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 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.
2 At that time, [Yahweh will say], “You [Israeli people, who are like] [MET] a fruitful vineyard, must sing!
In that day it will be said, A vine-garden of delight, make a song about 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, 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.
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,
My passion is over: if the thorns were fighting against me, I would make an attack on them, and they would be burned up together.
5 unless they request me to protect them; I strongly invite them to make peace with me [DOU]!”
Or let him put himself under my power, and 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 will take root: Israel will put out buds and flowers; and the face of the world will be full of 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?
Is 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?
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.
Your 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.
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.
So 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
