¹⁷ “See, I will create
    new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
    nor will they come to mind.
¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever
    in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
    and its people a joy.
¹⁹ I will rejoice over Jerusalem
    and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
    will be heard in it no more.

²⁰ “Never again will there be in it
    an infant who lives but a few days,
    or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
    will be thought a mere child;
the one who fails to reach a hundred
    will be considered accursed.
²¹ They will build houses and dwell in them;
    they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
²² No longer will they build houses and others live in them,
    or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree,
    so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy
    the work of their hands.
²³ They will not labor in vain,
    nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord,
    they and their descendants with them.
²⁴ Before they call I will answer;
    while they are still speaking I will hear.
²⁵ The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
    and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
    and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
    on all my holy mountain,”
says the Lord. (Isa. 65:17-25)

This is our hope. This is the longing we carry in Advent.

This is about renewal. The cosmos was made right when God created it. Humanity has broken it and God is now restoring it. We have a vocation as the people of God: reclamation.

There’s nothing wrong with the cosmos. The later lines in the paragraph make clear that creating a new heavens and new earth is an image for creating a new Jerusalem where the problems about human life in the present Jerusalem are put right. At the moment most babies die in infancy and most people who survive to grow to adulthood die by middle age. Then the person who might have died as a youth will live to a hundred and the sinner who lives to a hundred, instead of dying young as he should, will still die and be humiliated. People will build houses and live in them and plant vineyards and live in them, instead of leaving the houses and the vineyards to the next generation. Flocks will be safe from wild animals and people will be safe from attackers. Life will be more the way God intended from the beginning. And communication with God will be real instead of being short-circuited.

 Goldingay, J. (2015). Isaiah for Everyone (p. 248). Westminster John Knox Press; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.