Woe to the rebellious children, saith Jehovah, that take counsel, but not of me; and that {Or, pour out a drink-offering}make a league, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin,
that set out to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to {Or, flee to the stronghold of Pharaoh}strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to take refuge in the shadow of Egypt!
Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt your confusion.
For their princes are at Zoan, and their ambassadors are come to Hanes.
They shall all be ashamed because of a people that cannot profit them, that are not a help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.
The {Or, oracle concerning}burden of the beasts of the South.
Through the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the humps of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.
For Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I {Or, cried concerning this, They are but arrograncy: be still}called her Rahab that sitteth still.
Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come {Or, as otherwise read, for a witness for ever}for ever and ever.
For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the {Or, teaching}law of Jehovah;
that say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits,
get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.
Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely thereon;
therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly in an instant.
And he shall break it as a potter's vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing; so that there shall not be found among the pieces thereof a sherd wherewith to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.
For thus said the Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. And ye would not:
but ye said, No, for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.
One thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as {Or, a pole}a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on a hill.
And therefore will Jehovah wait, that he may be gracious unto you; and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for Jehovah is a God of justice; blessed are all they that wait for him.
For {Or, O people that dwellest in Zion at Jerusalem}the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; thou shalt weep no more; he will surely be gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear, he will answer thee.
{Or, And then will the Lord give you bread in adversity and water in affliction: and thy teachers shall not &c.}And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy {Or, teacher}teachers {Or, hide themselves}be hidden anymore, but thine eyes shall see thy {Or, teacher}teachers;
and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it; when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
And ye shall defile the overlaying of thy graven images of silver, and the plating of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt {Hebrew: scatter.}cast them away as an {Hebrew: menstruous.}unclean thing; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence.
And he will give the rain for thy seed, wherewith thou shalt sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground, and it shall be fat and plenteous. In that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures;
the oxen likewise and the young asses that till the ground shall eat {Hebrew: salted.}savory provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fork.
And there shall be upon every lofty mountain, and upon every high hill, brooks and streams of waters, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
Moreover 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 that Jehovah bindeth up the hurt of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.
Behold, the name of Jehovah cometh from far, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue is as a devouring fire;
and his breath is as an overflowing stream, that reacheth even unto the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction: and a bridle that causeth to err shall be in the jaws of the peoples.
Ye shall have a song as in the night {Or, when a feast is hallowed}when a holy feast is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe to come unto the mountain of Jehovah, to the Rock of Israel.
And Jehovah will cause his glorious voice to be heard, and will show the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and the flame of a devouring fire, with {Or, crashing}a blast, and tempest, and hailstones.
For through the voice of Jehovah shall the Assyrian be dismayed; with his rod will he smite him.
And every {Hebrew: passing.}stroke of the {Or, staff of doom (Hebrew: foundation)}appointed staff, which Jehovah shall lay upon him, shall be with the sound of tabrets and harps; and in battles with the brandishing of his arm will he fight with them.
For a Topheth is prepared of old; yea, for the king it is made ready; he hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.
Querverweise zu Jesaja 30,22 Jes 30,22
In that day men shall cast away their idols of silver, and their idols of gold, which have been made for them to worship, to the moles and to the bats;
Such as lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, they hire a goldsmith, and he maketh it a god; they fall down, yea, they worship.
Zion spreadeth forth her hands; there is none to comfort her;Jehovah hath commanded concerning Jacob, that they that are round about him should be his adversaries:Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.
{Or, O Ephraim, what &c.}Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have answered, and will regard him: I am like a green fir-tree; from me is thy fruit found.
to go into the caverns of the rocks, and into the clefts of the ragged rocks, from before the terror of Jehovah, and from the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake mightily the earth.
And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.
And all the people brake off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.
And he received it at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it a molten calf: and they said, {Or, This is thy God}These are thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
and hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither hath defiled his neighbor's wife, neither hath come near to a woman in her impurity,
In that day shall men look unto their Maker, and their eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel.
And he restored the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother; and his mother said, I verily {Or, had dedicated}dedicate the silver unto Jehovah from my hand for my son, to make a graven image and a molten image: now therefore I will restore it unto thee.
And they shall not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they have respect to that which their fingers have made, either the Asherim, or the sun-images.
And when he restored the money unto his mother, his mother took two hundred pieces of silver, and gave them to the founder, who made thereof a graven image and a molten image: and it was in the house of Micah.
Therefore by this shall the iniquity of Jacob be {Or, expiated}forgiven, and this is all the fruit {Or, to take away}of taking away his sin: that he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, so that the Asherim and the sun-images shall rise no more.
For in that day they shall cast away every man his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your own hands have made unto you for a sin.
And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the threshold, to bring forth out of the temple of Jehovah all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of heaven, and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el.
And he put down the {Hebrew: Chemarim. See Hosea 10:5, Zephaniah 1:4.}idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the {Or, twelve signs}planets, and to all the host of heaven.
And he brought out the Asherah from the house of Jehovah, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and beat it to dust, and cast the dust thereof upon the graves of the {Hebrew: children of the people.}common people.
And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were in the house of Jehovah, where the women wove {Or, tents Hebrew: houses.}hangings for the Asherah.
And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beer-sheba; and he brake down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city.
Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of Jehovah in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened bread among their brethren.
And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the {According to another reading, son.}children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entrance of the house of Jehovah, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the precincts; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
And the altars that were on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of Jehovah, did the king break down, and {Or, ran from thence}beat them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.
And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of {Or, destruction}corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.
And he brake in pieces the {Or, obelisks}pillars, and cut down the Asherim, and filled their places with the bones of men.
Moreover the altar that was at Beth-el, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, even that altar and the high place he brake down; and he burned the high place and beat it to dust, and burned the Asherah.
And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount; and he sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and defiled it, according to the word of Jehovah which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these things.
Then he said, What monument is that which I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, who came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Beth-el.
And he said, Let him be; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.
And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke Jehovah to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Beth-el.
And he {Or, sacrificed}slew all the priests of the high places that were there, upon the altars, and burned men's bones upon them; and he returned to Jerusalem.
Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake in pieces the {Or, obelisks}pillars, and hewed down the Asherim, and brake down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had destroyed them all. Then all the children of Israel returned, every man to his possession, into their own cities.
For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the Asherim, and the graven images, and the molten images.
And they brake down the altars of the Baalim in his presence; and the sun-images that were on high above them he hewed down; and the Asherim, and the graven images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strewed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them.
And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and purged Judah and Jerusalem.
And so did he in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, {Or, as otherwise read, with their axes The Hebrew is obscure.}in their ruins round about.
And he brake down the altars, and beat the Asherim and the graven images into powder, and hewed down all the sun-images throughout all the land of Israel, and returned to Jerusalem.
Then shall ye remember your evil ways, and your doings that were not good; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.
And it shall come to pass in that day, saith Jehovah, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and will destroy thy chariots:
and I will cut off the cities of thy land, and will throw down all thy strongholds.
And I will cut off witchcrafts out of thy hand; and thou shalt have no more soothsayers:
and I will cut off thy graven images and thy { Or, obelisks}pillars out of the midst of thee; and thou shalt no more worship the work of thy hands;
and I will pluck up thine Asherim out of the midst of thee; and I will destroy thy {Or, enemies}cities.
And it shall come to pass in that day, saith Jehovah of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered; and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.
And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought the signs in his sight, wherewith he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that {See marginal note on chapter 3:9}worshipped his image: they two were cast alive into the lake of fire that burneth with brimstone: