Isaiah 22 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

An Oracle Concerning Jerusalem

Isa 22:1The oracle concerning the valley of vision.
What do you mean that you have gone up,
all of you, to the housetops,

Isa 22:2

Isa 22:2you who are full of shoutings,
tumultuous city, exultant town?
Your slain are not slain with the sword
or dead in battle.

Isa 22:3

Isa 22:3All your leaders have fled together;
without the bow they were captured.
All of you who were found were captured,
though they had fled far away.

Isa 22:4

Isa 22:4Therefore I said:
“Look away from me;
let me weep bitter tears;
do not labor to comfort me
concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people.”

Isa 22:5

Isa 22:5For the Lord GOD of hosts has a day
of tumult and trampling and confusion
in the valley of vision,
a battering down of walls
and a shouting to the mountains.

Isa 22:6

Isa 22:6And Elam bore the quiver
with chariots and horsemen,
and Kir uncovered the shield.

Isa 22:7

Isa 22:7Your choicest valleys were full of chariots,
and the horsemen took their stand at the gates.

Isa 22:8

Isa 22:8He has taken away the covering of Judah. In that day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest,

Isa 22:9

Isa 22:9and you saw that the breaches of the city of David were many. You collected the waters of the lower pool,

Isa 22:10

Isa 22:10and you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall.

Isa 22:11

Isa 22:11You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you did not look to him who did it, or see him who planned it long ago.

Isa 22:12

Isa 22:12In that day the Lord GOD of hosts
called for weeping and mourning,
for baldness and wearing sackcloth;

Isa 22:13

Isa 22:13and behold, joy and gladness,
killing oxen and slaughtering sheep,
eating flesh and drinking wine.
“Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.”

Isa 22:14

Isa 22:14The LORD of hosts has revealed himself in my ears:
“Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die,”
says the Lord GOD of hosts.

Isa 22:15

Isa 22:15Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him:

Isa 22:16

Isa 22:16What have you to do here, and whom have you here, that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock?

Isa 22:17

Isa 22:17Behold, the LORD will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you

Isa 22:18

Isa 22:18and whirl you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a wide land. There you shall die, and there shall be your glorious chariots, you shame of your master’s house.

Isa 22:19

Isa 22:19I will thrust you from your office, and you will be pulled down from your station.

Isa 22:20

Isa 22:20In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,

Isa 22:21

Isa 22:21and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.

Isa 22:22

Isa 22:22And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.

Isa 22:23

Isa 22:23And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house.

Isa 22:24

Isa 22:24And they will hang on him the whole honor of his father’s house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons.

Isa 22:25

Isa 22:25In that day, declares the LORD of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a secure place will give way, and it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the LORD has spoken.”

See the ESV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016 by Crossway Books and Bibles, a Publishing Ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

See detailed copyright information.

For more information on this translation, see the ESV Preface.