Hebrew Names Version HNV
The Message Bible MSG
1 In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish livyatan the swift serpent, and livyatan the crooked serpent; and he will kill the monster that is in the sea.
1
At that time God will unsheathe his sword, his merciless, massive, mighty sword. He'll punish the serpent Leviathan as it flees, the serpent Leviathan thrashing in flight. He'll kill that old dragon that lives in the sea.
2 In that day: A vineyard of wine, sing you to it.
2
"At that same time, a fine vineyard will appear. There's something to sing about!
3 I the LORD am its keeper; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.
3
I, God, tend it. I keep it well-watered. I keep careful watch over it so that no one can damage it.
4 Wrath is not in me: would that the briers and thorns were against me in battle! I would march on them, I would burn them together.
4
I'm not angry. I care. Even if it gives me thistles and thornbushes, I'll just pull them out and burn them up.
5 Or else let him take hold of my strength, that he may make shalom with me; [yes], let him make shalom with me.
5
Let that vine cling to me for safety, let it find a good and whole life with me, let it hold on for a good and whole life."
6 In days to come shall Ya`akov take root; Yisra'el shall blossom and bud; and they shall fill the surface of the world with fruit.
6
The days are coming when Jacob shall put down roots, Israel blossom and grow fresh branches, and fill the world with its fruit.
7 Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them? or are they slain according to the slaughter of those who were slain by them?
7
Has God knocked them to the ground as he knocked down those who hit them? Oh, no. Were they killed as their killers were killed? Again, no.
8 In measure, when you send them away, you do contend with them; he has removed [them] with his rough blast in the day of the east wind.
8
He was hard on them all right. The exile was a harsh sentence. He blew them away on a fierce blast of wind.
9 Therefore by this shall the iniquity of Ya`akov 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 sunder, [so that] the Asherim and the sun-images shall rise no more.
9
But the good news is that through this experience Jacob's guilt was taken away. The evidence that his sin is removed will be this: He will tear down the alien altars, take them apart stone by stone, And then crush the stones into gravel and clean out all the sex-and-religion shrines.
10 For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches of it.
10
For there's nothing left of that pretentious grandeur. Nobody lives there anymore. It's unlivable. But animals do just fine, browsing and bedding down.
11 When the boughs of it are withered, they shall be broken off; the women shall come, and set them on fire; for it is 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.
11
And it's not a bad place to get firewood. Dry twigs and dead branches are plentiful. It's the leavings of a people with no sense of God. So, the God who made them Will have nothing to do with them. He who formed them will turn his back on them.
12 It shall happen in that day, that the LORD will beat off [his fruit] from the flood of the River to the brook of Mitzrayim; and you shall be gathered one by one, you children of Yisra'el.
12
At that time God will thresh from the River Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt, And you, people of Israel, will be selected grain by grain.
13 It shall happen in that day, that a great shofar shall be blown; and they shall come who were ready to perish in the land of Ashshur, and those who were outcasts in the land of Mitzrayim; and they shall worship the LORD in the holy mountain at Yerushalayim.
13
At that same time a great trumpet will be blown, calling home the exiles from Assyria, Welcoming home the refugees from Egypt to come and worship God on the holy mountain, Jerusalem.
The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.