Chapter 2

This is a message which was revealed to Isaias, the son of Amos, about Juda and Jerusalem.

In later days, the mountain where the Lord dwells will be lifted high above the mountain-tops, looking down over the hills, and all nations will flock there together.

A multitude of peoples will make their way to it, crying, Come, let us climb up to the Lord’s mountain-peak, to the house where the God of Jacob dwells; he shall teach us the right way, we will walk in the paths he has chosen. The Lord’s commands shall go out from Sion, his word from Jerusalem,

and he will sit in judgement on the nations, giving his award to a multitude of peoples. They will melt down their swords into plough-shares, their spears into pruning-hooks, nation levying war against nation and training itself for battle no longer.

Come you too (they will say), children of Jacob, let us walk together in the path where the Lord shews us light.

And still they are cast off, these children of Jacob, the Lord’s own people; ever since they grew rich, like the men who went before them,1 and began to trust in divination, like the Philistines, and to ally themselves with men of alien breed.

A land full of silver and gold, with no end to its treasures,

a land full of horses and chariots innumerable; a land full of idols, where men worship the devices their own hands have made.

For this, high and low fall to earth, abate their human pride; and shall they find forgiveness?

See where the Lord comes, in all his terrors, in all the glory of his majesty; take refuge, now, in some rock-cavern, hide thee in some pit!

Now indeed man’s haughty looks must fall to earth, human pride must be abated; no room for any greatness but the Lord’s, when that day comes.

The day of the Lord of hosts! With the dawn of it all human pomp and state must be overshadowed, all human magnificence grow dim.

High it will rise above the cedars of Lebanon, that grow so straight and tall, above the oaks of Basan;

above aspiring mountain and swelling hill;

above every topless tower, every impregnable citadel,

above all the navies of Tharsis, above every sight that is fair to see.

Shall not man’s greatness fall to earth, shall not human pride be abated then? No room for any magnificence but the Lord’s, when that day comes.

Vanished the false gods,

only cave in the rock, crevice in the ground will afford shelter, when the Lord comes, great and terrible, when he rises up to smite earth with dread!

Flung away, when that day comes, idols of silver and gold they once made and worshipped; moles and bats all their worship now,

as they slink into clefts of the hills, into rocky caverns, to hide themselves from the terrors of the Lord’s coming, from this sublime majesty that daunts the earth!

Trouble mankind no more;2 this at least man can boast, he has the breath of life in his nostrils.