This haftarah opens with a promise that Jacob will take root and Israel will blossom and fill the world with fruit, a picture of future flourishing offered against a description of past affliction measured out carefully rather than harshly, compared to a farmer who threshes grain firmly but does not crush it to dust.
Isaiah then turns to a warning against the drunken leaders of Ephraim, whose glory will fade like a fading flower, before describing instruction given precept by precept, painstakingly, to a people who would not otherwise listen, using imagery of an unfamiliar, halting language they will need to strain to understand.
The haftarah closes with a separate, later passage explicitly naming Abraham: God who redeemed Abraham speaks now concerning the house of Jacob, promising that Jacob will no longer be ashamed and that his descendants will sanctify God's name once they see the works God has done among them, restoring reverence and understanding to a people who had strayed from both.
The image of grain threshed firmly but not crushed to dust, offered near the haftarah's opening, gives the coming affliction described throughout Exodus a measure the parashah's own narrative does not state explicitly, that even the harshest bondage is bounded by a limit rather than left open ended.