The Deliverance of Israel
1 In that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent
With His fierce and great and mighty sword [rescuing Israel from her enemy],
Even Leviathan the twisted serpent;
And He will kill the dragon wholivesin the sea.
2 In that day [it will be said of the redeemed nation of Israel],
“A vineyard ofwine, sing in praise of it!
3 “I, the Lord, am its Keeper;
I water it every moment.
So that no one will harm it,
I guard it night and day.
4 “I have no wrath.
Should anyone give Me briarsandthorns in battle,
I would step on them, I would set them all on fire.
5 “Or let him (Israel) cling to My strengthandrely on My protection [My stronghold],
Let him make peace with Me,
Let him make peace with Me.”
6 In the generations to come Jacob will take root;
Israel will blossom and sprout,
And they will fill the surface of the world with fruit.
7 Like the strikingby Him who has struck them, has He struck them?
Or like the slaughter of His slain, have they been slain?
8 You contended with them by exile, by driving them away [from Canaan];
He has expelled them with His fierce wind on the day of the east wind.
9 Therefore through this the wickedness [the sin, the injustice, the wrongdoing] of Jacob (Israel) will be atoned forandforgiven;
And this will bethe full price [that God requires] for taking away his sin:
When Israel makes all the stones of the [pagan] altars like crushed chalk stones;
When the Asherim and the incense altars will not stand.
10 For the fortified city is isolated,
A settlement deserted and abandoned like the desert;
There the calf will graze,
And there it will lie down andfeed on its branches.
11 When its branches are dry, they are broken off;
The women come andmake a fire with them.
For they are not a people of understanding,
Therefore He who made them will not have compassion on them,
And He who created them will not be gracious to them.
12 In that day the Lordwill thresh [out His grain] from the flowing stream of the River [Euphrates] to the Brook of Egypt, and you will be gathered up one by one, O sons of Israel.
13 It will come to pass in that day that a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lostandperishing in the land of Assyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lordon the holy mountain at Jerusalem.