Isaiah - Chapter 47 | Good News Translation

  • 1. The LORD says, "Babylon, come down from your throne, and sit in the dust on the ground. You were once like a virgin, a city unconquered, but you are soft and delicate no longer! You are now a slave!
  • 2. Turn the millstone! Grind the flour! Off with your veil! Strip off your fine clothes! Lift up your skirts to cross the streams!
  • 3. People will see you naked; they will see you humbled and shamed. I will take vengeance, and no one will stop me."
  • 4. The holy God of Israel sets us free--- his name is the LORD Almighty.
  • 5. The LORD says to Babylon, "Sit in silence and darkness; no more will they call you the queen of nations!
  • 6. I was angry with my people; I treated them as no longer mine: I put them in your power, and you showed them no mercy; even the aged you treated harshly.
  • 7. You thought you would always be a queen, and did not take these things to heart or think how it all would end.
  • 8. "Listen to this, you lover of pleasure, you that think you are safe and secure. You claim you are as great as God--- that there is no one else like you. You thought that you would never be a widow or suffer the loss of your children.
  • 9. But in a moment, in a single day, both of these things will happen. In spite of all the magic you use, you will lose your husband and children.
  • 10. "You felt sure of yourself in your evil; you thought that no one could see you. Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray, and you said to yourself, 'I am God--- there is no one else like me.'
  • 11. Disaster will come upon you, and none of your magic can stop it. Ruin will come on you suddenly--- ruin you never dreamed of !
  • 12. Keep all your magic spells and charms; you have used them since you were young. Perhaps they will be of some help to you; perhaps you can frighten your enemies.
  • 13. You are powerless in spite of the advice you get. Let your astrologers come forward and save you--- those people who study the stars, who map out the zones of the heavens and tell you from month to month what is going to happen to you.
  • 14. "They will be like bits of straw, and a fire will burn them up! They will not even be able to save themselves--- the flames will be too hot for them, not a cozy fire to warm themselves by.
  • 15. That is all the good they will do you--- those astrologers you've consulted all your life. They all will leave you and go their own way, and none will be left to save you."
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