Isa 24 | EE | STEP | Understand this! The LORD will make the country empty and he will destroy it. He will destroy the ground. And he will move the people who live in it in all directions.

Isaiah 24

Things that will happen to bad people

1 Understand this! The LORD will make the country empty and he will destroy it. He will destroy the ground. And he will move the people who live in it in all directions.

2 It will be the same for all these people:

· the people and the priest

· the servant and his master

· the girl who is a servant and her mistress

· the buyer and the seller

· the lender and the borrower

· the person who has lent money and the person who has borrowed money.

3 Enemies will completely destroy the land. They will take everything from it. The LORD says that it will happen. So it will happen. 4 The land will be dry and it will die. The world will become weak and it will die. The important people in the country will become weak.

5 The people who live in the country have made it like something dirty. That happened for these reasons:

· They have not obeyed God’s rules.

· They have changed God’s rules.

· They have decided to forget God’s covenant. But God’s covenant will always be true.

6 That is why a curse is destroying the country. And the people who live in it are hurting. That is because they have done wrong things. Something burns the people who live in the country. Only a few of them remain.

7 There is no wine now and the vine dies. The people who want to drink the wine are not happy.

8 The happy sound of the tambourine stops. The noise from parties has finished. The harp does not make any happy music.

9 People do not sing because they cannot drink wine. The beer does not taste nice to those who drink it.

10 Enemies have destroyed the city so that it is without shape. People locked every house so that the enemy could not get in.

11 People shout for wine in the streets. Everybody who is happy becomes sad. Nobody in the country laughs.

12 Enemies have destroyed the city. They knocked down the gates of the city and they destroyed them.

13 This will happen through all the country and among other countries. They will be empty like an olive tree that people hit. They will be empty like a vine with a few grapes that people have not picked.

The song of the few people who remain and Isaiah’s sad song

14 There are people who shout aloud with their voices! From (the sea in) the west they say that the LORD is great!

15 So praise the LORD. Praise the LORD God of Israel. Praise him from the islands in the sea.

16 From every part of the country we hear songs that praise the Righteous Person.

But I said, ‘I have become thin and weak! I have become thin and weak! So I am very sad! Bad people are doing bad things. Yes, the bad people are being really very bad!’

17 People in the country, terror, a big hole in the ground and a trap will kill you!

18 The person who runs away from the sound of terror will fall into the big hole. A trap will catch the person who climbs out of the big hole. It will happen because God has opened the windows of the sky. Also, he has moved what is under the land.

19 All those things have completely broken the land. They have torn the land into pieces. They have moved the land very much.

20 The earth walks like a man who is a drunk. It moves about like a tent (in the wind). The wrong things that the people in this country have done feel heavy upon the country. So it will be like someone who falls down. And it will be like someone who never gets up again.

21 On that day, the LORD will punish anything with power in the skies above. And he will punish the kings on the land below.

22 The LORD will bring them together like prisoners in a hole in the ground. He will lock them in a prison and after a long time he will punish them.

23 The LORD of Many Armies will be king on the hill called Zion. So then the white light of the moon will disappear and the heat of the sun will become cold. Then, the LORD‘s leaders in Jerusalem will see that he is very great.