Isaiah 47
1 “Go down and sit in the dust, O Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, O Daughter of Chaldea! For you will no longer be called tender or delicate.
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.
2 Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams.
Take a millstone and grind meal: uncover thy shame, strip thy shoulder, make bare thy legs, pass over the rivers.
3 Your nakedness will be uncovered and your shame will be exposed. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.”
Thy nakedness shall be discovered, and thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and no man shall resist me.
4 Our Redeemer—the LORD of Hosts is His name— is the Holy One of Israel.
Our redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel.
5 “Sit in silence and go into darkness, O Daughter of Chaldea. For you will no longer be called the queen of kingdoms.
Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called the lady of kingdoms.
6 I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke.
I was angry with my people, I have polluted my inheritance, and have given them into thy bend: thou hast shewn no mercy to them: upon the ancient thou hast laid thy yoke exceeding heavy.
7 You said, ‘I will be queen forever.’ You did not take these things to heart or consider their outcome.
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.
8 So now hear this, O lover of luxury who sits securely, who says to herself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me. I will never be a widow or know the loss of children.’
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.
9 These two things will overtake you in a moment, in a single day: loss of children, and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the potency of your spells.
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.
10 You were secure in your wickedness; you said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray; you told yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’
And thou best trusted in thy wickedness, and hast said: There is none that seeth me. Thy wisdom, and thy knowledge, this hath deceived thee. And thou best said in thy heart: I am, and besides me there is no other.
11 But disaster will come upon you; you will not know how to charm it away. A calamity will befall you that you will be unable to ward off. Devastation will happen to you suddenly and unexpectedly.
Evil shall come upon thee, and then 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.
12 So take your stand with your spells and with your many sorceries, with which you have wearied yourself from your youth. Perhaps you will succeed; perhaps you will inspire terror!
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.
13 You are wearied by your many counselors; let them come forward now and save you— your astrologers who observe the stars, who monthly predict your fate.
Thou hast failed in the multitude or 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.
14 Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. There will be no coals to warm them or fire to sit beside.
Behold they are as stubble, fire hath burnt them, they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the dames: there are no coals wherewith they may be warmed, nor fire, that they may sit thereat.
15 This is what they are to you— those with whom you have labored and traded from youth— each one strays in his own direction; not one of them can save you.
Such are all the things become to thee, in which thou best laboured: thy merchants from thy youth, every one hath erred in his own way, there is none that can save thee.
