Isaiah 27

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

² On that day:
A pleasant vineyard, sing about it!
³     I, the Lord, am its keeper;
    every moment I water it.
I guard it night and day
    so that no one can harm it;
⁴     I have no wrath.
If it gives me thorns and briers,
    I will march to battle against it.
    I will burn it up.
⁵ Or else let it cling to me for protection,
    let it make peace with me,
    let it make peace with me.

⁶ In days to come^[a] Jacob shall take root,
    Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots,
    and fill the whole world with fruit.

⁷ Has he struck them down as he struck down those who struck them?
    Or have they been killed as their killers were killed?
⁸ By expulsion,^[b] by exile you struggled against them;
    with his fierce blast he removed them in the day of the east wind.
⁹ Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be expiated,
    and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin:
when he makes all the stones of the altars
    like chalkstones crushed to pieces,
    no sacred poles^[c] or incense altars will remain standing.
¹⁰ For the fortified city is solitary,
    a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;
the calves graze there,
    there they lie down, and strip its branches.
¹¹ When its boughs are dry, they are broken;
    women come and make a fire of them.
For this is a people without understanding;
    therefore he that made them will not have compassion on them,
    he that formed them will show them no favor.