World English Bible
- “Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
- Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness.
- Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
- Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples.
- Behold, you shall call a nation that you don’t know; and a nation that didn’t know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he has glorified you.”
- Seek the LORD while he may be found. Call on him while he is near.
- Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon.
- “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways,” says the LORD.
- “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
- For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and doesn’t return there, but waters the earth, and makes it grow and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
- so is my word that goes out of my mouth: it will not return to me void, but it will accomplish that which I please, and it will prosper in the thing I sent it to do.
- For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace. The mountains and the hills will break out before you into singing; and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.
- Instead of the thorn the cypress tree will come up; and instead of the brier the myrtle tree will come up. It will make a name for the LORD, for an everlasting sign that will not be cut off.”
Isaiah 55 begins like a cry in a crowded market: come and buy. But the seller refuses payment. Water for the thirsty, milk for the hungry, wine for the weary—all offered to people with no money.
This was not an invitation spoken into ease. Judeans living under Babylonian rule knew the weight of work, debt, and displacement. Clay tablets from Babylonian settlements preserve traces of their ordinary lives: fields leased, goods exchanged, families raised far from home. Yet God asks what no market asks: Why keep spending your life on what cannot feed it?
The strange command to “buy” without money reaches beyond poverty. We may try to pay for God’s welcome with usefulness, obedience, or regret. A receipt would let us say we had earned our place. Instead, God tells us to come, listen, and live. The feast is free to its guests, though it is not cheap: this invitation follows the suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, who has borne the sins of others.
God then promises the “sure mercies of David.” A covenant once associated with a king opens outward to a people—and, through them, to nations they do not know. Paul later hears this promise fulfilled in the risen Jesus (Acts 13:34). The royal gift is no longer confined to a palace. The hungry are summoned to share it.
Read verses 8–9 beside verse 7. God’s higher thoughts are often quoted when suffering makes no sense, as though they meant only, Stop asking questions. Here they follow a more startling claim: God will “freely pardon.” We measure forgiveness against what someone deserves. God calls the wicked to abandon not only their ways but their thoughts—including, perhaps, the thought that mercy must be earned before it can be received. His ways exceed ours in the depth of his compassion.
Then Isaiah gives us rain and snow. In a land that waits through dry months for water, their work is not always visible at once. They soften the ground; a seed grows; eventually someone has bread. So God’s word goes out to accomplish his purpose—not necessarily on our timetable, and not as a guarantee for every plan we call godly. Its fruit may begin beneath the surface.
The chapter ends with mountains singing and trees clapping. This is more than a lovely picture of homecoming. Thorn and brier give way to cypress and myrtle: creation itself seems to answer the mercy that has reached human hearts. God intends not merely to bring exiles home, but to make a world in which his welcome can flourish.
For further reading: Genesis 3:17–18; Acts 13:32–34; John 7:37–38. A hymn for today: “Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy.”
Prayer: Lord, loosen our grip on what cannot satisfy. Teach us to receive your mercy, trust your word while it works unseen, and make room for others at your table. Amen.