Israel Rescued
2 On that day:
3 I, Yahweh, am her keeper;
I water it again and again.[a]
Lest one afflict harm on it,
I guard it night and day;
4 I have no wrath.[b]
Whatever gives me thorns and briers,
I will step forth against in battle.
I will set it on fire altogether.
5 Or let it grasp at my protection;
let it make peace with me;
peace let it make with me.”
6 Days are coming,[c] let Jacob take root;
Israel will blossom and send out shoots,
and they will fill the face of the world with fruit.
7 Does he strike him as he struck down those who struck him?[d]
Or is he killed as those who killed him were killed?[e]
8 By expelling[f] her, by her sending away, you argue with her.
He removed them with his strong wind,
in the day of the east wind.
9 Therefore by this he will make atonement for the guilt of Jacob,
and this will be all of the fruit of the removal of his sin:
when he makes[g] all the stones of the altar like crushed stones of chalk,
no poles of Asherah worship or incense altars will stand.
10 For the fortified city is solitary,
a settlement deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;
the calf grazes there,
lies down there and destroys its branches.
11 When its branches are dry,[h] they are broken;
women are coming and setting light to it.
For it is not a people of understanding;
and his creator will not show him favor.
12 And this shall happen:
on that day, Yahweh will thresh from the floodwaters of the Euphrates to the wadi[i] of Egypt, and as for you, you will be gathered one by one, sons of Israel.
13 And this shall happen:
on that day, a great trumpet will be blown,
and those who were scattered in the land of Egypt,
and they will bow down to Yahweh on the holy mountain[j] at Jerusalem.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 27:3 Literally “by moments”
- Isaiah 27:4 Literally “There is no wrath for me”
- Isaiah 27:6 Literally “The coming ones”
- Isaiah 27:7 Literally “like the striking of one striking him”
- Isaiah 27:7 Literally “like the killing of his killed ones”
- Isaiah 27:8 Meaning uncertain, derived from the following parallel expression
- Isaiah 27:9 Literally “in his setting”
- Isaiah 27:11 Literally “In her branch being dry”
- Isaiah 27:12 A seasonal stream that is often dry
- Isaiah 27:13 Literally “mountain of holiness”