I am not angry. If only thorns and briers confronted Me, I would march and trample them, I would burn them to the ground.
Parallel translations
- WEB Wrath is not in me, but if I should find briers and thorns, I would do battle! I would march on them and I would burn them together.
- KJV Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together.
- NKJV Fury is not in Me. Who would set briers and thorns Against Me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together.
- NASB “I have no wrath. Should someone give Me briars and thorns in battle, Then I would step on them, I would burn them completely.
- NLT My anger will be gone. If I find briers and thorns growing, I will attack them; I will burn them up—
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God holds no wrath toward His people, though He will fiercely destroy the briers and thorns of opposition.
Overview
Toward His vineyard God has set aside anger, yet He stands ready to burn the thorns and briers that threaten it. His protective love for His people includes judgment on what opposes them. This balance of grace toward His own and judgment on evil finds its center in the cross, where wrath and mercy meet.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Isa 10:17And the Light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame. In a single day it will burn and devour Assyria’s thorns and thistles.
- Heb 6:8But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless, and its curse is imminent. In the end it will be burned.
- Matt 3:12His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
- Ps 85:3You withheld all Your fury; You turned from Your burning anger.
- 2 Sam 23:6But the worthless are all like thorns raked aside, for they can never be gathered by hand.
- Isa 26:20–21Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourselves a little while until the wrath has passed.
- Ezek 16:63so that when I make atonement for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your disgrace, declares the Lord GOD.”
- 2 Pet 2:9if all this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.
- Isa 54:6–10For the LORD has called you back, like a wife deserted and wounded in spirit, like the rejected wife of one’s youth,” says your God.
- Isa 12:1In that day you will say: “O LORD, I will praise You. Although You were angry with me, Your anger has turned away, and You have comforted me.
- Mal 4:3Then you will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I am preparing,” says the LORD of Hosts.
- Ps 103:9He will not always accuse us, nor harbor His anger forever.
- Nah 1:3–7The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. His path is in the whirlwind and storm, and clouds are the dust beneath His feet.
- Isa 9:18For wickedness burns like a fire that consumes the thorns and briers and kindles the forest thickets which roll upward in billows of smoke.
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 27:4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.