Isaiah

Authentic Worship

Thus says the Lord:Heaven is my throne, and earth my footstool. What house, then, could you build for me, and what could you offer as my resting place?

My hands have made all this, and it is all mine, but I am looking for the one who is meek and contrite of heart, who trembles at my word.

They sacrifice an ox, then they murder a human being. They sacrifice a lamb, Then they break a dog’s neck; they bring a cereal offering, then they offer swine’s blood. They burn incense, but they burn it for idols. Since they have chosen their own ways and taken delight in their dirty idols,

I will likewise choose afflictions they fear and abhor for them. For when I called, no one answered, when I spoke, no one listened. Instead, they did what was evil in my sight and chose that in which I had no delight.

Judgment

Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word: Because of my name, your own people hate and reject you, saying: “Let the Lord show his glory, that we may see your joy.” These mockers will be put to shame.

Listen, an uproar from the city, a voice from the temple! It is the voice of the Lord avenging and paying back his enemies.

A People Is Reborn

Long before being in labor, she has given birth; before having birth pangs she has been delivered of a son.

Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Has anyone seen the like of it? How could a land Spring forth in one day? How could a nation be formed in a moment? Yet Zion had scarcely been in travail when she gave birth to her children.

The Lord says: Do I allow to conceive and Yet not to give birth? For I am the one who opens the womb and who closes it.

“Rejoice for Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her. Be glad with her, rejoice with her, all you who were in grief over her,

that you may suck of the milk from her comforting breasts, that you may drink deeply from the abundance of her glory.”

For this is what the Lord says: I will send her peace, overflowing like a river; and the nations’ wealth, rushing like a torrent towards her. And you will be nursed and carried in her arms and fondled upon her lap.

As a son comforted by his mother, so will I comfort you.

At this sight, your heart will rejoice; like grass, your bones will flourish. For it shall be known that the Lord’s hand is with his servant, but his fury is upon his enemy.

Judgment of the Peoples

Look, the Lord will come in fire, his chariots like the whirlwind, to release his anger with fury and his threat with flames of fire.

For by fire will the Lord execute judgment, and by his sword against all mortals. Those slain by the Lord will be many.

As for those who sanctify and purify themselves by going to the gardens and following the priestess in the midst— those who eat the flesh of pigs, reptiles and rats— their deeds and thoughts will suddenly come to an end, says the Lord.

Gathering of All Peoples

Now I am going to gather the nations of every tongue, and they will witness my glory,

for I will perform a wonderful thing among them. Then I will send some of their survivors to the nations— Tarshish, Put, Lud, Mosoch, Rosh, Tubal, and Javan— to the distant islands where no one has ever heard of me or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations.

They will bring your kindred from all the nations as an offering to the Lord on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules, on camels to my holy mountain in Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring oblations in clean vessels to the house of the Lord.

Then I will choose priests and Levites even from them, says the Lord.

The Lord says: “As the new heavens and the new earth that I will make shall endure before me, so will your name and your descendants also endure.”

From new moon to new moon, from Sabbath to Sabbath, every mortal will come to worship me, says the Lord.

And on their way out, they will see the corpses of those who rebelled against me. Their worms shall not die, their fire not be quenched, and they will be abhorrent to all.