Isaiah 27
1 In that day, YHWH with his fierce and great and mighty sword will punish leviathan, the fleeing serpent, and leviathan the twisted serpent; and he will kill the serpent 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 In that day, sing to her, "A pleasant vineyard.
At that time, [Yahweh will say], “You [Israeli people, who are like] [MET] a fruitful vineyard, must sing!
3 I, YHWH, am its keeper. I will water it every moment. Lest anyone damage it, I will keep it night and day.
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 is not in me, but if I should find briers and thorns, I would do battle. I would march on them and I would burn them together.
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 Or else let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me. Let him make peace with me."
unless they request me to protect them; I strongly invite them to make peace with me [DOU]!”
6 In days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will blossom and bud. They will fill the surface 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 Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them? Or have they been killed as their killers were killed?
[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, when you send them away, you contend with them. He has removed them with his rough blast in 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 the iniquity of Jacob will be forgiven, and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalk stones that are beaten in pieces, so that the Asherim and the incense altars shall rise no more.
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 the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will 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 will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them 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 It will happen in that day, that YHWH will thresh from the flowing stream of the Perath to the Wadi of Egypt; and you will be gathered one by one, 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 It will happen in that day that a great trumpet will be blown; and those who were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and those who were outcasts in the land of Egypt, shall come; and they will worship YHWH in the holy mountain 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.
