The Kingdom of Righteousness

Isaiah 32 Look, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. Each of them will be like a shelter from the wind, and a covert from the storm, as streams of water in a dry place, as the shade of a large rock in a weary land. The eyes of those who see will not be dim, and the ears of those who hear will listen. The heart of the rash will understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers will be ready to speak plainly. The fool will no longer be called noble, nor the scoundrel be highly respected. For the fool will speak folly, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice profanity, and to utter error against YHWH, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. The ways of the scoundrel are evil. He devises wicked plans to destroy the humble with lying words, even when the needy speaks right. But the noble devises noble things, and he will continue in noble things.

 

The Women of Jerusalem

Y’all rise up, O complacent women! Y’all must listen my voice! Y’all careless daughters, give ear to what I say! For in a year and a day, y’all will be troubled, O careless women; For the grape crop will fail. The fruit gathering will not come. Tremble, y’all complacent wormen! Be troubled, y’all carefree ones! Y’all strip off your clothes, be naked, and put sackcloth on your waist. Beat y’all’s breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine. Thorns and briers will come up on my people’s land; yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city. For the palace will be forsaken. The populous city will be deserted. The hill and the watchtower will be for dens forever, a delight for wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks, until the Spirit is poured on us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is considered a forest.

 

Then justice will dwell in the wilderness; and righteousness will remain in the fruitful field. The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever. My people will live in a peaceful habitation, in safe dwellings, and in quiet resting places, though hail flattens the forest, and the city is leveled completely. Blessed are y’all who sow beside all waters, who send out the feet of the ox and the donkey.