Isaiah 27–30

1In that day the LORD will take His sharp, great, and mighty sword, and bring judgment on Leviathan the fleeing serpent —Leviathan the coiling serpent—and He will slay the dragon of the sea.

2In that day: “Sing about a fruitful vineyard.

3I, the LORD, am its keeper; I water it continually. I guard it night and day so no one can disturb it;

4I am not angry. If only thorns and briers confronted Me, I would march and trample them, I would burn them to the ground.

5Or let them lay claim to My protection; let them make peace with Me— yes, let them make peace with Me.”

6In the days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will bud and blossom and fill the whole world with fruit.

7Has the LORD struck Israel as He struck her oppressors? Was she killed like those who slayed her?

8By warfare and exile You contended with her and removed her with a fierce wind, as on the day the east wind blows.

9Therefore Jacob’s guilt will be atoned for, and the full fruit of the removal of his sin will be this: When he makes all the altar stones like crushed bits of chalk, no Asherah poles or incense altars will remain standing.

10For the fortified city lies deserted— a homestead abandoned, a wilderness forsaken. There the calves graze, and there they lie down; they strip its branches bare.

11When its limbs are dry, they are broken off. Women come and use them for kindling; for this is a people without understanding. Therefore their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor.

12In that day the LORD will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered one by one.

13And in that day a great ram’s horn will sound, and those who were perishing in Assyria will come forth with those who were exiles in Egypt. And they will worship the LORD on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

1Woe to the majestic crown of Ephraim’s drunkards, to the fading flower of his glorious splendor, set on the summit above the fertile valley, the pride of those overcome by wine.

2Behold, the Lord has one who is strong and mighty. Like a hailstorm or destructive tempest, like a driving rain or flooding downpour, he will smash that crown to the ground.

3The majestic crown of Ephraim’s drunkards will be trampled underfoot.

4The fading flower of his beautiful splendor, set on the summit above the fertile valley, will be like a ripe fig before the summer harvest: Whoever sees it will take it in his hand and swallow it.

5On that day the LORD of Hosts will be a crown of glory, a diadem of splendor to the remnant of His people,

6a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, and a strength to those who repel the onslaught at the gate.

7These also stagger from wine and stumble from strong drink: Priests and prophets reel from strong drink and are befuddled by wine. They stumble because of strong drink, muddled in their visions and stumbling in their judgments.

8For all their tables are covered with vomit; there is not a place without filth.

9Whom is He trying to teach? To whom is He explaining His message? To infants just weaned from milk? To babies removed from the breast?

10For they hear: “Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line; a little here, a little there.”

11Indeed, with mocking lips and foreign tongues, He will speak to this people

12to whom He has said: “This is the place of rest, let the weary rest; this is the place of repose.” But they would not listen.

13Then the word of the LORD to them will become: “Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line; a little here, a little there,” so that they will go stumbling backward and will be injured, ensnared, and captured.

14Therefore hear the word of the LORD, O scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem.

15For you said, “We have made a covenant with death; we have fashioned an agreement with Sheol. When the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not touch us, because we have made lies our refuge and falsehood our hiding place.”

16So this is what the Lord GOD says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; the one who believes will never be shaken.

17I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the level. Hail will sweep away your refuge of lies, and water will flood your hiding place.

18Your covenant with death will be dissolved, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be trampled by it.

19As often as it passes through, it will carry you away; it will sweep through morning after morning, by day and by night.” The understanding of this message will bring sheer terror.

20Indeed, the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket too small to wrap around you.

21For the LORD will rise up as at Mount Perazim. He will rouse Himself as in the Valley of Gibeon, to do His work, His strange work, and to perform His task, His disturbing task.

22So now, do not mock, or your shackles will become heavier. Indeed, I have heard from the Lord GOD of Hosts a decree of destruction against the whole land.

23Listen and hear my voice. Pay attention and hear what I say.

24Does the plowman plow for planting every day? Does he continuously loosen and harrow the soil?

25When he has leveled its surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cumin? He plants wheat in rows and barley in plots, and rye within its border.

26For his God instructs and teaches him properly.

27Surely caraway is not threshed with a sledge, and the wheel of a cart is not rolled over the cumin. But caraway is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod.

28Grain for bread must be ground, but it is not endlessly threshed. Though the wheels of the cart roll over it, the horses do not crush it.

29This also comes from the LORD of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.

1Woe to you, O Ariel, the city of Ariel where David camped! Year upon year let your festivals recur.

2And I will constrain Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation; she will be like an altar hearth before Me.

3I will camp in a circle around you; I will besiege you with towers and set up siege works against you.

4You will be brought low, you will speak from the ground, and out of the dust your words will be muffled. Your voice will be like a spirit from the ground; your speech will whisper out of the dust.

5But your many foes will be like fine dust, the multitude of the ruthless like blowing chaff. Then suddenly, in an instant,

6you will be visited by the LORD of Hosts with thunder and earthquake and loud noise, with windstorm and tempest and consuming flame of fire.

7All the many nations going out to battle against Ariel— even all who war against her, laying siege and attacking her— will be like a dream, like a vision in the night,

8as when a hungry man dreams he is eating, then awakens still hungry; as when a thirsty man dreams he is drinking, then awakens faint and parched. So will it be for all the many nations who go to battle against Mount Zion.

9Stop and be astonished; blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not from strong drink.

10For the LORD has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep. He has shut your eyes, O prophets; He has covered your heads, O seers.

11And the entire vision will be to you like the words sealed in a scroll. If it is handed to someone to read, he will say, “I cannot, because it is sealed.”

12Or if the scroll is handed to one unable to read, he will say, “I cannot read.”

13Therefore the Lord said: “These people draw near to Me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is but rules taught by men.

14Therefore I will again confound these people with wonder upon wonder. The wisdom of the wise will vanish, and the intelligence of the intelligent will be hidden.”

15Woe to those who dig deep to hide their plans from the LORD. In darkness they do their works and say, “Who sees us, and who will know?”

16You have turned things upside down, as if the potter were regarded as clay. Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pottery say of the potter, “He has no understanding”?

17In a very short time, will not Lebanon become an orchard, and the orchard seem like a forest?

18On that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of the deep darkness the eyes of the blind will see.

19The humble will increase their joy in the LORD, and the poor among men will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

20For the ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who look for evil will be cut down—

21those who indict a man with a word, who ensnare the mediator at the gate, and who with false charges deprive the innocent of justice.

22Therefore the LORD who redeemed Abraham says of the house of Jacob: “No longer will Jacob be ashamed and no more will his face grow pale.

23For when he sees his children around him, the work of My hands, they will honor My name, they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and they will stand in awe of the God of Israel.

24Then the wayward in spirit will come to understanding, and those who grumble will accept instruction.”

1“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the LORD, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin.

2They set out to go down to Egypt without asking My advice, to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shade.

3But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and the refuge of Egypt’s shade your disgrace.

4For though their princes are at Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,

5everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them. They bring neither help nor benefit, but only shame and disgrace.”

6This is the burden against the beasts of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people of no profit to them.

7Egypt’s help is futile and empty; therefore I have called her Rahab Who Sits Still.

8Go now, write it on a tablet in their presence and inscribe it on a scroll; it will be for the days to come, a witness forever and ever.

9These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to obey the LORD’s instruction.

10They say to the seers, “Stop seeing visions!” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us the truth! Speak to us pleasant words; prophesy illusions.

11Get out of the way; turn off the road. Rid us of the Holy One of Israel!”

12Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message, trusting in oppression and relying on deceit,

13this iniquity of yours is like a breach about to fail, a bulge in a high wall, whose collapse will come suddenly— in an instant!

14It will break in pieces like a potter’s jar, shattered so that no fragment can be found. Not a shard will be found in the dust large enough to scoop the coals from a hearth or to skim the water from a cistern.”

15For the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “By repentance and rest you would be saved; your strength would lie in quiet confidence— but you were not willing.”

16“No,” you say, “we will flee on horses.” Therefore you will flee! “We will ride swift horses,” but your pursuers will be faster.

17A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee, until you are left alone like a pole on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.

18Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore He rises to show you compassion, for the LORD is a just God. Blessed are all who wait for Him.

19O people in Zion who dwell in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. He will surely be gracious when you cry for help; when He hears, He will answer you.

20The Lord will give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, but your Teacher will no longer hide Himself—with your own eyes you will see Him.

21And whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.”

22So you will desecrate your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, saying to them, “Be gone!”

23Then He will send rain for the seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food that comes from your land will be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle will graze in open pastures.

24The oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat salted fodder, winnowed with shovel and pitchfork.

25And from every high mountain and every raised hill, streams of water will flow in the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall.

26The light of the moon will be as bright as the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter—like the light of seven days—on the day that the LORD binds up the brokenness of His people and heals the wounds He has inflicted.

27Behold, the Name of the LORD comes from afar, with burning anger and dense smoke. His lips are full of fury, and His tongue is like a consuming fire.

28His breath is like a rushing torrent that rises to the neck. He comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction; He bridles the jaws of the peoples to lead them astray.

29You will sing as on the night of a holy festival, and your heart will rejoice like one who walks to the music of a flute, going up to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel.

30And the LORD will cause His majestic voice to be heard and His mighty arm to be revealed, striking in angry wrath with a flame of consuming fire, and with cloudburst, storm, and hailstones.

31For Assyria will be shattered at the voice of the LORD; He will strike them with His scepter.

32And with every stroke of the rod of punishment that the LORD brings down on them, the tambourines and lyres will sound as He battles with weapons brandished.

33For Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its funeral pyre is deep and wide, with plenty of fire and wood. The breath of the LORD, like a torrent of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze.