The Feast of Salvation, the Defeat of Death, and the Restoration of God’s People
Isaiah 25
1 Yahweh, you are my God. I will exalt you! I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, even plans of old, in faithfulness and truth.
2 For you have made a city a heap, a fortified city a ruin, a palace of strangers to be no city. It will never be built.
3 Therefore a strong people will glorify you. A city of terrible nations will fear you.
4 For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is like a storm against the wall.
5 As the heat in a dry place, you will bring down the noise of strangers. As the heat by the shade of a cloud, the song of the terrible ones will be brought low.
6 In this mountain, Yahweh of Armies will make all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of choice wines, of fat things full of marrow, of well-refined choice wines.
7 He will destroy in this mountain the surface of the covering that covers all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations.
8 He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from off all faces. He will take the reproach of his people away from off all the earth, for Yahweh has spoken it.
9 It will be said in that day, “Behold, this is our God! We have waited for him, and he will save us! This is Yahweh! We have waited for him. We will be glad and rejoice in his salvation!”
10 For Yahweh’s hand will rest on this mountain. Moab will be trodden down in his place, even as straw is trodden down in the water of the manure pile.
11 He will spread out his hands in its middle, as one who swims spreads out his hands to swim, but Yahweh will bring down his pride together with the craft of his hands.
12 He has brought down the high fortress of your walls, laid low, and brought to the ground, even to the dust.
Isaiah 26
1 In that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
“We have a strong city.
God appoints salvation for walls and bulwarks.
2 Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter:
the nation which keeps faith.
3 You will keep whoever’s mind is steadfast in perfect peace,
because he trusts in you.
4 Trust in Yahweh forever;
for in Yah, Yahweh, is an everlasting Rock.
5 For he has brought down those who dwell on high, the lofty city.
He lays it low.
He lays it low even to the ground.
He brings it even to the dust.
6 The foot shall tread it down;
even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.”
7 The way of the just is uprightness.
You who are upright make the path of the righteous level.
8 Yes, in the way of your judgments, Yahweh, we have waited for you.
Your name and your renown are the desire of our soul.
9 With my soul I have desired you in the night.
Yes, with my spirit within me I will seek you earnestly;
for when your judgments come to the earth,
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
10 Let favor be shown to the wicked,
yet he will not learn righteousness.
In the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly,
and will not see Yahweh’s majesty.
11 Yahweh, your hand is lifted up, yet they don’t see;
but they will see your zeal for the people, and be disappointed.
Yes, fire will consume your adversaries.
12 Yahweh, you will ordain peace for us,
for you have also done all our work for us.
13 Yahweh our God, other lords besides you have had dominion over us,
but we will only acknowledge your name.
14 The dead shall not live.
The deceased shall not rise.
Therefore you have visited and destroyed them,
and caused all memory of them to perish.
15 You have increased the nation, Yahweh.
You have increased the nation!
You are glorified!
You have enlarged all the borders of the land.
16 Yahweh, in trouble they have visited you.
They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them.
17 Like a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery,
is in pain and cries out in her pangs;
so we have been before you, Yahweh.
18 We have been with child.
We have been in pain.
We gave birth, it seems, only to wind.
We have not worked any deliverance in the earth;
neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
19 Your dead shall live.
My dead bodies shall arise.
Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust;
for your dew is like the dew of herbs,
and the earth will cast out the dead.
20 Come, my people, enter into your rooms,
and shut your doors behind you.
Hide yourself for a little moment,
until the indignation is past.
21 For, behold, Yahweh comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.
The earth also will disclose her blood,
and will no longer cover her slain.
Isaiah 27
1 In that day, Yahweh with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, and Leviathan the twisted serpent; and he will kill the monster that is in the sea.
2 In that day, sing to her, “A vineyard of red wine!
3 I, Yahweh, am its keeper.
I will water it every moment.
Lest anyone damage it, I will keep it night and day.
4 Wrath is not in me, but if I should find briers and thorns, I would march against them in battle.
I would burn them together.
5 Or else let him take hold of my strength,
that he may make peace with me.
Let him make peace with me.”
6 In days to come, Jacob will take root.
Israel will blossom and bud.
They will fill the surface of the world with fruit.
7 Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them?
Or are they killed like those who killed them were killed?
8 In measure, when you send them away, you contend with them.
He has removed them with his rough blast in the day of the east wind.
9 Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be forgiven,
and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin:
that he makes all the stones of the altar like chalk stones that are beaten in pieces,
so that the Asherah poles and the sun images shall rise no more.
10 For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness.
There the calf will feed, and there it will lie down, and consume its branches.
11 When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off.
The women will come and set them on fire,
for they are a people of no understanding.
Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them,
and he who formed them will show them no favor.
12 It will happen in that day that Yahweh will thresh from the flowing stream of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt; and you will be gathered one by one, children of Israel.
13 It will happen in that day that a great trumpet will be blown; and those who were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and those who were outcasts in the land of Egypt, shall come; and they will worship Yahweh in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
Scripture: World English Bible (WEB), public domain.
