Isaiah 27–28

Chapter 27

The Deliverance of Israel

¹In that day ^athe Lord will punish ^1bLeviathan the fleeing serpent,

With His fierce and great and mighty sword,

Even Leviathan the twisted serpent;

And ^cHe will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.

²In that day,

“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.

⁴“I have no wrath.

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.”

⁶¹In the days to come Jacob ^awill take root,

Israel will ^bblossom and sprout,

And they will fill the ²whole world with ^cfruit.

⁷Like the striking of Him who has struck them, has ^aHe struck them?

Or like the slaughter of His slain, ¹have they been slain?

⁸You 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.

⁹Therefore 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.

¹⁰For 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.

¹¹When 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.

¹²In 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.

¹³It 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.

Chapter 28

Ephraim’s Captivity Predicted

¹Woe 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!

²Behold, 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.

³The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim is ^atrodden under foot.

⁴And 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.

⁵In that day the ^aLord of hosts will become a beautiful ^bcrown

And a glorious diadem to the remnant of His people;

⁶A ^aspirit of justice for him who sits in judgment,

A ^bstrength to those who repel the ¹onslaught at the gate.

⁷And 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.

⁸For 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?

¹⁰“For He says,

‘^1aOrder on order, order on order,

Line on line, line on line,

A little here, a little there.’ ”

¹¹Indeed, He will speak to this people

Through ^astammering lips and a foreign tongue,

¹²He who said to them, “Here is ^arest, give rest to the weary,”

And, “Here is repose,” but they would not listen.

¹³So 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.

Judah Is Warned

¹⁴Therefore, ^ahear the word of the Lord, O ^bscoffers,

Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem,

¹⁵Because 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.”

¹⁶Therefore 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 overwhelming 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.”

²⁰The bed is too short on which to stretch out,

And the ^ablanket is too ¹small to wrap oneself in.

²¹For 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.

²²And 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.

²³Give ear and hear my voice,

Listen and hear my words.

²⁴Does the ¹farmer plow ²continually to plant seed?

Does he continually ³turn and harrow the ground?

²⁵Does he not level its surface

And sow dill and scatter ^acummin

And ¹plant ^bwheat in rows,

Barley in its place and rye within its ²area?

²⁶For his God instructs and teaches him properly.

²⁷For 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.

²⁸Grain 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.

²⁹This also comes from the Lord of hosts,

Who has made His counsel ^awonderful and His wisdom ^bgreat.