Isaiah 10

1Ha!Those who write out evil writsAnd compose iniquitous documents,

2To subvert the cause of the poor,To rob of their rights the needy of My people;That widows may be their spoil,And fatherless children their booty!

3What will you do on the day of punishment,When the calamity comes from afar?To whom will you flee for help,And how will you save your carcasses in v. 16; 22.18.

4From collapsing under [fellow] prisoners,From falling beneath the slain?Yet God’s anger has not turned back,And the divine arm is outstretched still.

5Ha!Assyria, rod of My anger,In whose hand, as a staff, is My fury!

6I send him against an ungodly nation,I charge him against a people that provokes Me,To take its spoil and to seize its bootyAnd to make it a thing trampledLike the mire of the streets.

7But he has evil plans,His mind harbors evil designs;For he means to destroy,To wipe out nations, not a few.

8For he thinks,“After all, I have kings as my captains!

9Was Calno any different from Carchemish?Or Hamath from Arpad?Or Samaria from Damascus?

10Since I was able to seizeThe insignificant kingdoms,Whose images exceededJerusalem’s and Samaria’s,

11Shall I not do to Jerusalem and her imagesWhat I did to Samaria and her idols?”

12But when all of my Sovereign’s purpose has been carried out on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, the majestic pride and overbearing arrogance of the king of Assyria will be punished.

13For he thought,“By the might of my hand have I wrought it,By my skill, for I am clever:I have erased the borders of peoples;I have plundered their treasures,And exiled their vast populations.

14I was able to seize, like a nest,The wealth of peoples;As one gathers abandoned eggs,So I gathered all the earth:Nothing so much as flapped a wingOr opened a mouth to peep.”

15Does an ax boast over one who hews with it,Or a saw magnify itself above one who wields it?As though the rod raised one who lifts it,As though the staff lifted the person!

16Assuredly,The Sovereign GOD of Hosts will sendA wasting away in its fatness;And under its body shall burnA burning like that of fire,Destroying frame and flesh.It shall be like an invalid who pines away.

17The Light of Israel will be fireAnd its Holy One flame.It will burn and consume its thornsAnd its thistles in a single day,

18And the mass of its scrub and its farmland.

19What trees remain of its scrubShall be so few that a child may record them.

20And in that day,The remnant of IsraelAnd the escaped of the House of JacobShall lean no more upon him that beats it, But shall lean sincerelyOn GOD, the Holy One of Israel.

21Only a remnant shall return,Only a remnant of Jacob,To Mighty God.

22Even if your people, O Israel,Should be as the sands of the sea,Only a remnant of it shall return.Destruction is decreed;Retribution comes like a flood!

23For my Sovereign GOD of Hosts is carrying outA decree of destruction upon all the land.

24Assuredly, thus said my Sovereign GOD of Hosts: “O My people that dwells in Zion, have no fear of Assyria, who beats you with a rod and wields his staff over you as did the Egyptians.

25For very soon My wrath will have spent itself, and My anger that was bent on wasting them.”

26GOD of Hosts will brandish a scourge over Assyria as when Midian was beaten at the Rock of Oreb, and will wield a staff [over him] as was done to the Egyptians by the sea.

27And in that day,His burden shall drop from your back,And his yoke from your neck;The yoke shall be destroyed because of fatness.

28He advanced upon Aiath, He proceeded to Migron,At Michmas he deposited his baggage.

29They made the crossing;“Geba is to be our night quarters!” Ramah was alarmed;Gibeah of Saul took to flight.

30“Give a shrill cry, O Bath-gallim!Hearken, Laishah!Take up the cry, Anathoth!”

31Madmenah ran away;The dwellers of Gebim sought refuge.

32This same day at NobHe shall stand and wave his hand. O mount of Fair Zion!O hill of Jerusalem!

33Lo! The Sovereign GOD of HostsWill hew off the tree-crowns with an ax:The tall ones shall be felled,The lofty ones cut down:

34The thickets of the forest shall be hacked away with iron,And the Lebanon trees shall fall in their majesty. with Akkadian urudu, “bronze.”