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 100 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 13-3,

he refers to Babylon as my consecrated ones. As far as they're 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 his people. This is the kind of

big picture sovereignty that it's hard to wrap our minds around sometimes.

It's the kind of thing that can feel threatening to our ideas of self-sovereignty,

and it's okay to wrestle with that.

But what I always come back to is that ultimately, I'm really glad I'm not self-sovereign.

I know my heart too well to wish that on anyone. So, bad things are about to

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