Isaiah 1:22-26 - Bribes, Broken Justice, and God's Refining Hand - 282

A faithful city can forget its name. We open Isaiah 1:22–26 and confront a hard picture: silver turned to dross, strong wine watered down, and leaders who love gifts more than justice. The images are vivid because the stakes are real—when worship is hollow and courts are for sale, the fatherless and widow pay the highest price. Yet the same passage that levels the charge also opens a door: God promises to refine, not erase, and to restore judges “as at the first” so the city can be called righteous again.

Together we unpack how Isaiah uses craftsmanship and courtroom language to expose Judah’s decline, why God introduces himself as the Lord of hosts and the Mighty One of Israel, and what it means for judgment to be a purifying fire. We look back at the role of Israel’s judges, from Deborah to Samuel, and forward to a vision of leadership that carries wisdom, protects the vulnerable, and reflects God’s character in public life. Along the way, we draw clear lines to our moment—where bribes may look like access, where performance can pass for piety, and where the measure of our faith is found in how we treat those with the least leverage.

This is a study for anyone wrestling with civic trust, church integrity, or personal compromise. If you’ve wondered whether divine judgment is only about anger, Isaiah offers a better story: fierce love that cleanses alloy, restores institutions, and gives a city its name back. Listen for practical steps to name the dross in your world, seek refining without shame, and pursue leadership that makes justice ordinary again.

If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review to help others find the study. Your voice helps build a community hungry for Scripture, truth, and renewal.

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open: Judah’s Corruption
• 0:32 Welcome And Episode Setup
• 1:42 Show Intro And Resources
• 2:58 Reading Isaiah 1:22–25
• 4:28 Metaphors Of Dross And Diluted Wine
• 8:17 Leaders, Bribes, And Failed Justice
• 12:05 Law, Widows, Orphans, And Decay
• 14:32 God’s Titles And Righteous Anger
• 17:12 Refining Fire And Hope Of Restoration
• 19:18 Promise To Restore Judges And Counselors
• 22:05 The Judges Of Israel Revisited
• 26:20 From Corruption To Covenant Renewal
• 27:46 Summary And Modern Parallels
• 30:02 Leadership, Justice, And Social Care
• 32:10 Closing Takeaways And Sign Off

Transcript

Daniel Moore: 0:06

So what point did Judah look at corruption, bribery, and ignoring justice and say, yep, this seems like a solid life plan? And did they all collectively miss the memo that God can actually tell when his people go from faithful city to full-on dumpster fire? And just checking, were they planning to fix this whole leader's love and bribes more than justice thing? Or were they waiting on a celestial push notification from God? Well, welcome back to Connecting the Gap where we dive into scripture one passage at a time and occasionally discover that the Israelites found brand new creative ways to miss the point. Today we're going to be jumping back into Isaiah chapter 1, starting with verse 22, where God gives his people a spiritual performance review. And let's just say that nobody's getting a bonus. In this section, God talks about how the once faithful city, Jerusalem, has basically gone from model citizen to crime documentary special. The leaders are corrupt, bribery is trending, and justice has apparently been put on a permanent coffee break. If God had Yelp, this would be the one-star review that he leaves with no polite wording. But here's the good news, God doesn't just point out the mess, he promises to clean it up. He says he'll turn his hand against the impurities, refine his people, and restore righteousness. It's kind of like God saying, don't worry, I brought the holy pressure washer. So grab your Bible, your coffee, and maybe a spiritual seatbelt because we're going to be taking a look at how faithful cities fell apart and how God steps in not to destroy, but to redeem and restore. Let's get to it. Welcome back to Connecting the Gap. This is a podcast about marriage, Bible, and book study, and we interview people that have a story. I'm Daniel Moore, your host. Thank you guys for joining us this week. If you're not familiar with our show, check out our website at connectingthegap.net. Our platforms are there. Our YouTube and Rumble links are also in the Christian Podcasting app at Edifi. And we're also on your Lex and Google Smart Devices. You can also visit us on social on Facebook, Instagram, and X at CTGapOnline. If you're a fan of our show, please subscribe. So free to leave a comment on our platforms, give us a thumbs up for five-star review and apple podcast, and please share these episodes, and we'd be grateful to you for doing that. Our new book is out, Marriage is a Mission, Living Out God's Design for Marriage. You can pick up your copy of the paperback, hardback, or ebook at Amazon.com. And in addition, we have a six-session study guide that you can purchase separately, exclusively on Amazon as well for that book. And we just released our newest book, 42 Days to a Stronger Marriage, a Christ-centered devotional for couples. That make a very good Christmas present between all of those books. That one's also available on three formats on Amazon as well. So go pick yours up today. Well, thank you guys for joining us. As I said earlier, we're going to go ahead and get back into our verse-by-verse study in Isaiah this week. And this week we're going to be starting with Isaiah chapter 1, and we're going to start with verse 22. As we start off this week with our section of scripture that we're going to attempt to make it through this week, I have it set down here for Isaiah 22 and 23, 24, and 25. We may get to 26. We'll see how far we get, but we're going to go ahead and read these four scriptures, and they are out of the ESV version of the Bible. Isaiah 1, verse 22 says, Your silver has become dross, your best wine mixed with water. Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless, and the widow's cause does not come to them. Therefore the Lord declares, the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel, Ah, I will get relief from my enemies and avenge myself on my foes. I will turn my hand against you, and will smelt away your dross as with lie and remove all your alloy. That's Isaiah chapter one, verse twenty two through twenty-five. As we start here with verse twenty-two, says your silver has become dross, and your best wine mixed with water. Well, here Isaiah, as he has been doing so here through this whole first chapter of Isaiah so far, is continuing with metaphors to describe moral corruption. Silver has become dross, means what once was pure and valuable has now been corrupted and is now worthless. Your best wine mixed with water signifies dilution, compromise, and degradation. Wine and silver were symbols of prosperity and purity. Well now they were both defiled. This speaks to the degeneration of values and ethics among the leaders and the people of Judah. What once was honest is now filled with deceit. From a historical perspective, Isaiah here was prophesying during a time when Judah had outward religious life, but inward decay. As we've been talking about here in the last several verses, we've been talking about how Judah they were putting out all of these different things to God, the worship and the sacrifice and all the things that they normally were supposed to be doing, but it was all an outward expression. Their hearts were not really involved and really tuned in to what they were doing. It was all a big act. They were putting on a mask and being fake in their worship to God. And God here was He's been trying to call them out for this. And as we're talking here with the wine mixed with water and the silver has become dross, we all know that if we take silver, if we would melt that down and mix that with a different kind of a metal where it's not pure silver anymore, and we cast that into a ring or into some kind of a piece of jewelry, we took that to the jeweler and we handed that to him. And if he was able to look at that piece of jewelry and determine that that was not a hundred percent silver, what happens to the value of that? It drops. And why is that? Because that silver has become tainted, it's not pure anymore. And the same way with wine. If you want a good, you know, glass of strong wine and you go and you mix that with water, what does it do? It dilutes it down. You're gonna lose a lot of the flavor, you're gonna lose a lot of the purity in that wine. It's just not gonna be the same drink anymore. And here, you know, Isaiah is trying to get through to the people of Judah where where God is trying to let them know, hey, you know, you guys, you're you're not the same spiritual people that I've called you to be. You're allowing Satan to come in and infiltrate your heart, your soul, your spirit, your mind. And even though you think that you are actually worshiping me, maybe you don't think you are worshiping me, maybe you know that you are doing wrong. But regardless of whichever way it may be, it's a diluted religion. It's a diluted belief that they have in God. They're only bringing half of the gifts to God that He's called them to do. The public commentary here sees these images as indicating an overall loss of character in the nation, a decline in both material and moral quality. The religious and civic leaders especially had become impure and ineffective. And if you ever heard that saying, as the leadership goes, so goes the people. That's kind of what's happening here because even the leadership within Judah has morally decayed and spiritually decayed to a point where it's now filtrating down into the people, and they've become a nation that's totally rejected God. And they're more into the self, they're more doing things to make themselves feel happy and to make themselves feel fulfilled. So using this metaphor here, Isaiah is trying to get through to the people of Judah to help them understand how God looks at their salvation, how God's looking at their heart at this point, that they're not a hundred percent all in. Verse 23 says, Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless, and the widow's cause does not come to them. So here Isaiah is calling out even more so the corruption, especially of the leadership. This verse describes Judah's leadership as being completely corrupt. Where it says princes are rebels, that suggests that not only are they being unfaithful to God, but also to their vocation as just rulers. So we can probably see here that even maybe if they were going to court of law, or if the leadership was having to, you know, judge cases between different people, they may have been even corrupt in the way that they were judging these cases and not being fair to the people and cheating them out of what was rightfully theirs. Being companions of thieves in this scripture suggests that they are embracing criminal behavior and they're sharing an unjust gain. Whatever they can do to make their prosperity rise, if they can make money under the table in a shady way, you know, by being unfaithful to the people and uh by stealing from them basically with the processes that they go through, making it look like that they are good, just people, but there's a a conniving thing behind it. They're being shady in the way that they're dealing, and they're becoming rich at the expense of the common person. And so here Isaiah is trying to call them out for that and accusing them of embracing criminal behavior. You know, they're not any different than the thieves at this point. The scripture continues, everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. Again, this shows some systematic corruption. Justice is bought, and the powerless, especially the fatherless and widows, are symbolic of the society's most vulnerable, are ignored. And so here we see some bribery going on. If, like I said earlier, maybe a court case was coming to court between two different individuals, and whichever one had the most money and had the most power with their possessions and the things that they had, uh, this is insinuating that there might have been some bribing going on, that they were bribing those judges or the leadership to rule in their favor, which then again patted the pockets of the leadership. And so here Isaiah is calling that out, telling them that you know you're being very sinful in the way that you're carrying yourselves, especially as leadership of the nation of Judah. And of course, the widows, we talked about that last week and some of the previous verses we've been through. Uh, we know that by reading the word that God has a special place in his heart for the widows and the fatherless, the orphans, um, all of those that are lower in society, he has a special place in his heart for them. But here, that I guess, you know, this was such an issue in in Judah, we can tell here uh that Isaiah keeps calling this out. So there's obviously some very major problems here with what Judah's doing when they're handling these people that are on the lower end of the scale. So this scripture here it reiterates the earlier themes from Isaiah chapter 1, verse 17. The Mosaic law repeatedly commanded justice for orphans and widows, as we were just describing. Uh, Exodus 22, 22 and Deuteronomy 10.18. We went through those scriptures uh here within this last week or so. But Isaiah, he condemns the exact opposite practices. So in Mosaic law, God was telling uh the Israelites, basically, the the kingdom of Israel, you guys take care of all these people, but here Isaiah's having to condemn Judah because the exact opposite was happening. What God had instructed them to do with the orphans and the widows, uh, they were not doing that. So Isaiah was condemning that because they were basically sinning to God by putting them to the wayside and not taking care of them. The ESV study Bible for this scripture describes this as a judicial and administrative decay. Leaders no longer care for the marginalized, which again is you know the lowercase uh widows, the orphans, and those that fall in that category. And they are at the same time using their power for personal enrichment, getting rich off of the people. Alec Mulcher points out that every phrase presents a deliberate inversion of the ideal. The princes who should uphold righteousness are instead subverting it for greed. They become a very greedy, distinct group of people in their leadership. So here we're seeing a prophetic lament over Jerusalem's fall from a righteous, faithful city to one filled with corruption, injustice, and bloodshed. Through vivid metaphors and direct accusations, God is exposing the more failures of the people. And here it's especially he's picking on the leadership and calling them out for their the impurity in the way that they are being. Once pure like silver and fine wine, Judah's virtue is now spoiled. And as we just discussed here, the city's rulers, they're living off of bribes, they're consorting with criminals, and they're neglecting the defenseless. You know, commentators like John Oswald, Alec Mulcher, and Killin Delish, they emphasize that this is not just a moral sadness, but it's a covenantal crisis. Judah has broken faith with God and abandoned the justice. So these last few scriptures that we've gone through here, they are laying the groundwork for God's impending judgment and the anticipating purification that God is going to try to reveal and push through uh this land of Judah as time goes along. So as we move on here to Isaiah chapter 1, verse 24, it says, Therefore the Lord declares, the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel, Ah, I will get relief from my enemies and avenge myself on my foes. So this verse here begins with the word therefore. And what happens whenever we see that word, therefore, in a scripture? Well, that links it to the preceding verses, which dealt with Judah's rebellion and corruption. So here in this verse, we see something a little interesting take place. We see a threefold title for God. He calls himself the Lord, he calls himself the Lord of hosts, and he calls himself the mighty one of Israel. When this happens, God is basically heightening the authority and the power that's behind the coming judgment. Lord of hosts, when you see that name in the Bible, that refers to God's command over the armies of heaven. There's a song out about angel armies. Well, when you hear that song about angel armies, Lord of hosts is the leader of that, and that's referring to God. Mighty one of Israel emphasizes his strength and his covenant relationship with Israel. The phrase here in the scripture that says, I will get relief from my enemies, that implies that Israel, although that they are God's chosen people, had become his enemy through their sins. Several scholars, including those in the Tyndale Old Testament commentary, they interpret this verse as God's righteous indignation where divine justice must be satisfied. It's an expression of God's passionate resolve to purify his people by removing evil. So here, God is really just showing how angry he is with Judah at this point. Israel, you know, they were God's chosen people. That was God's chosen land. And the fact that they have went against God's ways and the covenants and the directions that God had given them, in essence, this makes them an enemy of God to a point. You know, for us, even as we fall away from God and we don't allow him to stay inside of us, you know, as we become Christians and we ask him to come into our heart, then we become a hosting place of God. He lives in us. And everywhere that we go, everyone should see Christ radiing radiating out of us. But if we fall away and we choose not to walk that path anymore and just do the things that we want to do, then that word called a friend of God, and there's a song about that as well. Uh, for some reason, these songs names keep coming to my mind that as I'm recording this here, but uh we we are not a friend of God anymore at that point, in essence, with the way that we're living, because then we're going down that path that Satan wants us to go down. So in this scripture here, God's putting this out there under the title of three very strong important titles that he has. They're high and mighty titles, and he is saying with affirmation that I will have my day. So Judah, they have a day of coming of judgment that they're going to have to sit through, and God is going to remove the enemies from his way to make sure that Judah comes back to him where they're supposed to be. So as we move on here to Isaiah chapter 1, verse 25, it says, I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy. So here the imagery again shifts back to refining metal, which is a common biblical picture of purification. We see this in the Bible in many places when we talk about God refining and purifying us. Turning my hand against you in Hebrew has a disciplinary connotation rather than destructive. God here, he's not saying he's going to annihilate Israel, but he's going to refine them. Dross refers to impurities in metal as we spoke to earlier, and lie is a strong cleansing agent, emphasizing the extremity of cleansing. Anybody that's real familiar with soaps, lye soap is one of the strongest soaps that you can actually use when it comes to cleaning very filthy, dirty things. And so here the imagery is in place that God's going to use uh something, you know, that's in the essence of being like lye soap, and he is going to purify Judah and get all of these impurities out that they've allowed to come inside of them. So the alloy mixed in represents moral corruption or foreign influence. Historically, Judah had adopted many of the idolatrous practices of the surrounding nations. And here in Isaiah, when he comes into the picture and he starts having this vision that he's relaying to Judah, the outside nations that were hedonistic, that were not godly, the Israelites had allowed them to infiltrate their people and to mix with them, and so they were, in essence, in a lot of ways, were taking on the ways of those sinful nations. Several consequences. Commentaries, including the expositor's Bible commentary, notes that this was a metaphor for political, religious, and social purification. Such imagery vividly communicates both severity and hope. Judgment will come, but the judgment's going to come for the purpose of the restoration, because God had promised, I will restore my people. And because of that, that was his purpose in doing this cleansing. And as it said earlier, it wasn't to annihilate or to destroy them. He actually was going to try to just restore them to where they needed to be. So as we move on here, we're going to go ahead and move on to another verse. As we go to Isaiah 1, verse 26, it says, And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness or the faithful city. So here a message of hope follows the warning. God's goal is to restore the leadership of Jerusalem. Judges, as at the first, refers to the time under Moses and the early days of settlement in Canaan before the monarchy. The counselors, those imply wise rulers. The promise here is that Jerusalem will again be a place marked by justice and faithfulness, like they were at the beginning. Historically, this verse ties to some of the reforms later undertaken by kings like Hezekiah and Josiah, who attempted to bring back righteous ruling. So let's take a little bit of a deeper dive here as we get into verse 26 about those judges. And a lot of you probably have heard about a lot of these. If you look in the Bible, there's actually a book in the Bible called Judges. So Isaiah chapter 1, verse 26, it says, And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterwards you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. So this verse here is a part of a broader section in Isaiah 1, where the prophet is rebuking Jerusalem or Judah for its moral and spiritual corruption. The city, as we know, is once known for justice and faithfulness, and it's become rebellious, filled with injustice, idolatry, and social oppression. Earlier in verse 21, as you remember, Jerusalem was described as a harlot, once full of justice, but now corrupted. We went into Hosea a little bit and talked about that. I believe that was last week. The verse in verse 26 here, the Lord promises a future restoration. The statement about restoring judges and counselors refers to a return to the kind of leadership that Israel had in earlier, more faithful times, possibly alluding to the period of the judges before the monarchy, or even the early days of David and Solomon when justice was more faithfully administered. In biblical terms, judges were not only legal authorities, but they were also leaders who upheld God's covenant and guided the people into righteousness. The restoration of judges and counselors signifies a renewal of righteous leadership, leaders who fear God, uphold justice, and guide people according to divine law. This is not merely a political change, but it's a spiritual and a moral renewal. The quality of leadership is directly tied to the moral health of the nation. As I said earlier, as the leadership is, so goes the people. The result of this restoration is that Jerusalem will once again be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. This is a reversal of the earlier indictment in verse 21, where we just was talking about where the city had become unfaithful and unjust. The transformation from corruption to righteousness reflects the redemptive work of God in purifying his people and their institutions. If we look at Isaiah 1, verse 26 theologically, it points forward to a messianic hope, a time when God's rule will be re-established in justice and peace. Some interpreters see this as ultimately fulfilled in the reign of the Messiah, when perfect justice and righteousness will be restored among God's people. Others see it as a call to repentance and reform in Isaiah's own time, with the hope that God would bless the nation if it returned to its covenant faithfulness. Well, here in this verse, the comment about Judges in Isaiah 1, verse 26 means that God will renew the leadership of his people, bringing back just and wise rulers, who actually reflect his character. They're not just there for bribery. This restoration is part of a broader promise to cleanse and redeem Jerusalem, turning it from a city of corruption into a city of righteousness and faithfulness once again. It emphasizes the importance of godly leadership in the moral and spiritual restoration of a nation. And if you remember, we'll do a little quick review here of those judges. Some of the notable ones that were there at one point in time with Israel. He delivered Israel from the king of Mesopotamia, and that was in Judges three verses seven through eleven. Ehud, he was a left-handed judge from the tribe of Benjamin who delivered Israel from Moabite oppression in Judges three, twelve through thirty. Deborah was a prophetess and a judge who led Israel alongside Barak and brought victory over the Canaanites in Judges four and five. Gideon from the tribe of Manasseh, he defeated the Midianites with a small army and became a significant leader in Judges six through eight. Jephthal was a warrior judge who led Israel in battle against the Ammonites, though his story is marked by a tragic vow, and that's in Judges chapter eleven and twelve. Samson, known for his great strength, he fought against the Philistines, but also had personal moral failings. And that's in Judges chapter thirteen through sixteen. And then Samuel, he was considered the last judge of Israel, and he was also a prophet. He anointed the first two kings of Israel, which was Saul and David, and played a key role in transitioning Israel from the period of the judges to the monarchy. And that's in 1 Samuel. So here when Isaiah says in Isaiah 126, I'll restore your judges as at the first, he's likely pointing back to the time of these judges that we just spoke of here, leaders who at their best upheld God's justice and guided the people in righteousness. This phrase is also meant to evoke a longing for godly leadership and a return to the covenant faithful. In Isaiah's own time, the judges and officials were corrupt, as we just saw in Isaiah 1, verse 23. So this promise of restoration is both a rebuke and it's also a message of hope. God is saying that He will purify the leadership and bring back justice through righteous leaders, ultimately fulfilling in the messianic age. So here as we wrap up verse 26, according to John Oswald's commentary, this verse should be seen as both a short-term promise with partial fulfillment in the post-elisic return, and a long-term prophetic vision of the messianic age. The transformation from corruption to faithfulness, in essence, underscores God's redemptive plan. So this week we made it to Isaiah chapter 1, verses 23 through 26. And as we summarize this week as we close, this is a powerful passage that reflects God's deep disappointment with the moral and spiritual decay of Jerusalem. In these scriptures, it begins by describing how the city's purity and righteousness have been corrupted. Distilvers become dross, the wine is diluted, both of these metaphors for moral compromise and the loss of value. Leaders are described as rebels and companions of thieves showing a breakdown in justice and integrity. They are corrupt, accepting bribes and neglecting the needs of the vulnerable, especially orphans and widows. In the final verses there of twenty four through twenty six, God responds to this corruption with the declaration of judgment and purification. He identifies himself as the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel, which is emphasizing his authority and power. God says he will take vengeance on his enemies and purify the city by removing its impurities, like dross is removed from metal through refining. He promises to restore righteous leaders and judges as in the beginning, so that the city might once again be called the city of righteousness, a faithful city. It's amazing how when you have bad leadership, how it can actually destroy a complete nation. But here's what God is trying to tell them that this is what's happened, and He's going to do a reforming work in Judah, but he's going to start with the leadership. That's where he's going to come in and reform first and purify, and then that would move into the people so that they would all come back to him. So how can we apply this today? Well, first of all, we can apply it in our moral and spiritual integrity. You know, just like Jerusalem, individuals and societies today can lose their moral compass. When justice is neglected and corruption is tolerated, it leads to spiritual decay. This passage challenges us to examine our own lives and communities for areas where we have compromised truth and righteousness. And this part here is so true. If you look at our country, the condition that we're in right now, and you look at some of the major liberal cities that's in the United States, and even some of the cities that are not liberal, they still are not really following God like they should be. But you will see how that whenever the liberalism comes in and the moral and the spiritual integrity starts to fall, then all of those cities will lose their moral compass. And that's when you start seeing things like the transgenderism, the the gay uh people that come in, uh the all the unbiblical things that angers God because it goes against his creation and the reason that he created us and the way that he created us, all of that stuff starts coming in and it becomes the norm. And what happens when we start seeing that all of time all of the time, a lot of people start accepting that stuff because they see it so much and so often that they pretty much get immune to it and it just becomes a new normal. But God's calling us out of that. That is not supposed to be the new normal. This country was built on God from the very beginning, and it needs to stay that way so that we can keep our spiritual integrity in place so that our moral values are protected. Secondly, we have leadership and justice. The condemnation of corrupt leaders is a timeless warning. Leaders in all sapheres, government, business, church, and family are called to act with integrity and care for the vulnerable. The failure to do so invites judgment and loss of trust. And we saw that with our last administration and some of the others that we've had in place, where when leadership came into our country, our country really started going down the tubes fast. A lot of the satanic practices that Satan wants to uh put into place into all the different places in our country to try to wipe out the Christian side of things and the way that our country relies on God, they started allowing all that to happen. They were pushing it to happen. And it was getting to be in a very bad state by the time that finally we got to vote that out and get rid of it and get a little bit more of a reprieve. It's still not perfect by any means, but it's much better than where we were at a year ago at this time. The third thing we can apply here is God's desire to purify and restore. You know, even in judgment, God's goal is not destruction, but restoration. He desires to cleanse and refine his people so they can fulfill their original purpose. This offers hope that no matter how far we or our communities have strayed, God is willing and able to restore us if we turn back to him. And we see this in our lives all the time, where if we get away from God and we start straying away, we might start seeing things happen in our life that all of a sudden seems to be out of our control. And it might make cause bad things to happen to us or cause bad things to happen to our families. And sometimes, you know, people ask, well, why would a good God allow some of that stuff? You know, if it's really bad, you'll hear that question asked. And you know, it's not that God allows it, it's the fact that we allow it to come into our lives, and then God allows that to take place because it becomes a lesson to us. If we take God out of the equation and we no longer follow Him and we decide to go our own way in our own path, then we are setting our own path at that point and determining that we're going to move on without God and do it on our own, and then that's when those bad things start happening. So God will allow those things to happen sometimes just to create a type of judgment in our lives, hoping that that will restore us back to Him. And then the fourth thing here that we can apply is social responsibility. The neglect of the fatherless and the widow that we've talked about in these scriptures today highlights the importance of social justice. God cares deeply about how we treat the marginalized. This calls us to advocate for and support those who are vulnerable in our society. And today we probably have more than ever of people that do need this kind of help from all of us that are capable of doing it. And we need to make sure that we keep those on our radar. Wherever these people are at, we need to ask God to reveal to us the path that he set before us to help these people and be there for them and be Jesus' hands and feet. You know, Jesus came and he gave us a model when he washed the feet of his disciples. He came and said, I came not to be served, I came to be a servant. That's exactly why I'm here and I call you now to go out and to serve people. So as Christians, that's the best thing that we can do to follow God's plan when we take care of those that are vulnerable in our society. So these verses that we read today and went through are both a sobering warning and a hopeful promise. It reminds us that while God does take sin seriously, he is also committed to refining and restoring his people. This passage encourages us to pursue justice, integrity, and compassion in our lives today. Well, that's going to do it for this week. We'll be back next week and we will continue this verse-by-verse study here in Isaiah. But as we go, we always share this with you guys. We believe that God's word never fails us. God's word has stood the test of time, and through Jesus' death on the cross, he has connected the gap. This is an extension of Connecting the Gap Ministries, and we pray that you have a blessed week.