Isaiah 65

¹ I was ready to be approached by those who did not consult me, ready to found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘I am here, I am here’, to a nation that did not invoke my name.

² Each day I stretched out my hand to a rebellious people who went by evil ways, following their own whims,

³ a people who provoked me to my face incessantly, sacrificing in gardens, burning incense on bricks,

⁴ living in tombs, spending nights in dark corners, eating the meat of pigs, using unclean foods in their kitchens.

⁵ ‘Keep off,’ they say ‘do not come near me, or I might sanctify you.’ Such men are smoke in my nostrils, an ever burning fire.

⁶ See, it is inscribed in front of me; I will not be silent until I have settled my account with them

⁷ for their sins and their fathers’ sins, says Yahweh, those men who burned incense on the mountains and insulted me on the hills. I will pay them back in full all they deserve.

⁸ Yahweh says this: When new wine is found in a bunch of grapes people say, ‘Do not destroy it, it contains a blessing’. I shall do the same for the sake of those who serve me. I refuse to destroy the whole.

⁹ I will create a race from Jacob, and heirs to my mountains from Judah. My chosen shall inherit them, my servants live in them.

¹⁰ Sharon will be a pasture for flocks, the Valley of Achor a feeding ground for oxen, for those of my people who have sought me.

¹¹ But you who have abandoned and forgotten my holy mountain, who lay the table for Gad, who fill a cup for Meni,[*a]

¹² I commit you to the sword, all of you to fall in the slaughter. For I called and you would not answer, I spoke and you would not listen. You did what I consider evil, you chose to do what displeases me.

¹³ Therefore, thus speaks the Lord Yahweh: You shall see my servants eat while you go hungry. You shall see my servants drink while you go thirsty. You shall see my servants rejoice while you are put to shame.

¹⁴ You shall hear my servants sing for joy of heart, while you will moan for sadness of heart; you will wail for distress of spirit.

¹⁵ My chosen ones will use as a curse the name you leave behind: May the Lord Yahweh strike you dead. But my servants are to be given a new name.

¹⁶ Whoever asks to be blessed on earth will ask to be blessed by the God of truth, and whoever takes oath on earth will take oath by the God of truth, for past troubles will be forgotten and hidden from my eyes.

¹⁷ For now I create new heavens and a new earth, and the past will not be remembered, and will come no more to men’s minds.

¹⁸ Be glad and rejoice for ever and ever for what I am creating, because I now create Jerusalem ‘Joy’ and her people ‘Gladness’.

¹⁹ I shall rejoice over Jerusalem and exult in my people. No more will the sound of weeping or the sound of cries be heard in her;

²⁰ in her, no more will be found the infant living a few days only, or the old man not living to the end of his days. To die at the age of a hundred will be dying young; not to live to be a hundred will be the sign of a curse.

²¹ They will build houses and inhabit them, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

²² They will not build for others to live in, or plant so that others can eat. For my people shall live as long as trees, and my chosen ones wear out what their hands have made.

²³ They will not toil in vain or beget children to their own ruin, for they will be a race blessed by Yahweh, and their children with them.

²⁴ Long before they call I shall answer; before they stop speaking I shall have heard.

²⁵ The wolf and the young lamb will feed together, the lion eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will do no hurt, no harm on all my holy mountain, says Yahweh.[*b]