Isaiah 10:1-15

¹Woe to them that make wicked laws, and they writing have written unrightfulness or unrightwiseness,

²for to oppress poor men in doom, and to do violence to the cause of meek men of my people; that widows shall be the prey of them, and that they should ravish fatherless children.

³What shall ye do in the day of visitation, and of wretchedness coming from a far? To whose help shall ye flee? and where shall ye leave your glory,

⁴that ye be not bowed down under bond, and fall not down with slain men? On all these things his strong vengeance is not turned away, but yet his hand is stretched forth.

⁵Woe to Assur, he is the rod and staff of my strong vengeance; mine indignation is in the hand of them.

⁶I shall send him to a false folk, and I shall command to him against the people of my strong vengeance; that he take away the spoils, and part prey, and that he set or put that people into defouling, as the fen of streets.

⁷Forsooth he shall not deem so, and his heart shall not guess so, but his heart shall be for to all-break, and to the slaying of many folks.

⁸For he shall say, Whether my princes be not kings altogether?

⁹Whether not as Carchemish, so Calno; and as Arpad, so Hamath? whether not as Damascus, so Samaria?

¹⁰As mine hand found the realms of idols, so and the simulacra of them of Jerusalem and of Samaria.

¹¹Whether not as I did to Samaria, and to the idols thereof, so I shall do to Jerusalem, and to the simulacra thereof?

¹²And it shall be, when the Lord hath ful filled all his works in the hill or the mount of Zion and in Jerusalem, I shall visit on the fruit of the great doing heart of the king of Assur, and on the glory of the highness of his eyes.

¹³For he said, I have done in the strength of mine hand, and I have understood in my wisdom; and I have taken away the ends of the peoples, and I have robbed the princes of them, and I as a mighty man have drawn down them that sat on high.

¹⁴And mine hand found the strength of peoples as a nest, and as eggs be gathered together that be forsaken, so I gathered together all the earth; and none there was that moved a feather, and opened the mouth, and grutched.

¹⁵Whether an ax shall have glory against him that cutteth with it? either a saw shall be enhanced against him of whom it is drawn? as if a rod is raised against him that raiseth it, and a staff is enhanced, which soothly is a tree.