Isaiah 47 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground — no throne for you, daughter of the Chaldeans. No one will ever call you soft and delicate again.

Take the millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, strip off your trailing skirts, bare your legs, wade through rivers.

Your nakedness will be exposed, your shame will be uncovered. I will take vengeance, and no one will stand in my way.

Our Redeemer — Yahweh, Commander of angel armies, is his name — the one set apart, the God of Israel.

Sit in silence and slip into the darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans. No one will ever call you queen of kingdoms again.

I was angry with my people; I let my inheritance be degraded. I handed them over to you, but you showed them no mercy. Even on the elderly you laid your yoke with crushing weight.

You said, 'I will be queen forever' — and never took any of this to heart, never considered how it would end.

So now hear this, you lover of luxury, you who sit secure and tell yourself, 'I am the only one — there is no one like me. I will never sit as a widow or know the loss of children' —

both of these will hit you in a single moment, in one day: loss of children and widowhood. They will come down on you in full force, despite your many sorceries and all your potent spells.

You felt secure in your wickedness. You said, 'No one sees me.' Your so-called wisdom and knowledge led you astray, and you told yourself, 'I am the only one — there is no one like me.'

But disaster will fall on you, and you won't know how to charm it away. Catastrophe will crash down on you, and you won't be able to buy it off. Ruin will rush at you suddenly — before you even see it coming.

Go ahead — keep at it with your spells and your many sorceries that you've worked at since you were young. Maybe you can still pull it off. Maybe you can scare something away.

You've exhausted yourself with all your consultants. Let them stand up now and save you — those who map the heavens, who gaze at the stars, who predict month by month what is about to happen to you.

Look — they are like straw. Fire burns them up. They cannot even save themselves from the power of the flame. This is no campfire to warm yourself by, no hearth to sit beside.

That's what they are to you — those you've traded with since your youth. Each one staggers off in his own direction. No one can save you.