1 “Go down and sit in the dust, O Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, O Daughter of Chaldea! For you will no longer be called tender or delicate. 2 Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams. 3 Your nakedness will be uncovered and your shame will be exposed. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.” 4 Our Redeemer—the LORD of Hosts is His name— is the Holy One of Israel. 5 “Sit in silence and go into darkness, O Daughter of Chaldea. For you will no longer be called the queen of kingdoms. 6 I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke. 7 You said, ‘I will be queen forever.’ You did not take these things to heart or consider their outcome. 8 So now hear this, O lover of luxury who sits securely, who says to herself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me. I will never be a widow or know the loss of children.’ 9 These two things will overtake you in a moment, in a single day: loss of children, and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the potency of your spells. 10 You were secure in your wickedness; you said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray; you told yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’ 11 But disaster will come upon you; you will not know how to charm it away. A calamity will befall you that you will be unable to ward off. Devastation will happen to you suddenly and unexpectedly. 12 So take your stand with your spells and with your many sorceries, with which you have wearied yourself from your youth. Perhaps you will succeed; perhaps you will inspire terror! 13 You are wearied by your many counselors; let them come forward now and save you— your astrologers who observe the stars, who monthly predict your fate. 14 Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. There will be no coals to warm them or fire to sit beside. 15 This is what they are to you— those with whom you have labored and traded from youth— each one strays in his own direction; not one of them can save you.
Isaiah · Berean Standard Bible
Isaiah 47 Berean Standard Bible
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
Cross references (15)
Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.
- 1 Psalm 137:8; Jeremiah 51:33; Jeremiah 46:11; Jeremiah 50:42; Zechariah 2:7
- 2 Judges 16:21; Isaiah 20:4; Exodus 11:5; Matthew 24:41; Genesis 24:65
- 3 Nahum 3:5; Jeremiah 51:20–24; Jeremiah 50:27–28; Revelation 16:19; Jeremiah 51:34–36
- 4 Isaiah 49:26; Jeremiah 50:33–34; Isaiah 43:14; Isaiah 44:6; Isaiah 41:14
- 5 Revelation 18:16–19; Habakkuk 2:20; Isaiah 47:7; Isaiah 14:23; Zechariah 2:13
- 6 Zechariah 1:15; 2 Chronicles 28:9; Deuteronomy 28:50; Obadiah 10; James 2:13
- 7 Deuteronomy 32:29; Isaiah 47:5; Jeremiah 5:31; Isaiah 46:8–9; Ezekiel 7:3–9
- 8 Isaiah 32:9; Zephaniah 2:15; Isaiah 47:10; Revelation 18:3–8; Jeremiah 50:11
- 9 1 Thessalonians 5:3; Psalm 73:19; Nahum 3:4; Isaiah 47:12–13; Revelation 18:8–10
- 10 Isaiah 5:21; Romans 1:22; Isaiah 29:15; Psalm 52:7; Ezekiel 8:12
- 11 1 Thessalonians 5:3; Revelation 18:9–10; Nehemiah 4:11; Revelation 3:3; Jeremiah 51:39–42
- 12 Acts 13:8–12; Isaiah 47:9–10; Nahum 3:4; Jeremiah 2:28; Revelation 17:4–6
- 13 Isaiah 44:25; Daniel 2:2–10; Isaiah 57:10; Ezekiel 24:12; Jeremiah 51:58
- 14 Malachi 4:1; Nahum 1:10; Ezekiel 15:7; Isaiah 10:17; Isaiah 41:2
- 15 Revelation 18:11–19; Ezekiel 27:12–25; Jeremiah 51:6–9; Isaiah 56:11
Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences
What the Fathers said
Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).
How these were chosen
“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).
… heed, pray, to astrologers; for of these the divine Scripture saith, Let the stargazers of the heaven stand up and save thee, and what follows: Behold, they all shall be consumed as stubble on the fire, and shall not deliver their soul from the flame.
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 7 (1894)