Isaiah 10

¹ Woe to the legislators of infamous laws, to those who issue tyrannical decrees,

² who refuse justice to the unfortunate and cheat the poor among my people of their rights, who make widows their prey and rob the orphan.

³ What will you do on the day of punishment, when, from far off, destruction comes? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?

⁴ Nothing for it but to crouch with the captives and to fall with the slain. Yet his anger is not spent, still his hand is raised to strike.

⁵ Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, the club brandished by me in my fury!

⁶ I sent him against a godless nation; I gave him commission against a people that provokes me, to pillage and to plunder freely and to stamp down like the mud in the streets.

⁷ But he did not intend this, his heart did not plan it so. No, in his heart was to destroy, to go on cutting nations to pieces without limit.

⁸ He said, ‘Are not my officers all kings?

⁹ Is not Calno like Carchemish, Hamath like Arpad,[*b] Samaria like Damascus?

¹⁰ As my hand has reached out to the kingdoms of the idols, richer in sculptured images than Jerusalem and Samaria,

¹¹ as I have dealt with Samaria and her idols, shall I not treat Jerusalem and her images the same?’

¹² When the Lord has completed all his work on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, he will punish what comes from the king of Assyria’s boastful heart, and his arrogant insolence.

¹³ For he has said: ‘By the strength of my own arm I have done this and by my own intelligence, for understanding is mine; I have pushed back the frontiers of peoples and plundered their treasures. I have brought their inhabitants down to the dust.

¹⁴ As if they were a bird’s nest, my hand has seized the riches of the peoples. As people pick up deserted eggs I have picked up the whole earth, with not a wing fluttering, not a beak opening, not a chirp.’

¹⁵ Does the axe claim more credit than the man who wields it, or the saw more strength than the man who handles it? It would be like the cudgel controlling the man who raises it, or the club moving what is not made of wood!

¹⁶ And so Yahweh Sabaoth is going to send a wasting sickness on his stout warriors; beneath his plenty, a burning will burn like a consuming fire.

¹⁷ The light of Israel will become a fire and its Holy One a flame burning and devouring thorns and briars in a single day.

¹⁸ He will destroy the luxuriance of his forest and his orchard, soul and body too; that will be like a sick man passing away;

¹⁹ the remnant of his forest trees will be so easy to count that a child could make the list.

²⁰ That day, the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the House of Jacob will stop relying on the man who strikes them and will truly rely on Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel.

²¹ A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.

²² Israel, your people may be like the sand on the seashore, but only a remnant will return. A destruction has been decreed that will bring inexhaustible integrity.

²³ Yes, throughout the country the Lord Yahweh Sabaoth will carry out the destruction he has decreed.

²⁴ And so Yahweh Sabaoth says this: My people who live in Zion, do not be afraid of Assyria who strikes you with the club and lifts up the rod against you.

²⁵ A little longer, a very little, and fury will come to an end, my anger will destroy them.

²⁶ Yahweh Sabaoth will whirl the whip against him, like the time he struck Midian at the Rock of Oreb, like the time he stretched out his rod against the sea and raised it over the road from Egypt.

²⁷ That day, his burden will fall from your shoulder, his yoke will cease to weigh on your neck.

²⁸ he reaches Aiath, he passes through Migron, he leaves his baggage train at Michmash.

²⁹ They file through the defile, they bivouac at Geba. Ramah quakes, Gibeah of Saul takes flight.

³⁰ Bath-gallim, cry aloud! Laishah, hear her! Anathoth, answer her!

³¹ Madmenah is running away, the inhabitants of Gebim are fleeing.

³² This very day he will halt at Nob. He will shake his fist against the mount of the daughter of Zion, against the hill of Jerusalem.

³³ See, the Lord Yahweh Sabaoth hews down the boughs with a crash. The topmost heights are cut off, the proudest are brought down.

³⁴ The forest thickets fall beneath the axe. Lebanon and its splendours collapse.