The Daily Audio Bible

Isaiah's vision and message

1 This is a vision that God showed to Isaiah, the son of Amoz. It was a message about his country, Judah, and the city of Jerusalem.^[a] God showed it to Isaiah at the time when Uzziah, then Jotham, then Ahaz and then Hezekiah were kings of Judah.

God's people are guilty^[b]

² Hear the Lord, those who live in heaven!^[c] Listen to him, you people on the earth! Listen carefully because the Lord has spoken! He says, ‘I have helped my children to grow. I took care of them but now they have turned against me!

³ An ox knows its master. A donkey knows the place where its master feeds it. But Israel's people do not know me. My people do not understand me.’

⁴ Oh! Israel, you are a nation of people who do not obey me. The people are guilty of many evil things. Their sins are like a heavy weight on their backs. They are a family of people who do wicked things. They have turned away from the Lord, the Holy God of Israel. They have turned their backs against him.

⁵ You continue to fight against God. Why do you do that? God will continue to punish you. You are weak and you hurt all over. Your mind and your body have great pain. ⁶ From the bottom of your feet, to the top of your head, everywhere hurts! There are wounds all over your body that are still bleeding. Nobody has cleaned your wounds or covered them. Nobody has put olive oil on them to make them better.

⁷ Your land has become useless. Fire has destroyed your towns and cities. Foreign people have taken the crops from your fields, while you stood there and watched. Strangers have destroyed everything in your country.

⁸ Jerusalem is now like a hut in a vineyard or in a field of crops. It stands there alone, with its enemies all round it.

⁹ Unless the Lord Almighty had left some of us alive, we would have become like Sodom. We would have been completely destroyed, like Gomorrah.

¹⁰ Yes, you are like the rulers of Sodom, so listen to the Lord's message! You are no better than the people in Gomorrah! So listen to what our God is saying to you.

¹¹ The Lord says, ‘All your sacrifices are not important to me. I have received too many sacrifices that you have burned as gifts to me. I have received too many sheep and fat animals. I do not want any more blood from bulls, goats and lambs that you have offered to me as sacrifices. They do not give me any pleasure.

¹² You come to worship me in my temple. But are you doing what I want? Did I ask you to march round the temple yards with all your animals?

¹³ Do not bring any more useless gifts to offer to me! I do not like your incense. You like to have feasts at new moons, or on Sabbath days. But because of your sins, I hate all your holy meetings.

¹⁴ I hate your new moon feasts and your holy meetings. They have become like a heavy load for me. I cannot carry it any longer!

¹⁵ When you lift up your hands to pray to me, I have to look away. Even if you pray very many times to me, I do not listen to you, because your hands are full of blood.^[d]

¹⁶ Wash yourselves and make yourselves clean! Remove your sins, so that I no longer see them. Stop doing evil things!

¹⁷ Instead, learn to do what is right. Be honest and fair in what you do. Help people who are in pain. Make sure that widows and children who have no family receive justice.’

¹⁸ The Lord says, ‘Please come, so that we talk about this together. Even if your sins are like a red stain, they will become as white as snow. Even if they are bright red, they will become like white wool.^[e]

¹⁹ I will forgive you if you agree to obey me. If you are ready to do that, you will again eat plenty of good food from the land. ²⁰ But if you refuse to obey me and you turn against me, you will die in war.’

That is what the Lord himself has said.

Jerusalem is guilty

²¹ Oh! Jerusalem! Once you loved the Lord, as a wife loves her husband. But now you have become like a prostitute! At one time, the city was full of justice, and honest people lived there. But now the city is full of murderers!

²² Your pure silver has become dirt. You have mixed water with your best wine.

²³ Your rulers have turned against God. They are friends of robbers. They all accept bribes and they love to receive gifts. But they do not help widows or children who have no family. They do not make sure that they receive justice.

²⁴ So the Lord says this. He is the Lord Almighty, Israel's Mighty One. He says, ‘Oh! I will punish my enemies as they deserve. I will pay them back!

²⁵ I will turn against you, Jerusalem. I will make you pure again. But you will be like metal that burns in a very hot fire to remove all the dirt.

²⁶ Then I will again give you honest judges, as you had a long time ago. I will also give you wise officers, as you had before. After that, you will be called “The Righteous City” and “The Faithful City”.’

²⁷ God will use justice to make Zion free. He will do what is right for those who return to serve him.

²⁸ But he will destroy people who turn against him, and those who continue to do wrong things. People who no longer trust the Lord will live no more.

²⁹ You will become ashamed because you trusted special oak trees to help you. You worshipped idols in your special gardens, and you will be ashamed because of that.

³⁰ You will be like an oak tree with leaves that have become dry. You will be like a garden that has no water.

³¹ Even your most powerful men will disappear. They will be like a piece of string that burns in a fire. Their sins will be the fire that destroys them. They and their sins will burn together, and nobody will put out the fire.

Words that cause us to hope in God

2 This is the message that appeared to Amoz's son, Isaiah, about Judah and Jerusalem.

² This is what will happen in the last days. The mountain where the Lord's temple is will continue to be there. It will be the most important mountain of all. It will be higher than all the hills around it. People from every nation will go there all the time.

³ As they come, people from many nations will say, ‘Come! We will go to the mountain of the Lord, Jacob's God. We will go to worship him at his temple. Then he will teach us how to live in a way that pleases him. We will be able to walk in his paths.’

At that time, Zion will be the place where people learn about what is right. Yes, in Jerusalem the Lord will teach people his message.^[f]

⁴ God will be the judge between different nations. When they argue together, he will say who is right. They will take their swords and they will make them into ploughs. Their spears will become knives to cut their vines. Nations will no longer need weapons to attack other nations. They will not prepare to fight wars any more.

⁵ Jacob's family, come now! We need to live in the light that the Lord gives to us.^[g]

The great day when the Lord will judge everyone

⁶ Lord, you have gone away from your people. They are Jacob's descendants. They are full of ideas from countries in the east. They use magic to learn about future times, as the Philistines do. They join hands with foreign people.

⁷ They are very rich and their land is full of silver and gold. They have many horses, and more chariots than you can count. ⁸ But their land is also full of useless idols. They worship things that they have made with their own hands. ⁹ People bend down low in front of their idols. They even lie flat on the ground!

Lord, do not forgive them!

¹⁰ Go up to the rocks in the hills! Find a hole in the ground where you can hide! Hide from the Lord's great power, because he is coming to punish you! He rules with great authority!

¹¹ The Lord will bring proud people down low. People who boast will have to stop. On that day, people will see that only the Lord is great.

¹² Yes! The Lord Almighty will choose his great day. On that day, he will judge all the proud people who think that they are great. He will bring them all down very low.

¹³ The Lord will cut down the great cedar trees in Lebanon, and the oak trees in Bashan. ¹⁴ He will bring down the high mountains and the highest hills. ¹⁵ He will knock down all the strong towers and walls. ¹⁶ He will destroy the great ships that travel across the seas, and all the beautiful boats.

¹⁷ Like that, the Lord will bring proud people down low. People who boast will have to stop. On that day, people will see that only the Lord is great.

¹⁸ All the useless idols will be there no more.

¹⁹ People will run away to the caves in the hills. They will try to hide in holes in the ground. They will try to escape from the great power of the Lord, when he comes to judge everyone. They will see that he rules with great authority. People will be very afraid when he comes to punish the people on earth.

²⁰ At that time, people will throw away their silver idols and their gold idols. They made those idols so that they could worship them. But now they will throw them into caves where rats and bats live.

²¹ The people themselves will look for caves and holes in the rocks where they can hide. They will try to escape from the Lord's punishment. They will see that he rules with great authority. They will be afraid when he comes to judge the people on earth.

²² Do not trust people to help you. They are weak and they will all die one day. They are not strong enough to help you.

Paul speaks about his work as Christ's servant

10 I, Paul, need to ask you something. Perhaps you think that I am only humble when I am present there with you. You think that I only speak strongly to you when I am far away! Now I am away from you. But I am still humble and kind, like Christ is. ² So please listen to what I am asking you. Some people among you think that we live like people who belong to this world. When I come to visit you, I am sure that I will be brave enough to speak against those people. But I do not want to have to speak strongly like that against all of you.

³ It is true that we live in this world as humans. But we do not use our human ideas to fight against what is wrong. ⁴ It is like we are fighting in a war, but we do not use human weapons. Instead we use God's weapons. Those weapons are powerful enough to destroy the enemy's strong places. We use those weapons to destroy people's wrong ideas. ⁵ People may speak proud ideas that stop other people from knowing God. We show that those ideas are completely wrong. We change the way that people think, so that they want to obey Christ. ⁶ You must show that you are ready to obey completely. Then we will be ready to punish anyone who refuses to obey in any way.

⁷ Take a careful look at what is happening among you. If anyone is sure that he belongs to Christ, he should remember this: We also belong to Christ, just as he does. ⁸ You may think that I am too proud of my authority. But it is the Lord who has given that authority to us apostles. We have that authority so that we can help you become stronger as believers. We do not have it so that we can destroy you! So I am not ashamed to be proud of this.

⁹ When I write letters to you, I am not trying to frighten you. Please do not think that. ¹⁰ Some people say: ‘Paul's letters are powerful and they say strong things. But when he himself is here with us, he seems to be weak. And the words that he speaks have no value.’ ¹¹ Anyone who says things like that should understand this: There is no difference between what we write and what we do. When we come to you, we will do what we have written in our letters.

¹² Some people praise themselves. They say how clever they are. But we could never do that. We could not even try to be like those people. But they do not understand anything. They decide among themselves how good they are. They look at one another to see if they are better or worse. ¹³ As for us, we will only be proud of the work that God has given us to do. We will not be proud of anything more than that. And that includes our work among you. ¹⁴ We were the first people to come as far as Corinth and tell you the good news about Christ. That was part of the work that God has given to us to do. So it is right for us to tell you how proud we are.

¹⁵ We do not praise ourselves for the work that other people have done. That would not be right. But we hope that you will continue to believe more and more strongly. In that way our work among you will become even greater. But it will still be the work that God has given to us, and no more than that. ¹⁶ Then we want to tell God's good news to people in places beyond where you are. Those are not places where God has sent other people to work. Then we will not be praising ourselves for the work that anyone else has done. ¹⁷ The Bible says this:

¹⁸ Who is really good? It is not the person who praises himself. It is the person that the Lord says is a good person.

This is a special song that David wrote for the music leader.

It was when Doeg, the man from Edom, went to Saul and told him, ‘David went to the house of Ahimelech, the priest.’

Cruel words^[a]

²⁶ 3. Do not promise to pay someone else's debt. ²⁷ If you cannot pay, they will take away your bed, even while you are sleeping on it!