Isaiah 28:1

⁵On the day of our king, the princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine. He joined his hand with mockers.

⁷They also reel with wine, and stagger with strong drink. The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink. They are swallowed up by wine. They stagger with strong drink. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment.

³The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden under foot. ⁴The fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fertile valley, shall be like the first-ripe fig before the summer, which someone picks and eats as soon as he sees it.

²⁵He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the sea of the Arabah, according to the LORD, the God of Israel’s word, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath Hepher. ²⁶For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter for all, slave and free; and there was no helper for Israel. ²⁷The LORD didn’t say that he would blot out the name of Israel from under the sky; but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.

⁶For Pekah the son of Remaliah killed in Judah one hundred twenty thousand in one day, all of them valiant men, because they had forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers.

⁸For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim shall be broken in pieces, so that it shall not be a people. ⁹The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.’”

⁶So the couriers went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, according to the commandment of the king, saying, “You children of Israel, turn again to the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that he may return to the remnant of you that have escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria. ⁷Don’t be like your fathers and like your brothers, who trespassed against the LORD, the God of their fathers, so that he gave them up to desolation, as you see.

²⁹Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?

¹⁰At the end of three years they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. ¹¹The king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, ¹²because they didn’t obey the LORD their God’s voice, but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and would not hear it or do it.

²²Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing strong drink;