Isaiah 26–27

Judah’s Song of Victory

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

We have a strong city;

he sets up walls and bulwarks as a safeguard.^*

²Open the gates,

so that the righteous nation that maintains faithfulness

may enter in.^*

³Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace,

in peace because they trust in you.

⁴Trust in the Lord forever,

for in the Lord God^h

you have an everlasting rock.^*

⁵For he has brought low

the inhabitants of the height;

the lofty city he lays low.

He lays it low to the ground,

casts it to the dust.^*

⁶The foot tramples it,

the feet of the poor,

the steps of the needy.^*

⁷The way of the righteous is level;

straight is the path of the righteous that you clear.^*

⁸In the path of your judgments,

O Lord, we have placed hope;

your name and your renown

are the soul’s desire.^*

⁹My soul yearns for you in the night;

my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

For when your judgments are in the earth,

the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.^*

¹⁰If favor is shown to the wicked,

they do not learn righteousness;

they corrupt what is upright on the earth

and do not see the majesty of the Lord.^*

¹¹O Lord, your hand is lifted up,

but they do not see it.

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

Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.^*

¹²O Lord, may you ordain peace for us,

for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us.^*

¹³O Lord our God,

other lords besides you have ruled over us,

but we acknowledge your name alone.^*

¹⁴The dead do not live;

shades do not rise

because you have punished and destroyed them

and wiped out all memory of them.^*

¹⁵But you have increased the nation, O Lord;

you have increased the nation; you are glorified;

you have enlarged all the borders of the land.^*

¹⁶O Lord, in distress they sought you;

they poured out a prayerⁱ

when your chastening was on them.^*

¹⁷Like a woman with child

about to give birth

writhes and cries out in her pain,

so were we because of you, O Lord;^*

¹⁸we were with child; we writhed,

but we gave birth only to wind.

We have won no victories on earth,

and no one is born to inhabit the world.^*

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

Those who dwell in the dust will awake and shout for joy!^k

For your dew is a radiant dew,

and the earth will give birth to those long dead.^l*

²⁰Come, my people, enter your chambers,

and shut your doors behind you;

hide yourselves for a little while

until the wrath is past.^*

²¹For the Lord comes out from his place

to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;

the earth will disclose the blood shed on it

and will no longer cover its slain.^*

Israel’s Redemption

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

²On that day:

A pleasant vineyard—sing about it!^*

³I, the Lord, am its keeper;

every moment I water it.

I guard it night and day

so that no one can harm it;^*

⁴I have no wrath.

If it gives me thorns and briers,

I will march to battle against it.

I will burn it up.^*

⁵Or else let it cling to me for protection;

let it make peace with me;

let it make peace with me.^*

⁶In days to come^m Jacob shall take root;

Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots

and fill the whole world with fruit.^*

⁷Has he struck them down as he struck down those who struck them?

Or have they been killed as their killersⁿ were killed?^*

⁸By expulsion,^o by exile you struggled against them;

with his fierce blast he removed them in the day of the east wind.^*

⁹Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be expiated,

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

when he makes all the stones of the altars

like chalkstones crushed to pieces;

no sacred poles^p or incense altars will remain standing.^*

¹⁰For the fortified city is solitary,

a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;

the calves graze there;

there they lie down and strip its branches.^*

¹¹When its boughs are dry, they are broken;

women come and make a fire of them.

For this is a people without understanding;

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

he who formed them will show them no favor.^*

¹²On that day the Lord will thresh from the channel of the Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you will be gathered one by one, O people of Israel.^{* 13}And on that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.^*