UNROLL
Dawn from the east: Jerusalem's temple height rising clear above a sea of white morning mist that fills every valley, the hills around sunk in it, under a calm, pale, empty sky.

Zion on trial

Isaiah 2

Whose light are you walking by today?

22 verses≈ 4 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

  1. 1–5Zion on trialJudah’s sin, the mountain raised, the vineyard’s songChapter 2
  2. 6Holy, holy, holyIsaiah’s call, in the year King Uzziah died (about 740 BC)
  3. 7–12ImmanuelAhaz’s fear, the sign, the Child, the shoot of Jesse
  4. 13–23The nations judgedBabylon to Tyre: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
  5. 24–27The whole earthThe earth laid waste, and death swallowed up
  6. 28–35Woe and a KingEgypt’s help or the LORD’s, and the King in His beauty
  7. 36–39Hezekiah’s crisisSennacherib, 701 BC: the prayer, the sickness, the envoys
  8. 40–48Comfort My peopleTo the exiles ahead: Cyrus, the idols, the Servant
  9. 49–55The Servant and ZionPierced for our transgressions; Zion restored
  10. 56–66New heavens and earthA house of prayer, the Anointed One, all things new

The Mountain of the House of the LORD

This is the message that was revealed to Isaiah son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem:

Tap to go deeper: meaning, history and related Scripture

Isaiah
Morning on a stone road climbing a slope: travelers of different peoples walk up together, a Phoenician trader, an Egyptian in white linen, Moabite herdsmen and a Judean family, with a laden donkey, seen from behind and the side.

In the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD

will be established as the chief of the mountains;

it will be raised above the hills,

and all nations will stream to it.

The nations

And many peoples will come and say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,

to the house of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us His ways

so that we may walk in His paths.”

Isaiah
Isaiah

For the law will go forth from Zion,

and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

Isaiah
Isaiah

Then He will judge between the nations

and arbitrate for many peoples.

They will beat their swords into plowshares

and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation,

nor train anymore for war.

Question

Quick question

Isaiah sees the nations climbing the LORD’s mountain. Read verse 3 again before you answer.

Why do the peoples go up to the LORD’s mountain in 2:3?

The Day of Reckoning

Isaiah

Come, O house of Jacob,

let us walk in the light of the LORD.

Isaiah 2:5

Isaiah
Isaiah

For You have abandoned Your people,

the house of Jacob,

because they are filled

with influences from the east;

they are soothsayers like the Philistines;

they strike hands with the children of foreigners.

Isaiah
Isaiah

Their land is full of silver and gold,

with no limit to their treasures;

their land is full of horses,

with no limit to their chariots.

Isaiah
Lamplight in a Judean house: three small carved figures of gods of wood and stone stand in one open row on a wall shelf, clothed; a carver's knife and fresh wood shavings lie on the bench below.

Their land is full of idols;

they bow down to the work of their hands,

to what their fingers have made.

So mankind is brought low,

and man is humbled—

do not forgive them!

Isaiah
Isaiah

Go into the rocks

and hide in the dust

from the terror of the LORD

and the splendor of His majesty.

The proud look of man will be humbled,

and the loftiness of men brought low;

the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.

Isaiah
Isaiah

So the pride of man will be brought low,

and the loftiness of men will be humbled;

the LORD alone will be exalted in that day,

and the idols will vanish completely.

Men will flee to caves in the rocks

and holes in the ground,

away from the terror of the LORD

and from the splendor of His majesty,

when He rises to shake the earth.

Isaiah
The dark mouth of a limestone cave on a cliffside at dusk: a small silver idol and a gold one lying flung down among rubble at the entrance, bats hanging in the shadow above, no one there.

In that day men will cast away

to the moles and bats

their idols of silver and gold—

the idols they made to worship.

They will flee to caverns in the rocks

and crevices in the cliffs,

away from the terror of the LORD

and from the splendor of His majesty,

when He rises to shake the earth.

Isaiah

Put no more trust in man, who has only the breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?

Pray

Pray

LORD of Hosts, bring low what is proud in me. Teach me Your ways, and let me walk in Your light today. I put my trust in You, not in man. Amen.

You’ve experienced

Isaiah 2

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A verse to carry with you

Come, O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the LORD.

Isaiah 2:5

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