Isaiah 26–27

You Keep Him in Perfect Peace

26In that day ^ethis song will be sung in the land of Judah:

“We have a strong city;

he sets up ^fsalvation

as walls and bulwarks.

^2gOpen the gates,

that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.

^3hYou keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on you,

because he trusts in you.

⁴Trust in the Lord forever,

for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

⁵ⁱFor he has humbled

the inhabitants of the height,

the lofty city.

He lays it low, lays it low to the ground,

casts it to the dust.

⁶The foot tramples it,

the feet of ^jthe poor,

the steps of ^jthe needy.”

⁷The path of the righteous is level;

^kyou make level the way of the righteous.

⁸In the path of your judgments,

O Lord, we wait for you;

^lyour name and ^lremembrance

are the desire of our soul.

⁹My soul yearns for you in the night;

my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

^mFor when your judgments are in the earth,

the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

¹⁰ⁿIf favor is shown to the wicked,

he does not learn righteousness;

in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly

and does not see the majesty of the Lord.

¹¹O Lord, ^oyour hand is lifted up,

but ^pthey do not see it.

Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.

Let ^qthe fire for your adversaries consume them.

¹²O Lord, you will ordain ^rpeace for us,

for you have indeed done for us all our works.

¹³O Lord our God,

^sother lords besides you have ruled over us,

^tbut your name alone we bring to remembrance.

¹⁴They are dead, they will not live;

they are shades, they will not arise;

to that end you have visited them with destruction

and wiped out all remembrance of them.

^15uBut you have increased the nation, O Lord,

you have increased the nation; you are glorified;

^vyou have enlarged all the borders of the land.

¹⁶O Lord, ^win distress they sought you;

they poured out a whispered prayer

when your discipline was upon them.

^17xLike a pregnant woman

who writhes and cries out in her pangs

when she is near to giving birth,

so were we because of you, O Lord;

^18xwe were pregnant, we writhed,

but we have given birth to wind.

We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,

and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.

^19yYour dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.

You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For ^zyour dew is a dew of light,

and the earth will give birth to the dead.

²⁰Come, my people, enter your chambers,

and shut your doors behind you;

hide yourselves ^afor a little while

until the fury has passed by.

^21bFor behold, the Lord is coming out from his place

to punish the inhabitants of ^cthe earth for their iniquity,

and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,

and will no more cover its slain.

The Redemption of Israel

27In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong ^dsword will punish ^eLeviathan the fleeing serpent, ^eLeviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay ^fthe dragon that is in the sea.

²In that day,

^g“A pleasant vineyard,^{1 h}sing of it!

³I, the Lord, am its keeper;

every moment I water it.

Lest anyone punish it,

I keep it night and day;

⁴I have no wrath.

ⁱWould that I had thorns and briers to battle!

I would march against them,

I would burn them up together.

⁵Or let them lay hold of my protection,

let them make peace with me,

let them make peace with me.”

^6jIn days to come² Jacob shall take root,

Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots

and fill the whole world with fruit.

^7kHas he struck them ^las he struck those who struck them?

Or have they been slain ^mas their slayers were slain?

⁸ⁿMeasure by measure,³ by exile you contended with them;

^ohe removed them with his fierce breath⁴ in the day of the east wind.

⁹Therefore by this ^pthe guilt of Jacob will be atoned for,

and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin:⁵

^qwhen he makes all the stones of the altars

like chalkstones crushed to pieces,

no ^rAsherim or incense altars will remain standing.

^10sFor the fortified city is solitary,

a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;

there the calf grazes;

there it lies down and strips its branches.

¹¹When its boughs are dry, they are broken;

women come and make a fire of them.

^tFor this is a people without discernment;

therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them;

he who formed them will show them no favor.

¹²In that day ^ufrom the river Euphrates⁶ to the Brook of Egypt the Lord will thresh out the grain, and you will be gleaned one by one, O people of Israel. ¹³And in that day ^va great trumpet will be blown, ^wand those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt ^xwill come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.