Isaiah 24–27

The Judgment on the Earth

24Look! Yahweh is about to lay the earth waste

and is about to devastate it,

and he will twist her surface,

and he will scatter her inhabitants.

²And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest;

as with the slave, so with his master;

as with the female slave, so with her mistress;

as with the buyer, so with the seller;

as with the lender, so with the borrower;

as with the creditor, so with the one to whom he lends.

³The earth shall be utterly laid waste,

and it shall be utterly plundered,

for Yahweh has spoken this word.

⁴The earth dries up, it withers;

the world languishes, it withers.

The elevated of the people of the earth languish,

⁵and the earth is defiled beneath its inhabitants.

For they have transgressed laws;

they have passed by statutes;^a

they have broken the everlasting covenant.

⁶Therefore a curse devours the earth,

and the inhabitants in it suffer for their guilt.

Therefore the inhabitants of the earth burn,

and few men are left.^b

⁷The new wine dries up;

the vine languishes.

All the merry of heart sigh;

⁸the joy of the tambourine has stopped.

The noise of the jubilant has ceased;

the joy of the lyre has stopped.

⁹They do not drink wine with song;

strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.

¹⁰The city of emptiness is broken;

every house is shut so that no one can enter;^c

¹¹there is an outcry over the wine in the streets.

All joy turns into darkness;^d

the joy of the earth disappears.

¹²Desolation is left in the city;

the gate is crushed into a state of ruin.

¹³For it shall be like this in the midst of the earth,

among the nations,

like the beating of an olive tree,

like gleanings when a grape harvest is at an end.

¹⁴They lift up their voices;^e they sing for joy;

they shout out from the west over the majesty of Yahweh.

¹⁵Therefore glorify Yahweh in the east,

the name of Yahweh the God of Israel in the coastlands of the sea.

¹⁶We hear songs from the edge^f of the earth:

“Glory to the righteous one!”

But I say, “Ruin to me!

Ruin to me! Woe to me!

The treacherous ones deal treacherously,

and the treacherous ones deal treacherously with treachery!”

¹⁷Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you, inhabitants^g of the earth!

¹⁸And this shall happen:

The one who flees from the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit,

and the one who goes up from inside the pit^h shall be caught in the snare,

for the windows from heaven are opened,

and the foundations of the earth tremble.

¹⁹The earth is utterly broken;

the earth is torn asunder;

the earth is shaken violently.

²⁰The earth staggers to and fro like the drunkard,

and it sways like a hut,

and its transgression is heavy upon it,

and it falls and does not rise again.

²¹And this shall happen on that day:

Yahweh will punish the host of heaven in heaven,

and the kings of the earth on the earth.

²²And they will be gathered in a gathering, like a prisoner inⁱ a pit.

And they will be shut in^j a prison and be punished after^k many days.

²³And the full moon will be ashamed

and the sun will be ashamed,

for Yahweh of hosts will rule on Mount Zion^l and in Jerusalem,

and before his elders in glory.

Praise for Salvation

25Yahweh, you are my God; I will exalt you.

I will praise your name,

for you have done wonderful things,^a

plans^b of old,^c in faithfulness, trustworthiness.

²For you have made^d the city a heap,

the fortified city a ruin,

the palace of foreigners is no longer^e a city;

it will never^f be rebuilt.

³Therefore strong peoples will glorify you;

a city of ruthless nations, they will fear you.

⁴For you have been a refuge to the poor,

a refuge to the needy in his distress,

a shelter from the rainstorm,

a shade from the heat.

For the breath of the ruthless was like a rainstorm against a wall,^g

⁵the noise of foreigners like heat in a dry land.

You subdued the heat with the shade of a cloud;

the song of the ruthless was silenced.

⁶And on this mountain Yahweh of hosts will make for all peoples a rich feast,^h

a feast of aged wines, fat filled with marrow, filtered aged wine.

⁷And on this mountain he will destroyⁱ the face of the shroud,

the shroud over all peoples,

and the woven covering over all nations.

⁸He will destroy^j death forever,

and the Lord Yahweh will wipe off the tears from all faces,

and he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth,

for Yahweh has spoken.

⁹And one will say, on that day,

“Look! This is our God! We have waited for him and he saved us!

This is Yahweh; we waited for him!

Let us be glad,

and let us rejoice in his salvation.”

¹⁰For the hand of Yahweh will rest on this mountain,

and Moab shall be trampled down under him

as a heap of straw is trampled down^k in waters of^l a dung heap.

¹¹And it^m will spread out its hands in the midst of it,

just as the swimmer spreads out to swim,

and its pride will be brought low with the movementⁿ of its hands.

¹²And he will throw down the fortification of the high point of your walls;

he will bring it low;

he will send it^o to the ground,

to the dust.

Judah’s Song of Praise

26On that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

“We have a strong city;^a

he sets up victory like walls and ramparts!^b

²Open the gates so that^c the righteous nation who keeps faithfulness may enter!

³You will protect a firm inclination in peace,

in peace because he trusts in you.

⁴Trust in Yahweh forever,

for in Yah, Yahweh you have an everlasting rock.

⁵For he has thrown down the inhabitants of the height,

he lays low the lofty city.

He lays it low to the ground;

he throws her to the dust.

⁶The foot tramples it,

the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.”

Yahweh’s People Vindicated

⁷The way of the righteous is a straight path;

you clear the level path of the righteous.^d

⁸Surely we wait for you in the path of your judgments, Yahweh,

for your name and renown are the desire of the soul.

⁹I desire you with all my soul in the night;

also I seek you with my spirit within me,

for when your judgments are upon^e the earth,

the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

¹⁰Though the wicked person is shown compassion, he does not learn righteousness;

he acts unjustly in the land of uprightness,

and he does not see the majesty of Yahweh.

¹¹Yahweh, though your hand reaches high, they do not see it.

Let them see, and let them be ashamed of the zeal of people.

Indeed, let the fire of your enemies consume them.

¹²Yahweh, you will establish peace for us,

for you have done even all of our works for us.

¹³Yahweh, our God, lords besides you ruled over us,

but we praise your name alone.^f

¹⁴The dead do not live;

dead spirits do not rise

because you have punished and destroyed them,

and you have destroyed all memory of them.

¹⁵You have added to the nation, Yahweh.

You have added to the nation; you are honored.

You have extended all the ends of the land.

¹⁶Yahweh, in distress they have visited you;

they poured out an incantation;^g

your discipline was on them.

¹⁷Like a pregnant woman on the point of giving birth, she writhes;

she cries in her labor pains.

So we were because of your presence, Yahweh.

¹⁸We became pregnant, we writhed;

we gave birth to wind.

We cannot bring about deliverance on the earth,

and no inhabitants of the world are born.

¹⁹Your dead shall live; their corpses^h shall rise.

Wake up and sing for joy, dwellers of the dust,

for your dew is celestial dew,ⁱ

and the earth will give birth to dead spirits.^j

²⁰Go, my people, enter into your chambers

and shut your doors^k behind you;

hide for a very little^l while,

until the wrath has passed over.

²¹For look! Yahweh is about to come out from his place

to punish the iniquity of the inhabitants^m of the earth against him,

and the earth will disclose her blood

and will no longer cover her slain.

Israel Rescued

27On that day, Yahweh will punish with his cruel, great and strong sword Leviathan, the fleeing serpent, and Leviathan, the twisting serpent, and he will kill the sea monster that is in the sea.

²On that day:

“A vineyard of beauty! Sing in praise of it!

³I, Yahweh, am her keeper;

I water it again and again.^a

Lest one afflict harm on it,

I guard it night and day;

⁴I have no wrath.^b

Whatever gives me thorns and briers,

I will step forth against in battle.

I will set it on fire altogether.

⁵Or let it grasp at my protection;

let it make peace with me;

peace let it make with me.”

⁶Days are coming,^c let Jacob take root;

Israel will blossom and send out shoots,

and they will fill the face of the world with fruit.

⁷Does he strike him as he struck down those who struck him?^d

Or is he killed as those who killed him were killed?^e

⁸By expelling^f her, by her sending away, you argue with her.

He removed them with his strong wind,

in the day of the east wind.

⁹Therefore by this he will make atonement for the guilt of Jacob,

and this will be all of the fruit of the removal of his sin:

when he makes^g all the stones of the altar like crushed stones of chalk,

no poles of Asherah worship or incense altars will stand.

¹⁰For the fortified city is solitary,

a settlement deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;

the calf grazes there,

lies down there and destroys its branches.

¹¹When its branches are dry,^h they are broken;

women are coming and setting light to it.

For it is not a people of understanding;

therefore his maker will not have compassion on him,

and his creator will not show him favor.

¹²And this shall happen:

on that day, Yahweh will thresh from the floodwaters of the Euphrates to the wadiⁱ of Egypt, and as for you, you will be gathered one by one, sons of Israel.

¹³And this shall happen:

on that day, a great trumpet will be blown,

and those who were lost in the land of Assyria will come,

and those who were scattered in the land of Egypt,

and they will bow down to Yahweh on the holy mountain^j at Jerusalem.