Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 28

Woe to Ephraim’s crowns of arrogance,
how they will fade, its drunkards’ garlands’ blooms,
the flowers of its beauty, glorious,
they’re dripping from their heads just like perfume,
of those who gorged on food, luxurious,
of those who have been overcome with wine!

The LORD has one who has both strength and might,
a servant, who, a sweeping storm, is like,
of hail, a downpour, water torrenting
from flood, the way his hand is levelling
the earth, where he is downwards hurling them.
The drunkards’ garlands, proud, of Ephraim,
how they, beneath the feet will be, down, trod.
And of its beauty that was glorious,
its fading flowers which were on the heads
of those who gorged on food, luxurious,
of those who, from their heads, perfume will drip.
An early fig, the moment when it’s ripe
before the summer, that is what they’re like;
whoever sees it, from the branch will pluck
it off, and he at once will eat it up.

That day, the Lord of Hosts will be a crown
that’s glorious, a diadem that’s proud,
how, to his people’s remnant, he is found;
of justice, he’s the spirit that abounds
to him who sits in judgment; and he will
with strength, those warriors at the gate, up, fill,
who’re fighting to, their enemies, repel.

These also, wine, with, stagger, and they reel
with drink that’s strong, the priest and prophet will
both reel with liquor and their reasoning
is stifled, with strong wine, they’re staggering,
they err in vision and how they have strayed
in how they will, all their decisions, make.
Each table is, with vomit, covered o’er,
and no place clean when filth is everywhere.

“To whom will he teach knowledge and to whom
will he explain the message? It is to
those infants who were just weaned off of milk
and those who have, just from the breast, been pulled.
For every precept, on another, built,
command upon command and rule on rule,
from here a little, and from there, a li’l’.”

So, truly with a lip that’s stammering,
and with a tongue, both strange and alien,
he’ll, to this people, speak, to whom he’s said,
“This rest is true, let those now have their rest
who are exhausted; and this is repose”;
yet they, to listen to my words, refused.
Therefore to them, the word, that of the LORD,
will be a thing that’s easy to ignore.
“For every precept, on another, built,
command upon command and rule on rule,
from here a little, and from there, a li’l’.”
So when they walk, they always, backwards, fall,
and, injured, captured, caught, how, be, they will,

Therefore now listen to that, of the LORD,
you rulers who are arrogant, his word,
who rule this people in Jerusalem.
Because you’ve said, “We’ve made a covenant
with Death, with Sheol, entered, we’ve, a pact;
The scourging flood will not, when it sweeps past,
reach us, for as our refuge, we’ve made lies;
in falsehood, we have found a place to hide.
Therefore the Lord God, this, what he intones,
See, a foundation stone, I’m laying down
in Zion, as a precious cornerstone,
a sure foundation, precious cornerstone.
No one will stumble who relies on this.
I, justice, as a meas’ring line shall use,
and, as a lev’ling line, use righteousness.
Hail sweeps away the refuge of your lies,
and waters will, your shelter, undermine.
Then, how your covenant with Death will be
annulled, and it won’t stand, what you agreed
with Sheol. When the scourging flood sweeps by
you will be trampled down by it each time
it passes through, it always will take you
for every morning it is passing through,
by day and night. With terror, sheer, imbued
you’ll understand this message, all its truth.
For too short is the bed to outwards stretch
oneself and narrow, too, how is the spread,
to wrap oneself in it, upon the bed.
As on Mount Perazim, how he will rise,
the LORD, and there, his rage, he will reprise
as in the valley found in Gibeon;
to do his deeds, described as alien,
and too, so he can work his works, so strange!
Stop scoffing or else, tighter, they’ll be made,
your bonds; for a decree is what I’ve heard,
one of destruction that has been declared
by the Lord God of hosts, the whole land, o’er.

To all my speech, now hear, attention, pay,
and listen to the words I have to say.
Do those who plow, for sowing, endlessly
plow, breaking up the ground for harrowing?
When they have, all its surface, caref’lly hoed,
do they not scatter dill and, cummin, sow
and plant the wheat so carefully in rows,
and barley planted in its proper place,
and spelt used for a border that they make?
For they are well-instructed in this way
because their God, the manner, them, he trained.

Dill isn’t threshed beneath a threshing sledge
nor is a cart wheel, over cummin, rolled;
but dill is beaten with a stick to thresh,
and cummin with a rod, the proper tool.
For bread, the grain is crushed, but not too fine,
one drives the cart wheel and the pulling horse,
but not too long or else it’s pulverized.
This knowledge comes from him, the LORD of hosts;
how, in his counsel, he is wonderful
and how his wisdom, everything, excels.

(Image Attribution: Depiction of Leviathan from the Middle Ages often found in grimoires, by an unknown artist PD-Art)

Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 27

The LORD, on that day, with his sword that’s cruel,
his sword that’s mighty, strong, he, punish, will,
Leviathan, the serpent that is coiled,
Leviathan, the dragon, as he flees.
Yes, he will slay the monster of the sea.

On that day: of the splendid vineyard, sing!
It’s I, the LORD, this place is what I keep,
and every moment, I’m, it, watering,
to care for it so they don’t wilt, its leaves;
I have no wrath against it, what I feel.
I tend it daily, but I get no wine.
I would as soon have only thorns and bri’rs.
Then as if in a battle, how I’d, down,
it, trample, and, it, I would also burn.
Or else, so that, it will, protected, be,
let it cling to me, make its peace with me–
unless, with me, how it will make its peace.

In days to come, how Jacob shall take root,
shall Is’rael blossom and put forth its shoots,
and how it will fill up the world with fruit.

Has he struck them down as he has struck down
those who struck them? Or is that they’ve been
killed just the way their killers have been killed?
Exiling them, and them, you have expelled,
that sentence, executed, them, against,
away he has blown them with his fierce blast
just as the east wind. For then Jacob’s guilt
will be forgiven, this is the result
of his sin, him, renouncing it, the fruit:
when, into pieces, he, the altar stones
will smash like bits of chalk. The sacred poles
and incense altars, they’ll no longer stand.
For how the city, fortified, is found?
It’s desolate, a homestead that’s bereft
of foliage, forsaken wilderness.
The calves graze there, and there, they downwards lie,
and they will, all the branches’ twigs, destroy.
They’re broken off when all their boughs grow dry,
the women come and, of them, make a fire.
This is a people, sense is what they lack;
therefore he, that made them, on them won’t have
compassion; he that formed them will show them
no favor. On that day the LORD will thresh
the grain that grows, from the Euphrates’ streams
to Egypt’s wadi, one by one, you’ll be,
up, gathered, all the people of Is’rael.
A trumpet, great, on that day, blown, be, will,
and who were, in Assyria, lost, those,
and those who, out to Egypt, had been drove,
the LORD, they’ll come and worship, all of them,
its holy mountain, on, Jerusalem’s.