Isaiah 27
1 On that day will the Lord punish with his heavy and great and strong sword leviathan the flying serpent, and leviathan the crooked servant; and he will slay the crocodile that is in the sea.
At that time, Yahweh will punish Leviathan, the swift-moving monster/dragon, that coiling serpent that lives in the sea. Yahweh will kill it with his sharp, huge, and powerful sword.
2 On that day sing ye a song of the vineyard of excellent wine.
At that time, [Yahweh will say], “You [Israeli people, who are like] [MET] a fruitful vineyard, must sing!
3 “I the Lord do keep it; every moment will I water it: that no one shall hurt it, night and day will I keep it.
I will [protect you] [like a farmer] [MET] waters his crops carefully [in order that they will grow well]. I will guard you day and night, in order that no one harms you.
4 Wrath have I not: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would pass through them, and I would burn them altogether.
I am no [longer] angry [with my people]; [if any of your enemies try to injure you like briers and thorns injure people] [MET], I will attack them [in battles]; I will get rid of them completely,
5 If he but take hold of my strength, make peace with me; make peace with me.”
unless they request me to protect them; I strongly invite them to make peace with me [DOU]!”
6 In the future shall Jacob yet take root; Israel shall bud and blossom, and shall fill the face of the world with fruit.
There will be a time when the (descendants of Jacob/Israeli people) will [prosper like] a plant that has good roots; they will be like [MET] trees that bud and blossom and bear a lot of fruit; [what they do will bless] all the people in the world.
7 Hath he smitten him, as he smote the one that smote him? or was he slain with the same slaughter as those of him that were slain?
[But now I ask], has Yahweh punished us Israelis like he punished our enemies? Has he punished us as much as he punished them?
8 In measure, by driving him forth, thou strivest with him: he removed him with his violent storm on the day of the east wind.
[No, he has not done that], [but] he punished us Israeli people and (exiled us/forced us to leave our country); we were taken away from our land as though [SIM] we were struck by a windstorm from the east.
9 Therefore by this [only] shall the iniquity of Jacob be atoned; and this shall be all the fruit of the taking away of his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as limestones that are beaten in pieces, when there shall not arise again any groves and sun-images.
Yahweh did that in order to punish us for our sins, and remove our guilt. As a result [of our being exiled], all the altars to other gods [in Israel] will be demolished, and we will be forgiven for the sins that we have committed. There will be no more poles for worshiping the goddess Asherah, or altars for burning incense to other gods; they will all be torn down.
10 For [by this] the fortified city shall be desolate, the habitation be forsaken, and left like a wilderness; there shall the calf feed, and there shall it lie down, and consume its branches.
The cities that have strong walls around them will be empty; like the desert, they will have no one living in them. The houses will be abandoned, and the streets will be full of weeds. Calves will eat grass there and lie down there; they will chew up all the leaves on the trees.
11 When its boughs are withered, they shall be broken off; women will come and set them on fire; for it is not a people of understanding; therefore he that made it will not have mercy on it, and he that formed it will show it no favor.
[The Israeli people are like] [MET] dry branches on a tree; women break them off and use them to make fires [under their cooking pots]. Our Israeli people do not have any sense; so Yahweh, who created them, will not act mercifully toward them or be kind to them.
12 And it shall come to pass on that day, that the Lord will beat off [the fruit] from the channel of the River up to the brook of Egypt; but ye shall be gathered up one by one, ye children of Israel.
[However], there will be a time when Yahweh will gather them together [again; he will separate them from the people who have conquered them, like people] separate wheat from chaff. He will bring them [back to Israel], one by one, from [the land between] the Euphrates River [in the northeast] and the brook at the border of Egypt [in the southwest].
13 And it shall come to pass on that day, that the great cornet shall be blown, and then shall come those who are lost in the land of Asshur, and those who are outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall prostrate themselves before the Lord on the holy mount at Jerusalem.
At that time, a trumpet will be blown very loudly. And those who were exiled to Assyria and Egypt and who almost died there will return to Jerusalem, to worship Yahweh on [Zion], his holy hill.
