Isaiah 27:1–28:29
1 In that day athe Lord will punish 1bLeviathan the fleeing serpent,
With His fierce and great and mighty sword,
Even 1Leviathan the twisted serpent;
And cHe will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.
“A 1avineyard of wine, sing of it!
3 “I, the Lord, am its keeper;
aI water it every moment.
So that no one will 1damage it,
I bguard it night and day.
Should 1someone give Me abriars and thorns in battle,
Then I would step on them, bI would burn them 2completely.
5 “Or let him 1arely on My protection,
Let him make peace with Me,
Let him bmake peace with Me.”
6 1In the days to come Jacob awill take root,
Israel will bblossom and sprout,
And they will fill the 2whole world with cfruit.
7 Like the striking of Him who has struck them, has aHe struck them?
Or like the slaughter of His slain, 1have they been slain?
8 You contended with them 1by banishing them, by adriving them away.
With His fierce wind He has expelled them on the day of the beast wind.
9 Therefore through this Jacob’s iniquity will be aforgiven;
And this will be 1the full price of the 2bpardoning of his sin:
When he makes all the caltar stones like pulverized chalk stones;
When 3Asherim and incense altars will not stand.
10 For the fortified city is aisolated,
A 1homestead forlorn and forsaken like the desert;
bThere the calf will graze,
And there it will lie down and 2feed on its branches.
11 When its alimbs are dry, they are broken off;
Women come and make a fire with them,
For they are not a people of bdiscernment,
Therefore ctheir Maker dwill not have compassion on them.
And their Creator will not be gracious to them.
12 In that day the Lord awill start His threshing from the flowing stream of the bEuphrates to the brook of Egypt, and you will be cgathered up one by one, O sons of Israel.
13 It will come about also in that day that a great atrumpet will be blown, and those who were perishing in the land of bAssyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and cworship the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
1 Woe to the proud crown of the adrunkards of bEphraim,
And to the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
Which is at the head of the 1fertile valley
Of those who are 2overcome with wine!
2 Behold, the Lord has a strong and amighty agent;
As a storm of bhail, a tempest of destruction,
Like a storm of cmighty overflowing waters,
He has cast it down to the earth with His hand.
3 The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim is atrodden under foot.
4 And the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
Which is at the head of the 1fertile valley,
Will be like the afirst-ripe fig prior to summer,
Which 2one sees,
And 3as soon as it is in his 4hand,
He swallows it.
5 In that day the aLord of hosts will become a beautiful bcrown
And a glorious diadem to the remnant of His people;
6 A aspirit of justice for him who sits in judgment,
A bstrength to those who repel the 1onslaught at the gate.
7 And these also areel with wine and stagger from strong drink:
bThe priest and cthe prophet reel with strong drink,
They are confused by wine, they stagger from dstrong drink;
They reel while 1having evisions,
They totter when rendering judgment.
8 For all the tables are full of filthy avomit, without a single clean place.
9 “To awhom would He teach knowledge,
And to whom would He interpret the message?
Those just bweaned from milk?
Those just taken from the breast?
‘1aOrder on order, order on order,
Line on line, line on line,
A little here, a little there.’ ”
11 Indeed, He will speak to this people
Through astammering lips and a foreign tongue,
12 He who said to them, “Here is arest, give rest to the weary,”
And, “Here is repose,” but they would not listen.
13 So the word of the Lord to them will be,
“1Order on order, order on order,
Line on line, line on line,
A little here, a little there,”
That they may go and astumble backward, be broken, snared and taken captive.
14 Therefore, ahear the word of the Lord, O bscoffers,
Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem,
15 Because you have said, “We have made a acovenant with death,
And with 1Sheol we have made a 2pact.
bThe overwhelming 3scourge will not reach us when it passes by,
For we have made cfalsehood our refuge and we have dconcealed ourselves with deception.”
16 Therefore thus says the Lord 1God,
“aBehold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested bstone,
A costly cornerstone for the foundation, 2firmly placed.
He who believes in it will not be 3disturbed.
17 “I will make ajustice the measuring line
And righteousness the level;
Then bhail will sweep away the refuge of lies
And the waters will overflow the secret place.
18 “Your acovenant with death will be 1bcanceled,
And your pact with Sheol will not stand;
When the aoverwhelming scourge passes through,
Then you become its ctrampling place.
19 “As aoften as it passes through, it will 1seize you;
For bmorning after morning it will pass through, anytime during the day or night,
And it will be 2sheer cterror to understand 3what it means.”
20 The bed is too short on which to stretch out,
And the ablanket is too 1small to wrap oneself in.
21 For the Lord will rise up as at Mount aPerazim,
He will be stirred up as in the valley of bGibeon,
To do His ctask, His 1dunusual task,
And to work His work, His 2extraordinary work.
22 And now do not carry on as ascoffers,
Or your fetters will be made stronger;
For I have heard from the Lord 1God of hosts
Of decisive bdestruction on all the earth.
23 Give ear and hear my voice,
Listen and hear my words.
24 Does the 1farmer plow 2continually to plant seed?
Does he continually 3turn and harrow the ground?
25 Does he not level its surface
And sow dill and scatter acummin
Barley in its place and rye within its 2area?
26 For his God instructs and teaches him properly.
27 For dill is not threshed with a athreshing sledge,
Nor is the cartwheel 1driven over cummin;
But dill is beaten out with a rod, and cummin with a club.
28 Grain for bread is crushed,
Indeed, he does not continue to thresh it forever.
Because the wheel of his cart and his horses eventually 1damage it,
He does not thresh it longer.