Isaiah

57* The honest one perishes, and there is not a man who thinks it over; and friendly men are taken home, with nobody seeing the point, that the honest man is taken home out of harm’s way: 2 he goes into peace; they are at rest in their beds, whoever went straight. 3 But as for you, come this way, sons of a fortune-telling mother, offspring of an adulterer and a wanton. 4 Toward whom are you so daintily supercilious? toward whom do you open your mouths wide and put out your tongues? Are not you yourselves children of crime, an offspring of falsehood? 5 you who heat yourselves up at the oaks, under every verdant tree, and slaughter children in the arroyos, under the clefts of the ledges. 6 Your portion is in smoothed arroyo-rocks; they, they are your lot; to them too you have poured a libation, brought up a grain-offering—am I to put up with things like these? 7 On a high and upthrust mountain you have placed your bed; there too you have gone up to offer sacrifice. 8* And behind the door and the post you have placed your reminder, because out from me you uncovered and climbed, broadened out your bed; and you cut out some of those for yourself, you loved their bed. You saw a hand, 9 and you took the road to the King with oil and used plenty of perfume, and sent your envoys to distant places and down to the world of the dead. 10* You were spent with the length of your road, you did not say “I am done”; you found you had life of hand, therefore you did not flag.

11* Of whom are you apprehensive and afraid, that you are lying and do not remember me, do not give me a thought? I have been keeping myself still and ignoring matters, have I not? and of me you are not afraid. 12 I will be the one to declare your rightness; as for your work, it will do you no good. 13* When you cry out let your collections deliver you! but a wind will pick them all up, a puff will take them along, and he who takes refuge in me shall inherit a land and shall take possession of my sacred mountain. 14 And I shall say “Level up, level up, clear a road, heave up obstacles out of my people’s way!”

15* For a lofty and exalted one says, who dwells in eternity and whose name is sacred, “I dwell in a place lofty and sacred, and with a man abashed and lowly in spirit, to give life to the spirits of the lowly and invigorate the hearts of the abashed. 16* For I will not keep up a contention forever nor be permanently incensed; for it is from me that spirit puts on a wrapping, and it was I who made breath. 17** For the foulness of his moneymaking I was incensed and beat him, veiled and grim; but he went off backward on the course of his own choice. 18* I saw his courses, and I healed him and let him rest, and made it up to him in truehearted comforting. 19 I create peace with my lips, peace to the one who is far and peace to the one who is near,” says Jehovah, “and I heal him. 20 But the wicked are like the driving sea, in that it cannot be quiet and its water drives up sludge and mud; 21 there is no peace for wicked men,” says my God.