Isaiah 31

Woe to Those Who Go Down to Egypt

1  Woe to a those who go down to Egypt for help
and rely on horses,
who b trust in chariots because they are many
and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but c do not look to the Holy One of Israel
or consult the  Lord!
 2 And d yet he is wise and brings disaster;
e he does not call back his words,
but f will arise against the house of the evildoers
and against the helpers of g those who work iniquity.
 3 The Egyptians are man, and not God,
and their horses h are flesh, and not spirit.
When the  Lord stretches out his hand,
the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall,
and they will all perish together.
 4  For thus the  Lord said to me,
i “As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey,
and when a band of shepherds is called out against him
he is not terrified by their shouting
or daunted at their noise,
j so the  Lord of hosts will come down
to fight ▼
▼ The Hebrew words for  hosts and  to fight sound alike
 on Mount Zion and on its hill.
 5  l Like birds hovering, so the  Lord of hosts
will protect Jerusalem;
he will protect and deliver it;
he will spare and rescue it.”

6  m Turn to him from whom people ▼
▼ Hebrew they
 have o deeply revolted, O children of Israel. 7 For in that day p everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.

8  q “And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man;
and a sword, not of man, shall devour him;
and he shall flee from the sword,
and his young men shall be r put to forced labor.
 9  s His rock shall pass away in terror,
and his officers desert the standard in panic,”
declares the  Lord, whose t fire is in Zion,
and whose u furnace is in Jerusalem.
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