Kamionkowsky Week 2

I יהוה am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage: You shall have no other gods besides Me.

(1) It was the year that the Tartana came to Ashdod—being sent by King Sargon of Assyria—and attacked Ashdod and took it. (2) Previously, GOD had spoken to Isaiah son of Amoz, saying, “Go, untie the sackcloth from your loins and take your sandals off your feet,” which he had done, going naked and barefoot. (3) And now GOD said, “It is a sign and a portent for Egypt and Cush. Just as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot for three years, (4) so shall the king of Assyria drive off the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old, naked and barefoot and with bared buttocks—to the shame of Egypt! (5) And they shall be dismayed and chagrined because of Cush their hope and Egypt their boast. (6) In that day, the dwellers of this coastland shall say, ‘If this could happen to those we looked to, to whom we fled for help and rescue from the king of Assyria, how can we ourselves escape?’”

But GOD will pardon Jacob, and will again choose Israel, and will settle them on their own soil. And strangers shall join them and shall cleave to the House of Jacob. For peoples shall take them and bring them to their homeland; and the House of Israel shall possess them as slaves and handmaids on GOD’s soil. They shall be captors of their captors and masters to their taskmasters. And when GOD has given you rest from your sorrow and trouble, and from the hard service that you were made to serve, you shall recite this song of scorn over the king of Babylon:
How is the taskmaster vanished,
How is oppression ended!
GOD has broken the staff of the wicked,
The rod of tyrants,
That smote peoples in wrath
With stroke unceasing,
That belabored nations in fury
In relentless pursuit.
All the earth is calm, untroubled;
Loudly it cheers.
Even pines rejoice at your fate,
And cedars of Lebanon:
“Now that you have lain down,
None shall come up to fell us.”
Sheol below was astir
To greet your coming—
Rousing for you the shades
Of all earth’s chieftains,
Raising from their thrones
All the kings of nations.
All speak up and say to you,
“So you have been stricken as we were,
You have become like us!
Your pomp is brought down to Sheol,
And the strains of your lutes!
Worms are to be your bed,
Maggots your blanket!”
How are you fallen from heaven,
O Shining One, son of Dawn!
How are you felled to earth,
O vanquisher of nations!
Once you thought in your heart,
“I will climb to the sky;
Higher than the stars of God
I will set my throne.
I will sit in the mount of assembly,
On the summit of Zaphon:
I will mount the back of a cloud—
I will match the Most High.”
Instead, you are brought down to Sheol,
To the bottom of the Pit.
They who behold you stare;
They peer at you closely:
“Is this the man
Who shook the earth,
Who made realms tremble,
Who made the world like a waste
And wrecked its towns,
Who never released his prisoners to their homes?”
All the kings of nations
Were laid, every one, in honor
Each in his tomb;
While you were left lying unburied,
Like loathsome carrion,
Like a trampled corpse
[In] the clothing of slain gashed by the sword
Who sink to the very stones of the Pit.
You shall not have a burial like them;
Because you destroyed your country,
Murdered your people.
Let the breed of evildoers
Nevermore be named!
Prepare a slaughtering block for his sons
Because of the guilt of their father.
Let them not arise to possess the earth!
Then the world’s face shall be covered with towns.
I will rise up against them—declares GOD of Hosts—and will wipe out from Babylon name and remnant, kith and kin—declares GOD — and I will make it a home of bitterns, pools of water. I will sweep it with a broom of extermination—declares GOD of Hosts. GOD of Hosts has sworn this oath:
“As I have designed, so shall it happen;
What I have planned, that shall come to pass: To break Assyria in My land,
To crush him on My mountain.”
And his yoke shall drop off them,
And his burden shall drop from their backs. That is the plan that is planned
For all the earth;
That is why an arm is poised
Over all the nations. For GOD of Hosts has planned,
Who then can foil it?
It is the divine arm that is poised,
And who can stay it?
This pronouncement was made in the year that King Ahaz died: Rejoice not, all Philistia,
Because the staff of him that beat you is broken.
For from the stock of a snake there sprouts an asp,
A flying seraph branches out from it. The first-born of the poor shall graze
And the destitute lie down secure.
I will kill your stock by famine,
And it shall slay the very last of you. Howl, O gate; cry out, O city;
Quake, all Philistia!
For a stout one is coming from the north
And there is no straggler in his ranks. And what will he answer the messengers of any nation?
That Zion has been established by GOD:
In it, the needy of this covenanted people shall find shelter.

Ah, land in the deep shadow of wings. Beyond the rivers of Cush!

Go, swift messengers,

To a nation far and remote,

To a people thrust forth and away, —

A nation of gibber and chatter—

Whose land is cut off by streams;

Which sends out envoys by sea,

In papyrus vessels upon the water!

[Say this:]

“All you who live in the world

And inhabit the earth,

When a flag is raised in the hills, take note!

When a ram’s horn is blown, give heed!”

For thus GOD said to me:

“I rest calm and confident in My habitation—

Like a scorching heat upon sprouts,

Like a rain-cloud in the heat of reaping time.”

For before the harvest, yet after the budding,

When the blossom has hardened into berries,[God] will trim away the twigs with pruning hooks,

And lop off the trailing branches.

They shall all be left

To the kites of the hills

And to the beasts of the earth;

The kites shall summer on them

And all the beasts of the earth shall winter on them.

In that time,

Tribute shall be brought to GOD of Hosts

[From] a people far and remote,

From a people thrust forth and away—

A nation of gibber and chatter,

Whose land is cut off by streams—

At the place where the name of GOD of Hosts abides,

At Mount Zion.

The “Desert of the Sea” Pronouncement.

Like the gales

That race through the Negeb,

It comes from the desert,

The terrible land.

A harsh prophecy

Has been announced to me:

“The betrayer is betraying,

The ravager ravaging.

Advance, Elam!

Lay siege, Media!

I have put an end

To all her sighing.”

Therefore my loins

Are seized with trembling;

I am gripped by pangs

Like a woman in travail,

Too anguished to hear,

Too frightened to see.

My mind is confused,

I shudder in panic.

My night of pleasure

He has turned to terror:

“Set the table!

”To “Let the watchman watch!”

“Eat and drink!”

To “Up, officers! Grease the shields!”

For thus my Sovereign said to me:

“Go, set up a sentry;

Let him announce what he sees.

He will see mounted men,

Horsemen in pairs—

Riders on donkeys,

Riders on camels—

And he will listen closely,

Most attentively.”

And [like] a lion he called out:

“On my Sovereign’s lookout I stand

Ever by day,

And at my post I watch

Every night.

And there they come, mounted men—Horsemen in pairs!”

Then he spoke up and said,

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon,

And all the images of her gods

Have crashed to the ground!”

My threshing, the product of my threshing floor:

What I have heard from GOD of Hosts,

The God of Israel—

That I have told to you.

The “Dumah” Pronouncement.

A call comes to me from Seir:

“Watchman, what of the night?

Watchman, what of the night?”

The watchman replied,

“Morning came, and so did night.

If you would inquire, inquire.

Come back again.”

The “In the Steppe” Pronouncement.

In the scrub, in the steppe, you will lodge,

O caravans of the Dedanites!

Meet the thirsty with water,

You who dwell in the land of Tema;

Greet the fugitive with bread.

For they have fled before swords:

Before the whetted sword,

Before the bow that was drawn,

Before the stress of war.

For thus my Sovereign has said to me: “In another year, fixed like the years of a hired laborer, all the multitude of Kedar shall vanish; the remaining bows of Kedar’s warriors shall be few in number; for the ETERNAL, the God of Israel, has spoken.”