Tremble, you women who are at ease! Be troubled, you careless ones! Strip yourselves, make yourselves naked, and put sackcloth on your waist.
Parallel translations
- KJV Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones: strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins.
- BSB Shudder, you ladies of leisure; tremble, you daughters of complacency. Strip yourselves bare and put sackcloth around your waists.
- NKJV Tremble, you women who are at ease; Be troubled, you complacent ones; Strip yourselves, make yourselves bare, And gird sackcloth on your waists.
- NASB Tremble, you women who are at ease; Be troubled, you complacent daughters; Strip, undress, and put sackcloth on your waist,
- NLT Tremble, you women of ease; throw off your complacency. Strip off your pretty clothes, and put on burlap to show your grief.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The complacent women are told to tremble, strip, and put on sackcloth in mourning. It matters because impending judgment calls for humbled grief, not careless ease.
Overview
The prophet commands the at-ease to exchange comfort for trembling and mourning garb. The vivid call to sackcloth signals the seriousness of approaching judgment. It urges a response of humility and repentance, the fitting posture before a holy God who judges complacency and sin.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Isa 3:24It shall happen that instead of sweet spices, there shall be rottenness; instead of a belt, a rope; instead of well set hair, baldness; instead of a robe, a wearing of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty.
- Jer 6:26Daughter of my people, clothe yourself with sackcloth, and wallow in ashes! Mourn, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation; for the destroyer shall suddenly come on us.
- Mic 1:8–11For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will howl like the jackals, and moan like the daughters of owls.
- Isa 47:1–3“Come down, and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.
- Hos 2:3Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.
- Deut 28:48therefore you will serve your enemies whom Yahweh sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck, until he has destroyed you.
- Jas 5:5You have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.
- Isa 20:4so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.
- Isa 33:14The sinners in Zion are afraid. Trembling has seized the godless ones. Who among us can live with the devouring fire? Who among us can live with everlasting burning?
- Isa 15:3In their streets, they clothe themselves in sackcloth. In their streets and on their housetops, everyone wails, weeping abundantly.
- Isa 2:21To go into the caverns of the rocks, and into the clefts of the ragged rocks, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake the earth mightily.
- Jer 49:3“Wail, Heshbon, for Ai is laid waste! Cry, you daughters of Rabbah! Clothe yourself in sackcloth. Lament, and run back and forth among the fences; for Malcam will go into captivity, his priests and his princes together.
- Jer 4:8For this clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament and wail; for the fierce anger of Yahweh hasn’t turned back from us.
- Isa 22:4–5Therefore I said, “Look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Don’t labor to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- Isa 2:19Men shall go into the caves of the rocks, and into the holes of the earth, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake the earth mightily.
- Luke 23:27–30A great multitude of the people followed him, including women who also mourned and lamented him.
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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 32:11 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.
Original language
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