Isaiah 65

The Message (MSG)

The People Who Bothered to Reach Out to God

65 1-7 Ive made myself available to those who havent bothered to ask. Im here, ready to be found by those who havent bothered to look. I kept saying Im here, Im right here to a nation that ignored me. I reached out day after day to a people who turned their backs on me, People who make wrong turns, who insist on doing things their own way. They get on my nerves, are rude to my face day after day, Make up their own kitchen religion, a potluck religious stew. They spend the night in tombs to get messages from the dead, Eat forbidden foods and drink a witchs brew of potions and charms. They say, Keep your distance. Dont touch me. Im holier than thou. These people gag me. I cant stand their stench. Look at this! Their sins are all written out I have the list before me. Im not putting up with this any longer. Ill pay them the wages They have coming for their sins. And for the sins of their parents lumped in, a bonus. GOD says so. Because theyve practiced their blasphemous worship, mocking me at their hillside shrines, Ill let loose the consequences and pay them in full for their actions.
8-10

GODs Message:

But just as one bad apple doesnt ruin the whole bushel, there are still plenty of good apples left. So Ill preserve those in Israel who obey me. I wont destroy the whole nation.

Ill bring out my true children from Jacob and the heirs of my mountains from Judah. My chosen will inherit the land, my servants will move in. The lush valley of Sharon in the west will be a pasture for flocks, And in the east, the valley of Achor, a place for herds to graze. These will be for the people who bothered to reach out to me, who wanted me in their lives, who actually bothered to look for me.
11-12

But you who abandon me, your GOD, who forget the holy mountains, Who hold dinners for Lady Luck and throw cocktail parties for Sir Fate, Well, you asked for it. Fate it will be: your destiny, Death. For when I invited you, you ignored me; when I spoke to you, you brushed me off. You did the very things I exposed as evil; you chose what I hate.
13-16

Therefore, this is the Message from the Master, GOD:

My servants will eat, and youll go hungry; My servants will drink, and youll go thirsty; My servants will rejoice, and youll hang your heads. My servants will laugh from full hearts, and youll cry out heartbroken, yes, wail from crushed spirits. Your legacy to my chosen will be your name reduced to a cussword. I, GOD, will put you to death and give a new name to my servants. Then whoever prays a blessing in the land will use my faithful name for the blessing, And whoever takes an oath in the land will use my faithful name for the oath, Because the earlier troubles are gone and forgotten, banished far from my sight.

New Heavens and a New Earth

17-25

Pay close attention now: Im creating new heavens and a new earth. All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain are things of the past, to be forgotten. Look ahead with joy. Anticipate what Im creating: Ill create Jerusalem as sheer joy, create my people as pure delight. Ill take joy in Jerusalem, take delight in my people: No more sounds of weeping in the city, no cries of anguish; No more babies dying in the cradle, or old people who dont enjoy a full lifetime; One-hundredth birthdays will be considered normal anything less will seem like a cheat. Theyll build houses and move in. Theyll plant fields and eat what they grow. No more building a house that some outsider takes over, No more planting fields that some enemy confiscates, For my people will be as long-lived as trees, my chosen ones will have satisfaction in their work. They wont work and have nothing come of it, they wont have children snatched out from under them. For they themselves are plantings blessed by GOD, with their children and grandchildren likewise GOD-blessed. Before they call out, Ill answer. Before theyve finished speaking, Ill have heard. Wolf and lamb will graze the same meadow, lion and ox eat straw from the same trough, but snakestheyll get a diet of dirt! Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill anywhere on my Holy Mountain, says GOD.