Bible Strands
Isaiah 52:11
Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing; come out from it, purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the LORD.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Isaiah addresses the exiled community in Babylon, calling them to a dignified return framed between the nations' witness to God's salvation (v. 10) and the LORD's promise to go before and behind them (v. 12).
The words — The imperative סוּרוּ (su.ru, "depart") and צְאוּ (tze'u, "go out") each appear twice in immediate succession, a doubling that marks urgency beyond a single command.
The thread — 2 Corinthians 6:17 quotes this verse directly, applying the separation from uncleanness to the church's relationship with idolatry; Zechariah 2:6 and Isaiah 48:20 echo the same "go out" imperative from Babylon.
Why it lands — The verse ties purity to function: those who carry the LORD's vessels must first stop touching what is unclean, making separation a precondition for service rather than an optional discipline.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.
Cross-references
- 2 Corinthians 6:17 “Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”
- Zechariah 2:6 “Get up! Get up! Flee from the land of the north,” declares the LORD, “for I have scattered you like the four winds of heaven,” declares the LORD.
- Isaiah 48:20 Leave Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare it with a shout of joy, proclaim it, let it go out to the ends of the earth, saying, “The LORD has redeemed His servant Jacob!”
- Ephesians 5:11 Have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
- Leviticus 10:3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD meant when He said: ‘To those who come near Me I will show My holiness, and in the sight of all the people I will reveal My glory.’” But Aaron remained silent.
- Isaiah 1:16 Wash and cleanse yourselves. Remove your evil deeds from My sight. Stop doing evil!
- Ezra 1:7 King Cyrus also brought out the articles belonging to the house of the LORD that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the temple of his gods.
- Haggai 2:13 So Haggai asked, “If one who is defiled by contact with a corpse touches any of these, does it become defiled?” “Yes, it becomes defiled,” the priests answered.
- Leviticus 5:2 Or if a person touches anything unclean—whether the carcass of any unclean wild animal or livestock or crawling creature—even if he is unaware of it, he is unclean and guilty.
- Leviticus 11:26 Every animal with hooves not completely divided or that does not chew the cud is unclean for you. Whoever touches any of them will be unclean.