Isaiah 24:1–27:13
24 Look, the Lord is stripping the earth bare
and making it desolate.
He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants:
servant and master,
female servant and mistress,
buyer and seller,
lender and borrower,
creditor and debtor.
3 The earth will be stripped completely bare
and will be totally plundered,
for the Lord has spoken this message.c
4 The earth mourns and withers;
the world wastes away and withers;
the exalted people of the earth waste away.
5 The earth is polluted by its inhabitants,d
for they have transgressed teachings,
overstepped decrees,
and broken the permanent covenant.e
6 Therefore a curse has consumed the earth,f
and its inhabitants have become guilty;
the earth’s inhabitants have been burned,
and only a few survive.
7 The new wine mourns;g
the vine withers.
All the carousers now groan.
8 The joyful tambourinesh have ceased.
The noise of the jubilant has stopped.
The joyful lyre has ceased.
9 They no longer sing and drink wine;
beer is bitter to those who drink it.
10 The city of chaos is shattered;i
every house is closed to entry.j
11 In the streets they cryA for wine.
All joy grows dark;
earth’s rejoicing goes into exile.
12 Only desolation remains in the city;
its gate has collapsed in ruins.
13 For this is how it will be on earth
among the nations:
like a harvested olive tree,
like a gleaning after a grape harvest.k
14 They raise their voices, they sing out;
they proclaim in the west
the majesty of the Lord.
15 Therefore, in the east honor the Lord!
In the coasts and islands of the west
honor the name of the Lord,
the God of Israel.
16 From the ends of the earth we hear songs:
The Splendor of the Righteous One.l
But I said, “I waste away! I waste away!B
Woe is me.”
The treacherous act treacherously;
the treacherous deal very treacherously.m
17 Panic, pit, and trap await youn
who dwell on the earth.o
18 Whoever flees at the sound of panic
will fall into a pit,
and whoever escapes from the pit
will be caught in a trap.
For the floodgates on high are opened,a
and the foundations of the earth are shaken.b
19 The earth is completely devastated;
the earth is split open;
the earth is violently shaken.
20 The earth staggers like a drunkardc
and sways like a hut.
Earth’s rebellion weighs it down,
and it falls, never to rise again.
21 On that dayd the Lord will punish
the army of the heights in the heights
and the kings of the ground on the ground.
22 They will be gathered together
like prisoners in a pit.e
They will be confined to a dungeon;f
after many days they will be punished.
23 The moon will be put to shame
and the sun disgraced,
because the Lord of Armies will reign as king
on Mount Zion in Jerusalem,
and he will display his glory
in the presence of his elders.g
SALVATION AND JUDGMENT ON THAT DAY
25 Lord, you are my God;h
I will exalt you. I will praise your name,
for you have accomplished wonders,
plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness.
2 For you have turned the city into a pile of rocks,i
a fortified city, into ruins;
the fortress of barbariansj is no longer a city;
it will never be rebuilt.
3 Therefore, a strong people will honor you.
The cities of violent nations will fear you.
4 For you have been a stronghold for the poor person,
a stronghold for the needyk in his distress,
a refuge from storms and a shade from heat.l
When the breath of the violent
is like a storm against a wall,
you will subdue the uproar of barbarians.
As the shade of a cloud cools the heat of the day,
so he will silence the song of the violent.
the Lord of Armies will prepare for all the peoples a feast of choice meat,n
a feast with aged wine, prime cuts of choice meat,B fine vintage wine.
he will swallow up the burial shroud,
the shroud over all the peoples,
the sheet covering all the nations.o
8 When he has swallowed up death once and for all,p
the Lord God will wipe away the tears
from every faceq
and remove his people’s disgracer
from the whole earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
9 On that day it will be said,
“Look, this is our God;
we have waited for him, and he has saved us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him.
Let’s rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”s
10 For the Lord’s power will rest on this mountain.
But Moabt will be trampled in his placeC
as straw is trampled in a dung pile.
11 He will spread out his arms in the middle of it,
as a swimmer spreads out his arms to swim.
His pride will be brought low,
along with the trickery of his hands.u
12 The high-walled fortress will be brought down,
thrown to the ground, to the dust.v
26 On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strong city.
Salvation is established as walls and ramparts.w
so a righteous nation can come in—
one that remains faithful.
3 You will keep the mind that is dependent on you
in perfect peace,a
for it is trusting in you.
because in the Lord, the Lord himself, is an everlasting rock!b
5 For he has humbled those who live in lofty places—
an inaccessible city.c
He brings it down; he brings it down to the ground;
he throws it to the dust.
the feet of the humble,
the steps of the poor.
7 The path of the righteous is level;d
you clear a straight path for the righteous.
in the path of your judgments.
Our desire is for your name and renown.e
9 I long for you in the night;f
yes, my spirit within me diligently seeks you,
for when your judgments are in the land,
the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
10 But if the wicked man is shown favor,
he does not learn righteousness.
In a righteous land he acts unjustly
and does not see the majesty of the Lord.
11 Lord, your hand is lifted up to take action,
but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people
and be put to shame.
Let fire consume your adversaries.
12 Lord, you will establish peace for us,
for you have also done all our work for us.
13 Lord our God, lords other than you have ownedA us,
but we remember your name alone.g
departed spirits do not rise up.
Indeed, you have punished and destroyed them;
you have wiped out all memory of them.h
15 You have added to the nation, Lord.i
You have added to the nation; you are honored.
You have expanded all the borders of the land.j
16 Lord, they went to you in their distress;k
they poured out whispered prayers
because your discipline fell on them.B
17 As a pregnant woman about to give birth
writhes and cries out in her pains,l
so we were before you, Lord.
18 We became pregnant, we writhed in pain;
we gave birth to wind.
We have won no victories on earth,
and the earth’s inhabitants have not fallen.
19 Your dead will live; their bodiesC will rise.m
Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust!
For you will be covered with the morning dew,D
and the earth will bring out the departed spirits.
20 Go, my people, enter your rooms
and close your doors behind you.
Hide for a little while until the wrath has passed.n
21 For look, the Lord is coming from his placeo
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.p
The earth will reveal the blood shed on it
and will no longer conceal her slain.
27 On that day the Lord with his relentless, large, strong sword will bring judgment on Leviathan,q the fleeing serpent—Leviathan, the twisting serpent. He will slay the monster that is in the sea.r
2 On that day
sing about a desirable vineyard:a
3 I am the Lord, who watches over it
to water it regularly.
So that no one disturbs it,
I watch over it night and day.
If only there were thorns and briersb for me to battle,
I would trample them
and burn them to the ground.
5 Or let it take hold of my strength;
let it make peace with me—
make peace with me.
6 In days to come, Jacob will take root.c
Israel will blossom and bloomd
and fill the whole world with fruit.
as he struck the one who struck Israel?e
Was Israel killed like those killed by the Lord?
by banishing and driving her away.A
He removed her with his severe storm
on the day of the east wind.
9 Therefore Jacob’s iniquityf will be atoned for in this way,
and the result of the removal of his sin will be this:g
when he makes all the altar stones
like crushed bits of chalk,
no Asherah poles or incense altars will remain standing.
10 For the fortified city will be desolate,
pastures deserted and abandoned like a wilderness.
Calves will graze there,
and there they will spread out and strip its branches.
11 When its branches dry out, they will be broken off.
Women will come and make fires with them,
for they are not a people with understanding.h
Therefore their Makeri will not have compassion on them,
and their Creator will not be gracious to them.
12 On that dayj
the Lord will thresh grain from the Euphrates River
as far as the Wadi of Egypt,k
and you Israelites will be gathered one by one.
a great trumpetl will be blown,
and those lost in the land of Assyria will come,
as well as those dispersed in the land of Egypt;
and they will worship the Lord
at Jerusalem on the holy mountain.