Isaiah 27
1 In that day the Lord, with his great and strong and cruel sword, will send punishment on Leviathan, the quick-moving snake, and on Leviathan, the twisted snake; and he will put to death the dragon which is in the sea.
At that time the Lord will take his sharp, large, and strong sword, and punish Leviathan, the slithering serpent, and Leviathan, the coiled serpent, and he will kill the sea dragon.
2 In that day it will be said, A vine-garden of delight, make a song about it.
At that time, sing about a beautiful vineyard.
3 I, the Lord, am watching it; I will give it water at all times: I will keep it night and day, for fear that any damage comes to it.
I, the Lord, take care of it, watering it often. I guard it night and day so that nobody can damage it.
4 My passion is over: if the thorns were fighting against me, I would make an attack on them, and they would be burned up together.
I'm not angry anymore. If there are thorns and brambles I would go and fight them, burning them all up,
5 Or let him put himself under my power, and make peace with me.
Otherwise they should come to me for protection. They should make their peace with me, yes, make their peace with me.
6 In days to come Jacob will take root: Israel will put out buds and flowers; and the face of the world will be full of fruit.
In the future the descendants of Jacob will be like a tree taking root. Israel will flower and send out shoots, and fill the whole world with fruit!
7 Is his punishment like the punishment of those who overcame him? or are his dead as great in number as those he put to the sword?
Has the Lord hit Israel as he hit those that attacked them? Were they killed like their killers were killed?
8 Your anger against her has been made clear by driving her away; he has taken her away with his storm-wind in the day of his east wind.
You dealt with them by sending them into exile, by banishing them. He drove them away with his powerful force, like when the east wind blows.
9 So by this will the sin of Jacob be covered, and this is all the fruit of taking away his punishment; when all the stones of the altar are crushed together, so that the wood pillars and the sun-images will not be put up again.
Through this experience Jacob's guilt will be forgiven. The removal of their sins will come to fruition when they take all the pagan altar stones and crush them to pieces like chalk—no Asherah poles or altars of incense will be left standing.
10 For the strong town is without men, an unpeopled living-place; and she has become a waste land: there the young ox will take his rest, and its branches will be food for him.
The fortified city will be abandoned, its houses as empty and lonely as a desert. Cattle will graze and rest there, stripping bare the branches of its trees.
11 When its branches are dry they will be broken off; the women will come and put fire to them: for it is a foolish people; for this cause he who made them will have no mercy on them, and he whose work they are will not have pity on them.
Their dry branches are broken off and used by women to make fires. This is a people that doesn't have any sense, so their Maker won't feel sorry for them, and their Creator won't help them.
12 And it will be in that day that the Lord will get together his grain, from the River to the stream of Egypt, and you will be got together with care, O children of Israel.
At that time the Lord will thresh the grain harvested from the Euphrates River to the Wadi of Egypt, and you Israelites will be gathered up one by one.
13 And it will be in that day that a great horn will be sounded; and those who were wandering in the land of Assyria, and those who had been sent away into the land of Egypt, will come; and they will give worship to the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
At that time a loud trumpet will sound, and those who were dying in Assyria will return along with those exiled in Egypt. They will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
