Shemot
This translation was taken from the JPS Tanakh.
Isaiah 27:6-28:13, 29:22-23
Chapter 27
6 [In days] to come Jacob shall strike root,
Israel shall sprout and blossom,
And the face of the world
Shall be covered with fruit.
7 Was he beaten as his beater has been?
Did he suffer such slaughter as his slayers?
8 Assailing them with fury unchained,
His pitiless blast bore them off
On a day of gale.
9 Assuredly, by this alone
Shall Jacob’s sin be purged away;
This is the only price
For removing his guilt:
That he make all the altar-stones
Like shattered blocks of chalk —
With no sacred post left standing,
Nor any incense altar.
10 Thus fortified cities lie desolate,
Homesteads deserted, forsaken like a wilderness;
There calves graze, there they lie down
And consume its boughs.
11 When its crown is withered, they break;
Women come and make fires with them.
For they are a people without understanding;
That is why
Their Maker will show them no mercy,
Their Creator will deny them grace.
12 And in that day, the Lord will beat out [the peoples like grain] from the channel of the Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt; and you shall be picked up one by one, O children of Israel!
13 And in that day, a great ram’s horn shall be sounded; and the strayed who are in the land of Assyria and the expelled who are in the land of Egypt shall come and worship the Lord on the holy mount, in Jerusalem.
Chapter 28
1 Ah, the proud crowns of the drunkards of Ephraim,
Whose glorious beauty is but wilted flowers
On the heads of men bloated with rich food,
Who are overcome by wine!
2 Lo, my Lord has something strong and mighty,
Like a storm of hail,
A shower of pestilence.
Something like a storm of massive, torrential rain
Shall be hurled with force to the ground.
3 Trampled underfoot shall be
The proud crowns of the drunkards of Ephraim,
4 The wilted flowers —
On the heads of men bloated with rich food —
That are his glorious beauty.
They shall be like an early fig
Before the fruit harvest;
Whoever sees it devours it
While it is still in his hand.
5 In that day, the Lord of Hosts shall become a crown of beauty and a diadem of glory for the remnant of His people, 6 and a spirit of judgment for him who sits in judgment and of valor for those who repel attacks at the gate.
7 But these are also muddled by wine
And dazed by liquor:
Priest and prophet
Are muddled by liquor;
They are confused by wine,
They are dazed by liquor;
They are muddled in their visions,
They stumble in judgment.
8 Yea, all tables are covered
With vomit and filth,
So that no space is left.
9 “To whom would he give instruction?
To whom expound a message?
To those newly weaned from milk,
Just taken away from the breast?
10 That same mutter upon mutter,
Murmur upon murmur,
Now here, now there!”
11 Truly, as one who speaks to that people in a stammering jargon and an alien tongue 12 is he who declares to them, “This is the resting place, let the weary rest; this is the place of repose.” They refuse to listen. 13 To them the word of the Lord is:
“Mutter upon mutter,
Murmur upon murmur,
Now here, now there.”
And so they will march,
But they shall fall backward,
And be injured and snared and captured.
Chapter 29
22 Assuredly, thus said the Lord to the House of Jacob, Who redeemed Abraham:
No more shall Jacob be shamed,
No longer his face grow pale.
23 For when he — that is, his children — behold what My hands have wrought in his midst, they will hallow My name.
Men will hallow the Holy One of Jacob
And stand in awe of the God of Israel.
Taken from Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures, (Philadelphia, Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society) 1985.
Used by permission of The Jewish Publication Society. Copyright © 1962, 1992
Third Edition by the Jewish Publication Society.
No part of this text can be reproduced or forwarded without written permission.
Please visit the JPS website for more fine books of Jewish literature and tradition.
