You shall conceive chaff, You shall bring forth stubble; Your breath, as fire, shall devour you.
Parallel translations
- WEB You will conceive chaff. You will give birth to stubble. Your breath is a fire that will devour you.
- KJV Ye shall conceive chaff, ye shall bring forth stubble: your breath, as fire, shall devour you.
- BSB You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble. Your breath is a fire that will consume you.
- NASB “You have conceived chaff, you will give birth to stubble; My breath will consume you like a fire.
- NLT You Assyrians produce nothing but dry grass and stubble. Your own breath will turn to fire and consume you.
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 proud enemy's schemes are worthless, and his own hostility will become the fire that destroys him.
Overview
Addressing Assyria, God says its plans amount to nothing but chaff and stubble, and its violent breath will consume itself. The image warns that those who set themselves against God ultimately bring about their own ruin. It echoes the biblical principle that the wicked are caught in their own devices and that God's judgment is just.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Ps 7:14Behold, he travails with iniquity. Yes, he has conceived mischief, and brought out falsehood.
- Isa 59:4No one sues in righteousness, and no one pleads in truth. They trust in vanity, and speak lies. They conceive mischief, and give birth to iniquity.
- Jas 1:15Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin; and the sin, when it is full grown, produces death.
- Acts 5:4While you kept it, didn’t it remain your own? After it was sold, wasn’t it in your power? How is it that you have conceived this thing in your heart? You haven’t lied to men, but to God.”
- Isa 10:7–14However he doesn’t mean so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off not a few nations.
- Isa 17:13The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters: but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm.
- Ps 83:5–18For they have conspired together with one mind. They form an alliance against you.
- Job 15:35They conceive mischief, and produce iniquity. Their heart prepares deceit.”
- Isa 8:9–10Make an uproar, you peoples, and be broken in pieces! Listen, all you from far countries: dress for battle, and be shattered! Dress for battle, and be shattered!
- Isa 29:5–8But the multitude of your foes will be like fine dust, and the multitude of the ruthless ones like chaff that blows away. Yes, it will be in an instant, suddenly.
- Isa 26:18We have been with child. We have been in pain. We gave birth, it seems, only to wind. We have not worked any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
- Isa 31:8–9“The Assyrian will fall by the sword, not of man; and the sword, not of mankind, shall devour him. He will flee from the sword, and his young men will become subject to forced labor.
- Isa 5:24Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
- Ps 2:1Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot a vain thing?
- Isa 37:23–29Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.
- Isa 30:30–33Yahweh will cause his glorious voice to be heard, and will show the descent of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and the flame of a devouring fire, with a blast, storm, and hailstones.
- Isa 1:31The strong will be like tinder, and his work like a spark. They will both burn together, and no one will quench them.”
- Nah 1:5–10The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, yes, the world, and all who dwell in it.
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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 33:11 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.