Isaiah 10:5-14
New Catholic Bible
The Lord Punishes the King of Assyria
5 [a]Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger;
the club in their hands is my fury.
6 Against a godless people I send him forth,
against a nation who aroused my wrath,
commanding him to pillage and plunder
and to trample on them like mud in the street.
7 But this is not his intention,
nor does he have this in mind.
His only thought is complete destruction
and to liquidate as many nations as possible.
8 For he says,
“Are not my commanders all kings?
9 Is not Calno like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad?
Is not Samaria like Damascus?[b]
10 My hand has overcome idolatrous kingdoms
that had more images than Jerusalem and Samaria.
11 As I did to Samaria and her idols,
shall I not also do to Jerusalem and her images?”
12 When the Lord has completed all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the king of Assyria for his arrogant boasts and his haughty demeanor, 13 because that king had said,
“By my own power I have accomplished all this,
and also by my wisdom, for I have great intelligence.
I have wiped out the boundaries of nations
and have plundered their treasures;
like a giant I have subjugated their inhabitants.
14 My hand has discovered a nest
in which the riches of the nation have been stored.
And as one gathers eggs that have been abandoned,
so I have collected the entire world;
not one fluttered a wing
or opened a beak to chirp.”
Footnotes
- Isaiah 10:5 We are now in a different period, perhaps 701 B.C. It is already twenty years since the northern kingdom was destroyed. Judah in turn is about to succumb (Isa 36–39).
- Isaiah 10:9 Some fortified cities of Syria are listed that have already been subdued by the Assyrians in earlier wars.
