Isaiah 25-27

Isaiah 25

¹O Lord, you are my God; I will give praise to you, I will give honour to your name; for you have done great acts of power; your purposes in the past have been made true and certain in effect.

²For you have made a town a waste place: a strong town a mass of broken walls; the tower of the men of pride has come to an end; it will never be put up again.

³For this cause will the strong people give glory to you, the town of the cruel ones will be in fear of you.

⁴For you have been a strong place for the poor and the crushed in their trouble, a safe place from the storm, a shade from the heat, when the wrath of the cruel ones is like a winter storm.

⁵As heat by the shade of a cloud, the noise of the men of pride has been made quiet by you; as heat by the shade of a cloud, the song of the cruel ones has been stopped.

⁶And in this mountain will the Lord of armies make for all peoples a feast of good things, a feast of wines long stored, of good things sweet to the taste, of wines long kept and tested.

⁷And in this mountain he will put an end to the shade covering the face of all peoples, and the veil which is stretched over all nations.

⁸He has put an end to death for ever; and the Lord God will take away all weeping; and he will put an end to the shame of his people in all the earth: for the Lord has said it.

⁹And in that day it will be said, See, this is our God; we have been waiting for him, and he will be our saviour: this is the Lord in whom is our hope; we will be glad and have delight in his salvation.

¹⁰For in this mountain will the hand of the Lord come to rest, and Moab will be crushed down in his place, even as the dry stems of the grain are crushed under foot in the waste place.

¹¹And if he puts out his hands, like a man stretching out his hands in swimming, the Lord will make low his pride, however expert his designs.

¹²And the strong tower of your walls has been broken by him, made low, and crushed even to the dust.

Isaiah 26

¹In that day will this song be made in the land of Judah: We have a strong town; he will make salvation our walls and towers.

²Let the doors be open, so that the upright nation which keeps faith may come in.

³The man whose heart is unmoved you will keep in peace, because his hope is in you.

⁴Let your hope be in the Lord for ever: for the Lord Jah is an unchanging Rock.

⁵For he has made low those who are lifted up, all the people of the town of pride: he makes it low, crushing it down to the earth; he makes it low in the dust.

⁶It will be crushed under the feet of the poor and the steps of those who are in need.

⁷The way of the good man is straight; the road of the upright is made smooth by you.

⁸We have been waiting for you, O Lord; the desire of our soul is for the memory of your name.

⁹In the night the desire of my soul has been for you; early will my spirit be searching for you; for when your punishments come on the earth, the people of the world will get the knowledge of righteousness.

¹⁰Even if you are kind to the evil-doer, he will not go after righteousness; even in the land of the upright he will still go on in his wrongdoing, and will not see the glory of the Lord.

¹¹Lord, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see: let them see ... yes, your haters will be burned up in the fire.

¹²Lord, you will give us peace: for all our works are the outcome of your purpose.

¹³O Lord, our God, other lords than you have had rule over us; but in you only is our salvation, and no other name will we take on our lips.

¹⁴The dead will not come back to life: their spirits will not come back to earth; for this cause you have sent destruction on them, so that the memory of them is dead.

¹⁵You have made the nation great, O Lord, you have made it great; glory is yours: you have made wide the limits of the land.

¹⁶Lord, in trouble our eyes have been turned to you, we sent up a prayer when your punishment was on us.

¹⁷As a woman with child, whose time is near, is troubled, crying out in her pain; so have we been before you, O Lord.

¹⁸We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have given birth to wind; no salvation has come to the earth through us, and no children have come into the world.

¹⁹Your dead will come back; their dead bodies will come to life again. Those in the dust, awaking from their sleep, will send out a song; for your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the shades.

²⁰Come, my people, into your secret places, and let your doors be shut: keep yourself safe for a short time, till his wrath is over.

²¹For the Lord is coming out of his place to send punishment on the people of the earth for their evil-doing: the earth will let the blood drained out on her be seen, and will keep her dead covered no longer.

Isaiah 27

¹In that day the Lord, with his great and strong and cruel sword, will send punishment on Leviathan, the quick-moving snake, and on Leviathan, the twisted snake; and he will put to death the dragon which is in the sea.

²In that day it will be said, A vine-garden of delight, make a song about it.

³I, the Lord, am watching it; I will give it water at all times: I will keep it night and day, for fear that any damage comes to it.

⁴My passion is over: if the thorns were fighting against me, I would make an attack on them, and they would be burned up together.

⁵Or let him put himself under my power, and make peace with me.

⁶In days to come Jacob will take root: Israel will put out buds and flowers; and the face of the world will be full of fruit.

⁷Is his punishment like the punishment of those who overcame him? or are his dead as great in number as those he put to the sword?

⁸Your anger against her has been made clear by driving her away; he has taken her away with his storm-wind in the day of his east wind.

⁹So by this will the sin of Jacob be covered, and this is all the fruit of taking away his punishment; when all the stones of the altar are crushed together, so that the wood pillars and the sun-images will not be put up again.

¹⁰For the strong town is without men, an unpeopled living-place; and she has become a waste land: there the young ox will take his rest, and its branches will be food for him.

¹¹When its branches are dry they will be broken off; the women will come and put fire to them: for it is a foolish people; for this cause he who made them will have no mercy on them, and he whose work they are will not have pity on them.

¹²And it will be in that day that the Lord will get together his grain, from the River to the stream of Egypt, and you will be got together with care, O children of Israel.

¹³And it will be in that day that a great horn will be sounded; and those who were wandering in the land of Assyria, and those who had been sent away into the land of Egypt, will come; and they will give worship to the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.