1 Descend, sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon! Sit on the ground. There is no throne for the daughter of the Chaldeans. For you shall no longer be called delicate and tender. 2 Take a millstone and grind meal. Uncover your shame, bare your shoulder, reveal your legs, cross the streams. 3 Your disgrace will be revealed, and your shame will be seen. I will seize vengeance, and no man will withstand me. 4 Our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. 5 Sit in silence, and enter into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans! For you shall no longer be called the noblewoman of kingdoms. 6 I was angry with my people. I have polluted my inheritance, and I have given them into your hand. You have not shown mercy to them. You have greatly increased the burden of your yoke upon the elders. 7 And you have said: “I will be a noblewoman forever.” You have not set these things upon your heart, and you have not remembered your end. 8 And now, hear these things, you who are delicate and have confidence, who say in your heart: “I am, and there is no one greater than me. I will not sit as a widow, and I will not know barrenness.” 9 These two things will suddenly overwhelm you in one day: barrenness and widowhood. All things shall overwhelm you, because of the multitude of your sorceries and because of the great cruelty of your enchantments. 10 And you have trusted in your malice, and you have said: “There is no one who sees me.” Your wisdom and your knowledge, these have deceived you. And you have said in your heart: “I am, and beside me there is no other.” 11 Evil will overwhelm you, and you will not notice its rising. And calamity will fall violently over you, and you will not be able to avert it. You will suddenly be overwhelmed by a misery such as you have never known. 12 Stand with your incantations, and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth, as if somehow it might benefit you, or as if it were able to make you stronger. 13 You have failed in the multitude of your plans! Let the seers stand and save you, those who were contemplating the stars, and figuring the months, so that from these they might announce to you the things to come. 14 Behold, they have become like stubble. Fire has consumed them. They will not free themselves from the power of the flames. These are not coals by which they may be warmed, nor is this a fire which they may sit beside. 15 So have all these things, in which you have labored, become to you. Your merchants from your youth, each one has erred in his own way. There is no one who can save you.
Isaiah · Catholic Public Domain Version
Isaiah 47 Catholic Public Domain Version
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
Notes on this text (3)
- Esther and Daniel are the Vulgate books (Esther 1–16 with the Greek additions as chapters 10:4–16; Daniel 1–14 with the Song of the Three, Susanna and Bel). Baruch 6 is the Letter of Jeremiah.
- The translator's footnotes, cross-references, chapter summaries and book introductions in the CrossWire module are not shown.
- No imprimatur; single translator.
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)