Isaiah 24–27

The Will Punish the Earth

24The Lord is going to devastate the earth and leave it desolate. He will twist the earth’s surface and scatter its people. ²Everyone will meet the same fate—the priests and the people, slaves and masters, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, rich and poor. ³The earth will lie shattered and ruined. The Lord has spoken and it will be done.

⁴The earth dries up and withers; the whole world grows weak; both earth and sky decay. ⁵The people have defiled the earth by breaking God’s laws and by violating the covenant he made to last for ever. ⁶So God has pronounced a curse on the earth. Its people are paying for what they have done. Fewer and fewer remain alive. ⁷The grapevines wither, and wine is becoming scarce. Everyone who was once happy is now sad, ⁸and the joyful music of their harps and drums has ceased. ⁹There is no more happy singing over wine; no one enjoys its taste any more. ¹⁰In the city everything is in chaos, and people lock themselves in their houses for safety. ¹¹People shout in the streets because there is no more wine. Happiness is gone for ever; it has been banished from the land. ¹²The city is in ruins, and its gates have been broken down. ¹³This is what will happen in every nation all over the world. It will be like the end of harvest, when the olives have been beaten off every tree and the last grapes picked from the vines.

¹⁴Those who survive will sing for joy. Those in the west will tell how great the Lord is, ¹⁵and those in the east will praise him. The people who live along the sea will praise the Lord, the God of Israel. ¹⁶From the most distant parts of the world we will hear songs in praise of Israel, the righteous nation.

But there is no hope for me! I am wasting away! Traitors continue to betray, and their treachery grows worse and worse. ¹⁷Listen to me, everyone! There are terrors, pits, and traps waiting for you. ¹⁸Anyone who tries to escape from the terror will fall into a pit, and anyone who escapes from the pit will be caught in a trap. Torrents of rain will pour from the sky, and earth’s foundations will shake. ¹⁹The earth will crack and shatter and split open. ²⁰The earth itself will stagger like a drunken man and sway like a hut in a storm. The world is weighed down by its sins; it will collapse and never rise again.

²¹A time is coming when the Lord will punish the powers above and the rulers of the earth. ²²God will crowd kings together like prisoners in a pit. He will shut them in prison until the time of their punishment comes. ²³The moon will grow dark, and the sun will no longer shine, for the Lord Almighty will be king. He will rule in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, and the leaders of the people will see his glory.

A Hymn of Praise

25Lord, you are my God;

I will honour you and praise your name.

You have done amazing things;

you have faithfully carried out

the plans you made long ago.

²You have turned cities into ruins

and destroyed their fortifications.

The palaces which our enemies built

are gone for ever.

³The people of powerful nations will praise you;

you will be feared in the cities of cruel nations.

⁴The poor and the helpless have fled to you

and have been safe in times of trouble.

You give them shelter from storms

and shade from the burning heat.

Cruel enemies attack like a winter storm,^m

⁵like drought in a dry land.

But you, Lord, have silenced our enemies;

you silence the shouts of cruel people,

as a cloud cools a hot day.

God Prepares a Banquet

⁶Here on Mount Zion the Lord Almighty will prepare a banquet for all the nations of the world—a banquet of the richest food and the finest wine. ⁷Here he will suddenly remove the cloud of sorrow that has been hanging over all the nations. ^8*The Sovereign Lord will destroy death for ever! He will wipe away the tears from everyone’s eyes and take away the disgrace his people have suffered throughout the world. The Lord himself has spoken!

⁹When it happens, everyone will say, “He is our God! We have put our trust in him, and he has rescued us. He is the Lord! We have put our trust in him, and now we are happy and joyful because he has saved us.”

God Will Punish Moab

^10*The Lord will protect Mount Zion, but the people of Moab will be trampled down, just as straw is trampled in manure. ^11*They will stretch out their hands as if they were trying to swim, but God will humiliate them, and their hands will sink helplessly. ^12*He will destroy the fortresses of Moab with their high walls and bring them tumbling down into the dust.

God Will Give His People Victory

26A day is coming when the people will sing this song in the land of Judah:

Our city is strong!

God himself defends its walls!

²Open the city gates

and let the faithful nation enter,

the nation whose people do what is right.

³You, Lord, give perfect peace

to those who keep their purpose firm

and put their trust in you.

⁴Trust in the Lord for ever;

he will always protect us.

⁵He has humbled those who were proud;

he destroyed the strong city they lived in,

and sent its walls crashing into the dust.

⁶Those who were oppressed walk over it now

and trample it under their feet.

⁷Lord, you make the path smooth for good people;

the road they travel is level.

⁸We follow your will and put our hope in you;

you are all that we desire.

⁹At night I long for you with all my heart;

when you judge the earth and its people,

they will all learn what justice is.

¹⁰Even though you are kind to the wicked,

they never learn to do what is right.

Even here in a land of righteous people they still do wrong;

they refuse to recognize your greatness.

^11*Your enemies do not know that you will punish them.

let them suffer the punishment you have prepared.

Show them how much you love your people.

¹²You will give us prosperity, Lord;

everything that we achieve

is the result of what you do.ⁿ

¹³Lord our God, we have been ruled by others,

but you alone are our Lord.

¹⁴Now they are dead and will not live again;

their ghosts will not rise,

for you have punished them and destroyed them.

No one remembers them any more.

¹⁵Lord, you have made our nation grow,

enlarging its territory on every side,

and this has brought you honour.

¹⁶You punished your people, Lord,

and in anguish they prayed to you.^o

¹⁷You, Lord, have made us cry out,

as a woman in labour cries out in pain.

¹⁸We were in pain and agony,

but we gave birth to nothing.

We have won no victory for our land;

we have accomplished nothing.^p

¹⁹Those of our people who have died will live again!

Their bodies will come back to life.

All those sleeping in their graves

will wake up and sing for joy.

As the sparkling dew refreshes the earth,

so the Lord will revive those who have long been dead.

Judgement and Restoration

²⁰Go into your houses, my people, and shut the door behind you. Hide yourselves for a little while until God’s anger is over. ²¹The Lord is coming from his heavenly dwelling place to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The murders that were secretly committed on the earth will be revealed, and the ground will no longer hide those who have been killed.

27^*On that day the Lord will use his powerful and deadly sword to punish Leviathan, that wriggling, twisting dragon, and to kill the monster^q that lives in the sea.

²On that day the Lord will say of his pleasant vineyard, ³“I watch over it and water it continually. I guard it night and day so that no one will harm it. ⁴I am no longer angry with the vineyard. If only there were thorns and briars to fight against, then I would burn them up completely. ⁵But if the enemies of my people want my protection, let them make peace with me. Yes, let them make peace with me.”

⁶In days to come the people of Israel, the descendants of Jacob, will take root like a tree, and they will blossom and bud. The earth will be covered with the fruit they produce.

⁷Israel has not been punished by the Lord as severely as its enemies, nor lost as many people. ⁸The Lord punished his people by sending them into exile. He took them away with a cruel wind from the east.^{r 9}But Israel’s sins will be forgiven only when the stones of pagan altars are ground up like chalk, and no more incense altars or symbols of the goddess Asherah are left.

¹⁰The fortified city lies in ruins. It is deserted like an empty wilderness. It has become a pasture for cattle, where they can rest and graze. ¹¹The branches of the trees are withered and broken, and women gather them for firewood. Because the people have understood nothing, God their Creator will not pity them or show them any mercy.

¹²On that day, from the Euphrates to the Egyptian border, the Lord will gather his people one by one, like someone separating the wheat from the chaff.

¹³When that day comes, a trumpet will be blown to call back from Assyria and Egypt all the Israelites who are in exile there. They will come and worship the Lord in Jerusalem, on his sacred hill.^s