Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 29

Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 29

To Ariel, woe, woe to Ariel,
this city is where David had encamped!
Add year to year; let all the festivals,
their courses run. When one more year has passed,
then trouble, I’ll inflict on Ariel.
Both moaning, lamentation, there shall be,
and shall Jerusalem be like to me
an Ariel. Like David, sim’larly,
I will encamp against you; I will raise
up siegeworks ‘gainst you, towers, with, that way,
I will besiege you. Then, deep from the earth,
you’ll speak, and, low down in the dust, they’re heard,
from there, the place where they come from, your words;
the way your voice sounds, likened to a ghost’s,
your speech, a whisper coming from the dust.

But like fine dust, that of my enemies,
their multitude, reduced, how they shall be,
the horde of ruthless foes, like chaff, will fly.
And in an instant, it is suddenly,
the way the LORD of hosts will visit you
with thunder, earthquake, and a great noise too,
with whirlwind, tempest, and devouring flame
then how it will be to you like a dream,
a vision in the night how it will seem,
the horde of nations, all, who are at war
with Ariel, all those who fight ‘gainst her,
and ‘gainst her stronghold, those distressing her.
Like one who’s hungry dreams of food to eat,
but wakes up hungry, still, or yet, like he
who has great thirst, of drinking, he will dream,
but when he wakes, with thirst, he is still weak.
How it will be with all the nations’ hordes
who are, against Mount Zion, making war.

Be stupified and stunned, unseeing, blind,
be drunk, but know: it’s not from drinking wine!
You stagger, but not from strong drink consumed!
For what it is the LORD has poured on you?
A spirit of deep sleep, and he has closed
your eyes, you prophets, and he has, your heads,
o’er covered them, you seers, muffled them.

For how this vision has become for you
like words of a sealed document or book.
When it is given to one who can read,
with a command to read it, this, says he,
“I cannot read it since the book is sealed.”
And when it’s given to one who can’t read,
he says, “I cannot read,” similarly.

The LORD then said: Because these people draw
near with their mouths and, honor me, they, how:
it’s with their lips, while they are in their hearts
so far from me, and how their worship’s learnt?
On human precepts, based, it’s all by rote.
Therefore what I will have to do again,
this people, for: perform amazing things,
astounding wonders, also prodigies.
Their wise men’s wisdom now is perishing,
the understanding of their prudent men
is something that, from them, is vanishing.

Woe to those who would burrow in the deep
so that their plans, they’d, from the LORD, conceal,
who say this while they in the dark will scheme,
“Who sees us, or who knows that we are here?”
How is it that you can be so perverse?
As if the potter were no more revered
than was the clay? Or something that was made,
how can it, to its maker, these words, say:
“He did not make me”? Or how can the pot
say to the potter, “You don’t know your job”?

Shall Lebanon, not, in a little while
become a fruitful field, and how it will
be so productive? Of it, they will say:
“It’s an abundant forest”? On that day,
the deaf will hear the words writ on a scroll,
and from their gloom and darkness, of the blind,
their eyes will see. The lowly will obtain
fresh joy found in the LORD, and the poor, in,
exult, shall, Is’rael, of, the Holy One.
For no more, how the tyrant, he shall be,
and he, the scoffer, too, to be, shall cease;
all those who are alert, to, evil, do,
shall be cut off–a lawsuit, him, to lose,
those who would cause a person, and, he who
would set a trap for him who’s at the gate,
the arbiter, and, to one in the right,
who, justice, groundlessly, him, would deny.

Therefore, thus says the LORD, who, Abraham
redeemed, the house of Jacob, about them:

Now Jacob shall no longer be ashamed
and too, no longer, shall his face grow pale.
For when, his children, in his midst, he eyes,
the work of my hands, they will sanctify
my name; the Holy One of Israel,
they’ll sanctify, and they, in awe, stand, will,
of him, the God of Is’rael. And those who
err in their spirit, understanding, to,
they will come there, and, grumbling, all those who’re,
instruction is what they’ll accept for sure.