Isaiah 29:1–16

¹Woe to you, O Ariel,^a

the city of Ariel where David camped!

Year upon year

let your festivals recur.

²And I will constrain Ariel,

and there will be mourning and lamentation;

she will be like an altar hearth^b before Me.

³I will camp in a circle around you;

I will besiege you with towers

and set up siege works against you.

⁴You will be brought low,

you will speak from the ground,

and out of the dust

your words will be muffled.

Your voice will be like a spirit from the ground;

your speech will whisper out of the dust.

⁵But your many foes will be like fine dust,

the multitude of the ruthless like blowing chaff.

Then suddenly, in an instant,

⁶you will be visited by the LORD of Hosts

with thunder and earthquake and loud noise,

with windstorm and tempest and consuming flame of fire.

⁷All the many nations

going out to battle against Ariel—

even all who war against her,

laying siege and attacking her—

will be like a dream,

like a vision in the night,

⁸as when a hungry man dreams he is eating,

then awakens still hungry;

as when a thirsty man dreams he is drinking,

then awakens faint and parched.

So will it be for all the many nations

who go to battle against Mount Zion.

⁹Stop and be astonished;

blind yourselves and be sightless;

be drunk, but not with wine;

stagger, but not from strong drink.

¹⁰For the LORD has poured out on you

a spirit of deep sleep.

He has shut your eyes, O prophets;

He has covered your heads, O seers.

¹¹And the entire vision will be to you like the words sealed in a scroll. If it is handed to someone to read, he will say, “I cannot, because it is sealed.” ¹²Or if the scroll is handed to one unable to read, he will say, “I cannot read.”

¹³Therefore the Lord said:

“These people draw near to Me with their mouths

and honor Me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from Me.

Their worship of Me is but rules taught by men.^c

¹⁴Therefore I will again confound these people

with wonder upon wonder.

The wisdom of the wise will vanish,

and the intelligence of the intelligent will be hidden.^d”

¹⁵Woe to those who dig deep

to hide their plans from the LORD.

In darkness they do their works and say,

“Who sees us, and who will know?”

¹⁶You have turned things upside down,

as if the potter were regarded as clay.

Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,

“He did not make me”?^e

Can the pottery say of the potter,

“He has no understanding”?