An Ideal Vision for the Future

Isaiah 32:1–8

Biblical Period

1Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness,
And ministers shall govern with justice;
2Every one of them shall be
Like a refuge from gales,
A shelter from rainstorms;
Like brooks of water in a desert,
Like the shade of a massive rock
In a languishing land.
3Then the eyes of those who have sight shall not be sealed,
And the ears of those who have hearing shall listen;
4And the minds of the thoughtless shall attend and note,
And the tongues of mumblers shall speak with fluent eloquence.
5No more shall a villain be called noble,
Nor shall “gentleman” be said of a knave.
6For the villain speaks villainy
And plots treachery;
To act impiously
And to preach disloyalty against the Lord;
To leave the hungry unsatisfied
And deprive the thirsty of drink.
7As for the knave, his tools are knavish.
He forges plots
To destroy the poor with falsehoods
And the needy when they plead their cause.
8But the noble has noble intentions
And is constant in noble acts.

Credits

Reprinted from Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 1985 by the Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 1.

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Related Guide

Isaiah and the Call for Monotheism

The book of Isaiah has two sections, one the voice of Isaiah ben Amoz, an eighth-century BCE prophet in Jerusalem, and the other an anonymous Judean prophet of the Babylonian exile.

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