World English Bible
- “I am inquired of by those who didn’t ask. I am found by those who didn’t seek me. I said, ‘See me, see me,’ to a nation that was not called by my name.
- I have spread out my hands all day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts;
- a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens, and burning incense on bricks;
- who sit among the graves, and spend nights in secret places; who eat pig’s meat, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels;
- who say, ‘Stay by yourself, don’t come near to me, for I am holier than you.’ These are smoke in my nose, a fire that burns all day.
- “Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will repay, yes, I will repay into their bosom
- your own iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together”, says the LORD, “who have burned incense on the mountains, and blasphemed me on the hills. Therefore I will first measure their work into their bosom.”
- The LORD says, “As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one says, ‘Don’t destroy it, for a blessing is in it:’ so I will do for my servants’ sake, that I may not destroy them all.
- I will bring offspring out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains. My chosen will inherit it, and my servants will dwell there.
- Sharon will be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down in, for my people who have sought me.
- “But you who forsake the LORD, who forget my holy mountain, who prepare a table for Fortune, and who fill up mixed wine to Destiny;
- I will destine you to the sword, and you will all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, you didn’t answer. When I spoke, you didn’t listen; but you did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I didn’t delight.”
- Therefore the Lord GOD says, “Behold, my servants will eat, but you will be hungry; behold, my servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. Behold, my servants will rejoice, but you will be disappointed.
- Behold, my servants will sing for joy of heart, but you will cry for sorrow of heart, and will wail for anguish of spirit.
- You will leave your name for a curse to my chosen, and the Lord GOD will kill you. He will call his servants by another name,
- so that he who blesses himself in the earth will bless himself in the God of truth; and he who swears in the earth will swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hidden from my eyes.
- “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered, nor come into mind.
- But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for, behold, I create Jerusalem to be a delight, and her people a joy.
- I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; and the voice of weeping and the voice of crying will be heard in her no more.
- “No more will there be an infant who only lives a few days, nor an old man who has not filled his days; for the child will die one hundred years old, and the sinner being one hundred years old will be accursed.
- They will build houses and inhabit them. They will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
- They will not build and another inhabit. They will not plant and another eat; for the days of my people will be like the days of a tree, and my chosen will long enjoy the work of their hands.
- They will not labor in vain nor give birth for calamity; for they are the offspring of the LORD’s blessed and their descendants with them.
- It will happen that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.
- The wolf and the lamb will feed together. The lion will eat straw like the ox. Dust will be the serpent’s food. They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the LORD.
Yesterday’s prayer in Isaiah 64 asked why God seemed absent. His answer begins with a startling reversal: he has been holding out his hands all day. The silence was not indifference. God was calling to people who would not answer him—and making himself known to people who had not thought to seek him. Paul later hears in these lines both God’s welcome to the Gentiles and his grief over Israel’s resistance (Romans 10:20–21). Neither truth gives the church permission to feel superior. We, too, can miss the hands extended toward us.
Isaiah names one way people stop listening: they set a table for Fortune and pour wine for Destiny. These were not merely figures of speech; the Hebrew names, Gad and Meni, point to powers people hoped would secure their future. There is a bitter wordplay when God says he will destine them to the sword. Entrusting tomorrow to fate has not made them free. It has helped them avoid responsibility for the voice calling them today. What do we call inevitable because we would rather not obey?
Yet God finds hope where we might see only a ruined harvest. As someone spares a grape cluster because it still holds wine, he preserves a people for blessing. Then the valley of Achor becomes a place where herds can rest. Achor means “trouble”; its name recalls Achan’s sin and Israel’s defeat (Joshua 7). God does not pretend that painful history never happened. He makes even that place capable of sheltering life.
The new creation is just as concrete. People build houses and live in them; they plant vineyards and eat their fruit. To a people acquainted with conquest and exile, this reverses an old terror: laboring so that someone stronger can take the harvest (Deuteronomy 28:30). Even the wolf and lamb feed together. God’s peace is not a promise that the weak will learn to endure being prey. It is a world in which predatory power no longer has a place.
Isaiah’s picture still speaks of death at a hundred; Revelation’s final vision says death will be no more (Revelation 21:4). We need not flatten the two pictures. Isaiah gives grieving parents and dispossessed farmers words for a future they can begin to imagine. The promise grows brighter across Scripture. And at its heart is something easy to miss: God says he will delight in his people. The hands held out all day will not be empty forever.
For further reading: Hosea 2:15. For singing: “For the Healing of the Nations.”
Prayer: Lord, turn us from the tables where we seek control. Teach us to answer when you call, to protect our neighbors’ harvests, and to trust you with the places we still call trouble. Amen.