The Holy Bible – Knox Translation
The Prophecy of Isaias
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Chapter 2
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This is a message which was revealed to Isaias, the son of Amos, about Juda and Jerusalem.
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In later days, the mountain where the Lord dwells will be lifted high above the mountain-tops, looking down over the hills, and all nations will flock there together.
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A multitude of peoples will make their way to it, crying, Come, let us climb up to the Lord’s mountain-peak, to the house where the God of Jacob dwells; he shall teach us the right way, we will walk in the paths he has chosen. The Lord’s commands shall go out from Sion, his word from Jerusalem,
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and he will sit in judgement on the nations, giving his award to a multitude of peoples. They will melt down their swords into plough-shares, their spears into pruning-hooks, nation levying war against nation and training itself for battle no longer.
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Come you too (they will say), children of Jacob, let us walk together in the path where the Lord shews us light.

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And still they are cast off, these children of Jacob, the Lord’s own people; ever since they grew rich, like the men who went before them, and began to trust in divination, like the Philistines, and to ally themselves with men of alien breed.
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A land full of silver and gold, with no end to its treasures,
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a land full of horses and chariots innumerable; a land full of idols, where men worship the devices their own hands have made.
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For this, high and low fall to earth, abate their human pride; and shall they find forgiveness?

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See where the Lord comes, in all his terrors, in all the glory of his majesty; take refuge, now, in some rock-cavern, hide thee in some pit!
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Now indeed man’s haughty looks must fall to earth, human pride must be abated; no room for any greatness but the Lord’s, when that day comes.
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The day of the Lord of hosts! With the dawn of it all human pomp and state must be overshadowed, all human magnificence grow dim.
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High it will rise above the cedars of Lebanon, that grow so straight and tall, above the oaks of Basan;
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above aspiring mountain and swelling hill;
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above every topless tower, every impregnable citadel,
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above all the navies of Tharsis, above every sight that is fair to see.
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Shall not man’s greatness fall to earth, shall not human pride be abated then? No room for any magnificence but the Lord’s, when that day comes.
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Vanished the false gods,
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only cave in the rock, crevice in the ground will afford shelter, when the Lord comes, great and terrible, when he rises up to smite earth with dread!
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Flung away, when that day comes, idols of silver and gold they once made and worshipped; moles and bats all their worship now,
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as they slink into clefts of the hills, into rocky caverns, to hide themselves from the terrors of the Lord’s coming, from this sublime majesty that daunts the earth!
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Trouble mankind no more; this at least man can boast, he has the breath of life in his nostrils.