< Isaiah 25 >
1 Lord, you are my God. I will honor you and praise who you are, because you have done wonderful things that you planned long ago. You are faithful and trustworthy!
O Jehovah, my God [art] Thou, I exalt Thee, I confess Thy name, For Thou hast done a wonderful thing, Counsels of old, stedfastness, O stedfast One.
2 You have turned the city into a pile of rubble; the fortified town is now a ruin; the foreigner palace is gone. It is no longer a city and it will never be rebuilt.
For Thou didst make of a city a heap, Of a fenced city a ruin, A high place of strangers from [being] a city, To the age it is not built.
3 Because of this powerful nations will honor you; cities of brutal nations will be in awe of you.
Therefore honour Thee do a strong people, A city of the terrible nations feareth Thee.
4 But you have protected the poor and needy when they were in trouble, you shielded them from storms and shaded them from the heat. For the actions of brutal people are like rain beating against a wall,
For Thou hast been a stronghold for the poor, A stronghold for the needy in his distress, A refuge from storm, a shadow from heat, When the spirit of the terrible [is] as a storm — a wall.
5 like heat in a desert. You end the noisy uprising of foreigners. In the same way that a cloud's shadow cools down the heat of the day, so the song sung by brutal people is silenced.
As heat in a dry place, The noise of strangers Thou humblest, Heat with the shadow of a thick cloud, The singing of the terrible is humbled.
6 On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast for all nations, a lavish feast of aged wines, rich food, and the best meat.
And made hath Jehovah of Hosts, For all the peoples in this mount, A banquet of fat things, a banquet of preserved things, Fat things full of marrow, preserved things refined.
7 On this mountain he will destroy the veil that covers all the nations, the sheet that is over everyone.
And swallowed up hath He in this mountain The face of the wrapping that is wrapped over all the peoples, And of the covering that is spread over all the nations.
8 He will destroy death forever. The Lord God will wipe away all tears, and everywhere he will take away the humiliation suffered by his people. The Lord has spoken.
He hath swallowed up death in victory, And wiped hath the Lord Jehovah, The tear from off all faces, And the reproach of His people He turneth aside from off all the earth, For Jehovah hath spoken.
9 At that time his people will say, “Look! This is our God; we have trusted in him and he has saved us! This is the Lord we have been looking for. Now we can be happy and celebrate the salvation he brings!”
And [one] hath said in that day, 'Lo, this [is] our God, We waited for Him, and He saveth us, This [is] Jehovah, we have waited for Him, We joy and rejoice in His salvation.'
10 The Lord's hand of protection will be on this mountain. But the Moabites will be trampled underfoot like straw into the water of a manure pit.
For rest doth the hand of Jehovah on this mountain, And trodden down is Moab under Him, As trodden down is straw on a dunghill.
11 They will reach out their hands to try and save themselves, like swimmers using their hands to swim, but their pride will be humbled however much they thrash about.
And he spread out his hands in its midst, As spread out doth the swimmer to swim; And He hath humbled his excellency With the machinations of his hands.
12 Moab, he will demolish your fortress with the high walls, bringing it down to the ground, into the dust.
And the fortress of the high place of thy walls He hath bowed down — He hath made low, He hath caused [it] to come to the earth, — unto dust.