Isaiah 29:9-17

9You are so surprised that you do not believe what I say. You have become completely blind. You are stupid, like people who are drunk, but not from wine! You fall over, but not because you have drunk too much beer!

10It is the Lord who has caused you to be like that. He has caused you to be completely asleep. He has shut the eyes of your prophets and he has covered the heads of your seers.

11You do not understand this vision that the Lord has given to me. It is like the words in a closed book. Give the book to someone who can read. Say to him, ‘Read this, please.’ But he will answer, ‘I cannot read it, because someone has closed it.’

12Give the book to someone who cannot read and tell them, ‘Read it, please.’ But he will answer, ‘I do not know how to read.’

13The Lord God says, ‘These people open their mouths to worship me. They use their lips to say that I am great. But they are not really thinking about me. When they worship me, they use rules that people have taught them.

14So now I will surprise these people again. I will surprise them with great miracles! Wise people will not seem wise any more. Clever people will no longer seem to be clever.’

15It will be very bad for people who try to deceive the Lord. They try to hide their thoughts from him. They secretly decide to do evil things. They boast and they say, ‘Nobody can see us. Nobody knows what we are doing.’

16Your minds are really confused! You think that the clay is more important than the person who uses it to make pots! A bowl cannot say to its maker, ‘You did not make me!’ A pot cannot say to the potter, ‘You do not know what you are doing!’

17Very soon, Lebanon's forest will become a field of fruit trees. And the field of fruit trees will seem like a forest.