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Israel Rescued

27 On that day, Yahweh will punish with his cruel, great and strong sword Leviathan, the fleeing serpent, and Leviathan, the twisting serpent, and he will kill the sea monster that is in the sea.

On that day:

“A vineyard of beauty! Sing in praise of it!
    I, Yahweh, am her keeper;
    I water it again and again.[a]
Lest one afflict harm on it,
    I guard it night and day;
    I have no wrath.[b]
Whatever gives me thorns and briers,
    I will step forth against in battle.
    I will set it on fire altogether.
Or let it grasp at my protection;
    let it make peace with me;
    peace let it make with me.”
Days are coming,[c] let Jacob take root;
    Israel will blossom and send out shoots,
    and they will fill the face of the world with fruit.
Does he strike him as he struck down those who struck him?[d]
    Or is he killed as those who killed him were killed?[e]
By expelling[f] her, by her sending away, you argue with her.
    He removed them with his strong wind,
    in the day of the east wind.
Therefore by this he will make atonement for the guilt of Jacob,
    and this will be all of the fruit of the removal of his sin:
when he makes[g] all the stones of the altar like crushed stones of chalk,
    no poles of Asherah worship or incense altars will stand.
10 For the fortified city is solitary,
    a settlement deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;
the calf grazes there,
    lies down there and destroys its branches.
11 When its branches are dry,[h] they are broken;
women are coming and setting light to it.

For it is not a people of understanding;

therefore his maker will not have compassion on him,
    and his creator will not show him favor.

12 And this shall happen:

on that day, Yahweh will thresh from the floodwaters of the Euphrates to the wadi[i] of Egypt, and as for you, you will be gathered one by one, sons of Israel.

13 And this shall happen:

on that day, a great trumpet will be blown,

and those who were lost in the land of Assyria will come,
    and those who were scattered in the land of Egypt,

and they will bow down to Yahweh on the holy mountain[j] at Jerusalem.

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 27:3 Literally “by moments”
  2. Isaiah 27:4 Literally “There is no wrath for me”
  3. Isaiah 27:6 Literally “The coming ones”
  4. Isaiah 27:7 Literally “like the striking of one striking him”
  5. Isaiah 27:7 Literally “like the killing of his killed ones”
  6. Isaiah 27:8 Meaning uncertain, derived from the following parallel expression
  7. Isaiah 27:9 Literally “in his setting”
  8. Isaiah 27:11 Literally “In her branch being dry”
  9. Isaiah 27:12 A seasonal stream that is often dry
  10. Isaiah 27:13 Literally “mountain of holiness”

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.