Isaiah 30:28-33

The Message

^27-28Look, God’s on his way,
    and from a long way off!
Smoking with anger,
    immense as he comes into view,
Words steaming from his mouth,
    searing, indicting words!
A torrent of words, a flash flood of words
    sweeping everyone into the vortex of his words.
He’ll shake down the nations in a sieve of destruction,
    herd them into a dead end.

^29-33But you will sing,
    sing through an all-night holy feast!
Your hearts will burst with song,
    make music like the sound of flutes on parade,
En route to the mountain of God,
    on the way to the Rock of Israel.
God will sound out in grandiose thunder,
    display his hammering arm,
Furiously angry, showering sparks—
    cloudburst, storm, hail!
Oh yes, at God’s thunder
    Assyria will cower under the clubbing.
Every blow God lands on them with his club
    is in time to the music of drums and pipes,
God in all-out, two-fisted battle,
    fighting against them.
Topheth’s fierce fires are well prepared,
    ready for the Assyrian king.
The Topheth furnace is deep and wide,
    well stoked with hot-burning wood.
God’s breath, like a river of burning pitch,
    starts the fire.