Isaiah 30

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¹“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord, “Who execute a plan, but not Mine, And make an alliance, but not of My Spirit, In order to add sin to sin; ✦ ²Who proceed down to Egypt Without consulting Me, To take refuge in the safety of Pharaoh, And to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! ✦ ³“Therefore the safety of Pharaoh will be your shame, And the shelter in the shadow of Egypt, your humiliation. ✦ ⁴“For their officials are at Zoan And their ambassadors arrive at Hanes. ✦ ⁵“Everyone will be ashamed because of a people who do not benefit them, Who are not a help or benefit, but a source of shame and also disgrace.” ✦ ⁶The pronouncement concerning the animals of the Negev: Through a land of distress and anguish, From where come lioness and lion, viper and flying serpent, They carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys, And their treasures on camels’ humps, To a people who will not benefit them; ✦ ⁷Even Egypt, whose help is vain and empty. Therefore, I have called her “Rahab who has been exterminated.” ✦ ⁸Now go, write it on a tablet in their presence And inscribe it on a scroll, That it may serve in the time to come As a witness forever. ✦ ⁹For this is a rebellious people, false sons, Sons who refuse to listen To the instruction of the Lord; ✦ ¹⁰Who say to the seers, “You must not see visions”; And to the prophets, “You must not prophesy the truth to us. Speak to us pleasant words, Prophesy illusions. ✦ ¹¹“Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, Stop speaking before us about the Holy One of Israel!” ✦ ¹²Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Since you have rejected this word And have put your trust in oppression and crookedness, and have relied on them, ✦ ¹³Therefore this wrongdoing will be to you Like a breach about to fall, A bulge in a high wall, Whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant, ✦ ¹⁴Whose collapse is like the smashing of a potter’s jar, So ruthlessly shattered That a shard will not be found among its pieces To take fire from a hearth Or to scoop water from a cistern.” ✦ ¹⁵For this is what the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “In repentance and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength.” But you were not willing, ✦ ¹⁶And you said, “No, for we will flee on horses!” Therefore you shall flee! “And we will ride on swift horses!” Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift. ✦ ¹⁷One thousand will flee at the threat of one man; You will flee at the threat of five, Until you are left like a signal post on a mountain top, And like a flag on a hill. ✦ ¹⁸¶Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him. ✦ ¹⁹For, you people in Zion, inhabitant in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. He will certainly be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you. ✦ ²⁰Although the Lord has given you bread of deprivation and water of oppression, He, your Teacher, will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will see your Teacher. ✦ ²¹Your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left. ✦ ²²And you will desecrate your carved images plated with silver, and your cast metal images plated with gold. You will scatter them as a filthy thing, and say to them, “Be gone!” ✦ ²³Then He will give you rain for your seed which you will sow in the ground, and bread from the yield of the ground, and it will be rich and plentiful; on that day your livestock will graze in a wide pasture. ✦ ²⁴Also the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned feed, which has been winnowed with shovel and pitchfork. ✦ ²⁵And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be streams running with water on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. ✦ ²⁶And the light of the full moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day the Lord binds up the fracture of His people and heals the wound He has inflicted. ✦ ²⁷¶Behold, the name of the Lord comes from a remote place; His anger is burning and dense with smoke; His lips are filled with indignation, And His tongue is like a consuming fire; ✦ ²⁸His breath is like an overflowing river, Which reaches to the neck, To shake the nations back and forth in a sieve, And to put in the jaws of the peoples the bridle which leads astray. ✦ ²⁹You will have songs as in the night when you keep the festival, And gladness of heart as when one marches to the sound of the flute, To go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. ✦ ³⁰And the Lord will cause His voice of authority to be heard, And the descending of His arm to be seen in fierce anger, And in the flame of a consuming fire In cloudburst, downpour, and hailstones. ✦ ³¹For at the voice of the Lord Assyria will be terrified, When He strikes with the rod. ✦ ³²And every blow of the rod of punishment, Which the Lord will lay on him, Will be with the music of tambourines and lyres; And in battles, brandishing weapons, He will fight them. ✦ ³³For Topheth has long been ready, Indeed, it has been prepared for the king. He has made it deep and large, A pyre of fire with plenty of wood; The breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it afire. ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

Where this chapter connects

Isa 30 ·14 Isa 10 ·8 Isa 31 ·7 Deut 32 ·7 Isa 28 ·7 Isa 1 ·6 Isa 8 ·6 Isa 5 ·6

Christ at the center

Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).

How Isaiah 30 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereVideoBibleProject — video overviews & word studiesBibleProject · 5–10 min · Free · evangelical
Free animated overviews of every book of the Bible, plus themes and Hebrew/Greek word studies — the best visual on-ramp to any book. (Biblical-theology, broadly evangelical, not distinctly Reformed.)
★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Seminary

★ Start hereCommentaryThe Book of Isaiah (NICOT)John N. Oswalt · Paid · evangelical
The standard evangelical commentary on Isaiah — thorough and devotionally warm.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Isaiah videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Isaiah 30YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Isaiah 30David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on IsaiahMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Isaiah 30Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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