Isaiah 24–27

Chapter 24

¹Behold, Jehovah maketh the land empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad its inhabitants. ²And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with him from whom usury is taken. ³The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled; for Jehovah hath spoken this word. ⁴The land mourneth, it fadeth away; the world languisheth, it fadeth away: the haughty people of the land do languish. ⁵And the land is polluted under the inhabitants thereof; for they have violated the laws, changed the statute, broken the everlasting covenant. ⁶Therefore doth the curse devour the earth, and they that dwell therein are held guilty; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are consumed, and few men are left. ⁷The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all that were merry-hearted do sigh; ⁸the mirth of tambours ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth. ⁹They do not drink wine with a song; strong drink is bitter to them that drink it. ¹⁰The city of solitude is broken down; every house is shut up, so that none entereth in. ¹¹There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone; ¹²desolation remaineth in the city, and the gate is smitten, —a ruin.

¹³For so will it be in the midst of the land among the peoples, as the shaking of an olive-tree, as the grape-gleanings when the vintage is done. ¹⁴These shall lift up their voice, they shall shout for the majesty of Jehovah, they shall cry aloud from the sea. ¹⁵Therefore glorify Jehovah in the east, the name of Jehovah, the God of Israel, in the isles of the west.

¹⁶From the end of the earth have we heard songs: Glory to the righteous! And I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! The treacherous have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous have dealt very treacherously. ¹⁷Fear, and the pit, and the snare are upon thee, inhabitant of the land. ¹⁸And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the sound of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare; for the windows on high are open, and the foundations of the earth shake. ¹⁹The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is completely dissolved, the earth is violently moved. ²⁰The earth reeleth to and fro like a drunkard, and is shaken like a night hut; and its transgression is heavy upon it; and it falleth and shall not rise again. ²¹And it shall come to pass in that day, that Jehovah will punish the host of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. ²²And they shall be brought together, as an assemblage of prisoners for the pit, and shall be shut up in prison, and after many days shall they be visited. ²³And the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed; for Jehovah of hosts shall reign on mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients in glory.

Chapter 25

¹Jehovah, thou art my God: I will exalt thee; I will celebrate thy name, for thou hast done wonderful things; counsels of old which are faithfulness and truth. ²For thou hast made of the city a heap, of the fortified town a ruin, the palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built up. ³Therefore shall the mighty people glorify thee, the city of terrible nations shall fear thee. ⁴For thou hast been a fortress to the poor, a fortress for the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat: for the blast of the terrible ones has been as the storm against a wall. ⁵Thou hast subdued the tumult of strangers, as the heat in a dry place; as the heat, by the shadow of a cloud, so the song of the terrible ones is brought low.

⁶And in this mountain will Jehovah of hosts make unto all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. ⁷And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the veil which veileth all the peoples, and the covering that is spread over all the nations. ⁸He will swallow up death in victory. And the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of his people will he take away from off all the earth: for Jehovah hath spoken.

⁹And it shall be said in that day, Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is Jehovah, we have waited for him; we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation. ¹⁰For in this mountain shall the hand of Jehovah rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under him, as straw is trodden down in the dunghill; ¹¹and he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth them forth to swim; and he shall bring down their pride together with the plots of their hands. ¹²And the fortress of the high defences of thy walls will he bring down, lay low, bring to the ground, into the dust.

Chapter 26

¹In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; salvation doth he appoint for walls and bulwarks. ²Open ye the gates, and the righteous nation which keepeth faithfulness shall enter in. ³Thou wilt keep in perfect peace the mind stayed on thee, for he confideth in thee. ⁴Confide ye in Jehovah for ever; for in Jah, Jehovah, is the rock of ages.

⁵For he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low, he layeth it low to the ground, he bringeth it even to the dust. ⁶The foot shall tread it down, —the feet of the afflicted, the steps of the poor. ⁷The way of the just is uprightness: thou, the Upright, dost make the path of the just even. ⁸Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Jehovah, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to thy memorial. ⁹With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. ¹⁰If favour be shewn to the wicked, he doth not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness he dealeth unjustly, and beholdeth not the majesty of Jehovah. ¹¹Jehovah, thy hand is lifted up, but they do not see: yet they shall see thy jealousy for the people, and be ashamed; yea, the fire which is for thine adversaries shall devour them.

¹²Jehovah, thou wilt ordain peace for us; for thou also hast wrought all our works for us. ¹³Jehovah our God, other lords than thee have had dominion over us; by thee only will we make mention of thy name. ¹⁴They are dead, they shall not live; deceased, they shall not rise: for thou hast visited and destroyed them, and made all memory of them to perish. ¹⁵Thou hast increased the nation, Jehovah, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified. Thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth. ¹⁶Jehovah, in trouble they sought thee; they poured out their whispered prayer when thy chastening was upon them. ¹⁷As a woman with child, that draweth near her delivery, is in travail, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been before thee, Jehovah. ¹⁸We have been with child, we have been in travail, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought the deliverance of the land, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. ¹⁹Thy dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing in triumph, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is the dew of the morning, and the earth shall cast forth the dead.

²⁰Come, my people, enter into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself just for a little moment, until the indignation be past. ²¹For behold, Jehovah cometh out of his place to visit the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth upon them; and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

Chapter 27

¹In that day Jehovah, with his sore and great and strong sword, will visit leviathan the fleeing serpent, and leviathan the crooked serpent; and he will slay the monster that is in the sea. ²In that day there shall be a vineyard of pure wine; sing concerning it: ³I Jehovah keep it, I will water it every moment; lest any harm it, I will keep it night and day. ⁴Fury is not in me. Oh that I had briars and thorns in battle against me! I would march against them, I would burn them together. ⁵Or let him take hold of my strength; let him make peace with me: yea, let him make peace with me. ⁶In the future Jacob shall take root; Israel shall blossom and bud, and they shall fill the face of the world with fruit.

⁷Hath he smitten him according to the smiting of those that smote him? Is he slain according to the slaughter of those slain by him? ⁸In measure, when sending her away, didst thou contend with her: he hath taken her away with his rough wind in the day of the east wind. ⁹By this, therefore, shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit of the taking away of his sin: when he shall make all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are crumbled in pieces, —the Asherahs and the sun-images shall not stand. ¹⁰For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation abandoned and forsaken like a wilderness; there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume its boughs. ¹¹When its branches are withered they shall be broken off; women shall come and set them on fire. For it is a people of no intelligence; therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he who formed them will shew them no favour. ¹²And it shall come to pass in that day, that Jehovah shall beat out from the flood of the river unto the torrent of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, ye children of Israel. ¹³And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown; and they shall come that were perishing in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall worship Jehovah in…