Isaiah 25

1 Yahweh, you are my God; I will honor you and praise you [MTY]. You do wonderful things; you said long ago that you would do those things, and now you have done them like you said that you would.

Yahweh, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago, in perfect faithfulness.

2 [Sometimes] you have caused cities to become heaps of rubble, cities that had strong walls around them. You have caused palaces in foreign countries to disappear; they will never be rebuilt.

For you have made the city a heap, a fortified city, a ruin, and a fortress of strangers into no city.

3 Therefore, people in powerful nations will declare that you are very great, and people in nations [whose leaders are] ruthless/cruel will revere you.

Therefore a strong people will glorify you; a city of ruthless nations will fear you.

4 Yahweh, you are [like] [SIM] a strong tower where poor people can (find refuge/be safe), a place where needy people can go when they are distressed. [You are like] [MET] a place where people can find refuge in a storm and where they can be shaded from the hot sun. Ruthless/Cruel [people] oppress us; they are like [SIM] a storm beating against a wall,

For you have been a place of safety for the one who is poor, a shelter for the one who is needy in his distress— a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat. When the breath of the ruthless was like a storm against a wall,

5 and like [SIM] [the intense] heat in the desert. [But] you cause the roaring of people in foreign nations to cease. Like the air cools when a cloud comes overhead, you stop ruthless/cruel [people] from singing songs boasting about their being very great.

and like heat in a dry land, you subdued the noise of foreigners, as the heat is subdued by the shade of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless ones is answered.

6 Here in Jerusalem, the Commander of the armies of angels will prepare a wonderful feast for all the people [of the world]. It will be a banquet with plenty of good meat and fine well-aged [DOU] wine.

On this mountain Yahweh of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, of choice wines, of tender meats, a feast on the lees.

7 [People here are] sad; their being sad is [like] a dark cloud that hangs over them, like they experience when someone dies. But Yahweh will enable them to quit being sad.

He will destroy on this mountain the covering over all peoples, the web woven over all the nations.

8 He will get rid of death forever! Yahweh our God will cause people to no longer mourn because someone has died. And he will stop other people insulting and making fun of his land and [us] his people. [That will surely happen because] Yahweh has said it!

He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from off all faces; the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for Yahweh has spoken it.

9 At that time, [people] will proclaim, “Yahweh is our God! We trusted in him, and he rescued us! Yahweh, in whom we trusted, has done it; we should rejoice because of his saving/rescuing [us]!”

It will be said on that day, “Look, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us. This is Yahweh; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

10 Yahweh [MTY] will protect and bless Jerusalem. [But] he will crush [the people in the land of] Moab; they will be like [SIM] straw that is trampled in the manure [and left to rot].

For on this mountain the hand of Yahweh will rest; and Moab will be trampled down in his place, even as straw is trampled down in a pit filled with manure.

11 Yahweh will push down the people of Moab like [SIM] a swimmer pushes [the water] with his hands. He will cause them to cease being proud, and he will show that all the things that they have done are worthless.

They will spread their hands in the midst of it, as a swimmer spreads his hands to swim. But Yahweh will bring down their pride in spite of the skill of their hands.

12 The high walls [around the cities] in Moab will be torn down; they will be demolished and fall into the dust/dirt.

Your high fortress walls he will bring down to the ground, to the dust.