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The Lord Protects the Weak

25 O Lord, you are my God.
I will highly honor you; I will praise your name.
You have done miraculous things.
You have been completely reliable
in carrying out your plans from long ago.
You have turned cities into ruins,
fortified cities into piles of rubble,
and foreigners’ palaces into cities that will never be rebuilt.
That is why strong people will honor you,
and cities ruled by the world’s tyrants will fear you.
You have been a refuge for the poor,
a refuge for the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the rain, and shade from the heat.
(A tyrant’s breath is like a rainstorm against a wall,
like heat in a dry land.)
You calm the uproar of foreigners.
The song of tyrants is silenced
like heat that is ⌞reduced⌟ by the shadow of a cloud.

Death Will Be Swallowed Up

On this mountain the Lord of Armies will prepare for all people
a feast with the best foods,
a banquet with aged wines,
with the best foods and the finest wines.
On this mountain he will remove
the veil of grief covering all people
and the mask covering all nations.
He will swallow up death forever.
The Almighty Lord will wipe away tears from every face,
and he will remove the disgrace of his people from the whole earth.
The Lord has spoken.
On that day ⌞his people⌟ will say,
“This is our God; we have waited for him, and now he will save us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him.
Let us rejoice and be glad because he will save us.”

10 The Lord’s power will be on this mountain.
Moab will be trampled beneath him
like straw that is trampled in a pile of manure.
11 The Moabites will stretch out their hands in the manure
like swimmers who stretch out their hands to swim.
⌞The Lord will humble those arrogant people
despite the movements of their hands.
12 He will bring down Moab’s high fortified walls,
level them, and throw them into the dust on the ground.

The Lord’s People Praise Him for Salvation

26 On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

We have a strong city.
Its walls and fortifications provide safety.

Open the gates, and let the righteous nation come in,
the nation that remains faithful.
With perfect peace you will protect those whose minds cannot be changed,
because they trust you.
Trust the Lord always,
because the Lord, the Lord alone, is an everlasting rock.
He has brought down those who live high in the towering city.
He levels it.
He levels it to the ground and throws it into the dust.
Feet trample it,
the feet of the oppressed,
the footsteps of the poor.

The path of the righteous is level.
O Upright One, you make the road of the righteous smooth.
Certainly, we wait with hope for you, O Lord,
⌞as we follow⌟ the path of your guiding principles.
We want to remember you and your name.
With my soul I long for you at night.
Yes, with my spirit I eagerly look for you.
When your guiding principles are on earth,
those who live in the world learn to do what is right.
10 Although the wicked are shown pity,
they do not learn to do what is right.
They do what is wrong in the upright land
and do not see the majesty of the Lord.
11 O Lord, your power is visible, but they do not see it.
They will see how devoted your people are,
and they will be put to shame.
Your burning anger will destroy your enemies.

12 O Lord, you will establish peace for us,
since you have done everything for us.
13 O Lord, our God, you are not the only master to rule us,
but we acknowledge only you.
14 The wicked are dead.
They are no longer alive.
The spirits of the dead won’t rise.
You have punished them, destroyed them,
and wiped out all memory of them.
15 You have expanded the nation, O Lord.
You have expanded the nation.
You are honored.
You have extended all the land’s boundaries.
16 O Lord, the people have come to you in trouble.
They were humbled by oppression, by your discipline upon them.
17 O Lord, when we are with you,
we are like pregnant women ready to give birth.
They writhe and cry out in their labor pains.
18 We were pregnant; we writhed with labor pains
only to give birth to the wind.
We weren’t able to bring salvation to the land,
and no new people were born on earth.
19 Your dead will live.
Their corpses will rise.
Those who lie dead in the dust will wake up and shout for joy,
because your dew is a refreshing dew,
and the earth will revive the spirits of the dead.

20 My people, go to your rooms,
and shut the doors behind you.
Hide for a little while until his fury has ended.
21 The Lord is going to come out from his dwelling place
to punish those who live on earth for their sins.
The earth will uncover the blood shed on it
and will no longer cover up its dead bodies.

The Lord’s People Will Worship on His Holy Mountain

27 On that day the Lord will use his fierce and powerful sword
to punish Leviathan, that slippery snake,
Leviathan, that twisting snake.
He will kill that monster which lives in the sea.

On that day sing about a delightful vineyard.
I, the Lord, watch over it.
I water it continually.
I watch over it day and night
so that no one will harm it.
I am no longer angry.
If only thorns and briars would confront me!
I would fight them in battle and set all of them on fire.
Or else let them come to me for protection.
Let them make peace with me.
Yes, let them make peace with me.

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

Will the Lord hurt Israel as he hurt others who hurt them?
Will he kill them as he killed others?
He punished Israel by sending it away.
He removed it with a fierce blast from the east winds.
In this way the wrongdoings of the descendants of Jacob are covered up.
This is the way they will turn from their sins—
when they turn all the altar stones into powdered chalk
and no poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah
or incense altars are left standing.
10 The fortified city is isolated.
The homestead is left deserted, abandoned like the desert.
Calves will graze there.
They will lie down.
They will feed on the branches.
11 When the branches are dried up,
they will be broken off.
Women will come and build a fire with them.
These people don’t understand ⌞these things⌟.
That is why their maker won’t have compassion on them,
and their Creator won’t have pity on them.

12 On that day the Lord will begin his threshing [a]
from the flowing stream of the Euphrates River
to the brook of Egypt.
People of Israel, you will be gathered one by one.

13 On that day a ram’s horn will be blown loudly.
Those who are dying in Assyria
and those who are banished to Egypt
will come and worship the Lord
on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

Ephraim Will Fall

28 How horrible it will be for the arrogant drunks of Ephraim.
Their glorious beauty is ⌞like⌟ a withered flower.
They are at the entrance to a fertile valley
where they lie drunk from wine.
The Lord has one who is strong and powerful.
He is like a hailstorm, a destructive wind.
He is like a thunderstorm, an overwhelming flood.
He will throw them to the ground forcefully.
The arrogant drunks of Ephraim will be trampled underfoot.
Their glorious beauty is ⌞like⌟ a withered flower.
They are at the entrance to a fertile valley.
They will be like figs that ripened early.
As soon as someone sees them,
they will be taken and eaten.

When that day comes, the Lord of Armies will be
like a glorious crown for his few remaining people.
He will give a spirit of justice to those who judge.
He will give strength to those who defend the city gates in battle.

Priests and prophets stagger from wine and wobble from too much liquor.
They stagger from too much liquor
and become confused from too much wine.
They wobble because of their liquor.
They stagger when they see visions.
They swerve as they judge.
All the tables are covered with vomit and excrement.
There isn’t a clean place left.
To whom will they make the message understood?
To whom will they explain this message?
To children just weaned from milk?
To those just taken from their ⌞mother’s⌟ breasts?
10 They speak utter nonsense.[b]

11 The Lord will speak to these people.
He will mock them by speaking in a foreign language.
12 He will say to them,
“This is a place for comfort.
This is a place of rest for those who are tired.
This is a place for them to rest.”
But they weren’t willing to listen.
13 The Lord speaks utter nonsense to them.
That is why they will fall backwards.
That is why they will be hurt, trapped, and captured.

A Message to Jerusalem

14 So hear the Lord’s word, you foolish talkers
who rule the people in Jerusalem.
15 You say, “We made a treaty with death
and an agreement with the grave.
When the overwhelming disaster passes by,
it won’t matter to us,
because we have taken refuge in our lies,
and falsehood is our hiding place.”

16 This is what the Almighty Lord says:

I am going to lay a rock in Zion,
a rock that has been tested,
a precious cornerstone,
a solid foundation.
Whoever believes ⌞in him⌟ will not worry.
17 I will make justice a measuring line
and righteousness a plumb line.
Hail will sweep away your refuge of lies,
and floodwaters will wash away your hiding place.
18 Your treaty with death will be wiped away.
Your agreement with the grave will not stand.
When the overwhelming disaster passes by,
you will be trampled by it.
19 Each time it passes by it will take you.
It will pass by morning after morning,
during the day and during the night.
Understanding this message brings only terror.
20 The bed is too short to stretch out on.
The blanket is too narrow to serve as a cover.
21 The Lord will rise as he did on Mount Perazim.
He will wake up as he did in Gibeon Valley.
He will do his work, his unexpected work,
and perform his deeds, his mysterious deeds.
22 Now stop laughing, or your chains will be tightened,
because I have heard that the Almighty Lord of Armies
has finally determined to destroy the whole land.

23 Open your ears, and listen to me!
Pay attention, and hear me!
24 Does a farmer go on plowing every day so he can plant?
Does he continue to break up the soil and make furrows in the ground?
25 When he has smoothed its surface,
doesn’t he scatter black cumin seed and plant cumin?
Doesn’t he plant wild wheat in rows?
Doesn’t he put barley in its own area
and winter wheat at its borders?
26 God will guide him in judgment,
and his God will teach him.

27 Black cumin isn’t threshed [c] with a sledge,
and wagon wheels aren’t rolled over cumin.
Black cumin is beaten with a rod
and cumin with a stick.
28 Grain is ground into flour, but the grinding eventually stops.
It will be threshed.
The wheels of his cart will roll over it,
but his horses won’t crush it.
29 All of this has come from the Lord of Armies.
His counsel is wonderful, and his wisdom is great.

Footnotes

  1. 27:12 Threshing   is the process of beating stalks to separate them from the grain.
  2. 28:10 Or “Command for command, command for command, line for line, line for line, a little here, a little there.” Also in verse 13.
  3. 28:27 Threshing is the process of beating stalks to separate them from the grain.

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