The Message  

Chapter 8
1I wish you'd been my twin brother, sharing with me the breasts of my mother,
Playing outside in the street,
kissing in plain view of everyone,
and no one thinking anything of it.

2I'd take you by the hand and bring you home
where I was raised by my mother.
You'd drink my wine
and kiss my cheeks.

3Imagine! His left hand cradling my head,
his right arm around my waist!

4Oh, let me warn you, sisters in Jerusalem:
Don't excite love, don't stir it up,
until the time is ripe-and you're ready.

The Chorus
5Who is this I see coming up from the country,
arm in arm with her lover?
I found you under the apricot tree,
and woke you up to love.
Your mother went into labor under that tree,
and under that very tree she bore you.

The Man
The Woman
6Hang my locket around your neck,
wear my ring on your finger.
Love is invincible facing danger and death.
Passion laughs at the terrors of hell.
The fire of love stops at nothing-
it sweeps everything before it.

7Flood waters can't drown love,
torrents of rain can't put it out.
Love can't be bought, love can't be sold-
it's not to be found in the marketplace.

8My brothers used to worry about me:
“Our little sister has no breasts.
What shall we do with our little sister
when men come asking for her?

9She's a virgin and vulnerable,
and we'll protect her.
If they think she's a wall, we'll top it with barbed wire.
If they think she's a door, we'll barricade it.”

10Dear brothers, I'm a walled-in virgin still,
but my breasts are full-
And when my lover sees me,
he knows he'll soon be satisfied.

The Man
11King Solomon may have vast vineyards
in lush, fertile country,
Where he hires others to work the ground.
People pay anything to get in on that bounty.

12But my vineyard is all mine,
and I'm keeping it to myself.
You can have your vast vineyards, Solomon,
you and your greedy guests!

13Oh, lady of the gardens,
my friends are with me listening.
Let me hear your voice!

The Woman
14Run to me, dear lover.
Come like a gazelle.
Leap like a wild stag
on the spice mountains.

Isaiah
Chapter 1
Messages of Judgment
Quit Your Worship Charades
1The vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw regarding Judah and Jerusalem during the times of the kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.

2Heaven and earth, you're the jury.
Listen to GOD's case:
“I had children and raised them well,
and they turned on me.

3The ox knows who's boss,
the mule knows the hand that feeds him,
But not Israel.
My people don't know up from down.

4Shame! Misguided GOD-dropouts,
staggering under their guilt-baggage,
Gang of miscreants,
band of vandals-
My people have walked out on me, their GOD,
turned their backs on The Holy of Israel,
walked off and never looked back.

5“Why bother even trying to do anything with you
when you just keep to your bullheaded ways?
You keep beating your heads against brick walls.
Everything within you protests against you.

6From the bottom of your feet to the top of your head,
nothing's working right.
Wounds and bruises and running sores-
untended, unwashed, unbandaged.

7Your country is laid waste,
your cities burned down.
Your land is destroyed by outsiders while you watch,
reduced to rubble by barbarians.

8Daughter Zion is deserted-
like a tumbledown shack on a dead-end street,
Like a tarpaper shanty on the wrong side of the tracks,
like a sinking ship abandoned by the rats.

9If GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies hadn't left us a few survivors,
we'd be as desolate as Sodom, doomed just like Gomorrah.

10“Listen to my Message,
you Sodom-schooled leaders.
Receive God's revelation,
you Gomorrah-schooled people.

11“Why this frenzy of sacrifices?”
GOD's asking.
“Don't you think I've had my fill of burnt sacrifices,
rams and plump grain-fed calves?
Don't you think I've had my fill
of blood from bulls, lambs, and goats?

12When you come before me,
who ever gave you the idea of acting like this,
Running here and there, doing this and that-
all this sheer commotion in the place provided for worship?

13“Quit your worship charades.
I can't stand your trivial religious games:
Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings-
meetings, meetings, meetings-I can't stand one more!

14Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them!
You've worn me out!
I'm sick of your religion, religion, religion,
while you go right on sinning.

15When you put on your next prayer-performance,
I'll be looking the other way.
No matter how long or loud or often you pray,
I'll not be listening.
And do you know why? Because you've been tearing
people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.

16Go home and wash up.
Clean up your act.
Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings
so I don't have to look at them any longer.
Say no to wrong.

17Learn to do good.
Work for justice.
Help the down-and-out.
Stand up for the homeless.
Go to bat for the defenseless.

Let's Argue This Out
18“Come. Sit down. Let's argue this out.”
This is GOD's Message:
“If your sins are blood-red,
they'll be snow-white.
If they're red like crimson,
they'll be like wool.

19If you'll willingly obey,
you'll feast like kings.

20But if you're willful and stubborn,
you'll die like dogs.”
That's right. GOD says so.

Those Who Walk Out on God
21Oh! Can you believe it? The chaste city
has become a whore!
She was once all justice,
everyone living as good neighbors,
And now they're all
at one another's throats.

22Your coins are all counterfeits.
Your wine is watered down.

23Your leaders are turncoats
who keep company with crooks.
They sell themselves to the highest bidder
and grab anything not nailed down.
They never stand up for the homeless,
never stick up for the defenseless.

24This Decree, therefore, of the Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies,
the Strong One of Israel:
“This is it! I'll get my oppressors off my back.
I'll get back at my enemies.

25I'll give you the back of my hand,
purge the junk from your life, clean you up.

26I'll set honest judges and wise counselors among you
just like it was back in the beginning.
Then you'll be renamed
City-That-Treats-People-Right, the True-Blue City.”

27GOD's right ways will put Zion right again.
GOD's right actions will restore her penitents.

28But it's curtains for rebels and GOD-traitors,
a dead end for those who walk out on GOD.

29“Your dalliances in those oak grove shrines
will leave you looking mighty foolish,
All that fooling around in god and goddess gardens
that you thought was the latest thing.

30You'll end up like an oak tree
with all its leaves falling off,
Like an unwatered garden,
withered and brown.

31‘The Big Man' will turn out to be dead bark and twigs,
and his ‘work,’ the spark that starts the fire
That exposes man and work both
as nothing but cinders and smoke.”

Chapter 2
Climb God's Mountain
1The Message Isaiah got regarding Judah and Jerusalem:

2There's a day coming
when the mountain of GOD's House
Will be The Mountain-
solid, towering over all mountains.
All nations will river toward it,
people from all over set out for it.

3They'll say, “Come,
let's climb GOD's Mountain,
go to the House of the God of Jacob.
He'll show us the way he works
so we can live the way we're made.”
Zion's the source of the revelation.
GOD's Message comes from Jerusalem.

4He'll settle things fairly between nations.
He'll make things right between many peoples.
They'll turn their swords into shovels,
their spears into hoes.
No more will nation fight nation;
they won't play war anymore.

5Come, family of Jacob,
let's live in the light of GOD.

6GOD, you've walked out on your family Jacob
because their world is full of hokey religion,
Philistine witchcraft, and pagan hocus-pocus,

7a world rolling in wealth,
Stuffed with things,
no end to its machines and gadgets,

8And gods-gods of all sorts and sizes.
These people make their own gods and worship what they make.

9A degenerate race, facedown in the gutter.
Don't bother with them! They're not worth forgiving!

Pretentious Egos Brought Down to Earth
10Head for the hills,
hide in the caves
From the terror of GOD,
from his dazzling presence.

11People with a big head are headed for a fall,
pretentious egos brought down a peg.
It's GOD alone at front-and-center
on the Day we're talking about,

12The Day that GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies
is matched against all big-talking rivals,
against all swaggering big names;

13Against all giant sequoias
hugely towering,
and against the expansive chestnut;

14Against Kilimanjaro and Annapurna,
against the ranges of Alps and Andes;

15Against every soaring skyscraper,
against all proud obelisks and statues;

16Against ocean-going luxury liners,
against elegant three-masted schooners.

17The swelled big heads will be punctured bladders,
the pretentious egos brought down to earth,
Leaving GOD alone at front-and-center
on the Day we're talking about.

18And all those sticks and stones
dressed up to look like gods
will be gone for good.

19Clamber into caves in the cliffs,
duck into any hole you can find.
Hide from the terror of GOD,
from his dazzling presence,
When he assumes his full stature on earth,
towering and terrifying.

20On that Day men and women will take
the sticks and stones
They've decked out in gold and silver
to look like gods and then worshiped,
And they will dump them
in any ditch or gully,

21Then run for rock caves
and cliff hideouts
To hide from the terror of GOD,
from his dazzling presence,
When he assumes his full stature on earth,
towering and terrifying.

22Quit scraping and fawning over mere humans,
so full of themselves, so full of hot air!
Can't you see there's nothing to them?

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