Isaiah 66:15-24
English Standard Version

Final Judgment and Glory of the LORD
15 “For behold, the LORD will come in fire,
    and his chariots like the whirlwind,
to render his anger in fury,
    and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire will the LORD enter into judgment,
    and by his sword, with all flesh;
    and those slain by the LORD shall be many.

17 “Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one in the midst, eating pig's flesh and the abomination and mice, shall come to an end together, declares the LORD.

18 “For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory, 19 and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations. 20 And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the LORD, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the LORD, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD. 21 And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the LORD.

22 “For as the new heavens and the new earth
    that I make
shall remain before me, says the LORD,
    so shall your offspring and your name remain.
23 From new moon to new moon,
    and from Sabbath to Sabbath,
all flesh shall come to worship before me,
declares the LORD.

24 “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

This is it!  The final passage of the book of Isaiah. It combines two themes that correlate--judgment and the glory of God.  We often like to separate God's wrath from His glory--the know He is glorified in the salvation He provides to those He makes saints, but they have a hard time imagining that He receives glory from pouring out His wrath upon those who have chosen to remain sinners.  At the time of the final deliverance of the saints of God, the Lord will come to make war against the world.  He will bring a sword of judgment against all flesh that has rebelled against Him and His people.  These are those who have worshiped idols and practiced all kinds of immorality and have eaten the things that are unclean and detestable.  The Jews would easily identify these traits as belonging to the Gentile people of the world and not supposed to belong to the people of God.

God will make His glory known to all the nations of the world--even the far-away places where no Jew could live because it was too far away to have to make the pilgrimages back to Jerusalem several times a year.  This is because the LORD will save a remnant from every tribe, tongue and nation.  Though His judgment will be poured out on all flesh, the Jews were wrong in their assumption that all Gentiles would be destroyed and only the Jews would be saved.  Jesus told His disciples that He had sheep from other folds that they did not know about.  One day, He will gather all of His sheep together and they will all be one people with one Shepherd, and we will worship the LORD together.  They will all come to the mountain of the LORD--to Jerusalem, the City of God--to worship Him.  Then the LORD says that some of them will even become priests and Levites in His service.  How can that be when this was based on the Levites being of the tribe of Levi and the priests being of the sons of Aaron of the tribe of Levi?  The answer is in the New Testament epistles that speak of a better priesthood based off of Jesus as our Great Hight Priest (see 2 Corinthians 3, Revelation 1:6, 5:10, and 20:6 as some references to how we will all minister as priests before the LORD in His eternal kingdom).

There will be no more death or decay in the New Heavens and the New Earth and all those who are citizens in this new kingdom will be worshipers of the LORD--no longer will children rebel and turn away from the LORD.  Day after day, week after week, month after month, we will always perfectly obey the LORD and worship Him together.  All the peoples of the world will have one common faith with one Lord, one Savior, and one High Priest.  They will all see those whom the LORD has judges and destroyed, and they will rejoice in His victory and His judgment over the wickedness and rebellion that has plagued all of creation since the Fall.  His judgment is right, and His wrath is just as holy and righteous as His love.  Both are reasons to glorify Him and praise Him forever and ever.  He is victorious, both now and forevermore!

Isaiah 66:7-14
English Standard Version

Rejoice with Jerusalem
7 “Before she was in labor
    she gave birth;
before her pain came upon her
    she delivered a son.
8 Who has heard such a thing?
    Who has seen such things?
Shall a land be born in one day?
    Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment?
For as soon as Zion was in labor
    she brought forth her children.
9 Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?”
    says the LORD;
“shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?”
    says your God.

10 “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her,
    all you who love her;
rejoice with her in joy,
    all you who mourn over her;
11 that you may nurse and be satisfied
    from her consoling breast;
that you may drink deeply with delight
    from her glorious abundance.”

12 For thus says the LORD:
“Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river,
    and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream;
and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip,
    and bounced upon her knees.
13 As one whom his mother comforts,
    so I will comfort you;
    you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
14 You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice;
    your bones shall flourish like the grass;
and the hand of the LORD shall be known to his servants,
    and he shall show his indignation against his enemies.

This is one of the most amazing prophecies that we have seen come true in recent history.  Israel would (once again, because it already happened in the book of Exodus) become a nation in a day.  The text says that's as crazy as saying that a woman would give birth before labor and labor pains started (that would be miraculous--no one has ever heard of such a thing).  That is exactly what the LORD did on May 14, 1948 when the "Jewish state" of Israel was given back to the Jewish people after World War 2.  However, the Arab nations around them would launch a massive attack to try to destroy them and keep this prophecy from being fulfilled.  It was obvious to those attacking Israel that the LORD was fighting for them.  There was no way they should have won against such odds, and it would not be the only time that they would face such attacks aimed at trying to exterminate them--the most recent comes on October 7th, 2023 when Hamas terrorists along with terrorists of Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels invaded Israel and massacred and kidnapped many of its citizens.  

The birth of their nation is something that the Jewish people in Israel celebrate each and every year as they remember the miraculous provision of the LORD.  Yet, the LORD promised peace, and we saw that there was immediate war, so there is something better being promised for them.  Maybe this is a glimpse of an ever better fulfillment in the book of Revelation when the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven and God's people will be gathered together with Him in His holy city and there will be perfect peace when sin and death are cast into the Lake of Fire along with all those who lived and died in rebellion to the LORD.  Only the LORD's covenant people will experience His perfect peace.  We can point to this passage and say that God has done this in the past (the Exodus), God has done this again in our lifetime (post-Holocaust), and God will do it again at the end of time.  We await the better fulfillment of this promise when God's people will finally have the Land and have the Sabbath rest they were promised.

Isaiah 66:1-6
English Standard Version

The Humble and Contrite in Spirit
66 Thus says the LORD:
“Heaven is my throne,
    and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
    and what is the place of my rest?
2 All these things my hand has made,
    and so all these things came to be,
declares the LORD.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
    he who is humble and contrite in spirit
    and trembles at my word.

3 “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man;
    he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog's neck;
he who presents a grain offering, like one who offers pig's blood;
    he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like one who blesses an idol.
These have chosen their own ways,
    and their soul delights in their abominations;
4 I also will choose harsh treatment for them
    and bring their fears upon them,
because when I called, no one answered,
    when I spoke, they did not listen;
but they did what was evil in my eyes
    and chose that in which I did not delight.”

5 Hear the word of the LORD,
    you who tremble at his word:
“Your brothers who hate you
    and cast you out for my name's sake
have said, ‘Let the LORD be glorified,
    that we may see your joy’;
    but it is they who shall be put to shame.

6 “The sound of an uproar from the city!
    A sound from the temple!
The sound of the LORD,
    rendering recompense to his enemies!

We've almost reached the end of the book of Isaiah (we're in its final chapter).  It is by far the largest book of the Bible outside of the book of Psalms (which is more an anthology of five "books").  The book of Isaiah has some of messages of sin and judgment that we expect from an Old Testament prophet, but it also speaks much of redemption and atonement for sin that would provided by a Suffering Servant--a picture of Messiah that many missed.  He would come to save His people from their sins.

We start off this chapter with a reminder of the words that the LORD spoke to David regarding the building of the Temple (right before the LORD proclaimed the Davidic Covenant to David).  He reminds the people that He is not like a pagan  god that lives in temples made by the hands of men, and their sacrifices and offerings that they are bringing to His holy altar might as well be the offerings offered to the false gods--dogs and pigs and other unclean animals that would defile the LORD's altar.  Why does the LORD say this?  Because the people have pride in their hearts.  They do not approach His altar with a broken and contrite heart.  The LORD has dealt harshly with them because they would not listen to His words of warning, so they will be broken by His acts of discipline and judgment.  Hopefully they will start to choose what is righteous instead of what is evil.

Though the religious leaders pretended to cast out the wicked, the LORD knows they are just as wicked and they themselves should be cast out.  They too do not listen to the Word of the LORD and the people are living just like their leaders--in rebellion towards God and His Word.  These leaders believe they are safe because of their position, but the LORD says they should be afraid of His coming discipline and judgement.  When the time comes for the LORD to make war with His enemies, there will be some Jews that He will war against (and there will be some Gentiles that belong to Him that He will not war against).  It is not simply a mater of ethnic genocide as people think, it is a matter of holy and just God having to deal with sin and rebellion before it gets to the point of Genesis 6 when every thought and intention of every man was always evil all the time.  The closer we get to God allowing us to get to that point again, the closer we know we are to the final judgment of the wicked when the LORD will once again pour out His plagues on the wicked and will destroy the world by fire.

Isaiah 65:17-25
English Standard Version

New Heavens and a New Earth
17 “For behold, I create new heavens
    and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
    or come into mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
    in that which I create;
for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,
    and her people to be a gladness.
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem
    and be glad in my people;
no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping
    and the cry of distress.
20 No more shall there be in it
    an infant who lives but a few days,
    or an old man who does not fill out his days,
for the young man shall die a hundred years old,
    and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.
21 They shall build houses and inhabit them;
    they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 They shall not build and another inhabit;
    they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
    and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labor in vain
    or bear children for calamity,
for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD,
    and their descendants with them.
24 Before they call I will answer;
    while they are yet speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall graze together;
    the lion shall eat straw like the ox,
    and dust shall be the serpent's food.
They shall not hurt or destroy
    in all my holy mountain,”
says the LORD.

There is some debate on how to interpret the "new heavens" and the "new earth."  Will everything "old" be destroyed and will it truly be a new "ex nihilo" creation, or will it be a cleansing of the old that gives a "new beginning" (a "fresh start") to everything?  If you are an Amillennialist, you tend to go the route of believing in the "restoration" model because Amillennialists do not believe in a physical restoration of the kingdom of Israel with its physical geographical boundaries for 1,000 with Christ on the throne of David.  They believe that is either already being fulfilled in the hearts of men and it is a purely spiritual kingdom, or that it will be a promise fulfilled in the new heavens and the new earth for all of God's people and it has nothing to do with ethnic Israel.  Strict Dispensationalists that believe that God has dealt with humans in different ways at different times that are clearly defined and that there is a definite "Church Age" that will end with the Rapture and the Tribulation will not be a part of the Church Age, and then the Tribulation will be followed by a 1,000 year reign of Christ over the people of Israel and there will be "sheep and goat" judgment of the people of Israel that is separate from either the Bema Seat (Judgement Seat of Christ) judgment to give rewards to the saints or the Great White Throne Judgment for unbelievers who will be judged for their sins and cast into the Lake of Fire where the False Prophet and Antichrist were cast at the end of the Tribulation would be more likely to believe that at the end of the 1,000 year reign and final rebellion that happens that the old creation is destroyed.  The problem with this view is the word "eternal" or "everlasting" that modifies the world "covenant" in Genesis 17:8,

8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

We have a problem if we try to make that word "everlasting" mean anything other than "eternal" or "without end," because the same or similar wording is used in Isaiah and Jeremiah to talk about the New Covenant (Isaiah 54, Jeremiah 33, and Hebrews 13 speak of an eternal covenant).  Suffice it to say that one's view on eschatology (the end times) will greatly impact how one interprets this chapter of Isaiah.  I hope I've given a dispassionate explanation of the two major opinions here without tipping my hand as to which (if either) I hold.  The promise is important, specifically to God's people at this time that they are going away to Exile--not only that they would return to the same broken world full of sin, but that one day, there is a new creation awaiting them.  A world without sin, and without the possibility of Exile.  Never again would they be separated from the LORD and His covenant blessings.

The things of the past would be remembered no more.  In either view, we wake up like Adam and Eve, fully formed and with no knowledge of what came before.  We will not question where we came from or what came before because there will be no concept of "before" and "after."  There will be no way for us to measure the perception of the passing of time, because the sun, moon, and stars will not be visible to us.  It will always be day for us in the Light of God's glory.  There is definitely a New Jerusalem (we read about that in the book of Revelation) which it says that God will create (does that mean the old Jerusalem was somehow destroyed by judgment)?  Remember that Jerusalem was not just the City of David and the capital city of the nation of Israel, but it was the City of the Great King (remember, God was their King).  The Temple resided in the place that that king's palace would normally stand, and it was built like a palace so that people would ask, "Who lives there?" and the answer would be "The Spirit of the Living God lives there among His people."  That would blow the minds of the pagans whose gods had temples and priests, but in no way did their gods live among the people.  We see that being a major theme here.  This New Jerusalem is a place for God and Man to live together in perfect unity.

No more sadness or need for mourning.  No more infant mortality or any kind of mortality for that matter.  Everyone will have a house to live in (no homelessness) and everyone will have choice food to eat.  Blessings and curses will be based on obedience and not a system where evil men were honored simply because they were older and young men who were righteous were despised simply for being young.  The LORD would give each reward in proportion to his obedience.  Each man shall live in his own house and eat from his own vineyard.  No more will anyone be required to provide for another--the LORD will provide for all of us.

The Curse will be reversed and the work that we do will not be hindered by the effects of sin on creation.  The ground will be more fertile and easier to cultivate and will not produce thorns, thistles, and weeds for us when we try to make it produce food.  We will be called the offspring of the LORD--the children of God.  The LORD will give every good thing to His people anticipating their needs before they even can ask for it.  He will hear every request that is spoken.

There will be such peace that the wolf and the lamb (predator and prey now) will lie down together.  Is this a return to how it was in the Garden of Eden when everything ate plants and there were no carnivores until after the Fall? Is this evidence that we will have the same kind of animals in the New Creation or is this simply a metaphor? Does this mean that the same animals we have now will be there but given a new instinct and nature?  Honestly, I'm not sure, but since we know nothing of the past, I don't ascribe to the view that your pets are waiting for you in heaven and that you will recognize them, because the text clearly says that we won't remember anything from the past.  Maybe there will be even better versions of the animals than we know--like the kind that were created "very good" before they were corrupted by sin.  Maybe there will be things on earth that have only been in heaven to this point--the wonderful living creatures that surrounded the throne of God.  Maybe there will be things that have never even imagined, but this verse gives at least the idea that this new heaven and new earth will be filled with various kinds of creatures like the first creation was--it will not be just filled with God and Man, but God will express His creativity will all kinds of living and non-living things.

More imagery of creatures that we fear being harmless--the lion will eat straw like an ox (that seems to point to everything being herbivores) and the serpent will eat dust (seemingly saying that it will still crawl around on its belly, but it will not eat rodents and birds and other such things like it does for food).  Interesting that the serpent still seems to be "cursed" here in keeping with Genesis 3:14, "on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life."  Some of these items seem to point to creatures just like what we are used to, though their nature has been changed.  However, it's just as likely that God created everything new out of nothing like He did in Genesis 1 and 2 and we are seeing Him start with a blank slate or a fresh canvas to make a brand-new work of art.  I honestly don't know with 100% certainty which view is correct. 

The "eternal covenant" with Israel makes me lean towards the fact that the earth will not be destroyed (though maybe everything living in it is).  Perhaps it restarts "formless and empty" like in the book of Genesis--however, that earth was covered by water.  This time the judgment will have come by fire, so I have no idea what that kind of earth could look like.  It seems like the LORD points to real geographical places that we would recognize, yet the geography also seems to be different--there will be no sea, Jerusalem is much larger, but there are still places like Edom that will be outside of the New Jerusalem that we are meant to recognize (though that seems to be a picture of what hell and the Lake of Fire will be like that are outside of the blessing of heaven created for those who are God's covenant people).  It is hard to decipher sometimes what is literal and what is allegorical, yet all of it is literal.  God will literally do all these things whether He does them in the physical or the spiritual realm.  Don't let anyone confuse you and say that God makes promises that He doesn't intend to keep.  I lean towards taking the simplest interpretation of the text (the words meaning exactly what they appear to say at first glance without any special knowledge to get to another interpretation) because I believe it was God's intent to clearly convey His message to His people and for them to clearly understand it (with the help of His Spirit).  The New Testament often helps us where the most basic interpretation needs to be reevaluated in light of the greater fulfillment in Christ.  There is an "already" that we may catch from the most basic reading and a "not yet" that we might need the Holy Spirit to show us through the teachings of the apostles and New Testament authors.  You can read more about this idea of Biblical Hermeneutics in these lessons prepared by Pastor Stephen Felker:  How to Interpret the Bible.  He taught this material to us at Harvest Christian Fellowship when he served as interim pastor and gave me permission to post it here on this website.

If you're interested in the idea of worldview and theology and how questions of Origins, Meaning, Morality, Destiny, and Identity affect how we view things around us, you can see my Faith and Culture (Biblical Apologetics) articles and look for the additional resources linked here and on my YouTube channel that you can find under this category:  Links and Resources.  Hopefully you final all this useful to you as you read the Bible for yourself and aim to have a biblical worldview.

Isaiah 65:1-16
English Standard Version

Judgment and Salvation
65 I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me;
    I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, “Here I am, here I am,”
    to a nation that was not called by my name.
2 I spread out my hands all the day
    to a rebellious people,
who walk in a way that is not good,
    following their own devices;
3 a people who provoke me
    to my face continually,
sacrificing in gardens
    and making offerings on bricks;
4 who sit in tombs,
    and spend the night in secret places;
who eat pig's flesh,
    and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels;
5 who say, “Keep to yourself,
    do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.”
These are a smoke in my nostrils,
    a fire that burns all the day.
6 Behold, it is written before me:
    “I will not keep silent, but I will repay;
I will indeed repay into their lap
7     both your iniquities and your fathers' iniquities together,
says the LORD;
because they made offerings on the mountains
    and insulted me on the hills,
I will measure into their lap
    payment for their former deeds.”

8 Thus says the LORD:
“As the new wine is found in the cluster,
    and they say, ‘Do not destroy it,
    for there is a blessing in it,’
so I will do for my servants' sake,
    and not destroy them all.
9 I will bring forth offspring from Jacob,
    and from Judah possessors of my mountains;
my chosen shall possess it,
    and my servants shall dwell there.
10 Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks,
    and the Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down,
    for my people who have sought me.
11 But you who forsake the LORD,
    who forget my holy mountain,
who set a table for Fortune
    and fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny,
12 I will destine you to the sword,
    and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter,
because, when I called, you did not answer;
    when I spoke, you did not listen,
but you did what was evil in my eyes
    and chose what I did not delight in.”

13 Therefore thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, my servants shall eat,
    but you shall be hungry;
behold, my servants shall drink,
    but you shall be thirsty;
behold, my servants shall rejoice,
    but you shall be put to shame;
14 behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart,
    but you shall cry out for pain of heart
    and shall wail for breaking of spirit.
15 You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse,
    and the Lord God will put you to death,
    but his servants he will call by another name,
16 so that he who blesses himself in the land
    shall bless himself by the God of truth,
and he who takes an oath in the land
    shall swear by the God of truth;
because the former troubles are forgotten
    and are hidden from my eyes.

If the LORD waited for us to seek after Him, none of us would be found--we would remain lost.  The LORD is like the father in the parable of the Lost Son who is out every day looking to the horizon, ready to run and meet the wayward son at the first sign of repentance (yet, even that repentance doesn't truly originate from us--it is the work of the Spirit).  We find Him because He cries out to us and seeks after us.  Though we have made ourselves His enemies, He seeks us out to save us.

The Jewish people think they have a secret life of idolatry and living like the Gentiles that the LORD does not see or hear, but He tells them that He knows all about their deeds that they try to hide in the cover of darkness.  They must keep their distance from the LORD right now so that His fury and wrath do not consume them, for He is holy, and they are committing high-handed sins of rebellion (they know what they are doing is wrong and they are doing it anyways).  Yet, He is going to make a way for them to be saved, somehow, someway.  He always does.  There will be a price to pay for their sin, of that we can be sure.  He will not simply wink at their sin and "wave a magic wand" over them to make them righteous and give them the blessings of the covenant once more.

The LORD will destroy some of the wicked who would never repent as a lesson to those who remained that the LORD takes sin seriously and that their lineage to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not enough for them to escape the consequences of sin and rebellion.  For the sake of His Name and His covenant, He would save them so that His plan could go forward.  He would also cause a new generation to come forth.  This would not be the last generation of His people as they feared. This generation would die off (much like in the book of Numbers how the first generation was judged over a long period of time.  A couple of faithful ones remained to see the blessing given to the next generation, but for the most part, the children inherited the blessing that the parents rejected.)  This will be like a new Exodus for this new generation.  It will be like they are coming into the Promised Land for the very first time.

The blessings that were meant for God's servants will be withheld from those who, having been exposed to the grace of God and having been offered a place in His family have rejected it because they loved the darkness more than they loved the light.  There will be a place prepared for them where they will experience none of these blessings--a place of darkness and torture and suffering and anguish.  Thought the Jews imagined that all the Jews went to heaven and all the Gentiles went to hell, God is telling them that many of them will be in hell (and He has already told them that many of the Gentiles will be in heaven).  Eternal destiny has nothing to do with pedigree or bloodline, but it has to do with those who have been born again and had their sins atoned for and forgiven and their hearts transformed by the one called The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  They did not know His name as Jesus at this point.  They did not know the totality of the facts of His death, burial, and resurrection, but they did understand that there needed to be a better sacrifice to take their place and not only cover over, but to take away all of their sins and to deal with their sins of rebellion and iniquity--not just their trespasses.

God will call His servants by a new name and will restore the covenant blessings to them, but these wicked men will have no part in it.  They will neither receive the new name nor the blessings.  They will be cursed and will die in their sins.  They will not have the kind of relationship with God that His remnant will have.  God will make a New Heaven and a New Earth so that when all the evil and wicked are destroyed, everyone will once again be made in His image and be innocent and righteous (just like Adam and Eve were) and we will have a new beginning--remembering nothing from the past.  All we will know is God and His perfect creation and we will love Him and serve Him forever.  It will be the kind of existence that Adam and Eve could have had if they had not sinned, but God will do away with all sin and all temptation to sin.  We will forever be in our glorified, perfected state and we will be unable to sin.  Because of this, there will be no more disease, aging, sickness, or death.  Everything will always be in its perfect state.  To some that sounds awful (they hate the idea of living as servants of God forever and ever as they would rather be their own masers in hell than a servant of God in heaven--these are kinds of wicked men that this passage talks about that will be destroyed).  For the people of God, they look forward to this day when all things will be made new and God will once again make it so that He dwells among men.  He will reign forever and His glory will fill all the earth.  Hallelujah!

​Isaiah 64
English Standard Version

64 Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,
    that the mountains might quake at your presence--
2 as when fire kindles brushwood
    and the fire causes water to boil--
to make your name known to your adversaries,
    and that the nations might tremble at your presence!
3 When you did awesome things that we did not look for,
    you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
4 From of old no one has heard
    or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
    who acts for those who wait for him.
5 You meet him who joyfully works righteousness,
    those who remember you in your ways.
Behold, you were angry, and we sinned;
    in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?
6 We have all become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
    and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7 There is no one who calls upon your name,
    who rouses himself to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
    and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.

8 But now, O LORD, you are our Father;
    we are the clay, and you are our potter;
    we are all the work of your hand.
9 Be not so terribly angry, O LORD,
    and remember not iniquity forever.
    Behold, please look, we are all your people.
10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness;
    Zion has become a wilderness,
    Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and beautiful house,
    where our fathers praised you,
has been burned by fire,
    and all our pleasant places have become ruins.
12 Will you restrain yourself at these things, O LORD?
    Will you keep silent, and afflict us so terribly?

What was clearly a prayer for mercy last time now turns to a request for God to come down and destroy all of Israel's enemies and that the fire of His presence might destroy evil and cleanse the Land and help to restore it.  Isaiah understands that judgment and deliverance go hand-in-hand with the LORD.  The LORD acts on behalf of His covenant people, just as He has always done.  Isaiah prays that God would do it again (and He will, in His perfect timing).  If not for the action of the LORD, we would all wither and perish like a leaf that withers and dies and is carried away by the wind.  Only the LORD can save us from the enemies without and the enemies from within--He can even save us from ourselves.

Isaiah goes back to the imagery of the potter and the clay.  God's people are His to mold and make into whatever pleases Him.  If it pleases Him for them to be vessels receive His wrath, that would be His prerogative (see Romans 9) and would be completely legitimate if in doing so it brought Him more glory.  If He wants to make other vessels for honorable uses and to receive His blessings, that's okay to.  The clay has no right to ask the potter why it is being formed into the kind of vessel it is and not something else--the answer is simple--you are being molded and fashioned into whatever the Potter desires.  Isaiah realizes that whatever God is forming will take time and they need to be soft clay in His hands and not fighting against Him.

Isaiah asks the LORD to eventually forget their iniquities and to treat them (and their descendants) like their wickedness never even happened.  Restore to them the joy of their salvation so that future generations could know the covenant blessings.  Isaiah prays that the sin of this generation does not mess up God's relationship with His people forever so that they can never recover.  Isaiah asks for the LORD to restrain His wrath and to act on behalf of His people once again to save them so that they will not be destroyed.

Isaiah 63:15-19
English Standard Version

Prayer for Mercy
15 Look down from heaven and see,
    from your holy and beautiful habitation.
Where are your zeal and your might?
    The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion
    are held back from me.
16 For you are our Father,
    though Abraham does not know us,
    and Israel does not acknowledge us;
you, O LORD, are our Father,
    our Redeemer from of old is your name.
17 O LORD, why do you make us wander from your ways
    and harden our heart, so that we fear you not?
Return for the sake of your servants,
    the tribes of your heritage.
18 Your holy people held possession for a little while;
    our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.
19 We have become like those over whom you have never ruled,
    like those who are not called by your name.

Isaiah calls on the LORD to have compassion on His people, on His children.  Though they are children of Abraham, Abraham does not know them--he has gone to Paradise and is no longer concerned with the affairs of men at this point, but the Father is intimately concerned with the affairs of His children.  He knows them well.  He Redeemed His people at Passover.  He saved them with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and led them through the Red Sea, guided them through their forty years of wandering in the wilderness and led them into the Promised Land.  He didn't leave them there though--He was with them as they conquered their enemies, and don't forget that He gave them the Law and dwelt among them in the Tabernacle (and later the Temple).  God has had a very special relationship with His people Israel.  He promised now that even though they were going into Exile, He would go with them--they were not being exiled from Him, just from the Land.

If they feel far off from the LORD, it is because they have left Him, not because He has left them.  Their possession of the Land that He had promised to Abraham was but for a brief moment in the entirety of history, but the LORD would make good on His covenant promises and bring them back into the Land so that they could worship Him once more.  Though they have become just like the Gentiles that were never the people of God, they will one day be His people called by His name and bearing His Spirit once again, and an even better version as God will welcome in people from every tribe, tongue and nation to be redeemed by Him and be a part of His covenant people.  Those who were once far off have been brought near by Adoption.