Isaiah 25
1 O Yahweh! my God, thou art, I will exalt thee, I will praise thy Name, For thou hast done a wonderful thing, —Purposes of long ago Faithfulness in truth.
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!
2 For thou hast made, of a citadel, a mound, of a defenced city, a ruin, —palaces for foreigners to be no city, To times age-abiding, shall it not be built.
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.
3 For this cause! shall glorify thee—a strong people, the city of tyrannous nations shall revere thee;
Because of this powerful nations will honor you; cities of brutal nations will be in awe of you.
4 For thou didst become A refuge to the weak. A refuge to the needy, when distress was upon him, —A shelter from the storm. A shade from the heat, When the blast of tyrants was like a storm against a wall.
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,
5 As heat in a desert, the pomp of foreigners, wilt thou subdue, —Heat—with the shade of a cloud, The song of tyrants! become low.
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.
6 Then will Yahweh of hosts prepare for all the peoples in this mountain, A banquet of fat things, A banquet of old wines, —Of fat things full of marrow, Of old wines well refined;
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.
7 And he will swallow up in this mountain, The mask of the veil, the veil that is upon all the peoples, —And the web that is woven over all the nations.
On this mountain he will destroy the veil that covers all the nations, the sheet that is over everyone.
8 Having swallowed up death itself victoriously, My Lord, Yahweh, will wipe away, tears from off all faces, —And the reproach of his own people, will he remove from off all the earth, For, Yahweh, hath spoken.
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.
9 So shall it be said, in that day, Lo! our God, is this! We waited for him, that he might save us, —This, is Yahweh! We waited for him, Let us exult and rejoice in his salvation.
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!”
10 For the hand of Yahweh will settle down in this mountain, —Then shall Moab be trodden down in its place, Like the treading down of a strawheap in the water of a dunghill;
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.
11 Should he spread forth his hands in the midst thereof, As a swimmer spreadeth forth to swim, Then would be laid low his pride, together with the devices of his hands.
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.
12 Yea, the lofty stronghold of thy walls, Hath he brought down—Laid low—Levelled to the ground even unto the dust.
Moab, he will demolish your fortress with the high walls, bringing it down to the ground, into the dust.
