Isaiah 27

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

² In that day:
“A pleasant vineyard, sing of it!
³     I, the Lord, am its keeper;
    every moment I water it.
Lest any one harm it,
    I guard it night and day;
⁴     I have no wrath.
Would that I had thorns and briers to battle!
    I would set out against them,
    I would burn them up together.
⁵ Or let them lay hold of my protection,
    let them make peace with me,
    let them make peace with me.”

⁶ In days to come^[a] Jacob shall take root,
    Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots,
    and fill the whole world with fruit.

⁷ Has he smitten them as he smote those who smote them?
    Or have they been slain as their slayers were slain?
⁸ Measure by measure,^[b] by exile thou didst contend with them;
    he removed them with his fierce blast in the day of the east wind.
⁹ Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be expiated,
    and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin:
when he makes all the stones of the altars
    like chalkstones crushed to pieces,
    no Ashe′rim or incense altars will remain standing.
¹⁰ For the fortified city is solitary,
    a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;
there the calf grazes,
    there he lies down, and strips its branches.
¹¹ When its boughs are dry, they are broken;
    women come and make a fire of them.
For this is a people without discernment;
    therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them,
    he that formed them will show them no favor.