I have no faith in the permanence of any form of civilization, or of any government, where a certain depth of infamy and depravity is reached; because the impressive lesson of history is that righteousness exalteth a nation, and iniquity brings it low.  Isaiah predicted woes which came to pass, since the cities and peoples against whom he denounced them remained obstinately perverse in their iniquity and atheism.  Their doom was certain, without that repentance which would lead to a radical change of life and opinions.  He held out no hope unless they turned to the Lord; nor did any of the prophets.  Jeremiah was sad because he knew they would not repent, even as Christ himself wept over Jerusalem.  No maledictions came from the pen or voice of Isaiah such as David breathed against his enemies, only the expression of the sad and solemn conviction that unless the people and the nation repented, they would all equally and surely perish, in accordance with the stern laws written on the two tables of Moses,—­for “I, thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, even to the third and fourth generation;”—­yea, written before Moses, and to be read unto this day in the very constitution of man, physical, mental, spiritual, and social.

The prophet first announces the calamities which both Judah and Ephraim—­the southern and the northern kingdoms—­shall suffer from Assyrian invasions.  “The Lord shall shave Judah with a razor, not only the head, but the beard,”—­thus declaring that the land would be not only depopulated, but become a desert, and that men should no longer live by agriculture, or by trade and commerce, but by grazing alone.  “Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower; it shall be trodden under foot.”  The sins of pride and drunkenness are especially enumerated as the cause of their chastisement.  “Woe to Ariel [that is Jerusalem]!  I will camp against thee round about, and lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee, and thou shalt be brought down....  Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with lips do they honor me, but have removed their heart far from me,”—­hereby showing that hypocrisy at Jerusalem was as prevalent as drunkenness in Samaria, and as difficult to be removed.

Isaiah also reproves Judah for relying on the aid of Egypt in the threatened Assyrian invasion, instead of putting confidence in God, but declares that the evil day will be deferred in case that Judah repents; however, he holds out no hope that her people may escape the final captivity to Babylon.  All that the prophet predicted in reference to the desolation of Palestine by Syrians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, as instruments of punishment, came to pass.