Isaiah 25

Praise to the Lord

1. Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.

2. You have made the city a heap of rubble, the fortified town a ruin, the foreigners’ stronghold a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.

3. Therefore strong peoples will honor you; cities of ruthless nations will revere you.

4. You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat. For the breath of the ruthless is like a storm driving against a wall

5. and like the heat of the desert. You silence the uproar of foreigners; as heat is reduced by the shadow of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless is stilled.

6. On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine— the best of meats and the finest of wines.

7. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations;

8. he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.

9. In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”

10. The hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain; but Moab will be trampled in their land as straw is trampled down in the manure.

11. They will stretch out their hands in it, as swimmers stretch out their hands to swim. God will bring down their pride despite the cleverness[a] of their hands.

12. He will bring down your high fortified walls and lay them low; he will bring them down to the ground, to the very dust.

Footnotes:

a. Isaiah 25:11: The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.