Isaiah 24-27

New Catholic Bible

¹ Behold how the Lord is preparing
    to lay waste the earth;
he will turn it into a desert
    and scatter its inhabitants,
² with the same fate afflicting both priest and people,
    slave and master,
maid and mistress,
    seller and buyer,
lender and borrower,
    creditor and debtor.
³ The earth will be totally ravaged
    and completely despoiled;
    this has the Lord decreed.
⁴ The earth mourns and fades away;
    the world languishes and withers;
    the exalted of the earth are brought low.
⁵ The earth is defiled
    by those who dwell in it;
for they have transgressed laws,
    violated statutes,
    and broken the everlasting covenant.^[b]
6 Therefore, a curse has consumed the earth,
    and its inhabitants pay the penalty of their guilt;
as a result, the number of its inhabitants dwindles,
    and only a few survive.
⁷ The new wine dries up
    and the vine withers away
    as the revelers groan in their sorrow.
⁸ The cheerful sound of tambourines is stilled;
    the shouts of the revelers fade away;
    the lyre’s joyful melodies are no longer heard.
⁹ The people drink wine but without any singing;
    strong liquor tastes bitter to those who consume it.
¹⁰ The city is shattered and in a state of chaos;
    every house has its entrance barred.^[c]
11 In the streets the people cry out for wine;
    no joy can be observed;
    happiness seems to have been banished from the land.
¹² Only desolation remains in the city;
    its gates have been smashed so badly
    that they are beyond hope of repair.
¹³ This condition will hold true
    among all the nations throughout the world;
as happens to an olive tree after it is beaten
    or to the gleanings that remain
    after the grape harvest.
¹⁴ The people raise their voices in joyful praise,
    proclaiming from the west the majesty of the Lord,
¹⁵ “Let the Lord be glorified in the east;
    in the coastlands of the sea
glorify the name of the Lord,
    the God of Israel.”
¹⁶ From the ends of the earth we hear songs
    that praise the glory of the Righteous One.
But I said, “I am wasting away.
    I am wasting away. Woe is me!
For the traitors continue to betray;
    the traitors have acted with great treachery.
¹⁷ Terror and the pit and the snare
    threaten all of you inhabitants of the earth.
¹⁸ Anyone who flees from the sound of terror
    will fall into the pit,
and whoever climbs out of the pit
    will be caught in the snare.
For the windows of heaven will be opened
    and the foundations of the earth will shake.
¹⁹ The earth will be totally shattered,
    the earth will be torn apart
    the earth will be violently convulsed.
²⁰ The earth will stagger like a drunkard
    and sway like a fragile hut;
its transgressions will weigh heavily upon it,
    and it will fall, never to rise again.”
²¹ On that day the Lord will punish
    in the heavens the host of the heavens,^[d]
    and on the earth the kings of the earth.
²² They will be herded together,
    jammed in like prisoners in a dungeon.
They will be shut up in a pit
    and punished after many years.
²³ Then the moon will seem to fade away
    and the sun will hide in shame.
For the Lord of hosts will reign
    on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
and he will manifest his glory
    to the elders of his people.

¹ O Lord, you are my God.
    I will exalt you and praise your name,
for you have accomplished wonderful things,
    formulated in ages past, faithful and sure.
² You have made the city a heap of ruins,
    the fortified city a mass of rubble.
The citadel of foreigners is a city no more,
    and it will never be rebuilt.
³ Therefore, mighty peoples will honor you,
    and the cities of ruthless nations
    will regard you with awe.
⁴ For you have been a refuge for the poor,
    a refuge to the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the storm
    and a shade from the heat.
⁵ The blast of the ruthless
    is like a winter storm or a scorching drought,
but you subdue the roar of the foe,
    and the song of the ruthless fades away.
⁶ On this mountain^[e] the Lord of hosts
    will prepare for all peoples
a feast of rich food and vintage wines,
    of succulent foods and well-aged wines.
⁷ On this mountain the Lord will destroy
    the veil that shrouds^[f] all the peoples,
the path spread over all the nations;
⁸     he will destroy death forever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away
    the tears from every face,
and from the entire earth he will remove
    the shame of all his people;
    for the Lord has spoken.
⁹ It will be said on that day,
    “Behold, this is our God;
    in him we place our hope for deliverance.
This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
    let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us.”
¹⁰ For the hand of the Lord will not rest on this mountain,
    but Moab will be trodden under his feet
    as straw is trodden into the dung-heap.
¹¹ The Lord will stretch forth his hands in Moab
    as a swimmer stretches out his hands to swim,
and he will humble their pride
    as his hands sweep over them.
¹² He will overthrow the high fortifications of their walls,
    casting them down to the ground
    and making them level with the dust.

We have a strongly fortified city,
    with walls and ramparts established to protect us.
² Open the gates
    to allow the upright nation to enter,
    the nation that keeps faith.
³ O Lord, you grant peace to those who are steadfast
    because of their trust in you.
⁴ Trust in the Lord forever,
    for the Lord is an eternal rock.
⁵ He has brought low those in high places
    and leveled their citadel,
casting it down to the ground
    and flinging it down to the dust,
⁶ to be trampled underfoot
    by the feet of the poor and the oppressed.
⁷ The path of the righteous is smooth,
    for you make level the way of the just.
⁸ As we proceed in the path of your judgments,
    we wait for you, O Lord;
your name and your renown
    are all that our heart desires.
⁹ My soul longs for you throughout the night,
    and my spirit within me seeks your presence.
For when your judgments are revealed to the earth,
    the inhabitants of the world learn to practice justice.
¹⁰ If favor is granted to the wicked,
    they will never learn justice.
In the presence of the upright they will act perversely
    and fail to behold the majesty of the Lord.
¹¹ O Lord, your hand is raised high
    but they fail to see it.
Let them be ashamed
    when they behold your zeal for your people;
    let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them.
¹² O Lord, you will grant us peace;
    everything we have accomplished you have done for us.
¹³ O Lord, our God,
    other lords besides you have ruled us,
    but we acknowledge only your name.
¹⁴ The dead will not come back to life;
    their departed spirits will not rise again.
For you have punished and destroyed them
    and eradicated all memory of them.
¹⁵ O Lord, you have enlarged the nation,
    and in enlarging it you have been glorified;
    you have extended all the frontiers of the country.
¹⁶ O Lord, in our distress we cried out to you,
    pouring forth our prayers
    as we suffered your chastisement.
¹⁷ As a woman who is pregnant
    writhes and cries out in her agony
when her time of delivery is near,
    so were we because of you, O Lord.
¹⁸ We were with child and writhed with pain,
    but we gave birth only to wind.
We have achieved no salvation for the earth,
    and no one has been born to inhabit the world.
¹⁹ But your dead will live
    and their bodies will rise again.
Awake and sing for joy,
    you who sleep in the dust.
For your dew will be radiant,
    and the earth will give birth again
    to those who have long been dead.

²⁰ Go forth, my people, enter your chambers,
    and shut your doors behind you.
Withdraw for a short while
    until the wrath has subsided.
²¹ For the Lord emerges from his dwelling place
    to punish the inhabitants of the earth
    for their wickedness.
The earth will reveal the blood shed upon it
    and will no longer hide its slain.

¹ On that day,
    the Lord will use his sword
    that is cruel and great and strong
to punish Leviathan^[g] the fleeing serpent,
    Leviathan the writhing serpent,
and he will slay that dragon
    that resides in the sea.
^2 [h]On that day,
    sing of the pleasant vineyard.
³ I, the Lord, am its keeper,
    and I water it frequently
lest any harm come to it;
    I guard it night and day.
⁴ I do not quickly succumb to anger,
    but if I were to find briars and thorns,
I would march against them in battle
    and consume them in fire.
⁵ However, if they decide to ask for my protection,
    let them make their peace with me;
    otherwise I cannot protect them.
⁶ In days to come,
    Jacob will take root,
Israel will bud and blossom,
    and the entire world will be covered with fruit.
⁷ Has the Lord struck them down
    as he struck down those who struck him?
Has he slaughtered them
    as their attackers were slaughtered?
⁸ By expelling and exiling them
    he has taken action against them,
removing them with a breath
    as fierce as the east wind.
⁹ In this way will the guilt of Jacob be expiated
    and the full fruit of renouncing his sin will occur,
when he crushes all the altar stones to pieces
    like lumps of chalk,
    and no sacred poles and incense altars
    will remain standing.
¹⁰ For the fortified city will be abandoned,
    a deserted pasture, a forsaken wilderness;
the calves will graze and lie down there,
    destroying its branches.
¹¹ When its boughs grow dry and snap off,
    women will come and use them for firewood.
For this is a people that lacks understanding;
    therefore their Maker will not have compassion for them;
    he who formed them will not show mercy toward them.
¹² On that day,
    the Lord will thresh the grain
from the streams of the Euphrates
    to the Wadi of Egypt,
and you will be gathered one by one,
    O people of Egypt.
¹³ On that day,
    a great trumpet will be sounded,
and those who were lost in the land of Assyria
    and those who were outcasts in the land of Egypt
will come to worship the Lord
    on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.