Isa 47 | EE | STEP | ‘Get down on to the ground and sit in the dirt, Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a high seat, Daughter of the people in Chaldea. Nobody will say that you are quiet and pretty again.’

Isaiah 47

1 ‘Get down on to the ground and sit in the dirt, Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a high seat, Daughter of the people in Chaldea. Nobody will say that you are quiet and pretty again.’ ^{▼▼47:1 We think that ‘Virgin Daughter of Babylon’ means ‘the people in Babylon’, mostly the leaders.}

2 ‘Use a stone to break grain into flour. Uncover your face. Lift up your skirt and make your legs bare. Walk through streams of water.

3 Everybody will see that you are bare. Nothing will hide your sex parts. I will punish you and I will not leave anybody out.’

4 Our Redeemer is the Holy God of Israel. His name is the LORD of Many Armies. He says this:

5 ‘Daughter of the people in Chaldea, sit and do not make any noise. And go into dark places. Nobody will call you the queen of kingdoms again.

6 I was angry with my people. I made what was mine not clean. I gave them into your power, but you were not kind them. You even made the old people into slaves.

7 You said, “I will always continue to be queen. I will always be queen!” But you did not think about these things. You did not think about what might happen to you.

8 Now, listen to me, you women who love pleasure. You do not say what is true about your safety. And you say this to yourself. “Here I am, and there is nobody except me. I will never be a widow and I will never lose my children.”

9 But both of those things will happen to you in one moment. They will happen in only one day. You will lose your children and you will become a widow. It will all happen to you, even if you try to stop it with much magic and powerful magic words.

10 You trusted the bad things that you were doing. You were sure that those things would help you. And you have said, “Nobody sees me when I do them.” But you are clever and you know very much. It has caused you to make mistakes. That happened when you said to yourself, “Here I am, and there is nobody except me.”

11 Then bad things will happen to you. And you will not know what magic words will remove them. So they will destroy you and you will not be able to ransom yourself. They will destroy you quickly, in a way that you have not known anything about.

12 So continue with your magic! Continue to say your many magic words! You have worked a lot with them since you were children. Perhaps you will cause the magic things really to happen. Perhaps you will frighten your enemies!

13 All the things that you have learned have made you very tired! The people who look at different parts of the skies should stand up. Those people who study the stars should stand up. They say what will happen each month. Cause them to save you from what will happen to you.

14 Surely, they are like dry grass! Fire will burn them away. They cannot save themselves from the heat of the fires. That is not the wood that will bake their bread. It is not a fire to sit by.

15 That is all that they have done on your behalf. You worked with them since you were children. They were your friends. But now each of them continues to make mistakes. There is nobody to save you.’