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Scripture: Isaiah 24-25
24 Look, the Lord is stripping the earth bare
and making it desolate.
He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants:
2 people and priest alike,
servant and master,
female servant and mistress,
buyer and seller,
lender and borrower,
creditor and debtor.
3 The earth will be stripped completely bare
and will be totally plundered,
for the Lord has spoken this message.
4 The earth mourns and withers;
the world wastes away and withers;
the exalted people of the earth waste away.
5 The earth is polluted by its inhabitants,
for they have transgressed teachings,
overstepped decrees,
and broken the permanent covenant.
6 Therefore a curse has consumed the earth,
and its inhabitants have become guilty;
the earth’s inhabitants have been burned,
and only a few survive.
7 The new wine mourns;
the vine withers.
All the carousers now groan.
8 The joyful tambourines have ceased.
The noise of the jubilant has stopped.
The joyful lyre has ceased.
9 They no longer sing and drink wine;
beer is bitter to those who drink it.
10 The city of chaos is shattered;
every house is closed to entry.
11 In the streets they cry[a] for wine.
All joy grows dark;
earth’s rejoicing goes into exile.
12 Only desolation remains in the city;
its gate has collapsed in ruins.
13 For this is how it will be on earth
among the nations:
like a harvested olive tree,
like a gleaning after a grape harvest.
14 They raise their voices, they sing out;
they proclaim in the west
the majesty of the Lord.
15 Therefore, in the east honor the Lord!
In the coasts and islands of the west
honor the name of the Lord,
the God of Israel.
16 From the ends of the earth we hear songs:
The Splendor of the Righteous One.
But I said, “I waste away! I waste away![b]
Woe is me.”
The treacherous act treacherously;
the treacherous deal very treacherously.
17 Panic, pit, and trap await you
who dwell on the earth.
18 Whoever flees at the sound of panic
will fall into a pit,
and whoever escapes from the pit
will be caught in a trap.
For the windows on high are opened,
and the foundations of the earth are shaken.
19 The earth is completely devastated;
the earth is split open;
the earth is violently shaken.
20 The earth staggers like a drunkard
and sways like a hut.
Earth’s rebellion weighs it down,
and it falls, never to rise again.
21 On that day the Lord will punish
the army of the heights in the heights
and the kings of the ground on the ground.
22 They will be gathered together
like prisoners in a pit.
They will be confined to a dungeon;
after many days they will be punished.
23 The moon will be put to shame
and the sun disgraced,
because the Lord of Armies will reign as king
on Mount Zion in Jerusalem,
and he will display his glory
in the presence of his elders.
25 Lord, you are my God;
I will exalt you. I will praise your name,
for you have accomplished wonders,
plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness.
2 For you have turned the city into a pile of rocks,
a fortified city, into ruins;
the fortress of barbarians is no longer a city;
it will never be rebuilt.
3 Therefore, a strong people will honor you.
The cities of violent nations will fear you.
4 For you have been a stronghold for the poor person,
a stronghold for the needy in his distress,
a refuge from storms and a shade from heat.
When the breath of the violent
is like a storm against a wall,
5 like heat in a dry land,
you will subdue the uproar of barbarians.
As the shade of a cloud cools the heat of the day,
so he will silence the song of the violent.
6 On this mountain,[c]
the Lord of Armies will prepare for all the peoples a feast of choice meat,
a feast with aged wine, prime cuts of choice meat,[d] fine vintage wine.
7 On this mountain
he will destroy the burial shroud,
the shroud over all the peoples,
the sheet covering all the nations;
8 he will destroy death forever.
The Lord God will wipe away the tears
from every face
and remove his people’s disgrace
from the whole earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
9 On that day it will be said,
“Look, this is our God;
we have waited for him, and he has saved us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him.
Let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”
10 For the Lord’s power will rest on this mountain.
But Moab will be trampled in his place[e]
as straw is trampled in a dung pile.
11 He will spread out his arms in the middle of it,
as a swimmer spreads out his arms to swim.
His pride will be brought low,
along with the trickery of his hands.
12 The high-walled fortress will be brought down,
thrown to the ground, to the dust.
The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.