Visio Isaiæ, filii Amos, quam vidit super Judam et Jerusalem, in diebus Oziæ, Joathan, Achaz, et Ezechiæ, regum Juda.

The vision of Isaias the son of Amos, which he saw concerning Juda and Jerusalem in the days of Ozias, Joathan, Achaz, and Ezechias, kings of Juda.

This is the revelation made to Isaias, son of Amos, about Juda and Jerusalem, during the reigns of Ozias, Joatham, Achaz and Ezechias in Juda.

Audite, cæli, et auribus percipe, terra, quoniam Dominus locutus est. Filios enutrivi, et exaltavi; ipsi autem spreverunt me.

Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have brought up children, and exalted them: but they have despised me.

Listen, you heavens, and let earth attend to this, a divine remonstrance; my own sons, that I reared and brought to manhood, hold me in defiance!

Cognovit bos possessorem suum, et asinus præsepe domini sui; Israël autem me non cognovit, et populus meus non intellexit.

The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood.

Ox recognizes its owner, ass knows the way to its master’s crib; and I? I go unacknowledged; my own people of Israel gives me never a thought.

Væ genti peccatrici, populo gravi iniquitate, semini nequam, filiis sceleratis! dereliquerunt Dominum; blasphemaverunt Sanctum Israël; abalienati sunt retrorsum.

Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they are gone away backwards.

Woe to a sinful nation, a people bowed with guilt, a rebellious race, a brood foully degenerate! They have forsaken God, they have spurned the Holy One of Israel, turned strangers to me.

Super quo percutiam vos ultra, addentes prævaricationem? omne caput languidum, et omne cor mœrens.

For what shall I strike you any more, you that increase transgression? the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is sad.

Would you have me smite you again, that you shew yourselves ever more faithless? Everywhere bowed heads, and faint hearts;

A planta pedis usque ad verticem, non est in eo sanitas; vulnus, et livor, et plaga tumens, non est circumligata, nec curata medicamine, neque fota oleo.

From the sole of the foot unto the top of the head, there is no soundness therein: wounds and bruises and swelling sores: they are not bound up, nor dressed, nor fomented with oil.

no health anywhere, from sole to crown, nothing but wounds, and bruises, and swollen sores, that none binds up, or medicines, or anoints with oil!

Terra vestra deserta; civitates vestræ succensæ igni: regionem vestram coram vobis alieni devorant, et desolabitur sicut in vastitate hostili.

Your land is desolate, your cities are burnt with fire: your country strangers devour before your face, and it shall be desolate as when wasted by enemies.

Your land a desert, your cities burnt to ashes, your fields ravaged before your eyes by strangers, desolation everywhere, as if an enemy had plundered you!

Et derelinquetur filia Sion ut umbraculum in vinea, et sicut tugurium in cucumerario, et sicut civitas quæ vastatur.

And the daughter of Sion shall be left as a covert in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and as a city that is laid waste.

Poor Sion, forlorn as vineyard watch-tower, summer-house in a herb-garden, a beleaguered city!

Nisi Dominus exercituum reliquisset nobis semen, quasi Sodoma fuissemus, et quasi Gomorrha similes essemus.

Except the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we had been as Sodom, and we should have been like to Gomorrha.

A stock to breed from, so much the Lord of hosts has left us; but for that, we should be as Sodom is, Gomorrha’s doom should be ours.

Audite verbum Domini, principes Sodomorum; percipite auribus legem Dei nostri, populus Gomorrhæ.

Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrha.

Listen, then, to this, the Lord’s word, chiefs of the Sodom-city; people of Gomorrha, here is a command from our God for your hearing.

Quo mihi multitudinem victimarum vestrarum? dicit Dominus. Plenus sum: holocausta arietum, et adipem pinguium, et sanguinem vitulorum et agnorum et hircorum, nolui.

To what purpose do you offer me the multitude of your victims, saith the Lord? I am full, I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck goats.

What do I care, the Lord says, how you multiply those victims of yours? I have had enough and to spare. Burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of stall-fed beasts, and the blood of calves and lambs and goats are nothing to me.

Cum veniretis ante conspectum meum, quis quæsivit hæc de manibus vestris, ut ambularetis in atriis meis?

When you came to appear before me, who required these things at your hands, that you should walk in my courts?

Think you it is a welcome sound, the tramp of your feet in my courts bringing worship such as yours?

Ne offeratis ultra sacrificium frustra: incensum abominatio est mihi. Neomeniam et sabbatum, et festivitates alias, non feram; iniqui sunt cœtus vestri.

Offer sacrifice no more in vain: incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, and the sabbaths, and other festivals I will not abide, your assemblies are wicked.

Vain offerings, bring them no more, this incense of yours is an abomination. Enough of new moons and sabbaths, of thronged assemblies where none but sinners meet!

Calendas vestras, et solemnitates vestras odivit anima mea: facta sunt mihi molesta; laboravi sustinens.

My soul hateth your new moons, and your solemnities: they are become troublesome to me, I am weary of bearing them.

The new month begins, the feast day comes round, how it cloys the appetite! These be hateful tasks I can bear no longer.

Et cum extenderitis manus vestras, avertam oculos meos a vobis, et cum multiplicaveritis orationem, non exaudiam: manus enim vestræ sanguine plenæ sunt.

And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away my eyes from you: and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: for your hands are full of blood.

Hold out your hands as you will, you shall get no heed from me; add prayer to prayer, I will not listen; are not those hands stained with blood?

Lavamini, mundi estote; auferte malum cogitationum vestrarum ab oculis meis: quiescite agere perverse,

Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your devices from my eyes: cease to do perversely,

Wash yourselves clean, spare me the sight of your busy wickedness, of your wrong-doing take farewell.

discite benefacere; quærite judicium, subvenite oppresso, judicate pupillo, defendite viduam.

Learn to do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow.

Learn, rather, how to do good, setting your hearts on justice, righting the wrong, protecting the orphan, giving the widow redress;

Et venite, et arguite me, dicit Dominus. Si fuerint peccata vestra ut coccinum, quasi nix dealbabuntur; et si fuerint rubra quasi vermiculus, velut lana alba erunt.

And then come, and accuse me, saith the Lord: if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.

then come back, says the Lord, and make trial of me.Crimson-dyed be your guilt, it shall turn snow-white; like wool new-washed yonder scarlet stain.

Si volueritis, et audieritis me, bona terræ comeditis.

If you be willing, and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land.

Will you think better of it, and listen, and have rich harvests to feed you?

Quod si nolueritis, et me ad iracundiam provocaveritis, gladius devorabit vos, quia os Domini locutum est.

But if you will not, and will provoke me to wrath: the sword shall devour you because the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

Or will you refuse, and defy me, and yourselves be food for the sword? The Lord has given sentence.

Quomodo facta est meretrix civitas fidelis, plena judicii? justitia habitavit in ea, nunc autem homicidæ.

How is the faithful city, that was full of judgment, become a harlot? justice dwelt in it, but now murderers.

Strange, that the city once so faithful, once so upright, has turned harlot; the haunt of murderers, that was the home of right!

Argentum tuum versum est in scoriam; vinum tuum mistum est aqua.

Thy silver is turned into dross: thy wine is mingled with water.

The silver in thee turned to dross, the wine grown watery to the taste,

Principes tui infideles, socii furum. Omnes diligunt munera, sequuntur retributiones. Pupillo non judicant, et causa viduæ non ingreditur ad illos.

Thy princes are faithless, companions of thieves: they all love bribes, they run after rewards. They judge not for the fatherless: and the widow’s cause cometh not in to them.

thy law-givers wanting loyalty, so that they make common cause with thieves! None of them but takes bribe and looks for profit, none will give the orphan redress, none listen to the plaint of the widow.

Propter hoc ait Dominus, Deus exercituum, Fortis Israël: Heu! consolabor super hostibus meis, et vindicabor de inimicis meis.

Therefore saith the Lord the God of hosts, the mighty one of Israel: Ah! I will comfort myself over my adversaries: and I will be revenged of my enemies.

What, then, does the Lord proclaim; he, the God of hosts, he, the Prince of Israel? Out upon it, I will rid myself of these rebels, my enemies shall have their deserts.

Et convertam manum meam ad te, et excoquam ad puram scoriam tuam, et auferam omne stannum tuum.

And I will turn my hand to thee, and I will clean purge away thy dross, and I will take away all thy tin.

And then I will take thee in hand again, smelting thee till thou art free from dross, purging away all that base alloy.

Et restituam judices tuos ut fuerunt prius, et consiliarios tuos sicut antiquitus; post hæc vocaberis civitas justi, urbs fidelis.

And I will restore thy judges as they were before, and thy counsellors as of old. After this thou shalt be called the city of the just, a faithful city.

Once more I will give thee judges like the judges of old, counsellors like the counsellors of past days, and thou shalt be called the home of right, the faithful city.

Sion in judicio redimetur, et reducent eam in justitia.

Sion shall be redeemed in judgment, and they shall bring her back in justice.

Right and justice shall be done, when Sion is redeemed, when her exiles return;

Et conteret scelestos, et peccatores simul; et qui dereliquerunt Dominum consumentur.

And he shall destroy the wicked, and the sinners together: and they that have forsaken the Lord, shall be consumed.

with one blow, the wayward sinner shall be overthrown, by the Lord he has forsaken doomed to perish.

Confundentur enim ab idolis quibus sacrificaverunt, et erubescetis super hortis quos elegeratis,

For they shall be confounded for the idols, to which they have sacrificed: and you shall be ashamed of the gardens which you have chosen.

Tree-idols that have played you false, fond trust in your garden-shrines, you shall learn to rue them;

cum fueritis velut quercus defluentibus foliis, et velut hortus absque aqua.

When you shall be as an oak with the leaves falling off, and as a garden without water.

yourselves but an oak-tree whose leaves are falling, a garden unwatered;

Et erit fortitudo vestra ut favilla stuppæ, et opus vestrum quasi scintilla, et succendetur utrumque simul, et non erit qui extinguat.

And your strength shall be as the ashes of tow, and your work as a spark: and both shall burn together, and there shall be none to quench it.

when all your strength is like smouldering tow, and the idols you have made but a spark to set light to it, until both burn together, with none to quench them.