Reading Isaiah 10:1-19, NIV
Map: unjust laws, rob my oppressed and the fatherless, making widows their prey; God’s sovereignty in display, uses Assyria to punish Israel for idols worshipping (vs 11) and then punish king of Assyria later (vs 12-18), ..removed boundaries of nations; plundered their treasures, (vs 13), ..send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors (vs 16)..Holy One a flame; in a single day it will burn and consume his thorns and briers,…splendour of his forests and fertile fields..completely destroy..(vs 17, 18); …time will come, remnant of Israel…truly rely on the LORD (vs 20).
Don’t mess around with God; his majesty, his sovereignty, his glory and power to be feared and relied on. God to be feared and praised at all levels: individual, family, nation, global, and in heavens-Ed, 20-02-2021
Isaiah 10:1-20, GNB
[1]You are doomed! You make unjust laws that oppress my people.
[2]That is how you prevent the poor from having their rights and from getting justice. That is how you take the property that belongs to widows and orphans.
[3]What will you do when God punishes you? What will you do when he brings disaster on you from a distant country? Where will you run to find help? Where will you hide your wealth?
[4]You will be killed in battle or dragged off as prisoners. Yet even so the Lord’s anger will not be ended; his hand will still be stretched out to punish.
[5]The Lord said, “Assyria! I use Assyria like a club to punish those with whom I am angry.
[6]I sent Assyria to attack a godless nation, people who have made me angry. I sent them to loot and steal and trample on the people like dirt in the streets.”
[7]But the Assyrian emperor has his own violent plans in mind. He is determined to destroy many nations.
[8]He boasts, “Every one of my commanders is a king!
[9]I conquered the cities of Calno and Carchemish, the cities of Hamath and Arpad. I conquered Samaria and Damascus.
[10]I stretched out my hand to punish those kingdoms that worship idols, idols more numerous than those of Jerusalem and Samaria.
[11]I have destroyed Samaria and all its idols, and I will do the same to Jerusalem and the images that are worshipped there.”
[12]But the Lord says, “When I finish what I am doing on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I will punish the emperor of Assyria for all his boasting and all his pride.”
[13]The emperor of Assyria boasts, “I have done it all myself. I am strong and wise and clever. I wiped out the boundaries between nations and took the supplies they had stored. Like a bull I have trampled on the people who live there.
[14]The nations of the world were like a bird’s nest, and I gathered their wealth as easily as gathering eggs. Not a wing fluttered to scare me off; no beak opened to scream at me!”
[15]But the Lord says, “Can an axe claim to be greater than the man who uses it? Is a saw more important than the man who saws with it? A club doesn’t lift up a man; a man lifts up a club.”
[16]The Lord Almighty is going to send disease to punish those who are now well fed. In their bodies there will be a fire that burns and burns.
[17]God, the light of Israel, will become a fire. Israel’s holy God will become a flame, which in a single day will burn up everything, even the thorns and thistles.
[18]The rich forests and farmlands will be totally destroyed, in the same way that a fatal sickness destroys a person.
[19]There will be so few trees left that even a child will be able to count them.
[20]A time is coming when the people of Israel who have survived will no longer rely on the nation that almost destroyed them. They will truly put their trust in the Lord, Israel’s holy God.