Isaiah 3:11

3:11 Too bad for the wicked sinners!

For they will get exactly what they deserve. ¹ 

Isaiah 3:9

3:9 The look on their faces ²  testifies to their guilt; ³ 

like the people of Sodom they openly boast of their sin. ⁴ 

Too bad for them! ⁵ 

For they bring disaster on themselves.

Isaiah 24:16

24:16 From the ends of the earth we ⁶  hear songs –

the Just One is majestic. ⁷ 

But I ⁸  say, “I’m wasting away! I’m wasting away! I’m doomed!

Deceivers deceive, deceivers thoroughly deceive!” ⁹ 

Isaiah 6:5

6:5 I said, “Too bad for me! I am destroyed, ¹⁰  for my lips are contaminated by sin, ¹¹  and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. ¹²  My eyes have seen the king, the Lord who commands armies.” ¹³ 

[3:11]  ¹ tn Heb “for the work of his hands will be done to him.”

[3:9]  ² sn This refers to their proud, arrogant demeanor.

[3:9]  ³ tn Heb “answers against them”; NRSV “bears witness against them.”

[3:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “their sin, like Sodom, they declare, they do not conceal [it].”

[3:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “woe to their soul.”

[24:16]  ³ sn The identity of the subject is unclear. Apparently in vv. 15-16a an unidentified group responds to the praise they hear in the west by exhorting others to participate.

[24:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “Beauty belongs to the just one.” These words may summarize the main theme of the songs mentioned in the preceding line.

[24:16]  ⁵ sn The prophet seems to contradict what he hears the group saying. Their words are premature because more destruction is coming.

[24:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “and [with] deception deceivers deceive.”

[6:5]  ⁴ tn Isaiah uses the suffixed (perfect) form of the verb for rhetorical purposes. In this way his destruction is described as occurring or as already completed. Rather than understanding the verb as derived from דָּמַה (damah, “be destroyed”), some take it from a proposed homonymic root דמה, which would mean “be silent.” In this case, one might translate, “I must be silent.”

[6:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “a man unclean of lips am I.” Isaiah is not qualified to praise the king. His lips (the instruments of praise) are “unclean” because he has been contaminated by sin.

[6:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “and among a nation unclean of lips I live.”

[6:5]  ⁷ tn Perhaps in this context, the title has a less militaristic connotation and pictures the Lord as the ruler of the heavenly assembly. See the note at 1:9.