
fleeing shall be afraid: the Lord hath said it, whose fire is in Sion,
and his furnace in Jerusalem.

Isaias Chapter 32

The blessings of the reign of Christ. The desolation of the Jews, and
prosperity of the church of Christ.

32:1. Behold a king shall reign in justice, and princes shall rule in
judgment.

32:2. And a man shall be as when one is hid from the wind, and hideth
himself from a storm, as rivers of waters in drought, and the shadow of
a rock that standeth out in a desert land.

32:3. The eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them
that hear shall hearken diligently.

32:4. And the heart of fools shall understand knowledge, and the tongue
of stammerers shall speak readily and plain.

32:5. The fool shall no more be called prince: neither shall the
deceitful be called great:

32:6. For the fool will speak foolish things, and his heart will work
iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and speak to the Lord deceitfully, and
to make empty the soul of the hungry, and take away drink from the
thirsty.

32:7. The vessels of the deceitful are most wicked: for he hath framed
devices to destroy the meek, with lying words, when the poor man
speaketh judgment.

32:8. But the prince will devise such things as are worthy of a prince,
and he shall stand above the rulers.

32:9. Rise up, ye rich women, and hear my voice: ye confident daughters,
give ear to my speech.

32:10. For after days and a year, you that are confident shall be
troubled: for the vintage is at an end, the gathering shall come no
more.

32:11. Be astonished, ye rich women, be troubled, ye confident ones:
strip you, and be confounded, gird your loins.

32:12. Mourn for your breasts, for the delightful country, for the
fruitful vineyard.

32:13. Upon the land of my people shall thorns and briers come up: how
much more upon all the houses of joy, of the city that rejoiced?

32:14. For the house is forsaken, the multitude of the city is left,
darkness and obscurity are come upon its dens for ever. A joy of wild
asses, the pastures of flocks.

32:15. Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high: and the desert
shall be as a charmel, and charmel shall be counted for a forest.

32:16. An judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and justice shall sit
in charmel.

32:17. And the work of justice shall be peace, and the service of
justice quietness, and security for ever.

32:18. And my people shall sit in the beauty of peace, and in the
tabernacles of confidence, and in wealthy rest.

32:19. But hail shall be in the descent of the forest, and the city
shall be made very low.

32:20. Blessed are ye that sow upon all waters, sending thither the foot
of the ox and the ass.

Isaias Chapter 33

God's revenge against the enemies of his church. The happiness of the
heavenly Jerusalem.

33:1. Woe to thee that spoilest, shalt not thou thyself also be spoiled?
and thou that despisest, shalt not thyself also be despised? when thou
shalt have made an end of spoiling, thou shalt be spoiled: when being
wearied thou shalt cease to despise, thou shalt be despised.

That spoilest, etc... This is particularly directed to Sennacherib.

33:2. O Lord, have mercy on us: for we have waited for thee: be thou our
arm in the morning, and our salvation in the time of trouble.

33:3. At the voice of the angel the people fled, and at the lifting up
thyself the nations are scattered.

33:4. And your spoils shall be gathered together as the locusts are
gathered, as when the ditches are full of them.

33:5. The Lord is magnified, for he hath dwelt on high: he hath filled
Sion with judgment and justice.

33:6. And there shall be faith in thy times: riches of salvation, wisdom
and knowledge: the fear of the Lord is his treasure.

33:7. Behold they that see shall cry without, the angels of peace shall
weep bitterly.

The angels of peace... The messengers or deputies sent to negotiate a
peace.

33:8. The ways are made desolate, no one passeth by the road, the
covenant is made void, he hath rejected the cities, he hath not regarded
the men.

33:9. The land hath mourned, and languished: Libanus is confounded, and
become foul, and Saron is become as a desert: and Basan and Carmel are
shaken.

33:10. Now will I rise up, saith the Lord: now will I be exalted, now
will I lift up myself.

33:11. You shall conceive heat, you shall bring forth stubble: your
breath as fire shall devour you.

33:12. And the people shall be as ashes after a fire, as a bundle of
thorns they shall be burnt with fire.

33:13. Hear, you that are far off, what I have done, and you that are
near know my strength.

33:14. The sinners in Sion are afraid, trembling hath seized upon the
hypocrites. Which of you can dwell with devouring fire?  which of you
shall dwell with everlasting burnings?

33:15. He that walketh in justices, and speaketh truth, that casteth
away avarice by oppression, and shaketh his hands from all bribes, that
stoppeth his ears lest he hear blood, and shutteth his eyes that he may
see no evil.

33:16. He shall dwell on high, the fortifications of rocks shall be his
highness: bread is given him, his waters are sure.

33:17. His eyes shall see the king in his beauty, they shall see the
land far off.

33:18. Thy heart shall meditate fear: where is the learned? where is he
that pondered the words of the law? where is the teacher of little ones?

33:19. The shameless people thou shalt not see, the people of profound
speech: so that thou canst not understand the eloquence of his tongue,
in whom there is no wisdom.

33:20. Look upon Sion the city of our solemnity: thy eyes shall see
Jerusalem, a rich habitation, a tabernacle that cannot be removed:
neither shall the nails thereof be taken away for ever, neither shall
any of the cords thereof be broken.

33:21. Because only there our Lord is magnificent: a place of rivers,
very broad and spacious streams: no ship with oars shall pass by it,
neither shall the great galley pass through it.

Of rivers... He speaks of the rivers of endless joys that flow from the
throne of God to water the heavenly Jerusalem, where no enemy's ship can
come, etc.

33:22. For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is
our king: he will save us.

33:23. Thy tacklings are loosed, and they shall be of no strength: thy
mast shall be in such condition, that thou shalt not be able to spread
the flag. Then shall the spoils of much prey be divided: the lame shall
take the spoil.

Thy tacklings... He speaks of the enemies of the church, under the
allegory of a ship that is disabled.

33:24. Neither shall he that is near, say: I am feeble. The people that
dwell therein, shall have their iniquity taken away from them.

Isaias Chapter 34

The general judgment of the wicked.

34:1. Come near, ye Gentiles, and hear, and hearken, ye people: let the
earth hear, and all that is therein, the world, and every thing that
cometh forth of it.

34:2. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury
upon all their armies: he hath killed them, and delivered them to
slaughter.

34:3. Their slain shall be cast forth, and out of their carcasses shall
rise a stink: the mountains shall be melted with their blood.

34:4. And all the host of the heavens shall pine away, and the heavens
shall be folded together as a book: and all their host shall fall down
as the leaf falleth from the vine, and from the fig tree.

And all the host of the heavens... That is, the sun, moon, and stars.

34:5. For my sword is inebriated in heaven: behold it shall come down
upon Idumea, and upon the people of my slaughter unto judgment.

Idumea... Under the name of Idumea, or Edom a people that were enemies
of the Jews, are here understood the wicked in general, the enemies of
God and his church.

34:6. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made thick with
the blood of lambs and buck goats, with the blood of rams full of
marrow: for there is a victim of the Lord in Bosra and a great slaughter
in the land of Edom.

34:7. And the unicorns shall go down with them, and the bulls with the
mighty: their land shall be soaked with blood, and their ground with the
fat of fat ones.

The unicorns... That is, the great and mighty.

34:8. For it is the day of the vengeance of the Lord, the year of
recompenses of the judgment of Sion.

The year of recompenses, etc... When the persecutors of Sion, that is,
of the church, shall receive their reward.

34:9. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the ground
thereof into brimstone: and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.

34:10. Night and day it shall not be quenched, the smoke thereof shall
go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste, none
shall pass through it for ever and ever.

34:11. The bittern and ericius shall possess it: and the ibis and the
raven shall dwell in it: and a line shall be stretched out upon it, to
bring it to nothing, and a plummet, unto desolation.

34:12. The nobles thereof shall not be there: they shall call rather
upon the king, and all the princes thereof shall be nothing.

34:13. And thorns and nettles shall grow up in its houses, and the
thistle in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be the habitation of
dragons, and the pasture of ostriches.

34:14. And demons and monsters shall meet, and the hairy ones shall cry
out one to another, there hath the lamia lain down, and found rest for
herself.

34:15. There hath the ericius had its hole, and brought up its young
ones, and hath dug round about, and cherished them in the shadow
thereof: thither are the kites gathered together one to another.

34:16. Search ye diligently in the book of the Lord, and read: not one
of them was wanting, one hath not sought for the other: for that which
proceedeth out of my mouth, he hath commanded, and his spirit it hath
gathered them.

34:17. And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it
to them by line: they shall possess it for ever, from generation to
generation they shall dwell therein.

Isaias Chapter 35

The joyful flourishing of Christ's kingdom: in his church shall be a
holy and secure way.

35:1. The land that was desolate and impassable shall be glad, and the
wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like the lily.

35:2. It shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and
praise: the glory of Libanus is given to it: the beauty of Carmel, and
Saron, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the beauty of our God.

35:3. Strengthen ye the feeble hands, and confirm the weak knees.

35:4. Say to the fainthearted: Take courage, and fear not: behold your
God will bring the revenge of recompense: God himself will come and will
save you.

35:5. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the
deaf shall be unstopped.

35:6. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb
shall be free: for waters are broken out in the desert, and streams in
the wilderness.

35:7. And that which was dry land, shall become a pool, and the thirsty
land springs of water. In the dens where dragons dwelt before, shall
rise up the verdure of the reed and the bulrush.

35:8. And a path and a way shall be there, and it shall be called the
holy way: the unclean shall not pass over it, and this shall be unto you
a straight way, so that fools shall not err therein.

35:9. No lion shall be there, nor shall any mischievous beast go up by
it, nor be found there: but they shall walk there that shall be
delivered.

35:10. And the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and shall come into
Sion with praise, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they
shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.

Isaias Chapter 36

Sennacherib invades Juda: his blasphemies.

36:1. And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Ezechias, that
Sennacherib king of the Assyrians came up against all the fenced cities
of Juda, and took them.

36:2. And the king of the Assyrians sent Rabsaces from Lachis to
Jerusalem, to king Ezechias with a great army, and he stood by the
conduit of the upper pool in the way of the fuller's field.

36:3. And there went out to him Eliacim the son of Helcias, who was over
the house, and Sobna the scribe, and Joahe the son of Asaph the
recorder.

36:4. And Rabsaces said to them: Tell Ezechias: Thus saith the great
king, the king of the Assyrians: What is this confidence wherein thou
trustest?

36:5. Or with what counsel or strength dost thou prepare for war?  on
whom dost thou trust, that thou art revolted from me?

36:6. Lo thou trustest upon this broken staff of a reed, upon Egypt:
upon which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is
Pharao king of Egypt to all that trust in him.

36:7. But if thou wilt answer me: We trust in the Lord our God: is it
not he whose high places and altars Ezechias hath taken away, and hath
said to Juda and Jerusalem: You shall worship before this altar?

36:8. And now deliver thyself up to my lord the king of the Assyrians,
and I will give thee two thousand horses, and thou wilt not be able on
thy part to find riders for them.

36:9. And how wilt thou stand against the face of the judge of one
place, of the least of my master's servants? But if thou trust in Egypt,
in chariots and in horsemen:

36:10. And am I now come up without the Lord against this land to
destroy it? The Lord said to me: Go up against this land, and destroy
it.

36:11. And Eliacim, and Sobna, and Joahe said to Rabsaces: Speak to thy
servants in the Syrian tongue: for we understand it: speak not to us in
the Jews' language in the hearing of the people, that are upon the wall.

36:12. And Rabsaces said to them: Hath my master sent me to thy master
and to thee, to speak all these words; and not rather to the men that
sit on the wall; that they may eat their own dung, and drink their urine
with you?

36:13. Then Rabsaces stood, and cried out with a loud voice in the Jews'
language, and said: Hear the words of the great king, the king of the
Assyrians.

36:14. Thus saith the king: Let not Ezechias deceive you, for he shall
not be able to deliver you.

36:15. And let not Ezechias make you trust in the Lord, saying: The Lord
will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given into the hands
of the king of the Assyrians.

36:16. Do not hearken to Ezechias: for thus said the king of the
Assyrians: Do with me that which is for your advantage, and come out to
me, and eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and
drink ye every one the water of his cistern,

36:17. Till I come and take you away to a land, like to your own, a land
of corn and of wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

36:18.  Neither let Ezechias trouble you, saying: The Lord will deliver
us. Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their land out of the
hand of the king of the Assyrians?

36:19. Where is the god of Emath and of Arphad? where is the god of
Sepharvaim? have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?

36:20. Who is there among all the gods of these lands, that hath
delivered his country out of my hand, that the Lord may deliver
Jerusalem out of my hand?

36:21. And they held their peace, and answered him not a word.  For the
king had commanded, saying: Answer him not.

36:22. And Eliacim the son of Helcias, that was over the house, and
Sobna the scribe, and Joahe the son of Asaph the recorder, went in to
Ezechias with their garments rent, and told him the words of Rabsaces.

Isaias Chapter 37

Ezechias, his mourning and prayer. God's promise of protection.  The
Assyrian army is destroyed. Sennacherib is slain.

37:1. And it came to pass, when king Ezechias had heard it, that he rent
his garments and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house
of the Lord.

37:2. And he sent Eliacim who was over the house, and Sobna the scribe,
and the ancients of the priests covered with sackcloth, to Isaias the
son of Amos the prophet.

37:3. And they said to him: Thus saith Ezechias: This day is a day of
tribulation, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the children are come
to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.

37:4. It may be the Lord thy God will hear the words of Rabsaces, whom
the king of the Assyrians his master hath sent to blaspheme the living
God, and to reproach with words which the Lord thy God hath heard:
wherefore lift up by prayer for the remnant that is left.

37:5. And the servants of Ezechias came to Isaias.

37:6. And Isaias said to them: Thus shall you say to your master: Thus
saith the Lord: Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, with
which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me.

37:7. Behold, I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a
message, and shall return to his own country, and I will cause him to
fall by the sword in his own country.

37:8. And Rabsaces returned, and found the king of the Assyrians
besieging Lobna. For he had heard that he was departed from Lachis.

37:9. And he heard say about Tharaca the king of Ethiopia: He is come
forth to fight against thee. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to
Ezechias, saying:

37:10. Thus shall you speak to Ezechias the king of Juda, saying: Let
not thy God deceive thee, in whom thou trustest, saying: Jerusalem shall
not be given into the hands of the king of the Assyrians.

37:11. Behold thou hast heard all that the kings of the Assyrians have
done to all countries which they have destroyed, and canst thou be
delivered?

37:12. Have the gods of the nations delivered them whom my fathers have
destroyed, Gozam, and Haram, and Reseph, and the children of Eden, that
were in Thalassar?

37:13. Where is the king of Emath, and the king of Arphad, and the king
of the city of Sepharvaim, of Ana, and of Ava?

37:14. And Ezechias took the letter from the hand of the messengers, and
read it, and went up to the house of the Lord, and Ezechias spread it
before the Lord.

37:15. And Ezechias prayed to the Lord, saying:

37:16. Lord of hosts, God of Israel who sitteth upon the cherubims, thou
alone art the God of all the kingdoms of the earth, thou hast made
heaven and earth.

37:17. Incline, O Lord, thy ear, and hear: open, O Lord, thy eyes, and
see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he hath sent to
blaspheme the living God.

37:18. For of a truth, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have laid
waste lands, and their countries.

37:19. And they have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not
gods, but the works of men's hands, of wood and stone: and they broke
them in pieces.

37:20. And now, O Lord our God, save us out of his hand: and let all the
kingdoms of the earth know, that thou only art the Lord.

37:21. And Isaias the son of Amos sent to Ezechias, saying: Thus saith
the Lord the God of Israel: For the prayer thou hast made to me
concerning Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians:

37:22. This is the word which the Lord hath spoken of him: The virgin
the daughter of Sion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn: the
daughter of Jerusalem hath wagged the head after thee.

37:23. Whom hast thou reproached, and whom hast thou blasphemed, and
against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thy eyes on
high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

37:24. By the hand of thy servants thou hast reproached the Lord: and
hast said: With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the
height of the mountains, to the top of Libanus: and I will cut down its
tall cedars, and its choice fir trees, and will enter to the top of its
height, to the forest of its Carmel.

Carmel... See these figurative expressions explained in the annotations
on the nineteenth chapter of the fourth book of Kings.

37:25. I have digged, and drunk water, and have dried up with the sole
of my foot, all the rivers shut up in banks.

37:26. Hast thou not heard what I have done to him of old? from the days
of old I have formed it: and now I have brought it to effect: and it
hath come to pass that hills fighting together, and fenced cities should
be destroyed.

37:27. The inhabitants of them were weak of hand, they trembled, and
were confounded: they became like the grass of the field, and the herb
of the pasture, and like the grass of the housetops, which withered
before it was ripe.

37:28. I know thy dwelling, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and
thy rage against me.

37:29. When thou wast mad against me, thy pride came up to my ears:
therefore I will put a ring in thy nose, and a bit between thy lips, and
I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.

37:30. But to thee this shall be a sign: Eat this year the things that
spring of themselves, and in the second year eat fruits: but in the
third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.

37:31. And that which shall be saved of the house of Juda, and which is
left, shall take root downward, and shall bear fruit upward:

37:32. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and salvation from
mount Sion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.

37:33. Wherefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of the
Assyrians: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it,
nor come before it with shield, nor cast a trench about it.

37:34. By the way that he came, he shall return, and into this city he
shall not come, saith the Lord.

37:35. And I will protect this city, and will save it for my own sake,
and for the sake of David my servant.

37:36. And the angel of the Lord went out and slew in the camp of the
Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And they arose in the
morning, and behold they were all dead corpses.

37:37. And Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians went out and departed,
and returned, and dwelt in Ninive.

37:38. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the temple of
Nesroch his god, that Adramelech and Sarasar his sons slew him with the
sword: and they fled into the land of Ararat, and Asarhaddon his son
reigned in his stead.

Isaias Chapter 38

Ezechias being advertised that he shall die, obtains by prayer a
prolongation of his life: in confirmation of which the sun goes back.
The canticle of Ezechias.

38:1. In those days Ezechias was sick even to death, and Isaias the son
of Amos the prophet cane unto him, and said to him: Thus saith the Lord:
Take order with thy house, for thou shalt die, and not live.

38:2. And Ezechias turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the
Lord,

38:3. And said: I beseech thee, O Lord, remember how I have walked
before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which
is good in thy sight. And Ezechias wept with great weeping.

38:4. And the word of the Lord came to Isaias, saying:

38:5. Go and say to Ezechias: Thus saith the Lord the God of David thy
father: I have heard thy prayer, and I have seen thy tears: behold I
will add to thy days fifteen years:

38:6. And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king
of the Assyrians, and I will protect it.

38:7. And this shall be a sign to thee from the Lord, that the Lord will
do this word which he hath spoken:

38:8. Behold I will bring again the shadow of the lines, by which it is
now gone down in the sun dial of Achaz with the sun, ten lines backward.
And the sun returned ten lines by the degrees by which it was gone down.

38:9. The writing of Ezechias king of Juda, when he had been sick, and
was recovered of his sickness.

38:10. I said: In the midst of my days I shall go to the gates of hell:
I sought for the residue of my years.

Hell... Sheol, or Hades, the region of the dead.

38:11. I said: I shall not see the Lord God in the land of the living. I
shall behold man no more, nor the inhabitant of rest.

38:12. My generation is at an end, and it is rolled away from me, as a
shepherd's tent. My life is cut off, as by a weaver: whilst I was yet
but beginning, he cut me off: from morning even to night thou wilt make
an end of me.

38:13. I hoped till morning, as a lion so hath he broken all my bones:
from morning even to night thou wilt make an end of me.

38:14. I will cry like a young swallow, I will meditate like a dove: my
eyes are weakened looking upward: Lord, I suffer violence, answer thou
for me.

38:15. What shall I say, or what shall he answer for me, whereas he
himself hath done it? I will recount to thee all my years in the
bitterness of my soul.

38:16. O Lord, if man's life be such, and the life of my spirit be in
such things as these, thou shalt correct me, and make me to live.

38:17. Behold in peace is my bitterness most bitter: but thou hast
delivered my soul that it should not perish, thou hast cast all my sins
behind thy back.

38:18. For hell shall not confess to thee, neither shall death praise
thee: nor shall they that go down into the pit, look for thy truth.

38:19. The living, the living, he shall give praise to thee, as I do
this day: the father shall make the truth known to the children.

38:20. O Lord, save me, and we will sing our psalms all the days of our
life in the house of the Lord.

38:21. Now Isaias had ordered that they should take a lump of figs, and
lay it as a plaster upon the wound, and that he should be healed.

38:22. And Ezechias had said: What shall be the sign that I shall go up
to the house of the Lord?

Isaias Chapter 39

Ezechias shews all his treasures to the ambassadors of Babylon: upon
which Isaias foretells the Babylonish captivity.

39:1. At that time Merodach Baladan, the son of Baladan king of Babylon,
sent letters and presents to Ezechias: for he had heard that he had been
sick and was recovered.

39:2. And Ezechias rejoiced at their coming, and he shewed them the
storehouses of his aromatical spices, and of the silver, and of the
gold, and of the sweet odours, and of the precious ointment, and all the
storehouses of his furniture, and all things that were found in his
treasures. There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion that
Ezechias shewed them not.

39:3. Then Isaias the prophet came to king Ezechias, and said to him:
What said these men, and from whence came they to thee? And Ezechias
said: From a far country they came to me, from Babylon.

39:4. And he said: What saw they in thy house? And Ezechias said: All
things that are in my house have they seen, there was not any thing
which I have not shewn them in my treasures.

39:5. And Isaias said to Ezechias: Hear the word of the Lord of hosts.

39:6. Behold the days shall come that all that is in thy house, and that
thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried away
into Babylon: there shall not any thing be left, saith the Lord.

39:7. And of thy children, that shall issue from thee, whom thou shalt
beget, they shall take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of
the king of Babylon.

39:8. And Ezechias said to Isaias: The word of the Lord, which he hath
spoken, is good. And he said: Only let peace and truth be in my days.

Isaias Chapter 40

The prophet comforts the people with the promise of the coming of Christ
to forgive their sins. God's almighty power and majesty.

40:1. Be comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God.

40:2. Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her: for her evil
is come to an end, her iniquity is forgiven: she hath received of the
hand of the Lord double for all her sins.

40:3. The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the
Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God.

40:4. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall
be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways
plain.

40:5. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh
together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.

40:6. The voice of one, saying: Cry. And I said: What shall I cry?  All
flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field.

40:7. The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen, because the
spirit of the Lord hath blown upon it. Indeed the people is grass:

40:8. The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but the word of
our Lord endureth for ever.

40:9. Get thee up upon a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings
to Sion: lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good
tidings to Jerusalem: lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Juda:
Behold your God:

40:10. Behold the Lord God shall come with strength, and his arm shall
rule: Behold his reward is with him and his work is before him.

40:11. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather together
the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and he
himself shall carry them that are with young.

40:12. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and
weighed the heavens with his palm? who hath poised with three fingers
the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the
hills in a balance?

40:13. Who hath forwarded the spirit of the Lord? or who hath been his
counsellor, and hath taught him?

40:14. With whom hath he consulted, and who hath instructed him, and
taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and shewed him
the way of understanding?

40:15. Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as
the smallest grain of a balance: behold the islands are as a little
dust.

40:16. And Libanus shall not be enough to burn, nor the beasts thereof
sufficient for a burnt offering.

40:17. All nations are before him as if they had no being at all, and
are counted to him as nothing, and vanity.

40:18. To whom then have you likened God? or what image will you make
for him?

40:19. Hath the workman cast a graven statue? or hath the goldsmith
formed it with gold, or the silversmith with plates of silver?

40:20. He hath chosen strong wood, and that will not rot: the skilful
workman seeketh how he may set up an idol that may not be moved.

40:21. Do you not know? hath it not been heard? hath it not been told
you from the beginning? have you not understood the foundations of the
earth?

40:22. It is he that sitteth upon the globe of the earth, and the
inhabitants thereof are as locusts: he that stretcheth out the heavens
as nothing, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.

40:23. He that bringeth the searchers of secrets to nothing, that hath
made the judges of the earth as vanity.

40:24. And surely their stock was neither planted, nor sown, nor rooted
in the earth: suddenly he hath blown upon them, and they are withered,
and a whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.

40:25. And to whom have ye likened me, or made me equal, saith the Holy
One?

40:26. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these things:
who bringeth out their host by number, and calleth them all by their
names: by the greatness of his might, and strength, and power, not one
of them was missing.

40:27. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel: My way is hid
from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?

40:28. Knowest thou not, or hast thou not heard? the Lord is the
everlasting God, who hath created the ends of the earth: he shall not
faint, nor labour, neither is there any searching out of his wisdom.

40:29. It is he that giveth strength to the weary, and increaseth force
and might to them that are not.

40:30. You shall faint, and labour, and young men shall fall by
infirmity.

40:31. But they that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they
shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall
walk and not faint.

Isaias Chapter 41

The reign of the just one: the vanity of idols.

41:1. Let the islands keep silence before me, and the nations take new
strength: let them come near, and then speak, let us come near to
judgment together.

41:2. Who hath raised up the just one from the east, hath called him to
follow him? he shall give the nations in his sight, and he shall rule
over kings: he shall give them as the dust to his sword, as stubble
driven by the wind, to his bow.

41:3. He shall pursue them, he shall pass in peace, no path shall appear
after his feet.

41:4. Who hath wrought and done these things, calling the generations
from the beginning? I the Lord, I am the first and the last.

41:5. The islands saw it, and feared, the ends of the earth were
astonished, they drew near, and came.

41:6. Every one shall help his neighbour, and shall say to his brother:
Be of good courage.

41:7. The coppersmith striking with the hammer encouraged him that
forged at that time, saying: It is ready for soldering: and he
strengthened it with nails, that it should not be moved.

41:8. But thou Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the
seed of Abraham my friend:

41:9. In whom I have taken thee from the ends of the earth, and from the
remote parts thereof have called thee, and said to thee: Thou art my
servant, I have chosen thee, and have not cast thee away.

41:10. Fear not, for I am with thee: turn not aside, for I am thy God: I
have strengthened thee, and have helped thee, and the right hand of my
just one hath upheld thee.

41:11. Behold all that fight against thee shall be confounded and
ashamed, they shall be as nothing, and the men shall perish that strive
against thee.

41:12. Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find the men that resist
thee: they shall be as nothing: and as a thing consumed the men that war
against thee.

41:13. For I am the Lord thy God, who take thee by the hand, and say to
thee: Fear not, I have helped thee.

41:14. Fear not, thou worm of Jacob, you that are dead of Israel: I have
helped thee, saith the Lord: and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel.

41:15. I have made thee as a new thrashing wain, with teeth like a saw:
thou shalt thrash the mountains, and break them in pieces: and shalt
make the hills as chaff.

41:16. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the
whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, in the
Holy One of Israel thou shalt be joyful.

41:17. The needy and the poor seek for waters, and there are none: their
tongue hath been dry with thirst. I the Lord will hear them, I the God
of Israel will not forsake them.

41:18. I will open rivers in the high hills, and fountains in the midst
of the plains: I will turn the desert into pools of waters, and the
impassable land into streams of waters.

41:19. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, and the thorn, and the
myrtle, and the olive tree: I will set in the desert the fir tree, the
elm, and the box tree together:

The thorn... In Hebrew, the shitta, or setim, a tree resembling the
white thorn.

41:20. That they may see and know, and consider, and understand together
that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel
hath created it.

41:21. Bring your cause near, saith the Lord: bring hither, if you have
any thing to allege, saith the King of Jacob.

41:22. Let them come, and tell us all things that are to come: tell us
the former things what they were: and we will set our heart upon them
and shall know the latter end of them, and tell us the things that are
to come.

41:23. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know
that ye are gods. Do ye also good or evil, if you can: and let us speak,
and see together.

41:24. Behold, you are of nothing, and your work of that which hath no
being: he that hath chosen you is an abomination.

41:25. I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come from the
rising of the sun: he shall call upon my name, and he shall make princes
to be as dirt, and as the potter treading clay.

41:26. Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know: and from
time of old, that we may say: Thou art just. There is none that sheweth,
nor that foretelleth, nor that heareth your words.

41:27. The first shall say to Sion: Behold they are here, and to
Jerusalem I will give an evangelist.

41:28. And I saw, and there was no one even among them to consult, or
who, when I asked, could answer a word.

41:29. Behold they are all in the wrong, and their works are vain: their
idols are wind and vanity.

Isaias Chapter 42

The office of Christ. The preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles.  The
blindness and reprobation of the Jews.

42:1. Behold my servant, I will uphold him: my elect, my soul delighteth
in him: I have given my spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment
to the Gentiles.

My servant... Christ, who according to his humanity, is the servant of
God.

42:2. He shall not cry, nor have respect to person, neither shall his
voice be heard abroad.

42:3. The bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not
quench, he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.

42:4. He shall not be sad, nor troublesome, till he set judgment in the
earth, and the islands shall wait for his law.

42:5. Thus saith the Lord God that created the heavens, and stretched
them out: that established the earth, and the things that spring out of
it: that giveth breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them that
tread thereon.

42:6. I the Lord have called thee in justice, and taken thee by the
hand, and preserved thee. And I have given thee for a covenant of the
people, for a light of the Gentiles:

42:7. That thou mightest open the eyes of the blind, and bring forth the
prisoner out of prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison
house.

42:8. I the Lord, this is my name: I will not give my glory to another,
nor my praise to graven things.

42:9. The things that were first, behold they are come: and new things
do I declare: before they spring forth, I will make you hear them.

42:10. Sing ye to the Lord a new song, his praise is from the ends of
the earth: you that go down to the sea, and all that are therein: ye
islands, and ye inhabitants of them.

42:11. Let the desert and the cities thereof be exalted: Cedar shall
dwell in houses: ye inhabitants of Petra, give praise, they shall cry
from the top of the mountains.

Petra... A city that gives name to Arabia Petraea.

42:12. They shall give glory to the Lord, and shall declare his praise
in the islands.

42:13. The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, as a man of war shall he
stir up zeal: he shall shout and cry: he shall prevail against his
enemies.

42:14. I have always held my peace, I have kept silence, I have been
patient, I will speak now as a woman in labour: I will destroy, and
swallow up at once.

42:15. I will lay waste the mountains and hills, and will make all their
grass to wither: and I will turn rivers into islands, and will dry up
the standing pools.

42:16. And I will lead the blind into the way which they know not: and
in the paths which they were ignorant of I will make them walk: I will
make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight: these
things have I done to them, and have not forsaken them.

42:17. They are turned back: let them be greatly confounded, that trust
in a graven thing, that say to a molten thing: You are our god.

42:18. Hear, ye deaf, and, ye blind, behold that you may see.

42:19. Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, but he to whom I have sent
my messengers? Who is blind, but he that is sold? or who is blind, but
the servant of the Lord?

42:20.  Thou that seest many things, wilt thou not observe them?  thou
that hast ears open, wilt thou not hear?

42:21. And the Lord was willing to sanctify him, and to magnify the law,
and exalt it.

42:22. But this is a people that is robbed and wasted: they are all the
snare of young men, and they are hid in the houses of prisons: they are
made a prey, and there is none to deliver them: a spoil, and there is
none that saith: Restore.

42:23. Who is there among you that will give ear to this, that will
attend and hearken for times to come?

42:24. Who hath given Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to robbers?  hath
not the Lord himself, against whom we have sinned? And they would not
walk in his ways, and they have not hearkened to his law.

42:25. And he hath poured out upon him the indignation of his fury, and
a strong battle, and hath burnt him round about, and he knew not: and
set him on fire, and he understood not.

Isaias Chapter 43

God comforts his church, promising to protect her for ever: he
expostulates with the Jews for their ingratitude.

43:1. And now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and formed
thee, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, and called thee by
thy name: thou art mine.

43:2. When thou shalt pass through the waters, I will be with thee, and
the rivers shall not cover thee: when thou shalt walk in the fire, thou
shalt not be burnt, and the flames shall not burn in thee:

43:3. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I
have given Egypt for thy atonement, Ethiopia and Saba for thee.

43:4. Since thou becamest honourable in my eyes, thou art glorious: I
have loved thee, and I will give men for thee, and people for thy life.

43:5. Fear not, for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east,
and gather thee from the west.

43:6. I will say to the north: Give up: and to the south: Keep not back:
bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.

43:7. And every one that calleth upon my name, I have created him for my
glory. I have formed him, and made him.

43:8. Bring forth the people that are blind, and have eyes: that are
deaf, and have ears.

43:9. All the nations are assembled together, and the tribes are
gathered: who among you can declare this, and shall make us hear the
former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, let them be
justified, and hear, and say: It is truth.

43:10. You are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have
chosen: that you may know, and believe me, and understand that I myself
am. Before me there was no God formed, and after me there shall be none.

43:11. I am, I am the Lord: and there is no saviour besides me.

43:12. I have declared, and have saved. I have made it heard, and there
was no strange one among you. You are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and
I am God.

43:13. And from the beginning I am the same, and there is none that can
deliver out of my hind: I will work, and who shall turn it away?

43:14. Thus saith the Lord your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For
your sake I sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their bars, and
the Chaldeans glorying in their ships.

43:15. I am the Lord your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.

43:16. Thus saith the Lord, who made a way in the sea, and a path in the
mighty waters.

43:17. Who brought forth the chariot and the horse, the army and the
strong: they lay down to sleep together, and they shall not rise again:
they are broken as flax, and are extinct.

43:18. Remember not former things, and look not on things of old.

43:19. Behold I do new things, and now they shall spring forth, verily
you shall know them: I will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in
the desert.

43:20. The beast of the field shall glorify me, the dragons and the
ostriches: because I have given waters in the wilderness, rivers in the
desert, to give drink to my people, to my chosen.

43:21.  This people have I formed for myself, they shall shew forth my
praise.

43:22. But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob, neither hast thou
laboured about me, O Israel.

43:23. Thou hast not offered me the ram of thy holocaust, nor hast thou
glorified me with thy victims: I have not caused thee to serve with
oblations, nor wearied thee with incense.

43:24. Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou
filled me with the fat of thy victims. But thou hast made me to serve
with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thy iniquities.

43:25. I am, I am he that blot out thy iniquities for my own sake, and I
will not remember thy sins.

43:26. Put me in remembrance, and let us plead together: tell if thou
hast any thing to justify thyself.

43:27. Thy first father sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed
against me.

43:28. And I have profaned the holy princes, I have given Jacob to
slaughter, and Israel to reproach.

Isaias Chapter 44

God's favour to his church. The folly of idolatry. The people shall be
delivered from captivity.

44:1. And now hear, O Jacob, my servant, and Israel whom I have chosen.

44:2. Thus saith the Lord that made and formed thee, thy helper from the
womb: Fear not, O my servant Jacob, and thou most righteous whom I have
chosen.

44:3. For I will pour out waters upon the thirsty ground, and streams
upon the dry land: I will pour out my spirit upon thy seed, and my
blessing upon thy stock.

44:4. And they shall spring up among the herbs, as willows beside the
running waters.

44:5. One shall say: I am the Lord's, and another shall call himself by
the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand, To the
Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel.

44:6. Thus saith the Lord the king of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord
of hosts: I am the first, and I am the last, and besides me there is no
God.

44:7. Who is like to me? let him call and declare: and let him set
before me the order, since I appointed the ancient people: and the
things to come, and that shall be hereafter, let them shew unto them.

44:8. Fear ye not, neither be ye troubled from that time I have made
thee to hear, and have declared: you are my witnesses. Is there a God
besides me, a maker, whom I have not known?

44:9. The makers of idols are all of them nothing, and their best
beloved things shall not profit them. They are their witnesses, that
they do not see, nor understand, that they may be ashamed.

44:10. Who hath formed a god, and made a graven thing that is profitable
for nothing?

44:11. Behold, all the partakers thereof shall be confounded: for the
makers are men: they shall all assemble together, they shall stand and
fear, and shall be confounded together.

44:12. The smith hath wrought with his file, with coals, and with
hammers he hath formed it, and hath wrought with the strength of his
arm: he shall hunger and faint, he shall drink no water, and shall be
weary.

44:13. The carpenter hath stretched out his rule, he hath formed it with
a plane: he hath made it with corners, and hath fashioned it round with
the compass: and he hath made the image of a man as it were a beautiful
man dwelling in a house.

44:14. He hath cut down cedars, taken the holm, and the oak that stood
among the trees of the forest: he hath planted the pine tree, which the
rain hath nourished.

44:15. And it hath served men for fuel: he took thereof, and warmed
himself: and he kindled it, and baked bread: but of the rest he made a
god, and adored it: he made a graven thing, and bowed down before it.

44:16. Part of it he burnt with fire, and with part of it he dressed his
meat: he boiled pottage, and was filled, and was warmed, and said: Aha,
I am warm, I have seen the fire.

44:17. But the residue thereof he made a god, and a graven thing for
himself: he boweth down before it, and adoreth it, and prayeth unto it,
saying: Deliver me, for thou art my God.

44:18. They have not known, nor understood: for their eyes are covered
that they may not see, and that they may not understand with their
heart.

44:19. They do not consider in their mind, nor know, nor have the
thought to say: I have burnt part of it in the fire, and I have baked
bread upon the coals thereof: I have broiled flesh and have eaten, and
of the residue thereof shall I make an idol? shall I fall down before
the stock of a tree?

44:20. Part thereof is ashes: his foolish heart adoreth it, and he will
not save his soul, nor say: Perhaps there is a lie in my right hand.

44:21. Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for thou art my
servant. I have formed thee, thou art my servant, O Israel, forget me
not.

44:22. I have blotted out thy iniquities as a cloud, and thy sins as a
mist: return to me, for I have redeemed thee.

44:23. Give praise, O ye heavens, for the Lord hath shewn mercy: shout
with joy, ye ends of the earth: ye mountains, resound with praise, thou,
O forest, and every tree therein: for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and
Israel shall be glorified.

44:24. Thus saith the Lord thy redeemer, and thy maker, from the womb: I
am the Lord, that make all things, that alone stretch out the heavens,
that established the earth, and there is none with me.

44:25. That make void the tokens of diviners, and make the soothsayers
mad. That turn the wise backward, and that make their knowledge foolish.

44:26. That raise up the word of my servant and perform the counsel of
my messengers, who say to Jerusalem: Thou shalt be inhabited: and to the
cities of Juda: You shall be built, and I will raise up the wastes
thereof.

44:27. Who say to the deep: Be thou desolate, and I will dry up thy
rivers.

44:28. Who say to Cyrus: Thou art my shepherd, and thou shalt perform
all my pleasure. Who say to Jerusalem: Thou shalt be built: and to the
temple: Thy foundations shall be laid.

Isaias Chapter 45

A prophecy of Cyrus, as a figure of Christ, the great deliverer of God's
people.

45:1. Thus saith the Lord to my anointed Cyrus, whose right hand I have
taken hold of, to subdue nations before his face, and to turn the backs
of kings, and to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be
shut.

45:2. I will go before thee, and will humble the great ones of the
earth: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and will burst the
bars of iron.

45:3. And I will give thee hidden treasures, and the concealed riches of
secret places: that thou mayest know that I am the Lord who call thee by
thy name, the God of Israel.

45:4. For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my elect, I have even
called thee by thy name: I have made a likeness of thee, and thou hast
not known me.

45:5. I am the Lord, and there is none else: there is no God besides me:
I girded thee, and thou hast not known me:

45:6. That they may know who are from the rising of the sun, and they
who are from the west, that there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and
there is none else:

45:7. I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create
evil: I the Lord that do all these things.

Create evil, etc... The evils of afflictions and punishments, but not
the evil of sin.

45:8. Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the
just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a saviour: and let justice
spring up together: I the Lord have created him.

45:9. Woe to him that gainsayeth his maker, a sherd of the earthen pots:
shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it: What art thou making, and
thy work is without hands?

45:10. Woe to him that saith to his father: Why begettest thou? and to
the woman: Why dost thou bring forth?

45:11. Thus saith the Lord the Holy One of Israel, his maker: Ask me of
things to come, concerning my children, and concerning the work of my
hands give ye charge to me.

45:12. I made the earth: and I created man upon it: my hand stretched
forth the heavens, and I have commanded all their host.

45:13. I have raised him up to justice, and I will direct all his ways:
he shall build my city, and let go my captives, not for ransom, nor for
presents, saith the Lord the God of hosts.

45:14. Thus saith the Lord: The labour of Egypt, and the merchandise of
Ethiopia, and of Sabaim, men of stature shall come over to thee, and
shall be thine: they shall walk after thee, they shall go bound with
manacles: and they shall worship thee, and shall make supplication to
thee: only in thee is God, and there is no God besides thee.

45:15. Verily thou art a hidden God, the God of Israel the saviour.

45:16. They are all confounded and ashamed: the forgers of errors are
gone together into confusion.

45:17. Israel is saved in the Lord with an eternal salvation: you shall
not be confounded, and you shall not be ashamed for ever and ever.

45:18. For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself
that formed the earth, and made it, the very maker thereof: he did not
create it in vain: he formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord, and
there is no other.

45:19. I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I have
not said to the seed of Jacob: Seek me in vain. I am the Lord that speak
justice, that declare right things.

45:20. Assemble yourselves, and come, and draw near together, ye that
are saved of the Gentiles: they have no knowledge that set up the wood
of their graven work, and pray to a god that cannot save.

45:21. Tell ye, and come, and consult together: who hath declared this
from the beginning, who hath foretold this from that time?  Have not I
the Lord, and there is no God else besides me? A just God and a saviour,
there is none besides me.

45:22. Be converted to me, and you shall be saved, all ye ends of the
earth: for I am God, and there is no other.

45:23. I have sworn by myself, the word of justice shall go out of my
mouth, and shall not return:

45:24. For every knee shall be bowed to me, and every tongue shall
swear.

45:25. Therefore shall he say: In the Lord are my justices and empire:
they shall come to him, and all that resist him shall be confounded.

45:26. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and
praised.

Isaias Chapter 46

The idols of Babylon shall be destroyed. Salvation is promised through
Christ.

46:1. Bel is broken, Nebo is destroyed: their idols are put upon beasts
and cattle, your burdens of heavy weight even unto weariness.

46:2. They are consumed, and are broken together: they could not save
him that carried them, and they themselves shall go into captivity.

46:3. Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of
Israel who are carried by my bowels, are borne up by my womb.

46:4. Even to your old age I am the same, and to your grey hairs I will
carry you: I have made you, and I will bear: I will carry and will save.

46:5. To whom have you likened me, and made me equal, and compared me,
and made me like?

46:6. You that contribute gold out of the bag, and weigh out silver in
the scales: and hire a goldsmith to make a god: and they fall down and
worship.

46:7. They bear him on their shoulders and carry him, and set him in his
place, and he shall stand, and shall not stir out of his place. Yea,
when they shall cry also unto him, he shall not hear: he shall not save
them from tribulation.

46:8. Remember this, and be ashamed: return, ye transgressors, to the
heart.

46:9. Remember the former age, for I am God, and there is no God beside,
neither is there the like to me:

46:10. Who shew from the beginning the things that shall be at last, and
from ancient times the things that as yet are not done, saying: My
counsel shall stand, and all my will shall be done:

46:11. Who call a bird from the east, and from a far country the man of
my own will, and I have spoken, and will bring it to pass: I have
created, and I will do it. Hear me, O ye hardhearted, who are far from
justice.

46:12. I have brought my justice near, it shall not be afar off: and my
salvation shall not tarry. I will give salvation in Sion, and my glory
in Israel.

Isaias Chapter 47

God's judgment upon Babylon.

47:1. Come down, sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on
the ground: there is no throne for the daughter of the Chaldeans, for
thou shalt no more be called delicate and tender.

47:2. Take a millstone and grind meal: uncover thy shame, strip thy
shoulder, make bare thy legs, pass over the rivers.

47:3. Thy nakedness shall be discovered, and thy shame shall be seen: I
will take vengeance, and no man shall resist me.

47:4. Our redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of
Israel.

47:5. Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the
Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called the lady of kingdoms.

47:6. I was angry with my people, I have polluted my inheritance, and
have given them into thy hand: thou hast shewn no mercy to them: upon
the ancient thou hast laid thy yoke exceeding heavy.

47:7. And thou hast said: I shall be a lady for ever: thou hast not laid
these things to thy heart, neither hast thou remembered thy latter end.

47:8. And now hear these things, thou that art delicate, and dwellest
confidently, that sayest in thy heart: I am, and there is none else
besides me: I shall not sit as a widow, and I shall not know barrenness.

47:9. These two things shall come upon thee suddenly in one day,
barrenness and widowhood. All things are come upon thee, because of the
multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great hardness of thy
enchanters.

47:10. And thou hast trusted in thy wickedness, and hast said: There is
none that seeth me. Thy wisdom, and, thy knowledge, this hath deceived
thee. And thou hast said in thy heart: I am, and besides me there is no
other.

47:11. Evil shall come upon thee, and thou shalt not know the rising
thereof: and calamity shall fall violently upon thee, which thou canst
not keep off: misery shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not
know.

47:12. Stand now with thy enchanters, and with the multitude of thy
sorceries, in which thou hast laboured from thy youth, if so be it may
profit thee any thing, or if thou mayst become stronger.

47:13. Thou hast failed in the multitude of thy counsels: let now the
astrologers stand and save thee, they that gazed at the stars, and
counted the months, that from them they might tell the things that shall
come to thee.

47:14. Behold they are as stubble, fire hath burnt them, they shall not
deliver themselves from the power of the flames: there are no coals
wherewith they may be warmed, nor fire, that they may sit thereat.

47:15. Such are all the things become to thee, in which thou hast
laboured: thy merchants from thy youth, every one hath erred in his own
way, there is none that can save thee.

Isaias Chapter 48

He reproaches the Jews for their obstinacy: he will deliver them out of
their captivity, for his own name's sake.

48:1. Hear ye these things, O house of Jacob, you that are called by the
name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Juda, you who
swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel,
but not in truth, nor in justice.

48:2. For they are called of the holy city, and are established upon the
God of Israel: the Lord of hosts is his name.

48:3. The former things of old, I have declared, and they went forth out
of my mouth, and I have made them to be heard: I did them suddenly and
they came to pass.

48:4. For I knew that thou art stubborn, and thy neck is as an iron
sinew, and thy forehead as brass.

48:5. I foretold thee of old, before they came to pass I told thee, lest
thou shouldst say: My idols have done these things, and my graven and
molten things have commanded them.

48:6. See now all the things which thou hast heard: but have you
declared them? I have shewn thee new things from that time, and things
are kept which thou knowest not:

48:7. They are created now, and not of old: and before the day, when
thou heardest them not, lest thou shouldst say: Behold I knew them.

48:8. Thou hast neither heard, nor known, neither was thy ear opened of
old. For I know that transgressing thou wilt transgress, and I have
called thee a transgressor from the womb.

48:9. For my name's sake I will remove my wrath far off: and for my
praise I will bridle thee, lest thou shouldst perish.

48:10. Behold I have refined thee, but not as silver, I have chosen thee
in the furnace of poverty.

48:11. For my own sake, for my own sake will I do it, that I may not be
blasphemed: and I will not give my glory to another.

48:12. Hearken to me, O Jacob, and thou Israel whom I call: I am he, I
am the first, and I am the last.

48:13. My hand also hath founded the earth, and my right hand hath
measured the heavens: I shall call them, and they shall stand together.

48:14. Assemble yourselves together, all you, and hear: who among them
hath declared these things? the Lord hath loved him, he will do his
pleasure in Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans.

48:15. I, even I have spoken and called him: I have brought him, and his
way is made prosperous.

48:16. Come ye near unto me, and hear this: I have not spoken in secret
from the beginning: from the time before it was done, I was there, and
now the Lord God hath sent me, and his spirit.

48:17. Thus saith the Lord thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am
the Lord thy God that teach thee profitable things, that govern thee in
the way that thou walkest.

48:18. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments: thy peace had
been as a river, and thy justice as the waves of the sea,

48:19. And thy seed had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy
bowels like the gravel thereof: his name should not have perished, nor
have been destroyed from before my face.

48:20. Come forth out of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, declare it
with the voice of joy: make this to be heard, and speak it out even to
the ends of the earth. Say: The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob.

48:21. They thirsted not in the desert, when he led them out: he brought
forth water out of the rock for them, and he clove the rock, and the
waters gushed out.

48:22. There is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord.

Isaias Chapter 49

Christ shall bring the Gentiles to salvation. God's love to his church
is perpetual.

49:1. Give ear, ye islands, and hearken, ye people from afar. The Lord
hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother he hath been
mindful of my name.

49:2. And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword: in the shadow of his
hand he hath protected me, and hath made me as a chosen arrow: in his
quiver he hath hidden me.

49:3. And he said to me: Thou art my servant Israel, for in thee will I
glory.

49:4. And I said: I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength
without cause and in vain: therefore my judgment is with the Lord, and
my work with my God.

49:5. And now saith the Lord, that formed me from the womb to be his
servant, that I may bring back Jacob unto him, and Israel will not be
gathered together: and I am glorified in the eyes of the Lord, and my
God is made my strength.

49:6. And he said: It is a small thing that thou shouldst be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to convert the dregs of Israel.
Behold, I have given thee to be the light of the Gentiles, that thou
mayst be my salvation even to the farthest part of the earth.

49:7. Thus saith the Lord the redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, to the
soul that is despised, to the nation that is abhorred, to the servant of
rulers: Kings shall see, and princes shall rise up, and adore for the
Lord's sake, because he is faithful, and for the Holy One of Israel, who
hath chosen thee.

49:8. Thus saith the Lord: In an acceptable time I have heard thee, and
in the day of salvation I have helped thee: and I have preserved thee,
and given thee to be a covenant of the people, that thou mightest raise
up the earth, and possess the inheritances that were destroyed:

49:9. That thou mightest say to them that are bound: Come forth: and to
them that are in darkness: Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways,
and their pastures shall be in every plain.

49:10. They shall not hunger, nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor the
sun strike them: for he that is merciful to them, shall be their
shepherd, and at the fountains of waters he shall give them drink.

49:11. And I will make all my mountains a way, and my paths shall be
exalted.

49:12. Behold these shall come from afar, and behold these from the
north and from the sea, and these from the south country.

49:13. Give praise, O ye heavens, and rejoice, O earth, ye mountains,
give praise with jubilation: because the Lord hath comforted his people,
and will have mercy on his poor ones.

49:14. And Sion said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and the Lord hath
forgotten me.

49:15. Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son
of her womb? and if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee.

49:16. Behold, I have graven thee in my hands: thy walls are always
before my eyes.

49:17. Thy builders are come: they that destroy thee and make thee waste
shall go out of thee.

49:18.  Lift up thy eyes round about, and see all these are gathered
together, they are come to thee: I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt be
clothed with all these as with an ornament, and as a bride thou shalt
put them about thee.

49:19. For thy deserts, and thy desolate places, and the land of thy
destruction shall now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and
they that swallowed thee up shall be chased far away.

49:20. The children of thy barrenness shall still say in thy ears: The
place is too strait for me, make me room to dwell in.

49:21. And thou shalt say in thy heart: Who hath begotten these?  I was
barren and brought not forth, led away, and captive: and who hath
brought up these? I was destitute and alone: and these, where were they?

49:22. Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will lift up my hand to the
Gentiles, and will set up my standard to the people. And they shall
bring thy sons in their arms, and carry thy daughters upon their
shoulders.

49:23. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nurses:
they shall worship thee with their face toward the earth, and they shall
lick up the dust of thy feet. And thou shalt know that I am the Lord,
for they shall not be confounded that wait for him.

49:24. Shall the prey be taken from the strong? or can that which was
taken by the mighty, be delivered?

49:25. For thus saith the Lord: Yea verily, even the captivity shall be
taken away from the strong: and that which was taken by the mighty,
shall be delivered. But I will judge those that have judged thee, and
thy children I will save.

49:26. And I will feed thy enemies with their own flesh: and they shall
be made drunk with their own blood, as with new wine: and all flesh
shall know, that I am the Lord that save thee, and thy Redeemer the
Mighty One of Jacob.

Isaias Chapter 50

The synagogue shall be divorced for her iniquities. Christ for her sake
will endure ignominious afflictions.

50:1. Thus saith the Lord: What is this bill of the divorce of your
mother, with which I have put her away? or who is my creditor, to whom I
sold you: behold you are sold for your iniquities, and for your wicked
deeds have I put your mother away.

50:2. Because I came, and there was not a man: I called, and there was
none that would hear. Is my hand shortened and become little, that I
cannot redeem? or is there no strength in me to deliver? Behold at my
rebuke I will make the sea a desert, I will turn the rivers into dry
land: the fishes shall rot for want of water, and shall die for thirst.

50:3. I will clothe the heavens with darkness, and will make sackcloth
their covering.

50:4. The Lord hath given me a learned tongue, that I should know how to
uphold by word him that is weary: he wakeneth in the morning, in the
morning he wakeneth my ear, that I may hear him as a master.

50:5. The Lord God hath opened my ear, and I do not resist: I have not
gone back.

50:6. I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that
plucked them: I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me,
and spit upon me.

50:7. The Lord God is my helper, therefore am I not confounded:
therefore have I set my face as a most hard rock, and I know that I
shall not be confounded.

50:8. He is near that justifieth me, who will contend with me? let us
stand together, who is my adversary? let him come near to me.

50:9. Behold the Lord God is my helper: who is he that shall condemn me?
Lo, they shall all be destroyed as a garment, the moth shall eat them
up.

50:10. Who is there among you that feareth the Lord, that heareth the
voice of his servant, that hath walked in darkness, and hath no light?
let him hope in the name of the Lord, and lean upon his God.

50:11. Behold all you that kindle a fire, encompassed with flames, walk
in the light of your fire, and in the flames which you have kindled:
this is done to you by my hand, you shall sleep in sorrows.

Isaias Chapter 51

An exhortation to trust in Christ. He shall protect the children of his
church.

51:1. Give ear to me, you that follow that which is just, and you that
seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence you are hewn, and to the hole
of the pit from which you are dug out.

51:2. Look unto Abraham your father, and to Sara that bore you: for I
called him alone, and blessed him, and multiplied him.

51:3. The Lord therefore will comfort Sion, and will comfort all the
ruins thereof: and he will make her desert as a place of pleasure, and
her wilderness as the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be
found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of praise.

51:4. Hearken unto me, O my people, and give ear to me, O my tribes: for
a law shall go forth from me, and my judgment shall rest to be a light
of the nations.

51:5. My just one is near at hand, my saviour is gone forth, and my arms
shall judge the people: the islands shall look for me, and shall
patiently wait for my arm.

51:6. Lift up your eyes to heaven, and look down to the earth beneath:
for the heavens shall vanish like smoke, and the earth shall be worn
away like a garment, and the inhabitants thereof shall perish in like
manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my justice shall not
fail.

51:7. Hearken to me, you that know what is just, my people who have my
law in your heart: fear ye not the reproach of men, and be not afraid of
their blasphemies.

51:8. For the worm shall eat them up as a garment: and the moth shall
consume them as wool: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my justice
from generation to generation.

51:9. Arise, arise, put on strength, O thou arm of the Lord, arise as in
the days of old, in the ancient generations. Hast not thou struck the
proud one, and wounded the dragon?

51:10. Hast not thou dried up the sea, the water of the mighty deep, who
madest the depth of the sea a way, that the delivered might pass over?

51:11. And now they that are redeemed by the Lord, shall return, and
shall come into Sion singing praises, and joy everlasting shall be upon
their heads, they shall obtain joy and gladness, sorrow and mourning
shall flee away.

51:12. I myself will comfort you: who art thou, that thou shouldst be
afraid of a mortal man, and of the son of man, who shall wither away
like grass?

51:13. And thou hast forgotten the Lord thy maker, who stretched out the
heavens, and founded the earth: and thou hast been afraid continually
all the day at the presence of his fury who afflicted thee, and had
prepared himself to destroy thee: where is now the fury of the
oppressor?

51:14. He shall quickly come that is going to open unto you, and he
shall not kill unto utter destruction, neither shall his bread fail.

51:15. But I am the Lord thy God, who trouble the sea, and the waves
thereof swell: the Lord of hosts is my name.

51:16. I have put my words in thy mouth, and have protected thee in the
shadow of my hand, that thou mightest plant the heavens, and found the
earth: and mightest say to Sion: Thou art my people.

51:17. Arise, arise, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand
of the Lord the cup of his wrath; thou hast drunk even to the bottom of
the cup of dead sleep, and thou hast drunk even to the dregs.

51:18. There is none that can uphold her among all the children that she
hath brought forth: and there is none that taketh her by the hand among
all the children that she hath brought up.

51:19. There are two things that have happened to thee: who shall be
sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the
sword, who shall comfort thee?

51:20. Thy children are cast forth, they have slept at the head of all
the ways, and the wild ox that is snared: full of the indignation of the
Lord, of the rebuke of thy God.

51:21. Therefore hear this, thou poor little one, and thou that art
drunk but not with wine.

51:22. Thus saith thy Sovereign the Lord, and thy God, who will fight
for his people: Behold I have taken out of thy hand the cup of dead
sleep, the dregs of the cup of my indignation, thou shalt not drink it
again any more.

51:23. And I will put it in the hand of them that have oppressed thee,
and have said to thy soul: Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast
laid thy body as the ground, and as a way to them that went over.

Isaias Chapter 52

Under the figure of the deliverance from the Babylonish captivity, the
church is invited to rejoice for her redemption from sin.  Christ's
kingdom shall be exalted.

52:1. Arise, arise, put on thy strength, O Sion, put on the garments of
thy glory, O Jerusalem, the city of the Holy One: for henceforth the
uncircumcised, and unclean shall no more pass through thee.

52:2. Shake thyself from the dust, arise, sit up, O Jerusalem: loose the
bonds from off thy neck, O captive daughter of Sion.

52:3. For thus saith the Lord: You were sold gratis, and you shall be
redeemed, without money.

52:4. For thus saith the Lord God: My people went down into Egypt at the
beginning to sojourn there: and the Assyrian hath oppressed them without
any cause at all.

52:5. And now what have I here, saith the Lord: for my people is taken
away gratis. They that rule over them treat them unjustly, saith the
Lord, and my name is continually blasphemed all the day long.

52:6. Therefore my people shall know my name in that day: for I myself
that spoke, behold I am here.

52:7. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth
good tidings, and that preacheth peace: of him that sheweth forth good,
that preacheth salvation, that saith to Sion: Thy God shall reign!

52:8. The voice of thy watchmen: they have lifted up their voice, they
shall praise together: for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall
convert Sion.

52:9. Rejoice, and give praise together, O ye deserts of Jerusalem: for
the Lord hath comforted his people: he hath redeemed Jerusalem.

52:10. The Lord hath prepared his holy arm in the sight of all the
Gentiles: and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our
God.

52:11. Depart, depart, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing: go
out of the midst of her, be ye clean, you that carry the vessels of the
Lord.

52:12. For you shall not go out in a tumult, neither shall you make
haste by flight: for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel
will gather you together.

52:13. Behold my servant shall understand, he shall be exalted, and
extolled, and shall be exceeding high.

52:14. As many have been astonished at thee, so shall his visage be
inglorious among men, and his form among the sons of men.

52:15. He shall sprinkle many nations, kings shall shut their mouth at
him: for they to whom it was not told of him, have seen: and they that
heard not, have beheld.

Isaias Chapter 53

A prophecy of the passion of Christ.

53:1. Who a hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed?

53:2. And he shall grow up as a tender plant before him, and as a root
out of a thirsty ground: there is no beauty in him, nor comeliness: and
we have seen him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be
desirous of him:

53:3. Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and
acquainted with infirmity: and his look was as it were hidden and
despised, whereupon we esteemed him not.

53:4. Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and
we have thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and
afflicted.

53:5. But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our
sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we
are healed.

53:6. All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside
into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

53:7. He was offered because it was his own will, and he opened not his
mouth: he shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as
a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth.

53:8. He was taken away from distress, and from judgment: who shall
declare his generation? because he is cut off out of the land of the
living: for the wickedness of my people have I struck him.

53:9. And he shall give the ungodly for his burial, and the rich for his
death: because he hath done no iniquity, neither was there deceit in his
mouth.

53:10. And the Lord was pleased to bruise him in infirmity: if he shall
lay down his life for sin, he shall see a longlived seed, and the will
of the Lord shall be prosperous in his hand.

53:11. Because his soul hath laboured, he shall see and be filled: by
his knowledge shall this my just servant justify many, and he shall bear
their iniquities.

53:12. Therefore will I distribute to him very many, and he shall divide
the spoils of the strong, because he hath delivered his soul unto death,
and was reputed with the wicked: and he hath borne the sins of many, and
hath prayed for the transgressors.

Isaias Chapter 54

The Gentiles, who were barren before, shall multiply in the church of
Christ: from which God's mercy shall never depart.

54:1. Give praise, O thou barren, that bearest not: sing forth praise,
and make a joyful noise, thou that didst not travail with child: for
many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a
husband, saith the Lord.

54:2. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and stretch out the skins of thy
tabernacles, spare not: lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes.

54:3. For thou shalt pass on to the right hand, and to the left: and thy
seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and shall inhabit the desolate cities.

54:4. Fear not, for thou shalt not be confounded, nor blush: for thou
shalt not be put to shame, because thou shalt forget the shame of thy
youth, and shalt remember no more the reproach of thy widowhood.

54:5. For he that made thee shall rule over thee, the Lord of hosts is
his name: and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, shall be called the
God of all the earth.

54:6. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and mourning in
spirit, and as a wife cast off from her youth, said thy God.

54:7. For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies
will I gather thee.

54:8. In a moment of indignation have I hid my face a little while from
thee, but with everlasting kindness have I had mercy on thee, said the
Lord thy Redeemer.

54:9. This thing is to me as in the days of Noe, to whom I swore, that I
would no more bring in the waters of Noe upon the earth: so have I sworn
not to be angry with thee, and not to rebuke thee.

54:10. For the mountains shall be moved, and the hills shall tremble;
but my mercy shall not depart from thee, and the covenant of my peace
shall not be moved: said the Lord that hath mercy on thee.

54:11. O poor little one, tossed with tempest, without all comfort,
behold I will lay thy stones in order, and will lay thy foundations with
sapphires,

54:12. And I will make thy bulwarks of jasper: and thy gates of graven
stones, and all thy borders of desirable stones.

54:13. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord: and great shall be
the peace of thy children.

54:14. And thou shalt be founded in justice: depart far from oppression,
for thou shalt not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near
thee.

54:15. Behold, an inhabitant shall come, who was not with me, he that
was a stranger to thee before, shall be joined to thee.

54:16. Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the
fire, and bringeth forth an instrument for his work, and I have created
the killer to destroy.

54:17. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper: and every
tongue that resisteth thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn. This is the
inheritance of the servants of the Lord, and their justice with me,
saith the Lord.

Isaias Chapter 55

God promises abundance of spiritual graces to the faithful, that shall
believe in Christ out of all nations, and sincerely serve him.

55:1. All you that thirst, come to the waters: and you that have no
money make haste, buy, and eat: come ye, buy wine and milk without
money, and without any price.

55:2. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your
labour for that which doth not satisfy you? Hearken diligently to me,
and eat that which is good, and your soul shall be delighted in fatness.

55:3. Incline your ear and come to me: hear and your soul shall live,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the faithful mercies
of David.

55:4. Behold I have given him for a witness to the people, for a leader
and a master to the Gentiles.

55:5. Behold thou shalt call a nation, which thou knewest not: and the
nations that knew not thee shall run to thee, because of the Lord thy
God, and for the Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee.

55:6. Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found: call upon him, while he
is near.

55:7. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his thoughts,
and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to
our God: for he is bountiful to forgive.

55:8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways,
saith the Lord.

55:9. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways
exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts.

55:10. And as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return no
more thither, but soak the earth, and water it, and make it to spring,
and give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

55:11. So shall my word be, which shall go forth from my mouth: it shall
not return to me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall
prosper in the things for which I sent it.

55:12. For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the
mountains and the hills shall sing praise before you, and all the trees
of the country shall clap their hands.

55:13. Instead of the shrub, shall come up the fir tree, and instead of
the nettle, shall come up the myrtle tree: and the Lord shall be named
for an everlasting sign, that shall not be taken away.

Isaias Chapter 56

God invites all to keep his commandments: the Gentiles that keep them
shall be the people of God: the Jewish pastors are reproved.

56:1. Thus saith the Lord: Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my
salvation is near to come, and my justice to be revealed.

56:2. Blessed is the man that doth this, and the son of man that shall
lay hold on this: that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, that
keepeth his hands from doing any evil.

56:3. And let not the son of the stranger, that adhereth to the Lord,
speak, saying: The Lord will divide and separate me from his people. And
let not the eunuch say: Behold I am a dry tree.

56:4. For thus saith the Lord to the eunuchs, They that shall keep my
sabbaths, and shall choose the things that please me, and shall hold
fast my covenant:

56:5. I will give to them in my house, and within my walls, a place, and
a name better than sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting
name which shall never perish.

56:6. And the children of the stranger that adhere to the Lord, to
worship him, and to love his name, to be his servants: every one that
keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, and that holdeth fast my
covenant:

56:7. I will bring them into my holy mount, and will make them joyful in
my house of prayer: their holocausts, and their victims shall please me
upon my altar: for my house shall be called the house of prayer, for all
nations.

56:8. The Lord God, who gathereth the scattered of Israel, saith: I will
still gather unto him his congregation.

56:9. All ye beasts of the field come to devour, all ye beasts of the
forest.

56:10. His watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant: dumb dogs not
able to bark, seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams.

56:11. And most impudent dogs, they never had enough: the shepherds
themselves knew no understanding: all have turned aside into their own
way, every one after his own gain, from the first even to the last.

56:12. Come, let us take wine, and be filled with drunkenness: and it
shall be as to day, so also to morrow, and much more.

Isaias Chapter 57

The infidelity of the Jews: their idolatry. Promises to humble
penitents.

57:1. The just perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart, and men of
mercy are taken away, because there is none that understandeth; for the
just man is taken away from before the face of evil.

57:2. Let peace come, let him rest in his bed that hath walked in his
uprightness.

57:3. But draw near hither, you sons of the sorceress, the seed of the
adulterer, and of the harlot.

57:4. Upon whom have you jested? upon whom have you opened your mouth
wide, and put out your tongue? are not you wicked children, a false
seed,

57:5. Who seek your comfort in idols under every green tree, sacrificing
children in the torrents, under the high rocks?

57:6. In the parts of the torrent is thy portion, this is thy lot: and
thou hast poured out libations to them, thou hast offered sacrifice.
Shall I not be angry at these things?

57:7. Upon a high and lofty mountain thou hast laid thy bed, and hast
gone up thither to offer victims.

57:8. And behind the door, and behind the post thou hast set up thy
remembrance: for thou hast discovered thyself near me, and hast received
an adulterer: thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made a covenant with them:
thou hast loved their bed with open hand.

57:9. And thou hast adorned thyself for the king with ointment, and hast
multiplied thy perfumes. Thou hast sent thy messengers far off, and wast
debased even to hell.

57:10. Thou hast been wearied in the multitude of thy ways: yet thou
saidst not: I will rest: thou has found life of thy hand, therefore thou
hast not asked.

57:11. For whom hast thou been solicitous and afraid, that thou hast
lied, and hast not been mindful of me, nor thought on me in thy heart?
for I am silent, and as one that seeth not, and thou hast forgotten me.

57:12. I will declare thy justice, and thy works shall not profit thee.

57:13. When thou shalt cry, let thy companies deliver thee, but the wind
shall carry them all off, a breeze shall take them away, but he that
putteth his trust in me, shall inherit the land, and shall possess my
holy mount.

57:14. And I will say: Make a way: give free passage, turn out of the
path, take away the stumblingblocks out of the way of my people.

57:15. For thus saith the High and the Eminent that inhabiteth eternity:
and his name is Holy, who dwelleth in the high and holy place, and with
a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to
revive the heart of the contrite.

57:16. For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be angry unto the
end: because the spirit shall go forth from my face, and breathings I
will make.

57:17. For the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry, and I struck
him: I hid my face from thee, and was angry: and he went away wandering
in his own heart.

57:18. I saw his ways, and I healed him, and brought him back, and
restored comforts to him, and to them that mourn for him.

57:19. I created the fruit of the lips, peace, peace to him that is far
off, and to him that is near, said the Lord, and I healed him.

57:20. But the wicked are like the raging sea, which cannot rest, and
the waves thereof cast up dirt and mire.

57:21. There is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord God.

Isaias Chapter 58

God rejects the hypocritical fasts of the Jews: recommends works of
mercy, and sincere godliness.

58:1. Cry, cease not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my
people their wicked doings, and the house of Jacob their sins.

58:2. For they seek me from day to day, and desire to know my ways, as a
nation that hath done justice, and hath not forsaken the judgment of
their God: they ask of me the judgments of justice: they are willing to
approach to God.

58:3. Why have we fasted, and thou hast not regarded: have we humbled
our souls, and thou hast not taken notice? Behold in the day of your
fast your own will is found, and you exact of all your debtors.

58:4. Behold you fast for debates and strife, and strike with the fist
wickedly. Do not fast as you have done until this day, to make your cry
to be heard on high.

58:5. Is this such a fast as I have chosen: for a man to afflict his
soul for a day? is this it, to wind his head about like a circle, and to
spread sackcloth and ashes? wilt thou call this a fast, and a day
acceptable to the Lord?

58:6. Is not this rather the fast that I have chosen? loose the bands of
wickedness, undo the bundles that oppress, let them that are broken go
free, and break asunder every burden.

58:7. Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the
harbourless into thy house: when thou shalt see one naked, cover him,
and despise not thy own flesh.

58:8. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy health
shall speedily arise, and thy justice shall go before thy face, and the
glory of the Lord shall gather thee up.

58:9. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall hear: thou shalt cry, and
he shall say, Here I am. If thou wilt take away the chain out of the
midst of thee, and cease to stretch out the finger, and to speak that
which profiteth not.

58:10. When thou shalt pour out thy soul to the hungry, and shalt
satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise up in darkness,
and thy darkness shall be as the noonday.

58:11. And the Lord will give thee rest continually, and will fill thy
soul with brightness, and deliver thy bones, and thou shalt be like a
watered garden, and like a fountain of water whose waters shall not
fail.

58:12. And the places that have been desolate for ages shall be built in
thee: thou shalt raise up the foundation of generation and generation:
and thou shalt be called the repairer of the fences, turning the paths
into rest.

58:13. If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy own
will in my holy day, and call the sabbath delightful, and the holy of
the Lord glorious, and glorify him, while thou dost not thy own ways,
and thy own will is not found, to speak a word:

58:14. Then shalt thou be delighted in the Lord, and I will lift thee up
above the high places of the earth, and will feed thee with the
inheritance of Jacob thy father. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken
it.

Isaias Chapter 59

The dreadful evil of sin is displayed, as the great obstacle to all good
from God: yet he will send a Redeemer, and make an everlasting covenant
with his church.

59:1. Behold the hand of the Lord is not shortened that it cannot save,
neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear.

59:2. But your iniquities have divided between you and your God, and
your sins have hid his face from you that he should not hear.

59:3. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with
iniquity: your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue uttereth iniquity.

59:4. There is none that calleth upon justice, neither is there any one
that judgeth truly: but they trust in a mere nothing, and speak
vanities: they have conceived labour, and brought forth iniquity.

59:5. They have broken the eggs of asps, and have woven the webs of
spiders: he that shall eat of their eggs, shall die: and that which is
brought out, shall be hatched into a basilisk.

59:6. Their webs shall not be for clothing, neither shall they cover
themselves with their works: their works are unprofitable works, and the
work of iniquity is in their hands.

59:7. Their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed innocent blood:
their thoughts are unprofitable thoughts: wasting and destruction are in
their ways.

59:8. They have not known the way of peace, and there is no judgment in
their steps: their paths are become crooked to them, every one that
treadeth in them knoweth no peace.

59:9. Therefore is judgment far from us, and justice shall not overtake
us. We looked for light, and behold darkness: brightness, and we have
walked in the dark.

59:10. We have groped for the wall, and like the blind we have groped as
if we had no eyes: we have stumbled at noonday as in darkness, we are in
dark places, as dead men.

59:11. We shall roar all of us like bears, and shall lament as mournful
doves. We have looked for judgment, and there is none: for salvation,
and it is far from us.

59:12. For our iniquities are multiplied before thee, and our sins have
testified against us: for our wicked doings are with us, and have known
our iniquities:

59:13. In sinning and lying against the Lord: and we have turned away so
that we went not after our God, but spoke calumny and transgression: we
have conceived, and uttered from the heart, words of falsehood.

59:14. And judgment is turned away backward, and justice hath stood far
off: because truth hath fallen down in the street, and equity could not
come in.

59:15. And truth hath been forgotten: and he that departed from evil,
lay open to be a prey: and the Lord saw, and it appeared evil in his
eyes, because there is no judgment.

59:16. And he saw that there is not a man: and he stood astonished,
because there is none to oppose himself: and his own arm brought
salvation to him, and his own justice supported him.

59:17. He put on justice as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation
upon his head: he put on the garments of vengeance, and was clad with
zeal as with a cloak.

59:18. As unto revenge, as it were to repay wrath to his adversaries,
and a reward to his enemies: he will repay the like to the islands.

59:19. And they from the west, shall fear the name of the Lord: and they
from the rising of the sun, his glory when he shall come as a violent
stream, which the spirit of the Lord driveth on:

59:20. And there shall come a redeemer to Sion, and to them that return
from iniquity in Jacob, saith the Lord.

59:21. This is my covenant with them, saith the Lord: My spirit that is
in thee, and my words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out
of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of
thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.

This is my covenant, etc... Note here a clear promise of perpetual
orthodoxy to the church of Christ.

Isaias Chapter 60

The light of true faith shall shine forth in the church of Christ, and
shall be spread through all nations, and continue for all ages.

60:1. Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the
glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

60:2. For behold darkness shall cover the earth, and a mist the people:
but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon
thee.

60:3. And the Gentiles shall walk in thy light, and kings in the
brightness of thy rising.

60:4. Lift up thy eyes round about, and see: all these are gathered
together, they are come to thee: thy sons shall come from afar, and thy
daughters shall rise up at thy side.

60:5. Then shalt thou see, and abound, and thy heart shall wonder and be
enlarged, when the multitude of the sea shall be converted to thee, the
strength of the Gentiles shall come to thee.

60:6. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of
Madian and Epha: all they from Saba shall come, bringing gold and
frankincense: and shewing forth praise to the Lord.

60:7. All the flocks of Cedar shall be gathered together unto thee, the
rams of Nabaioth shall minister to thee: they shall be offered upon my
acceptable altar, and I will glorify the house of my majesty.

60:8. Who are these, that fly as clouds, and as doves to their windows?

60:9. For, the islands wait for me, and the ships of the sea in the
beginning: that I may bring thy sons from afar: their silver, and their
gold with them, to the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of
Israel, because he hath glorified thee.

60:10. And the children of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their
kings shall minister to thee: for in my wrath have I struck thee, and in
my reconciliation have I had mercy upon thee.

60:11. And thy gates shall be open continually: they shall not be shut
day nor night, that the strength of the Gentiles may be brought to thee,
and their kings may be brought.

60:12. For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve thee, shall
perish: and the Gentiles shall be wasted with desolation.

60:13. The glory of Libanus shall come to thee, the fir tree, and the
box tree, and the pine tree together, to beautify the place of my
sanctuary: and I will glorify the place of my feet.

60:14. And the children of them that afflict thee, shall come bowing
down to thee, and all that slandered thee shall worship the steps of thy
feet, and shall call thee the city of the Lord, the Sion of the Holy One
of Israel.

60:15. Because thou wast forsaken, and hated, and there was none that
passed through thee, I will make thee to be an everlasting glory, a joy
unto generation and generation:

60:16. And thou shalt suck the milk of the Gentiles, and thou shalt be
nursed with the breasts of kings: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord
thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

60:17. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver:
and for wood brass, and for stones iron: and I will make thy visitation
peace, and thy overseers justice.

60:18. Iniquity shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor
destruction in thy borders, and salvation shall possess thy walls, and
praise thy gates.

60:19. Thou shalt no more have the sun for thy light by day, neither
shall the brightness of the moon enlighten thee: but the Lord shall be
unto thee for an everlasting light, and thy God for thy glory.

Thou shalt no more, etc... In this latter part of the chapter, the
prophet passes from the illustrious promises made to the church militant
on earth, to the glory of the church triumphant in heaven.

60:20. Thy sun shall go down no more, and thy moon shall not decrease:
for the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and the days
of thy mourning shall be ended.

60:21. And thy people shall be all just, they shall inherit the land for
ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hand to glorify me.

60:22. The least shall become a thousand, and a little one a most strong
nation: I the Lord will suddenly do this thing in its time.

Isaias Chapter 61

The office of Christ: the mission of the Apostles; the happiness of
their converts.

61:1. The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed
me: he hath sent me to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of
heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and deliverance to them
that are shut up.

61:2. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of
vengeance of our God: to comfort all that mourn:

61:3. To appoint to the mourners of Sion, and to give them a crown for
ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit
of grief: and they shall be called in it the mighty ones of justice, the
planting of the Lord to glorify him.

61:4. And they shall build the places that have been waste from of old,
and shall raise up ancient ruins, and shall repair the desolate cities,
that were destroyed for generation and generation.

61:5. And strangers shall stand and shall feed your flocks: and the sons
of strangers shall be your husbandman, and the dressers of your vines.

61:6. But you shall be called the priests of the Lord: to you it shall
be said: Ye ministers of our God: you shall eat the riches of the
Gentiles, and you shall pride yourselves in their glory.

61:7. For your double confusion and shame, they shall praise their part:
therefore shall they receive double in their land, everlasting joy shall
be unto them.

61:8. For I am the Lord that love judgment, and hate robbery in a
holocaust: and I will make their work in truth, and I will make a
perpetual covenant with them.

61:9. And they shall know their seed among the Gentiles, and their
offspring in the midst of peoples: all that shall see them, shall know
them, that these are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.

61:10. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful
in my God: for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation: and
with the robe of justice he hath covered me, as a bridegroom decked with
a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels.

61:11. For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden
causeth her seed to shoot forth: so shall the Lord God make justice to
spring forth, and praise before all the nations.

Isaias Chapter 62

The prophet will not cease from preaching Christ: to whom all nations
shall be converted: and whose church shall continue for ever.

62:1. For Sion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for the sake of
Jerusalem, I will not rest till her just one come forth as brightness,
and her saviour be lighted as a lamp.

62:2. And the Gentiles shall see thy just one, and all kings thy
glorious one: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of
the Lord shall name.

62:3. And thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a
royal diadem in the hand of thy God.

62:4. Thou shalt no more be called Forsaken: and thy land shall no more
be called Desolate: but thou shalt be called My pleasure in her, and thy
land inhabited. Because the Lord hath been well pleased with thee: and
thy land shall be inhabited.

62:5. For the young man shall dwell with the virgin, and thy children
shall dwell in thee. And the bridegroom shall rejoice over the bride,
and thy God shall rejoice over thee.

62:6. Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen all the
day, and all the night, they shall never hold their peace.  You that are
mindful of the Lord, hold not your peace,

62:7. And give him no silence till he establish, and till he make
Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

62:8. The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his
strength: Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thy
enemies: and the sons of the strangers shall not drink thy wine, for
which thou hast laboured.

62:9. For they that gather it, shall eat it, and shall praise the Lord:
and they that bring it together, shall drink it in my holy courts.

62:10. Go through, go through the gates, prepare the way for the people,
make the road plain, pick out the stones, and lift up the standard to
the people.

62:11. Behold the Lord hath made it to be heard in the ends of the
earth, tell the daughter of Sion: Behold thy Saviour cometh: behold his
reward is with him, and his work before him.

62:12. And they shall call them, The holy people, the redeemed of the
Lord. But thou shalt be called: A city sought after, and not forsaken.

Isaias Chapter 63

Christ's victory over his enemies: his mercies to his people: their
complaint.

63:1. Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra,
this beautiful one in his robe, walking in the greatness of his
strength. I, that speak justice, and am a defender to save.

Edom... Edom and Bosra (a strong city of Edom) are here taken in a
mystical sense for the enemies of Christ and his church.

63:2. Why then is thy apparel red, and thy garments like theirs that
tread in the winepress?

63:3. I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the Gentiles there is
not a man with me: I have trampled on them in my indignation, and have
trodden them down in my wrath, and their blood is sprinkled upon my
garments, and I have stained all my apparel.

63:4. For the day of vengeance is in my heart, the year of my redemption
is come.

63:5. I looked about, and there was none to help: I sought, and there
was none to give aid: and my own arm hath saved for me, and my
indignation itself hath helped me.

63:6. And I have trodden down the people in my wrath, and have made them
drunk in my indignation, and have brought down their strength to the
earth.

63:7. I will remember the tender mercies of the Lord, the praise of the
Lord for all the things that the Lord hath bestowed upon us, and for the
multitude of his good things to the house of Israel, which he hath given
them according to his kindness, and according to the multitude of his
mercies.

63:8. And he said: Surely they are my people, children that will not
deny: so he became their saviour.

63:9. In all their affliction he was not troubled, and the angel of his
presence saved them: in his love, and in his mercy he redeemed them, and
he carried them and lifted them up all the days of old.

63:10. But they provoked to wrath, and afflicted the spirit of his Holy
One: and he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.

63:11. And he remembered the days of old of Moses, and of his people:
Where is he that brought them up out of the sea, with the shepherds of
his flock? where is he that put in the midst of them the spirit of his
Holy One?

63:12. He that brought out Moses by the right hand, by the arm of his
majesty: that divided the waters before them, to make himself an
everlasting name.

63:13. He that led them out through the deep, as a horse in the
wilderness that stumbleth not.

63:14. As a beast that goeth down in the field, the spirit of the Lord
was their leader: so didst thou lead thy people to make thyself a
glorious name.

63:15. Look down from heaven, and behold from thy holy habitation and
the place of thy glory: where is thy zeal, and thy strength, the
multitude of thy bowels, and of thy mercies? they have held back
themselves from me.

They have held back, etc... This is spoken by the prophet in the person
of the Jews at the time when, for their sins, they were given up to
their enemies.

63:16. For thou art our father, and Abraham hath not known us, and
Israel hath been ignorant of us: thou, O Lord, art our father, our
redeemer, from everlasting is thy name.

Abraham hath not know us, etc... That is, Abraham will not now
acknowledge us for his children, by reason of our degeneracy; but thou,
O Lord, art our true father and our redeemer, and no other can be called
our parent in comparison with thee.

63:17. Why hast thou made us to err, O Lord, from thy ways: why hast
thou hardened our heart, that we should not fear thee?  return for the
sake of thy servants, the tribes of thy inheritance.

Made us to err, etc. Hardened our heart, etc... The meaning is, that God
in punishment of their great and manifold crimes, and their long abuse
of his mercy and grace, had withdrawn his graces from them, and so given
them up to error and hardness of heart.

63:18. They have possessed thy holy people as nothing: our enemies have
trodden down thy sanctuary.

63:19. We are become as in the beginning, when thou didst not rule over
us, and when we were not called by thy name.

Isaias Chapter 64

The prophet prays for the release of his people; and for the remission
of their sins.

64:1. O that thou wouldst rend the heavens, and wouldst come down: the
mountains would melt away at thy presence.

64:2. They would melt as at the burning of fire, the waters would burn
with fire, that thy name might be made known to thy enemies: that the
nations might tremble at thy presence.

64:3. When thou shalt do wonderful things, we shall not bear them: thou
didst come down, and at thy presence the mountains melted away.

64:4. From the beginning of the world they have not heard, nor perceived
with the ears: the eye hath not seen, O God, besides thee, what things
thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee.

64:5. Thou hast met him that rejoiceth, and doth justice: in thy ways
they shall remember thee: behold thou art angry, and we have sinned: in
them we have been always, and we shall be saved.

64:6. And we are all become as one unclean, and all our justices as the
rag of a menstruous woman: and we have all fallen as a leaf, and our
iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

Our justices, etc... That is, the works by which we pretended to make
ourselves just. This is spoken particularly of the sacrifices,
sacraments, and ceremonies of the Jews, after the death of Christ, and
the promulgation of the new law.

64:7. There is none that calleth upon thy name: that riseth up, and
taketh hold of thee: thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast crushed us
in the hand of our iniquity.

64:8. And now, O Lord, thou art our father, and we are clay: and thou
art our maker, and we all are the works of thy hands.

64:9. Be not very angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity:
behold, see we are all thy people.

64:10. The city of thy sanctuary is become a desert, Sion is made a
desert, Jerusalem is desolate.

64:11. The house of our holiness, and of our glory, where our fathers
praised thee, is burnt with fire, and all our lovely things are turned
into ruins.

64:12. Wilt thou refrain thyself, O Lord, upon these things, wilt thou
hold thy peace, and afflict us vehemently?

Isaias Chapter 65

The Gentiles shall seek and find Christ, but the Jews will persecute
him, and be rejected, only a remnant shall be reserved. The church shall
multiply, and abound with graces.

65:1. They have sought me that before asked not for me, they have found
me that sought me not. I said: Behold me, behold me, to a nation that
did not call upon my name.

65:2. I have spread forth my hands all the day to an unbelieving people,
who walk in a way that is not good after their own thoughts.

65:3. A people that continually provoke me to anger before my face, that
immolate in gardens, and sacrifice upon bricks.

65:4. That dwell in sepulchres, and sleep in the temple of idols: that
eat swine's flesh, and profane broth is in their vessels.

65:5. That say: Depart from me, come not near me, because thou art
unclean: these shall be smoke in my anger, a fire burning all the day.

65:6. Behold it is written before me: I will not be silent, but I will
render and repay into their bosom.

65:7. Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together,
saith the Lord, who have sacrificed upon the mountains, and have
reproached me upon the hills; and I will measure back their first work
in their bosom.

65:8. Thus saith the Lord: As if a grain be found in a cluster, and it
be said: Destroy it not, because it is a blessing: so will I do for the
sake of my servants, that I may not destroy the whole.

65:9. And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Juda a
possessor of my mountains: and my elect shall inherit it, and my
servants shall dwell there.

65:10. And the plains shall be turned to folds of flocks, and the valley
of Achor into a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that
have sought me.

65:11. And you, that have forsaken the Lord, that have forgotten my holy
mount, that set a table for fortune, and offer libations upon it,

65:12. I will number you in the sword, and you shall all fall by
slaughter: because I called and you did not answer: I spoke, and you did
not hear: and you did evil in my eyes, and you have chosen the things
that displease me.

65:13. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold my servants shall eat,
and you shall be hungry: behold my servants shall drink, and you shall
be thirsty.

65:14. Behold my servants shall rejoice, and you shall be confounded:
behold my servants shall praise for joyfulness of heart, and you shall
cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for grief of spirit.

65:15. And you shall leave your name for an execration to my elect: and
the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name.

65:16. In which he that is blessed upon the earth, shall be blessed in
God, amen: and he that sweareth in the earth, shall swear by God, amen:
because the former distresses are forgotten, and because they are hid
from my eyes.

65:17. For behold I create new heavens, and a new earth: and the former
things shall not be in remembrance, and they shall not come upon the
heart.

65:18. But you shall be glad and rejoice for ever in these things, which
I create: for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and the people
thereof joy.

65:19. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people, and the
voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the voice of crying.

65:20. There shall no more be an infant of days there, nor an old man
that shall not fill up his days: for the child shall die a hundred years
old, and the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed.

65:21. And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall
plant vineyards, and eat the fruits of them.

65:22. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant,
and another eat: for as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of my
people, and the works of their hands shall be of long continuance.

65:23. My elect shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth in trouble;
for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their posterity
with them.

65:24. And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will hear; as
they are yet speaking, I will hear.

65:25. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion and the ox
shall eat straw; and dust shall be the serpent's food: they shall not
hurt nor kill in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord.

Isaias Chapter 66

More of the reprobation of the Jews, and of the call of the Gentiles.

66:1. Thus saith the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the earth my
footstool: what is this house that you will build to me? and what is
this place of my rest?

What is this house, etc... This is a prophecy that the temple should be
cast off.

66:2. My hand made all these things, and all these things were made,
saith the Lord. But to whom shall I have respect, but to him that is
poor and little, and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my
words?

66:3. He that sacrificeth an ox, is as if he slew a man: he that killeth
a sheep in sacrifice, as if he should brain a dog: he that offereth an
oblation, as if he should offer swine's blood; he that remembereth
incense, as if he should bless an idol. All these things have they
chosen in their ways, and their soul is delighted in their abominations.

He that sacrificeth an ox, etc... This is a prophecy that the sacrifices
which were offered in the old law should be abolished in the new; and
that the offering of them should be a crime.-Ibid. Remembereth
incense... Viz., to offer it in the way of a sacrifice.

66:4. Wherefore I also will choose their mockeries, and will bring upon
them the things they feared: because I called, and there was none that
would answer; I have spoken, and they heard not; and they have done evil
in my eyes, and have chosen the things that displease me.

I will choose their mockeries... I will turn their mockeries upon
themselves; and will cause them to be mocked by their enemies.

66:5. Hear the word of the Lord, you that tremble at his word: Your
brethren that hate you, and cast you out for my name's sake, have said:
Let the Lord be glorified, and we shall see in your joy: but they shall
be confounded.

66:6. A voice of the people from the city, a voice from the temple, the
voice of the Lord that rendereth recompense to his enemies.

66:7. Before she was in labour, she brought forth; before her time came
to be delivered, she brought forth a man child.

Before she was in labour, etc... This relates to the conversion of the
Gentiles, who were born, as it were, all on a sudden to the church of
God.

66:8. Who hath ever heard such a thing? and who hath seen the like to
this? shall the earth bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be
brought forth at once, because Sion hath been in labour, and hath
brought forth her children?

66:9. Shall not I that make others to bring forth children, myself bring
forth, saith the Lord? shall I, that give generation to others, be
barren, saith the Lord thy God?

66:10. Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you that love
her: rejoice for joy with her, all you that mourn for her.

66:11. That you may suck, and be filled with the breasts of her
consolations: that you may milk out, and flow with delights, from the
abundance of her glory.

66:12. For thus saith the Lord: Behold I will bring upon her as it were
a river of peace, and as an overflowing torrent the glory of the
Gentiles, which you shall suck; you shall be carried at the breasts, and
upon the knees they shall caress you.

66:13. As one whom the mother caresseth, so will I comfort you, and you
shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

66:14. You shall see and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall
flourish like an herb, and the hand of the Lord shall be known to his
servants, and he shall be angry with his enemies.

66:15. For behold the Lord will come with fire, and his chariots are
like a whirlwind, to render his wrath in indignation, and his rebuke
with flames of fire.

66:16. For the Lord shall judge by fire, and by his sword unto all
flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many.

66:17. They that were sanctified, thought themselves clean in the
gardens behind the gate within, they that did eat swine's flesh, and the
abomination, and the mouse: they shall be consumed together, saith the
Lord.

66:18. But I know their works, and their thoughts: I come that I may
gather them together with all nations and tongues: and they shall come
and shall see my glory.

66:19. And I will set a sign among them, and I will send of them that
shall be saved, to the Gentiles into the sea, into Africa, and Lydia
them that draw the bow: into Italy, and Greece, to the islands afar off,
to them that have not heard of me, and have not seen my glory. And they
shall declare my glory to the Gentiles:

66:20. And they shall bring all your brethren out of all nations for a
gift to the Lord, upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and on
mules, and in coaches, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as
if the children of Israel should bring an offering in a clean vessel
into the house of the Lord.

66:21. And I will take of them to be priests, and Levites, saith the
Lord.

66:22. For as the new heavens, and the new earth, which I will make to
stand before me, saith the Lord: so shall your seed stand, and your
name.

66:23. And there shall be month after month, and sabbath after sabbath:
and all flesh shall come to adore before my face, saith the Lord.

66:24. And they shall go out, and see the carcasses of the men that have
transgressed against me: their worm shall not die, and their fire shall
not be quenched: and they shall be a loathsome sight to all flesh.





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