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The Deliverance of Israel

27 In that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent
With His fierce and great and mighty sword [rescuing Israel from her enemy],
Even Leviathan the twisted serpent;
And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.


In that day [it will be said of the redeemed nation of Israel],
“A vineyard of [a]wine, sing in praise of it!

“I, the Lord, am its Keeper;
I water it every moment.
So that no one will harm it,
I guard it night and day.

“I have no wrath.
Should anyone give Me briars and thorns in battle,
I would step on them, I would set them all on fire.

“Or let him (Israel) cling to My strength and rely on My protection [My stronghold],
Let him make peace with Me,
Let him make peace with Me.”

[b]In the generations to come Jacob will take root;
Israel will blossom and sprout,
And they will fill the surface of the world with fruit.(A)


Like the striking [c]by Him who has struck them, has He struck them?
Or like the slaughter of His slain, have they been slain?

You contended with them by exile, by driving them away [from Canaan];
He has expelled them with His fierce wind on the day of the east wind.

Therefore through this the wickedness [the sin, the injustice, the wrongdoing] of Jacob (Israel) will be atoned for and forgiven;
And this will be [d]the full price [that God requires] for taking away his sin:
When Israel makes all the stones of the [pagan] altars like crushed chalk stones;
When the Asherim and the incense altars will not stand.
10 
For the fortified city is isolated,
A settlement deserted and abandoned like the desert;
There the calf will graze,
And there it will lie down and [e]feed on its branches.
11 
When its branches are dry, they are broken off;
The women come and [f]make a fire with them.
For they are not a people of understanding,
Therefore He who made them will not have compassion on them,
And He who created them will not be gracious to them.

12 In that day the Lord will thresh [out His grain] from the flowing stream of the River [Euphrates] to the Brook of Egypt, and you will be gathered up one by one, O sons of Israel. 13 It will come to pass in that day that a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost and perishing in the land of Assyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.(B)

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 27:2 So DSS; MT reads beauty.
  2. Isaiah 27:6 Lit Those coming, Jacob.
  3. Isaiah 27:7 Or of him, referring to an enemy of Israel.
  4. Isaiah 27:9 Lit all the fruit.
  5. Isaiah 27:10 Lit consume.
  6. Isaiah 27:11 Lit set light to.

27 In that day the Lord will take his terrible, swift sword and punish Leviathan,[a] the swiftly moving serpent, the coiling, writhing serpent. He will kill the dragon of the sea.

“In that day,
    sing about the fruitful vineyard.
I, the Lord, will watch over it,
    watering it carefully.
Day and night I will watch so no one can harm it.
    My anger will be gone.
If I find briers and thorns growing,
    I will attack them;
I will burn them up—
    unless they turn to me for help.
Let them make peace with me;
    yes, let them make peace with me.”
The time is coming when Jacob’s descendants will take root.
    Israel will bud and blossom
    and fill the whole earth with fruit!

Has the Lord struck Israel
    as he struck her enemies?
Has he punished her
    as he punished them?
No, but he exiled Israel to call her to account.
    She was exiled from her land
    as though blown away in a storm from the east.
The Lord did this to purge Israel’s[b] wickedness,
    to take away all her sin.
As a result, all the pagan altars will be crushed to dust.
    No Asherah pole or pagan shrine will be left standing.
10 The fortified towns will be silent and empty,
    the houses abandoned, the streets overgrown with weeds.
Calves will graze there,
    chewing on twigs and branches.
11 The people are like the dead branches of a tree,
    broken off and used for kindling beneath the cooking pots.
Israel is a foolish and stupid nation,
    for its people have turned away from God.
Therefore, the one who made them
    will show them no pity or mercy.

12 Yet the time will come when the Lord will gather them together like handpicked grain. One by one he will gather them—from the Euphrates River[c] in the east to the Brook of Egypt in the west. 13 In that day the great trumpet will sound. Many who were dying in exile in Assyria and Egypt will return to Jerusalem to worship the Lord on his holy mountain.

Footnotes

  1. 27:1 The identification of Leviathan is disputed, ranging from an earthly creature to a mythical sea monster in ancient literature.
  2. 27:9 Hebrew Jacob’s. See note on 14:1.
  3. 27:12 Hebrew the river.