Isaiah 55

World English Bible 84 include this book

1 “Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

2 Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness.

3 Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

4 Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples.

5 Behold, you shall call a nation that you don’t know; and a nation that didn’t know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he has glorified you.”

6 Seek the LORD while he may be found. Call on him while he is near.

7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon.

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways,” says the LORD.

9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10 For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and doesn’t return there, but waters the earth, and makes it grow and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater;

11 so is my word that goes out of my mouth: it will not return to me void, but it will accomplish that which I please, and it will prosper in the thing I sent it to do.

12 For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace. The mountains and the hills will break out before you into singing; and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.

13 Instead of the thorn the cypress tree will come up; and instead of the brier the myrtle tree will come up. It will make a name for the LORD, for an everlasting sign that will not be cut off.”

Go deeper in Isaiah

Go deeper in Isaiah on Amazon

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.

Select a verse number to compare it across every translation.