King James VersionIsaiah57

Isaiah

1 The righ­teous per­isheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and mer­ci­ful men are tak­en away, none con­sid­er­ing that the righ­teous is tak­en away from the evil ­to come. 2 He shall en­ter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walk­ing in his up­right­ness. 3 But draw near hith­er, ye sons of the sor­cer­ess, the seed of the adul­ter­er and the whore. 4 Against whom do ye sport your­selves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not chil­dren of trans­gres­sion, a seed of false­hood, 5 En­flam­ing your­selves with idols un­der ev­ery green tree, slay­ing the chil­dren in the val­leys un­der the clifts of the rocks? 6 Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy por­tion; they, they are thy lot: even to them hast thou poured a drink of­fer­ing, thou hast of­fered a meat of­fer­ing. Should I re­ceive com­fort in these? 7 Upon a lofty and high moun­tain hast thou set thy bed: even thith­er wen­test thou up to of­fer sac­ri­fice. 8 Be­hind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy re­mem­brance: for thou hast dis­cov­ered thy­self to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast en­larged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; thou lovedst their bed where thou sawest it. 9 And thou wen­test to the king with oint­ment, and didst in­crease thy per­fumes, and didst send thy mes­sen­gers far off, and didst de­base thy­self even unto hell. 10 Thou art wea­ried in the great­ness of thy way; yet saidst thou not, There is no hope: thou hast found the life of thine hand; there­fore thou wast not grieved. 11 And of whom hast thou been afraid or feared, that thou hast lied, and hast not re­mem­bered me, nor laid it to thy heart? have not I held my peace even of old, and thou fear­est me not? 12 I will de­clare thy righ­teous­ness, and thy works; for they shall not prof­it thee. 13 When thou criest, let thy com­pa­nies de­liv­er thee; but the wind shall car­ry them all away; van­i­ty shall take them: but he that put­teth his trust in me shall pos­sess the land, and shall in­her­it my holy moun­tain; 14 And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, pre­pare the way, take up the stum­bling­block out of the way of my peo­ple. 15 For thus saith the high and lofty One that in­hab­iteth eter­ni­ty, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a con­trite and hum­ble spir­it, to re­vive the spir­it of the hum­ble, and to re­vive the heart of the con­trite ones. 16 For I will not con­tend for ev­er, nei­ther will I be al­ways wroth: for the spir­it should fail be­fore me, and the souls which I have made. 17 For the in­iq­ui­ty of his cov­etous­ness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on froward­ly in the way of his heart. 18 I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him al­so, and re­store com­forts unto him and to his mourn­ers. 19 I cre­ate the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him. 20 But the wicked are like the trou­bled sea, when it can­not rest, whose wa­ters cast up mire and dirt. 21 There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.