Isaiah 32

World English Bible 84 include this book

1 Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in justice.

2 A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the storm, as streams of water in a dry place, as the shade of a large rock in a weary land.

3 The eyes of those who see will not be dim, and the ears of those who hear will listen.

4 The heart of the rash will understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers will be ready to speak plainly.

5 The fool will no longer be called noble, nor the scoundrel be highly respected.

6 For the fool will speak folly, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice profanity, and to utter error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.

7 The ways of the scoundrel are evil. He devises wicked plans to destroy the humble with lying words, even when the needy speaks right.

8 But the noble devises noble things, and he will continue in noble things.

9 Rise up, you women who are at ease! Hear my voice! You careless daughters, give ear to my speech!

10 For days beyond a year you will be troubled, you careless women; for the vintage will fail. The harvest won’t come.

11 Tremble, you women who are at ease! Be troubled, you careless ones! Strip yourselves, make yourselves naked, and put sackcloth on your waist.

12 Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.

13 Thorns and briers will come up on my people’s land; yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city.

14 For the palace will be forsaken. The populous city will be deserted. The hill and the watchtower will be for dens forever, a delight for wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks,

15 until the Spirit is poured on us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is considered a forest.

16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness; and righteousness will remain in the fruitful field.

17 The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever.

18 My people will live in a peaceful habitation, in safe dwellings, and in quiet resting places,

19 though hail flattens the forest, and the city is leveled completely.

20 Blessed are you who sow beside all waters, who send out the feet of the ox and the donkey.

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68 places named in this book — no place is named in this chapter, so the whole book is shown.

Where this was written

Jerusalem attested Isaiah prophesied in Jerusalem across the Assyrian crisis.

Babylon disputed Chapters 40 onward address the exiles and are usually placed in Babylonia.

When this was written

Traditions differ. Each position is shown rather than one asserted as settled.

Traditional: 740 BC–681 BC Isaiah of Jerusalem
The whole book is ascribed to the 8th-century prophet, with later chapters read as predictive.
Critical: 740 BC–500 BC Isaiah and later hands
Chapters 40 onward presuppose the Babylonian exile and name Cyrus, which most critical scholars take as evidence of 6th-century authorship.

Elsewhere in the world

Events overlapping the period this book is dated to (740 BC–500 BC).

1200 BC–600 BC Zoroaster teaches in Persia Persia
Founder of Zoroastrianism, whose dating is disputed by as much as six centuries. His teaching on a cosmic struggle between good and evil later touched Jewish and Christian thought.
1200 BC–400 BC Olmec civilisation Mesoamerica
The earliest major Mesoamerican civilisation, known for colossal stone heads and an early calendar.
1070 BC–350 AD The kingdom of Kush Africa
A Nubian power on the upper Nile that ruled Egypt itself as its twenty-fifth dynasty.
750 BC–650 BC Homeric epics take written form Greece
The Iliad and Odyssey were fixed in writing after generations of oral transmission.
745 BC–609 BC Neo-Assyrian empire at its height Mesopotamia
Assyria dominated the Near East, deporting conquered populations as policy, including the northern kingdom of Israel.
722 BC Fall of Samaria Levant
The Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel and the deportation of much of its population.
620 BC–560 BC Coinage invented in Lydia Anatolia
Stamped electrum coins of guaranteed weight, an idea that spread across the ancient world within a century.
600 BC–500 BC Daoism takes shape in China China
The teaching associated with Laozi, emphasising harmony with the natural order.

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