Isaiah 31

Help Not in Egypt but in God

1Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help

And rely on horses,

And trust in chariots because they are many

And in horsemen because they are very strong,

But they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord!

2Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster

And does not retract His words,

But will arise against the house of evildoers

And against the help of the workers of iniquity.

3Now the Egyptians are men and not God,

And their horses are flesh and not spirit;

So the Lord will stretch out His hand,

And he who helps will stumble

And he who is helped will fall,

And all of them will come to an end together.

4For thus says the Lord to me,

“As the lion or the young lion growls over his prey,

Against which a band of shepherds is called out,

And he will not be terrified at their voice nor disturbed at their noise,

So will the Lord of hosts come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill.”

5Like flying birds so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem.

He will protect and deliver it;

He will pass over and rescue it.

6Return to Him from whom you have deeply defected, O sons of Israel.

7For in that day every man will cast away his silver idols and his gold idols, which your sinful hands have made for you as a sin.

8And the Assyrian will fall by a sword not of man,

And a sword not of man will devour him.

So he will not escape the sword,

And his young men will become forced laborers.

9“His rock will pass away because of panic,

And his princes will be terrified at the standard,”

Declares the Lord, whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.