¹  Isaiah ordered, “Let them take a fig cake and apply it to the ulcerated sore and he will get well.”

Your thinking is perverse! ¹  Should the potter be regarded as clay? ²  Should the thing made say ³  about its maker, “He didn’t make me”? Or should the pottery say about the potter, “He doesn’t understand”?

Who stirs up this one from the east? ¹  Who ²  officially commissions him for service? ³  He hands nations over to him, ⁴  and enables him to subdue ⁵  kings. He makes them like dust with his sword, like windblown straw with his bow. ⁶ 

The sovereign Lord has given me the capacity to be his spokesman, ¹  so that I know how to help the weary. ²  He wakes me up every morning; he makes me alert so I can listen attentively as disciples do. ³ 

He will not grow dim or be crushed ¹  before establishing justice on the earth; the coastlands ²  will wait in anticipation for his decrees.” ³ 

A carpenter takes measurements; ¹  he marks out an outline of its form; ²  he scrapes ³  it with chisels, and marks it with a compass. He patterns it after the human form, ⁴  like a well-built human being, and puts it in a shrine. ⁵ 

For before the harvest, when the bud has sprouted, and the ripening fruit appears, ¹  he will cut off the unproductive shoots ²  with pruning knives; he will prune the tendrils. ³ 

This is the prayer of King Hezekiah of Judah when he was sick and then recovered from his illness:

For the Lord is angry at all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will annihilate them and slaughter them.

What can I say? He has decreed and acted. ¹  I will walk slowly all my years because I am overcome with grief. ² 

(just as many were horrified by the sight of you) ¹  he was so disfigured ²  he no longer looked like a man; ³ 

He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon; ¹  its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. ²  He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, ³  and spreads it out ⁴  like a pitched tent. ⁵ 

Look, the Lord will throw you far away, ¹  you mere man! ²  He will wrap you up tightly. ³ 

Look up at the sky! ¹  Who created all these heavenly lights? ²  He is the one who leads out their ranks; ³  he calls them all by name. Because of his absolute power and awesome strength, not one of them is missing.

I ¹  will greatly rejoice ²  in the Lord; I will be overjoyed because of my God. ³  For he clothes me in garments of deliverance; he puts on me a robe symbolizing vindication. ⁴  I look like a bridegroom when he wears a turban as a priest would; I look like a bride when she puts on her jewelry. ⁵ 

The Lord who commands armies will be exalted ¹  when he punishes, ²  the sovereign God’s authority will be recognized when he judges. ³ 

For your husband is the one who made you – the Lord who commands armies is his name. He is your protector, ¹  the Holy One of Israel. ²  He is called “God of the entire earth.”

This is the person who will live in a secure place; ¹  he will find safety in the rocky, mountain strongholds; ²  he will have food and a constant supply of water.

But when ¹  the sovereign master ²  finishes judging ³  Mount Zion and Jerusalem, then I ⁴  will punish the king of Assyria for what he has proudly planned and for the arrogant attitude he displays. ⁵ 

The Lord will strike Egypt, striking and then healing them. They will turn to the Lord and he will listen to their prayers ¹  and heal them.