Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap.

While Isaiah is primarily concerned with warning God's people about their sins, today

he launches into the first of 15 chapters of prophetic speeches or oracles to a bunch

of pagan nations and we'll find out why.

He starts out with Babylon, which is one of the ruling powers of the ancient world.

They're the ones who will take the people of Judah into captivity when Jerusalem falls

in about a hundred years.

And in today's reading, God pronounces a prophetic judgment on them for the thing they

haven't done yet.

God's sovereignty shows up right off the bat in this scenario.

In 133, he refers to Babylon as my consecrated ones.

As far as they are concerned, they have not consecrated themselves to Yahweh, no sir.

But the point of this terminology is to show that God has consecrated them or set them

apart for his own purposes.

He has a plan to use them and their sinful ways to work out his long-term plans to bless

his people, initially through discipline, but then through restoration.

Babylon will think they're doing their own thing, but they'll be fulfilling God's plan.

And the fact that it's written out more than a hundred years in advance serves as evidence

that the idea didn't originate with them.

Then, even though God is using their sin to accomplish his will, as he does with all sin,

he still punishes it as he does with all sin.

So he tells them how they will eventually be overtaken in return for what they did to

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