Isaiah 30:1-17

1Woe to the rebellious children! This is the Lord’s declaration. They carry out a plan, but not mine; they make an alliance, but against my will, piling sin on top of sin.

2Without asking my advice they set out to go down to Egypt in order to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shadow.

3But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and refuge in Egypt’s shadow your humiliation.

4For though his princes are at Zoan and his messengers reach as far as Hanes,

5everyone will be ashamed because of a people who can’t help. They are of no benefit, they are no help; they are good for nothing but shame and disgrace.

6A pronouncement concerning the animals of the Negev: Through a land of trouble and distress, of lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people who will not help them.

7Egypt’s help is completely worthless; therefore, I call her: Rahab Who Just Sits.

8Go now, write it on a tablet in their presence and inscribe it on a scroll; it will be for the future, forever and ever.

9They are a rebellious people, deceptive children, children who do not want to listen to the Lord’s instruction.

10They say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy the truth to us. Tell us flattering things. Prophesy illusions.

11Get out of the way! Leave the pathway. Rid us of the Holy One of Israel.”

12Therefore the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message and have trusted in oppression and deceit, and have depended on them,

13this iniquity of yours will be like a crumbling gap, a bulge in a high wall whose collapse will come in an instant — suddenly!

14Its collapse will be like the shattering of a potter’s jar, crushed to pieces, so that not even a fragment of pottery will be found among its shattered remains — no fragment large enough to take fire from a hearth or scoop water from a cistern.”

15For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “You will be delivered by returning and resting; your strength will lie in quiet confidence. But you are not willing.”

16You say, “No! We will escape on horses” — therefore you will escape! — and, “We will ride on fast horses” — but those who pursue you will be faster.

17One thousand will flee at the threat of one, at the threat of five you will flee, until you remain like a solitary pole on a mountaintop or a banner on a hill.