are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy
One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. 5. Why should ye
be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is
sick, and the whole heart faint. 6. From the sole of the foot even unto
the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and
putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither
mollified with ointment. 7. Your country is desolate, your cities are
burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and
it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 8. And the daughter of Zion
is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,
as a besieged city. 9. Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very
small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been
like unto Gomorrah.... 16. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil
of your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17. Learn to do
well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead
for the widow. 18. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord:
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow: though
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19. If ye be willing
and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. 20. But if ye refuse
and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the
Lord hath spoken it.'--ISAIAH 1,1-9; 16-20.


The first bars of the great overture to Isaiah's great oratorio are here
sounded. These first chapters give out the themes which run through all
the rest of his prophecies. Like most introductions, they were probably
written last, when the prophet collected and arranged his life's
labours. The text deals with the three great thoughts, the _leit-motifs_
that are sounded over and over again in the prophet's message.