Judgment to Come
(Isaiah 7:17–25)

1The word of YHWH that came to Micah the Moreshite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw regarding Samaria and Jerusalem.

2Hear, O peoples, all of them!

Pay attention, O earth, and its fullness!

And may the Lord YHWH be against you⁺ as a witness—

the Lord from the temple of His holiness!

3For behold, YHWH is coming

from His station.

He will come down and will tread

upon the high places of the earth.

4And the mountains will melt under Him,

and the valleys will split apart,

like wax before the face of the fire,

like waters poured down on a slope.

5All this is for the transgression of Jacob

and for the sins of the house of Israel.

What is the transgression of Jacob?

Is it not Samaria?

And what are the high places of Judah?

Are they not Jerusalem?

6And I will set Samaria

as a heap of ruins in the field,

a planting area of a vineyard;

I will pour down her stones into the valley,

and her foundations I will uncover.

7And all her carved images will be crushed,

and all her wages will be burned in the fire,

and all her idols I will set as a desolation.

For from the wages of a prostitute she gathered it,

and to the wages of a prostitute they will return!

Weeping and Mourning

8Over this I will mourn and wail,

I will go barefoot and naked;

I will make a wailing like the jackals,†

and a lamentation like the daughters of the ostrich.†

9For her wounds are incurable,

for it has come to Judah;

it has reached even to the gate of My people,

to Jerusalem.

10Do not declare it in Gath,†

do not weep at all weep;

in Beth-leaphrah,† roll yourself in the dust.

11Pass by for yourself, O dweller of Shaphir,†

in shameful nakedness.

She does not come out—

the dweller of Zaanan;†

the mourning of Beth-ezel†

will take away from you⁺ its station.

12For the dweller of Maroth† has waited anxiously for good,

because calamity has come down from YHWH

to the gate of Jerusalem!

13Harness the chariot to the swift steed,

O dweller of Lachish!†

She was the beginning of sin for the daughter of Zion,

for in you were found the transgressions of Israel.

14Therefore you will give farewell gifts† to Moresheth-gath;†

the houses of Achzib† are a deceit

to the kings of Israel.

15Again the possessor I will bring to you,

O dweller of Mareshah;†

to Adullam will come the glory of Israel.

16Make yourself bald and shear your head

over the children of your delight;

enlarge your baldness like an eagle,

for they will go into exile away from you.

Footnotes:

8 Or serpents or dragons
8 Or like daughters of the owl
10 Gath sounds like the Hebrew for tell.
10 Beth-leaphrah means house of dust.
11 Shaphir means pleasant.
11 Zaanan sounds like the Hebrew for come out.
11 Beth-ezel means adjoining house.
12 Maroth sounds like the Hebrew for bitter.
13 Lachish sounds like the Hebrew term for team of horses.
14 Or will give dowry
14 Moresheth sounds like the Hebrew for gift or dowry.
14 Achzib means deception.
15 Mareshah sounds like the Hebrew for conqueror.