The MacArthur Study Bible, NKJV, page 331
11For as the earth brings forth its bud,
As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth,
So the Lord GOD will cause wrighteousness and xpraise to spring forth before all the nations.
Assurance of Zion’s Salvation
Isaiah 62
Assurance of Jerusalem’s Deliverance
1For Zion’s sake I will not 1hold My peace,
And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
Until her righteousness goes forth as brightness,
And her salvation as a lamp that burns.
2a The Gentiles shall see your righteousness,
And all bkings your glory.
c You shall be called by a new name,
Which the mouth of the LORD will name.
3You shall also be da crown of glory
In the hand of the LORD,
And a royal diadem
In the hand of your God.
4e You shall no longer be termed fForsaken,2
Nor shall your land any more be termed gDesolate;3
But you shall be called 4Hephzibah, and your land 5Beulah;
For the LORD delights in you,
And your land shall be married.
5For as a young man marries a virgin,
So shall your sons marry you;
And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
h So shall your God rejoice over you.
6i I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem;
They shall 6never hold their peace day or night.
You who 7make mention of the LORD, do not keep silent,
7And give Him no rest till He establishes
And till He makes Jerusalem ja praise in the earth.
8The LORD has sworn by His right hand
And by the arm of His strength:
“Surely I will no longer kgive your grain
As food for your enemies;
And the sons of the foreigner shall not drink your new wine,
For which you have labored.
9But those who have gathered it shall eat it,
And praise the LORD;
Those who have brought it together shall drink it lin My holy courts.”
10Go through,
Go through the gates!
m Prepare the way for the people;
Build up,
Build up the highway!
Take out the stones,
n Lift up a banner for the peoples!
11Indeed the LORD has proclaimed
To the end of the world:
o“Say to the daughter of Zion,
‘Surely your salvation is coming;
Behold, His preward is with Him,
And His 8work before Him.’ ”
12And they shall call them The Holy People,
The Redeemed of the LORD;
And you shall be called Sought Out,
A City Not Forsaken.
The LORD in Judgment and Salvation
Isaiah 63
God’s Mercy Remembered
1Who is this who comes from Edom,
With dyed garments from Bozrah,
This One who is 1glorious in His apparel,
Traveling in the greatness of His strength?—
“I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.”
2Why ais Your apparel red,
And Your garments like one who treads in the winepress?
3“I have btrodden the winepress alone,
And from the peoples no one was with Me.
For I have trodden them in My anger,
And trampled them in My fury;
Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments,
And I have stained all My robes.
4For the cday of vengeance is in My heart,
And the year of My redeemed has come.
5d I looked, but ethere was no one to help,
And I wondered
That there was no one to uphold;
Therefore My own farm brought salvation for Me;
And My own fury, it sustained Me.
6I have trodden down the peoples in My anger,
Made them drunk in My fury,
And brought down their strength to the earth.”
God’s Mercy Remembered
7I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the LORD
And the praises of the LORD,
According to all that the LORD has bestowed on us,
And the great goodness toward the house of Israel,
Which He has bestowed on them according to His mercies,
According to the multitude of His lovingkindnesses.
8For He said, “Surely they are My people,
Children who will not lie.”
So He became their Savior.
9g In all their affliction He was 2afflicted,
h And the Angel of His Presence saved them;
i In His love and in His pity He redeemed them;
And jHe bore them and carried them
All the days of old.
10But they krebelled and lgrieved His Holy Spirit;
m So He turned Himself against them as an enemy,
And He fought against them.
11Then he nremembered the days of old,
Moses and his people, saying:
“Where is He who obrought them up out of the sea
With the 3shepherd of His flock?
p Where is He who put His Holy Spirit within them,
12Who led them by the right hand of Moses,
q With His glorious arm,
r Dividing the water before them
To make for Himself an everlasting name,
13s Who led them through the deep,
As a horse in the wilderness,
That they might not stumble?”
14As a beast goes down into the valley,
And the Spirit of the LORD causes him to rest,
So You lead Your people,
t To make Yourself a glorious name.
A Prayer of Penitence
15u Look down from heaven,
And see vfrom Your habitation, holy and glorious.
Where are Your zeal and Your strength,
The yearning wof Your heart and Your mercies toward me?
Are they restrained?
16x Doubtless You are our Father,
Though Abraham ywas ignorant of us,
And Israel does not acknowledge us.
You, O LORD, are our Father;
Our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name.
17O LORD, why have You zmade us stray from Your ways,
And hardened our heart from Your fear?
Return for Your servants’ sake,
The tribes of Your inheritance.
18a Your holy people have possessed it but a little while;
b Our adversaries have trodden down Your sanctuary.
19We have become like those of old, over whom You never ruled,
Those who were never called by Your name.
Isaiah 64
A Prayer for Help
1Oh, that You would 1rend the heavens!
That You would come down!
That the mountains might shake at Your apresence—
2As fire burns brushwood,
As fire causes water to boil—
To make Your name known to Your adversaries,
That the nations may tremble at Your presence!
3When bYou did awesome things for which we did not look,
You came down,
The mountains shook at Your presence.
4For since the beginning of the world
c Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear,
Nor has the eye seen any God besides You,
Who acts for the one who waits for Him.
5You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness,
Who remembers You in Your ways.
You are indeed angry, for we have sinned—
d In these ways we continue;
And we need to be saved.
6But we are all like an unclean thing,
And all eour righteousnesses are like 2filthy rags;
We all ffade as a leaf,
And our iniquities, like the wind,
Have taken us away.
7And there is no one who calls on Your name,
Who stirs himself up to take hold of You;
For You have hidden Your face from us,
And have 3consumed us because of our iniquities.
8But now, O LORD,
You are our Father;
We are the clay, and You our gpotter;
And all we are the work of Your hand.
9Do not be furious, O LORD,
Nor remember iniquity forever;
Indeed, please look—we all are Your people!
10Your holy cities are a wilderness,
Zion is a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation.
11Our holy and beautiful 4temple,
Where our fathers praised You,
Is burned up with fire;
And all hour pleasant things 5are laid waste.
12i Will You restrain Yourself because of these things, O LORD?
j Will You 6hold Your peace, and afflict us very severely?
The Righteousness of God’s Judgment
Isaiah 65
The Rebellious Will Be Punished
1“I was asought by those who did not ask for Me;
I was found by those who did not seek Me.
I said, ‘Here I am, here I am,’
To a nation that bwas not called by My name.
2c I have stretched out My hands all day long to a drebellious people,
Who ewalk in a way that is not good,
According to their own thoughts;
3A people fwho provoke Me to anger continually to My face;
g Who sacrifice in gardens,
And burn incense on altars of brick;
4h Who sit among the graves,
And spend the night in the tombs;
i Who eat swine’s flesh,
And the broth of 1abominable things is in their vessels;
5j Who say, ‘Keep to yourself,
Do not come near me,
For I am holier than you!’
These 2are smoke in My nostrils,
A fire that burns all the day.
6“Behold, kit is written before Me:
l I will not keep silence, mbut will repay—
Even repay into their bosom—
7Your iniquities and nthe iniquities of your fathers together,”
Says the LORD,
o“Who have burned incense on the mountains
p And blasphemed Me on the hills;
Therefore I will measure their former work into their bosom.”
8Thus says the LORD:
“As the new wine is found in the cluster,
And one says, ‘Do not destroy it,
For qa blessing is in it,’
So will I do for My servants’ sake,
That I may not destroy them rall.
9I will bring forth descendants from Jacob,
And from Judah an heir of My mountains;
My select shall inherit it,
And My servants shall dwell there.
10t Sharon shall be a fold of flocks,
And uthe Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down,
For My people who have vsought Me.
11“But you are those who forsake the LORD,
Who forget wMy holy mountain,
Who prepare xa table for 3Gad,
And who furnish a drink offering for 4Meni.
12Therefore I will number you for the sword,
And you shall all bow down to the slaughter;
y Because, when I called, you did not answer;
When I spoke, you did not hear,
But did evil before My eyes,
And chose that in which I do not delight.”
13Therefore thus says the Lord GOD:
“Behold, My servants shall eat,
But you shall be hungry;
Behold, My servants shall drink,
But you shall be thirsty;
Behold, My servants shall rejoice,
But you shall be ashamed;
14Behold, My servants shall sing for joy of heart,
But you shall cry for sorrow of heart,
And zwail for 5grief of spirit.
15You shall leave your name aas a curse to bMy chosen;
For the Lord GOD will slay you,
And ccall His servants by another name;
16d So that he who blesses himself in the earth
Shall bless himself in the God of truth;
And ehe who swears in the earth
Shall swear by the God of truth;
Because the former troubles are forgotten,
And because they are hidden from My eyes.
The Glorious New Creation
17“For behold, I create fnew heavens and a new earth;
And the former shall not be remembered or 6come to mind.
18But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create;
For behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing,
And her people a joy.
19g I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
And joy in My people;
The hvoice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her,
Nor the voice of crying.
20“No more shall an infant from there live but a few days,
Nor an old man who has not fulfilled his days;
For the child shall die one hundred years old,
i But the sinner being one hundred years old shall be accursed.
21j They shall build houses and inhabit them;
They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22They shall not build and another inhabit;
They shall not plant and kanother eat;
For las the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people,
And mMy elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23They shall not labor in vain,
n Nor bring forth children for trouble;
For othey shall be the descendants of the blessed of the LORD,
And their offspring with them.
24“It shall come to pass
That pbefore they call, I will answer;
And while they are still speaking, I will qhear.
25The rwolf and the lamb shall feed together,
The lion shall eat straw like the ox,
s And dust shall be the serpent’s food.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,”
Says the LORD.
Isaiah 66
True Worship and False
1Thus says the LORD:
a“Heaven is My throne,
And earth is My footstool.
Where is the house that you will build Me?
And where is the place of My rest?
2For all those things My hand has made,
And all those things exist,”
Says the LORD.
b“But on this one will I look:
c On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit,
And who trembles at My word.
3“Hed who kills a bull is as if he slays a man;
He who sacrifices a lamb, as if he ebreaks a dog’s neck;
He who offers a grain offering, as if he offers swine’s blood;
He who burns incense, as if he blesses an idol.
Just as they have chosen their own ways,
And their soul delights in their abominations,
4So will I choose their delusions,
And bring their fears on them;
f Because, when I called, no one answered,
When I spoke they did not hear;
But they did evil before My eyes,
And chose that in which I do not delight.”
The LORD Vindicates Zion
5Hear the word of the LORD,
You who tremble at His word:
“Your brethren who ghated you,
Who cast you out for My name’s sake, said,
h‘Let the LORD be glorified,
That iwe may see your joy.’
But they shall be ashamed.”
6The sound of noise from the city!
A voice from the temple!
The voice of the LORD,
Who fully repays His enemies!
7“Before she was in labor, she gave birth;
Before her pain came,
She delivered a male child.
8Who has heard such a thing?
Who has seen such things?
Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day?
Or shall a nation be born at once?
For as soon as Zion was in labor,
She gave birth to her children.
9Shall I bring to the time of birth, and not cause delivery?” says the LORD.
“Shall I who cause delivery shut up the womb?” says your God.
10“Rejoice with Jerusalem,
And be glad with her, all you who love her;
Rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn for her;
11That you may feed and be satisfied
With the consolation of her bosom,
That you may drink deeply and be delighted
With the abundance of her glory.”
12For thus says the LORD:
“Behold, jI will extend peace to her like a river,
And the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream.
Then you shall kfeed;
On her sides shall you be lcarried,
And be dandled on her knees.
13As one whom his mother comforts,
So I will mcomfort you;
And you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”
The Reign and Indignation of God
14When you see this, your heart shall rejoice,
And nyour bones shall flourish like grass;
The hand of the LORD shall be known to His servants,
And His indignation to His enemies.
15o For behold, the LORD will come with fire
And with His chariots, like a whirlwind,
To render His anger with fury,
And His rebuke with flames of fire.
16For by fire and by pHis sword
The LORD will judge all flesh;
And the slain of the LORD shall be qmany.
17“Thoser who sanctify themselves and purify themselves,
To go to the gardens
1 After an idol in the midst,
Eating swine’s flesh and the abomination and the mouse,
Shall 2be consumed together,” says the LORD.
18“For I know their works and their sthoughts. It shall be that I will tgather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see My glory.
