Isaiah 47

Berean Standard Bible

Chapter summary

God addresses the daughter of Babylon and the Chaldeans, commanding her to leave her throne, sit in the dust, and perform menial labor like grinding flour. Her nakedness and shame are exposed as divine vengeance is executed without mercy. The text identifies the Redeemer as the LORD of Hosts, the Holy One of Israel, who handed His people over to Babylon because of His anger. Babylon had shown no mercy, placed heavy yokes on the elderly, and proudly declared herself an eternal queen who would never experience widowhood or the loss of children. Despite her trust in luxury, wickedness, sorceries, spells, and numerous counselors including astrologers, sudden disaster and devastation will come upon her in a single day. Her astrologers and counselors will be burned like stubble, and none of them will be able to save her from the approaching calamity.

Summary automatically generated from the Bible text.

Words of Jesus in red

¹“Go down and sit in the dust, O Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, O Daughter of the Chaldeans! For you will no longer be called tender or delicate. ²Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams. ³Your nakedness will be uncovered and your shame will be exposed. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.” ⁴Our Redeemer—the LORD of Hosts is His name— is the Holy One of Israel. ⁵“Sit in silence and go into darkness, O Daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called the queen of kingdoms. ⁶I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke. ⁷You said, ‘I will be queen forever.’ You did not take these things to heart or consider their outcome. ⁸So now hear this, O lover of luxury who sits securely, who says to herself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me. I will never be a widow or know the loss of children.’ ⁹These two things will overtake you in a moment, in a single day: loss of children, and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the potency of your spells. ¹⁰You were secure in your wickedness; you said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray; you told yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’ ¹¹But disaster will come upon you; you will not know how to charm it away. A calamity will befall you that you will be unable to ward off. Devastation will happen to you suddenly and unexpectedly. ¹²So take your stand with your spells and with your many sorceries, with which you have wearied yourself from your youth. Perhaps you will succeed; perhaps you will inspire terror! ¹³You are wearied by your many counselors; let them come forward now and save you— your astrologers who observe the stars, who monthly predict your fate. ¹⁴Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. There will be no coals to warm them or fire to sit beside. ¹⁵This is what they are to you— those with whom you have labored and traded from youth— each one strays in his own direction; not one of them can save you.

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Louis Segond 1910 and Berean Standard Bible: public domain. Cross references: open-cross-ref, Creative Commons BY 4.0.