The LORD punishes the fleeing and twisting serpent, the monster of the sea, with his fierce and powerful sword.
1 In that day, Yahweh with his hard and great and strong sword will punish leviathan, the fleeing serpent, and leviathan the twisted serpent; and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea.
The LORD sings over a fruitful vineyard, watches over it, waters it continually, and guards it day and night.
2 In that day, sing to her, “A pleasant vineyard!
3 I, Yahweh, am its keeper. I will water it every moment. Lest anyone damage it, I will keep it night and day.
The LORD is not angry with the vineyard, but briers and thorns must make peace or be burned.
4 Wrath is not in me, but if I should find briers and thorns, I would do battle! I would march on them and I would burn them together.
5 Or else let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me. Let him make peace with me.”
Israel will bud, blossom, and fill the whole world with fruit.
6 In days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will blossom and bud. They will fill the surface of the world with fruit.
The LORD’s striking of Jacob is not the same as his judgment on Jacob’s enemies; exile and judgment are measured discipline.
7 Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them? Or are they killed like those who killed them were killed?
8 In measure, when you send them away, you contend with them. He has removed them with his rough blast in the day of the east wind.
Jacob’s guilt is atoned for, and the full fruit is the destruction of altar stones, Asherah poles, and incense altars.
9 Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be forgiven, and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalk stones that are beaten in pieces, so that the Asherah poles and the incense altars shall rise no more.
The city is abandoned, grazed by calves, stripped, and burned because the people lack understanding.
10 For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches.
11 When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.
The LORD threshes out his people from Euphrates to Egypt, sounds the great trumpet, and gathers those perishing and exiled to worship in Jerusalem.
12 It will happen in that day that Yahweh will thresh from the flowing stream of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt; and you will be gathered one by one, children of Israel.
13 It will happen in that day that a great trumpet will be blown; and those who were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and those who were outcasts in the land of Egypt, shall come; and they will worship Yahweh in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.