The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

"…It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon everyone that is proud and lofty, and upon everyone that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low. ...The loftiness of humanity shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of the human race shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. …The idols he shall utterly abolish.

And people shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake terribly the earth. The LORD stands up to plead, and stands to judge the people."

"In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and pleasing for them that are escaped of Israel.

"And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remains in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even everyone that is written among the living in Jerusalem: When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst of it by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning."

-God’s song: The vineyard The Lord of hosts-

"Now will I sing…a song of my beloved touching his vineyard.

"My well beloved has a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones there, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the middle of it, and also made a winepress there: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

"And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? …For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry. Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

"Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

"Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!

-God’s message of His coming day-

"Howl you; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt: And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman in labor: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.

"Look, the day of the LORD comes, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners…out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations…shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the pride of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

"Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falls off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree.

-God sorrows over Lucifer-

"How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How are you cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations! For you have said in your heart, ‘I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.’ Yet you shall be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. The LORD of hosts has sworn, saying, surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.

"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

-Isaiah’s prayer of joy-

"O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for you have done wonderful things; your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. For you have been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.

"The LORD will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD has spoken it.

"And it shall be said in that day, ‘Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.’

"Open you the gates, that the righteous nation which keeps the truth may enter in. You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you: because he trusts in you. Trust…in the LORD forever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength: LORD, you will ordain peace for us: for you also have done all our works in us. LORD, in trouble have the people visited you, they poured out a prayer when your discipline was upon them. Like as a woman with child, that draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and cries out in her pains; so have we been in your sight, O LORD."

-The LORD’S invitation-

"Come, my people, enter you into your chambers, and shut your doors about you: hide yourself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be over. For, look, the LORD comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their sins: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

"Your dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, you that rest in dust: for your dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. In that day sing you…A vineyard of red wine. I the LORD do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.

" Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them; I would burn them together. Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me. For the LORD shall rise up as in Mount Perazim, he shall be angry as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act."

REFERENCES

Isaiah 2:1-2, 12, 17-19; Isaiah 3:13; Isaiah 4:2-3; Isaiah 5:1-4a, 7, 13, 20-23; Isaiah 13:6-11, 13; Isaiah 34:4; Isaiah 14:12-15, 24; Isaiah 35:5-6,10; Isaiah 25:1, 4, 8-9; Isaiah 26:2-4, 12, 16-17; Isaiah 26:20-21; Isaiah 26:19; Isaiah 27: 2-5; Isaiah 28:21.

CHAPTER 44