Isaiah 10:1-11

¹Terrible things will happen to you judges who are unjust and who make unfair laws.

²You refuse to help poor people, and you do not allow them to get the things that they should get. You allow people to steal things from widows and do unfair things to orphans.

³When I punish you by sending people from distant lands to cause you to experience disasters, ◄to whom will you run to get help?/there will be no one who can help you.► RHQ Your valuable possessions will certainly not be safe RHQ anywhere.

⁴You will be able only to stumble along as you are taken away with other prisoners, or else your corpses will lie on the ground with others who have been killed. But even after that happens, Yahweh will still be very angry with you. He will still be ready to strike you again with his fist.

⁵Yahweh says, “Terrible things will happen to Assyria. It is true that their army is like a rod/club DOU with which I punish other nations because I am very angry with those nations DOU.

⁶Sometimes I send the armies of Assyria to attack a godless nation, to fight against other people who have caused me to be angry. I send them to capture people and to seize and take away their possessions, and to trample them like SIM people walk on mud in the streets.

⁷But the king of Assyria does not understand, he does not realize that he is only like a weapon in my hand. He wants only to destroy people, to get rid of many nations.

⁸He says, ‘All of my army commanders will soon be kings of these nations that I conquer!

⁹We destroyed Calno city like we destroyed Carchemish city, We destroyed Hamath city like we destroyed Arpad city; we destroyed Samaria just like we destroyed Damascus.

¹⁰We were able to destroy all those kingdoms that were full of idols, kingdoms whose idols were greater than the idols in Jerusalem and Samaria.

¹¹So we will defeat Jerusalem and destroy the idols that are there, just like we destroyed Samaria and the idols that were there!’