Week 3: To Be Clean


Isaiah 1:16-17

English Standard Version (ESV)

16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
17 learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow's cause.


After such heavy words that went past admonishment, showing that the intense faithlessness of the nation had made them worthy of the punishment given to Sodom and Gomorrah, Isaiah gives hope and shows that the God who is over the heavens and the earth wants His people to be restored. How are they to do this? He starts by telling them to “wash yourselves: make yourselves clean”. He is telling them as a nation to perform the cleansing ritual laid out in Leviticus and so as to be presentable to God, much as the individual would be presentable to a priest. Are we not to be “Washing our wives in the word” so that we shall make them presentable to our High Priest? Perhaps one of the many reasons He has given us the Scriptures is that they would be used a cleansing pool for us, washing the evil of our deeds, giving us a reason to not be evil and teaching us what is good. Not only are we we called to repentance and the changing of our mind, but I believe He has given us through His word which is quickened in us by the Holy Spirit.


And there is a test to see if these things have really happened in us. Are we seeking justice? Do we now do things to change what oppression has wrought? Are we showing compassion and care for the widows and orphans in our lives? These are the things that will be looked at, much as the priest was called to physically inspect those brought cleansed before him. My prayer Lord is that You would be with me in my continual cleansing so that I might one day be found worthy in Your sight.

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