Isaiah 66:1-24
66 Says Jehovah, The sky is my throne and the earth my footstool: what house is there that you should build for me, and what place that should be my resting-place?
2 and all these things my hand made and these things all came to be, quoth Jehovah. But at this I look, at one who is submissive and dashed in spirit, and is alarmed at a word of mine.
3 * The one who slaughters a bull is killing a man; the one who sacrifices a sheep is breaking a dog’s neck; the one who makes an offering puts on hog’s blood; the one who presents a memorial of frankincense blesses mythical beings. They have chosen their own ways, and their fancy takes to those disgusting objects of theirs;
4 so will I choose ways to pester them and will bring them the objects of their terror, since I called and there was nobody that answered, I spoke and they did not listen, and they did what I disliked and chose what I had no fancy for.
5 Listen to Jehovah’s word, you who are alarmed at a word of his: your brothers who hate you, who excommunicate you because of my name, say “Let Jehovah be something glorious and let us have a sight of your gladness”—but they will be brought to shame.
6 * A sound of hubbub in the city, a sound from the temple—the sound of Jehovah paying off his enemies!
7 Before she felt her pangs she gave birth; before pains came to her she was delivered of a male child.
8 Who had heard the like of this? who had seen such things? is a country to pass through birth-pangs in one day, or a nation to be born at one time, that Sion has both had her pangs and given birth to her sons?
9 Should I start a birth and not have it finished? says Jehovah; or should I who generated the children bar the womb? says your God.
10 Be glad with Jerusalem and be gay over her, all you that love her; rejoice most gleefully with her, all you that were mourning on her account,
11 since you are to suck and have your fill out of the breast of her comforts, since you are to nurse with enjoyment out of the nipples of her fortune.
12 For Jehovah says, Here to her I am going to deal out welfare like a river and the fortunes of nations like an arroyo in flood; and their babies shall be carried at the side and dandled on the knees.
13 Like a man whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; and at Jerusalem you shall be comforted and see,
14 ** and your hearts shall be joyous and your bones shall freshen like green herbage, and Jehovah’s hand with his servants shall be known, and he will confront his enemies with hostility.
15 For here will Jehovah come with fire, his chariots like a gale, to wreak his anger in heat and his indignation in a flame of fire;
16 for it is with fire that Jehovah is trying his case, and with his sword, against all mortals, and of Jehovah’s killed there will be many—
17 * those who consecrate and purify themselves for the gardens, behind one in the middle, who eat flesh of hog and disgusting reptile and mouse—their deeds and their thoughts shall come to an end together, quoth Jehovah.
18 * For the time is coming to gather all the nations and languages, and they shall come and see my glory,
19 ** and I will exhibit tokens among them. And I will send survivors of them to the nations, Spain, Put, and Lud, Moshk and Rosh, Tubal and Greece, the distant coasts that have never heard a report of me nor seen my glory, and they shall tell my glory among the nations,
20 ** and they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to Jehovah by ponies and chariots and litters and mules and dromedaries to my sacred mountain, Jerusalem, says Jehovah, as the sons of Israel bring the offering in a clean container to Jehovah’s house;
21 and of them too I will take some for priests and Levites, says Jehovah.
22 For as the new sky and earth that I am going to make are to last before me, quoth Jehovah, so are your blood and name to last.
23 And duly for each new moon and duly for each sabbath all mortals shall come to do reverence before me, says Jehovah;
24 and they shall go out and see the corpses of the men that rebelled against me; for their worm shall never die and their fire shall never go out, and they shall be an object of repugnance to all mortals.
Footnotes
^ 66:3 Lit. the one who makes an offering, hog’s blood
^ 66:6 Var. from the city
^ 66:14 Lit. shall sprout like
^ 66:14 Conj. be known, and his hostility to his enemies
^ 66:17-18 Codd. they shall come to an end together, quoth Jehovah, and I—their deeds and their thoughts—it is coming to gather
^ 66:18 Or has come to gather
^ 66:19 Var. a token
^ 66:19 Codd. do not have the name Rosh, but some of them appear to have had a name ending in sh or sht, with two letters preceding
^ 66:20 (litters) Unc.
^ 66:20 (dromedaries) Unc.
