Isaiah 33:17-24
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
17 Your eyes will see a king[a] in his splendor,
they will look upon a vast land.(A)
18 Your mind will dwell on the terror:
“Where is the one who counted, where the one who weighed?
Where the one who counted the towers?”(B)
19 You shall no longer see a defiant people,
a people of speech too obscure to comprehend,
stammering in a tongue not understood.(C)
20 Look to Zion, the city of our festivals;
your eyes shall see Jerusalem
as a quiet abode, a tent not to be struck,
Whose pegs will never be pulled up,
nor any of its ropes severed.(D)
21 Indeed the Lord in majesty will be there for us
a place of rivers and wide streams
on which no galley may go,
where no majestic ship[b] may pass.(E)
22 For the Lord is our judge,
the Lord is our lawgiver,
the Lord is our king;
he it is who will save us.
23 The rigging hangs slack;
it cannot hold the mast in place,
nor keep the sail spread out.
Then the blind will divide great spoils
and the lame will carry off the loot.(F)
24 No one who dwells there will say, “I am sick”;
the people who live there will be forgiven their guilt.(G)
Footnotes
- 33:17 King: either the ideal Davidic king or God; cf. v. 22.
- 33:21–23 Galley…majestic ship: of a foreign oppressor. Though the broad streams of the future Jerusalem will make it accessible by boat, no foreign invader will succeed in a naval attack on the city, for the Lord will protect it, the enemy fleet will be disabled, and even the weakest inhabitants will gather much plunder from the defeated enemy.
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.