Isaiah 27
1 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.
In that day Jehovah with his hard and great and strong sword will punish leviathan the swift serpent, and leviathan the crooked serpent, and he will kill the monster that is in the sea.
2 At that time, [Yahweh will say], “You [Israeli people, who are like] [MET] a fruitful vineyard, must sing!
In that day is a vineyard of wine. Sing ye to it.
3 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.
I Jehovah am its keeper, I will water it every moment. Lest any hurt it, I will guard it night and day.
4 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,
Wrath is not in me. Would that the briers and thorns were against me in battle! I would march upon them. I would burn them together.
5 unless they request me to protect them; I strongly invite them to make peace with me [DOU]!”
Or else let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me. Yea, let him make peace with me.
6 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.
In days to come Jacob shall take root; Israel shall blossom and bud. And they shall fill the face of the world with fruit.
7 [But now I ask], has Yahweh punished us Israelis like he punished our enemies? Has he punished us as much as he punished them?
Has he smitten them as he smote those who smote them? Or are they slain according to the slaughter of those who were slain by them?
8 [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.
In measure, in sending it forth, thou contend with it. He has removed with his rough blast in the day of the east wind.
9 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.
Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob shall be forgiven. And this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten apart, so that the Asherim and the sun-images shall rise no more.
10 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.
For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken like the wilderness. There the calf shall feed, and there he shall lie down, and consume the branches of it.
11 [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.
When the boughs of it are withered, they shall be broken off. The women shall come, and set them on fire, for it is a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion upon them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.
12 [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].
And it shall come to pass in that day, that Jehovah will beat off his fruit, from the flood of the River to the brook of Egypt. And ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye sons of Israel.
13 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.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great trumpet shall be blown. And they shall come who were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and those who were outcasts in the land of Egypt. And they shall worship Jehovah in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
