Isaiah 21-24

Common English Bible

Fallen, fallen is Babylon

21 An oracle about the wilderness near the sea.

Like whirlwinds sweeping through the arid southern plain,
    it comes from the desert, from a fearsome land.
²A harsh vision was proclaimed to me:
    The betrayer betrays, and the destroyer destroys.
Go up, Elam! Lay siege, Media!
    Put an end to all her groaning.
³Therefore, I’m shaken to my core in anguish.
    Pains have seized me like the pains of a woman in labor.
I’m too bent over to hear,
    too dismayed to see.
⁴My heart pounds; convulsions overpower me.
    He has turned my evening of pleasure into dread—
⁵    setting the table, spreading the cloth, eating, drinking.
“Arise, captains!
    Polish the shields.”

⁶The Lord said this to me:
    “Go, post a lookout to report what he sees.
⁷When he sees chariots, pairs of horsemen,
    donkey riders, camel riders,
    he should listen carefully,
        carefully, very carefully.”

⁸Then the seer^[a] called out:
“Upon a watchtower, Lord,
        I’m standing all day;
    and upon my observation post
        I’m stationed throughout the night.
⁹Here they come:
    charioteers, pairs of horsemen!”
One spoke up and said,
    “Fallen, fallen is Babylon,
        and all the images of her gods
        are shattered on the ground!”
¹⁰Oh, my downtrodden people, threshed on my threshing floor,
    what I heard from the Lord of heavenly forces,
    the God of Israel, I reported to you.

A mysterious dialogue

¹¹An oracle about Dumah.^[b]

Someone is calling to me from Seir:
    “Guard, how long is the night?
    Guard, how long is the night?”
¹²The guard said,
    “Morning has come, but it is still night.
    If you must inquire, inquire;
        come back again.”

¹³An oracle about the desert.
In the woods, in the desert where you camp,
    caravans of the Dedanites ¹⁴meet the thirsty with water;
    inhabitants of the land of Tema greet the refugees with bread.
¹⁵They have fled from swords,
    from the drawn sword,
    from the bent bow
    and from the intensity of battle.

¹⁶So the Lord said to me: Within a year, according to the number of years for which a laborer is hired, all the glory of Kedar will end; ¹⁷there will be few Kedarite archers remaining. The Lord God of Israel has spoken.

Jerusalemites rebuked

22 An oracle about the Valley of Vision.

What is wrong with you,
    that you have all gone up to the rooftops,
²    you who are filled with noise,
    you roaring city, you party town?
Your dead weren’t slaughtered by the sword;
    they didn’t die in battle.
³All your leaders escaped together
    but were captured without a single bow shot.
    All your escapees were bound together, even though they fled far away.^[c]
⁴Therefore, I said, “Don’t look at me;
        let me weep bitterly.
    Don’t try to comfort me
        about the destruction of my dearly loved people.”
⁵The Lord God of heavenly forces has a day of tumult and trampling and turmoil in the Valley of Vision,
        a breaking down of walls,
        a cry for help to the mountains.
⁶Elam carried the quiver with chariots and horsemen,
    and Kir uncovered the shield.
⁷Your finest valleys were filled with chariots,
    and horsemen doggedly guarded the gate.
⁸Judah’s covering has been stripped away.

On that day, you trusted the weapons in the Forest House.
⁹    You observed the many broken defenses in David’s City,
    and you collected the waters of the lower pool.
¹⁰You counted Jerusalem’s houses,
    and you tore down houses to fortify the wall.
¹¹You made a reservoir between the walls for the water of the earlier pool.
    But you didn’t trust its maker;
    you didn’t consider the one who planned it long ago.

¹²The Lord God of heavenly forces called on that day
    for weeping and mourning, and shaven heads, and wearing of mourning clothes.
¹³But instead there was
    fun and frivolity,
    killing of cattle
    and slaughtering of sheep,
    eating of meat and drinking of wine:
    “Eat and drink! Tomorrow we will die!”
¹⁴But the Lord of heavenly forces has revealed in my hearing:
    This iniquity won’t be forgiven you until you die, says the Lord God of heavenly forces.

An administrator rebuked

¹⁵The Lord God of heavenly forces says, Go now to this official, to Shebna, who is in charge of the house, and say to him:
¹⁶    What do you have here—and whom do you have here—
    that you have hewed out a tomb for yourself,
        you who cuts his grave on high and carves himself a home in the cliff?
¹⁷The Lord is about to hurl you down, mighty man!

    He is surely going to cover you with darkness;
¹⁸    he will indeed unroll your head wrapping,
        rolling it like a ball into the open country.
        There you will die, with your glorious chariots,
        you disgrace to the house of your master!
¹⁹I will thrust you from your monument;
    you will be pulled down from your platform.
²⁰On that day, I will call my servant
    Eliakim, Hilkiah’s son.
²¹I will give him your robe and wrap him in your sash,
    and I will hand over to him your authority.
He will be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem
    and to the house of Judah.
²²I will place the key to David’s house on his shoulder;
    what he opens no one will close,
    and what he closes no one will open.
²³I will fasten him securely like a tent peg,
    and he will be a throne of honor for his ancestors’ house.

²⁴All the honor of his household will hang on him, the offspring and the offshoots, every little dish, every bowl, every jar.

²⁵On that day, says the Lord of heavenly forces, the peg that is fastened securely will give way; it will be cut down, and it will fall, and all the load hanging on it will be lost. The Lord has spoken.

Concerning Tyre

23 An oracle about Tyre.

Wail, ships of Tarshish,
    because your port is destroyed!^[d]
        When returning from Cyprus, they heard about it.
²Be still, inhabitants of the coast, traders of Sidon,
    whose messengers crossed over the sea,^[e]
³    over the mighty waters.
The grain of Shihor, the Nile’s harvest, was her income;
    she was the marketplace of nations.
⁴Be ashamed, Sidon, because the sea has spoken;
    the fortress of the sea has said,
    “I haven’t been in labor; I didn’t give birth;
    I never raised young men or brought up young women.”
⁵When the Egyptians hear,
    they will be in anguish at the news about Tyre.
⁶Cross over to Tarshish;
    wail, inhabitants of the coast.
⁷Is this your triumphant town,
    whose origin is from ancient times,
    whose feet carried her to settle far away?
⁸Who planned this concerning Tyre,
        the one who gives crowns,
    whose merchants were princes,
    whose traders were the honored of the earth?
⁹The Lord of heavenly forces planned it,
    to defile the pride of all beauty,
    to shame all the honored of the earth.

¹⁰Go through your own land, Daughter Tarshish,
    for the harbor^[f] is gone.
¹¹God’s hand is extended over the sea, shaking nations.
The Lord gave the command to destroy Phoenicia’s fortresses,
¹²    saying, You will no longer celebrate,
    violated virgin Daughter Sidon.
Get up and head to Cyprus;
    even there you will find no rest.
¹³Look at the land of the Chaldeans,
    the people who are no more.
Assyria destined it for wild animals:
    they raised up their siege towers,
    stripped its palaces,
    and made it a ruin.
¹⁴Wail, ships of Tarshish,
    for your fortress is destroyed!

¹⁵On that day, Tyre will be forgotten seventy years, the lifetime of one king. At the end of seventy years, Tyre will become like the prostitute in the song:

¹⁶Take a harp, go around the city, forgotten prostitute.
Play well, sing many songs, so they’ll remember you.

¹⁷At the end of seventy years, the Lord will visit Tyre. She will return to her trade and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms on the earth. ¹⁸Her profits and wages will be sacred to the Lord. They won’t be stored or saved. Her profits will go to those living before the Lord, for plentiful food and elegant clothes.

City of chaos falls

24 Look! The Lord will devastate the earth and destroy it,
    will twist its face and scatter its inhabitants.
²It will be the same for the people and for the priest;
    for the slave and for his master;
    for the female servant and for her mistress;
    for the buyer and for the seller;
    for the lender and for the borrower;
    for the creditor and for the debtor.
³The earth will be devastated, totally devastated;
    it will be destroyed, completely destroyed
    because the Lord has said it would be so.

⁴The earth dries up and wilts;
    the world withers and wilts;
    the heavens wither away with the earth.
⁵The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants,
    for they have disobeyed instruction,
    swept aside law,
    and broken the ancient covenant.
⁶Therefore, a curse devours the earth; its inhabitants suffer for their guilt.
Therefore, the earth’s inhabitants dwindle; very few are left.

⁷The wine dries up;
    the vine withers;
    all the merry-hearted groan.
⁸The joyous tambourines have ceased;
    the roar of partiers has stopped;
    the joyous harp has ceased.
⁹No one drinks wine or sings;
    beer is bitter to its drinkers.
¹⁰The town is in chaos, broken;
    every house is shut, without entrance.
¹¹There is a cry for wine in the streets.
    All joy has reached its dusk;
    happiness is exiled from the earth.
¹²Ruin remains in the city,
    and the gate is battered to wreckage.
¹³It will be like this in the central part of the land and among the peoples,
    like an olive tree that has been shaken,
    like remains from the grape harvest.

¹⁴They raise their voice;
    they sing with joy;
    from the west they will shout about the Lord’s majesty.
¹⁵Therefore, in the east honor the Lord;
    in the islands of the sea,
    the name of the Lord God of Israel!
¹⁶From the ends of the earth we have heard songs:
    “Glory to the righteous one!”
But I say, “I waste away; I waste away;
    I’m doomed!
    Betrayers betray; treacherously betrayers betray.”

¹⁷Terror, trench, and trap are upon you,
ruler of the earth!
¹⁸Whoever flees from the sound of terror will fall into the trench;
whoever climbs from the trench will be caught in the trap.

Heaven’s windows will open, and the earth’s foundations will quake.
¹⁹The earth is shattering, shattering;
    the earth is shaking, shaking;
    the earth is teetering, tottering.
²⁰The earth trembles like a drunk
    and shudders like a hut;
    its rebellion weighs heavy upon it;
    it will fall, no more to rise.

²¹On that day, the Lord will punish the forces of heaven in heaven, and the kings of the earth on earth. ²²They will be gathered together like prisoners in a pit, shut into a prison, and punished after many days. ²³The moon will be diminished, and the sun will fade, since the Lord of heavenly forces will rule on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, glorious before his elders.