Chapter 27
1 On that day,
the Lord will use his sword
that is cruel and great and strong
to punish Leviathan[a] the fleeing serpent,
Leviathan the writhing serpent,
and he will slay that dragon
that resides in the sea.
2 [b]On that day,
sing of the pleasant vineyard.
3 I, the Lord, am its keeper,
and I water it frequently
lest any harm come to it;
I guard it night and day.
4 I do not quickly succumb to anger,
but if I were to find briars and thorns,
I would march against them in battle
and consume them in fire.
5 However, if they decide to ask for my protection,
let them make their peace with me;
otherwise I cannot protect them.
6 In days to come,
Jacob will take root,
Israel will bud and blossom,
and the entire world will be covered with fruit.
7 Has the Lord struck them down
as he struck down those who struck him?
Has he slaughtered them
as their attackers were slaughtered?
8 By expelling and exiling them
he has taken action against them,
removing them with a breath
as fierce as the east wind.
9 In this way will the guilt of Jacob be expiated
and the full fruit of renouncing his sin will occur,
when he crushes all the altar stones to pieces
like lumps of chalk,
and no sacred poles and incense altars
will remain standing.
10 For the fortified city will be abandoned,
a deserted pasture, a forsaken wilderness;
the calves will graze and lie down there,
destroying its branches.
11 When its boughs grow dry and snap off,
women will come and use them for firewood.
For this is a people that lacks understanding;
therefore their Maker will not have compassion for them;
he who formed them will not show mercy toward them.
12 On that day,
the Lord will thresh the grain
from the streams of the Euphrates
to the Wadi of Egypt,
and you will be gathered one by one,
O people of Egypt.
13 On that day,
a great trumpet will be sounded,
and those who were lost in the land of Assyria
and those who were outcasts in the land of Egypt
will come to worship the Lord
on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 27:1 Leviathan: a sea monster in Semitic mythology, a symbol of the forces of evil.
- Isaiah 27:2 This impressive passage has come down to us in a rather defective textual form.