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Babylon falls

13 An oracle about Babylon, which Isaiah, Amoz’s son, saw.

On a bare mountain raise a signal;
    cry aloud to them;
    wave a hand;
    let them enter the officials’ gates.
I have commanded my holy ones;
    I have called my warriors,
    my proud, jubilant ones,
    to execute my wrath.
Listen![a] A roar on the mountains like that of a great crowd.
Listen! An uproar of kingdoms,
    of nations coming together.
The Lord of heavenly forces is mustering an army for battle.
They are coming from a distant land,
        from the faraway heavens,
    the Lord and the instruments of his fury, to destroy the whole land.

Wail, for the day of the Lord is near.
    Like destruction from the Almighty[b] it will come.
Then all hands will fall limp;
    every human heart will melt,
    and they will be terrified.
Like a woman writhing in labor,
    they will be seized by spasms and agony.
They will look at each other aghast,
    their faces blazing.

Look, the day of the Lord is coming with cruel rage and burning anger,
    making the earth a ruin,
    and wiping out its sinners.
10 Heaven’s stars and constellations won’t show their light.
The sun will be dark when it rises;
    the moon will no longer shine.
11 I will bring disaster upon the world for its evil,
    and bring their own sin upon the wicked.
I will end the pride of the insolent,
    and the conceit of tyrants I will lay low.
12 I will make humans scarcer than fine gold;
    people rarer than the gold of Ophir.
13 I will rattle the heavens;
    the earth will shake loose from its place—because of the rage
    of the Lord of heavenly forces
        on the day his anger burns.
14 They will be like hunted gazelles, like sheep without a shepherd;
    all will turn to their own people
    and flee to their own lands.
15 Whoever is found will be stabbed;
    whoever is caught will fall by the sword.
16 Their infants will be crushed before their eyes;
    their houses plundered, their women raped.

17 Look! I’m rousing the Medes against them;
    the Medes pay no mind to silver, no desire for gold.
18 Their bows will smash youths;
    they will be merciless to newborns, pitiless to children.
19 So Babylon, a jewel among kingdoms,
    the Chaldeans’ splendor and pride,
    will be like Sodom and Gomorrah,
        destroyed by God.
20 No one will ever resettle
    or live there for generations.
No Arab will camp there;
    no shepherds will rest flocks there.
21 Wildcats will rest there;
    houses will be filled with owls.
Ostriches will live there,
    and goat demons will dance there.
22 Hyenas will howl in its strongholds,
    and jackals in its luxurious palaces.
Babylon’s[c] time is coming soon;
    its days won’t drag on.

Compassion for Jacob

14 The Lord will have compassion on Jacob, will again choose Israel, and will give them rest in their own land. Immigrants will join them, and attach themselves to the house of Jacob. The peoples will take them and will bring them to their own place. The house of Israel will possess them as male and female slaves in the Lord’s land, making captives of their captors and ruling their oppressors.

Mockery of a tyrant

When the Lord has given you rest from pain and trouble and from the hard labor that you perform, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:

How the oppressor[d] has ceased!
    How the flood[e] has receded!
The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked,
    the rod of tyrants that struck peoples in rage with ceaseless blows,
    that ruled nations with anger,
        with relentless aggression.

All the earth rests quietly,
    then it breaks into song.
Even the cypresses rejoice over you,
    the cedars of Lebanon:
    “Since you were laid low,
        no logger comes up against us!”

The underworld[f] beneath becomes restless to greet your arrival.
It awakens the ghosts,
    all the leaders of earth;
it makes the kings of the nations rise from their thrones.
10 All of them speak and say to you:
    “Even you’ve become weak like we are!
    You are the same as us!”
11 Your majesty has been brought down to the underworld,[g]
    along with the sound of your harps.
Under you is a bed of maggots,
    and worms are your blanket.

12 How you’ve fallen from heaven,
    morning star, son of dawn!
You are cut down to earth,
    helpless on your back!
13 You said to yourself, I will climb up to heaven;
    above God’s stars, I will raise my throne.
I’ll sit on the mount of assembly,
    on the heights of Zaphon.
14 I’ll go up to the cloud tops;
    I’ll be like the Most High!
15 But down to the underworld[h] you are brought,
    to the depths of the pit.

16 Those who see you will stare at you;
        they will examine you closely:
    “Is this the man who rattled the earth,
        who shook kingdoms,
17         who made the world a wasteland
        and tore down its cities,
        and wouldn’t let his prisoners go home?”
18 All the kings of the nations lie down honored,
        all of them, each in his own tomb.
19     But you are cast away from your own grave
        like a rejected branch,
        covered by the dead
        and those pierced by the sword—
        who go down to the stony pit—
        like a trampled corpse.
20 You won’t join them in burial,
    for you destroyed your own land;
    you killed your own people.
Such evil offspring will never be mentioned again!

21 Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their father. Don’t let them arise to take over the earth or fill the world with cities.

22 I will arise against them, says the Lord of heavenly forces. I will cut off Babylon’s renown and remnant, offshoot and offspring. 23 I will make it the home of herons, a swampland. I will sweep it away with the broom of destruction, says the Lord of heavenly forces.

Promise for oppressed Judah

24 The Lord of heavenly forces has promised:
As I intended, so it will be;
    and as I have planned, so it will happen:
25 I will break Assyria in my land;
    on my mountains I will trample it
    and remove its yoke from my people;[i]
    his burden will be taken from their shoulders.
26 This is the plan that has been made for all the earth;
    this is the hand extended over all the nations.
27 The Lord of heavenly forces has created a plan;
    who can stop it?
God’s hand is extended;
    who will stop it?

An oracle concerning the Philistines

28 This oracle came in the year of King Ahaz’s death:

29 Don’t rejoice, all you Philistines, that the rod that struck you is broken,
    because from the snake’s root a viper will grow,
    and it will produce a winged creature.
30 The oldest offspring of the poor will graze;
    their needy will lie down secure.
But he will starve your offspring to death,
    and murder all who remain.
31 Wail, gate! Cry out, city!
        Melt in terror, all you Philistines!
    Smoke is coming from the north;
        there is no straggler in its ranks.[j]
32 What will one say to that nation’s messengers?
    The Lord has founded Zion;
        the oppressed among God’s people will find refuge there.

Concerning Moab

15 An oracle about Moab.

Ar was devastated in a night; Moab is ruined!
    Kir was devastated in a night; Moab is ruined!
Dibon has gone up to the temple, to the shrines to weep.[k]
Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba.
    Every head is shaved,
    every beard cut off.
In its streets they wear mourning clothes;
    on its rooftops and in its plazas, everyone wails and falls down weeping.
Heshbon and Elealeh cry out;
    as far as Jahaz their voice is heard.
The armed men of Moab shout,
    spirits trembling.
My heart cries out for Moab.
    Its fugitives flee to Zoar, to Eglath-shelishiyah.[l]
At the ascent of Luhith,
    each will go up with weeping.
On the road to Horonaim,
    they will raise a piercing cry.
The waters of Nimrim are used up.
    Grass has withered;
    vegetation is dead;
    greenery is gone.
Therefore, they carry what they had stored up,
    all their provisions to the Valley of the Willows.
An outcry sounds within the borders of Moab,
    as far as Eglaim, a cry of distress,
    as far as Beer-elim, a cry of distress.
The waters of Dibon are full of blood.
    But I will bring still more upon Dibon:
        a lion for Moab’s survivors, for the remaining few in the land.

16 Send lambs to the ruler of the land,[m]
    from Sela through the desert
    to the mountain of Daughter Zion.
The daughters of Moab at the fords of the Arnon are like orphaned birds pushed from the nest.
Consider carefully, act justly;
    at high noon provide your shade like night.
Hide the outcasts;
    keep the fugitives hidden.
Let the outcasts of Moab live among you.
    Be a hiding place for them from the destroyer.
When the oppressor is no more,
    when destruction has ceased,
    when the trampler has vanished from the land,
    a throne will be established based on goodness,
        and someone will sit faithfully on it in David’s dwelling[n]
    a judge who seeks justice and timely righteousness.

We have heard of Moab’s pride,
    his great pride,
    his outrageous pride and arrogance,
    his empty boasting.
Therefore, let Moab wail;
    let everyone wail for Moab.
    Let them moan, utterly stricken, for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth.
The fields of Heshbon languish.
    The vines of Sibmah,
        whose honored grapes overpowered masters of nations,
    had reached as far as Jazer and strayed to the desert.
    Their tendrils spread out and crossed the sea.
Therefore, I will weep with Jazer’s weeping for the vines of Sibmah.
    I will drench you with my tears, Heshbon and Elealeh.
Cheers have fallen silent concerning your summer fruit and your grain harvest.
10 Joy and happiness have been harvested from the farmland,
    and in the vineyards no one sings, no one shouts.
No treader crushes grapes in the wine vats;
    I have brought the cheers to an end.
11 Therefore, my heart plays sadly like a harp for Moab,
    my inner being for Kir-heres.
12 Even if Moab presents himself,
    and Moab wears himself out going to the shrine,
    and comes to his sanctuary to pray,
        he won’t prevail.

13 This is the word that the Lord had spoken concerning Moab long ago. 14 But now the Lord has said: In three years, like the years of a hired worker, the glory of Moab, with all its great multitude, will dwindle. The small remnant will be few and feeble.

Concerning Damascus and Ephraim

17 An oracle about Damascus.

Look! Damascus is finished as a city;
    it will become a fallen ruin.
The villages of Aroer are abandoned forever.[o]
    They will be pastures for flocks,[p]
    which will lie down undisturbed.
Ephraim’s security will cease,
    as will Damascus’ rule.
    What’s left of Aram will resemble the glory of the Israelites,
    says the Lord of heavenly forces.

On that day, Jacob’s glory will dwindle;
    his sleek body will waste away.
It will be as when harvesters gather grain.
    God will harvest armfuls at a time,
    like one who gathers grain
    in the Rephaim Valley.
Only remaining bits are left,
        like an olive tree that has been shaken:
    two or three olives on the highest branch;
        four or five on a fruitful twig,
        says the Lord God of Israel.

On that day, people will have regard for their maker,
    and their eyes will look to the holy one of Israel.
They will have no regard for altars,
    the work of their hands,
    or look to what their fingers made:
    sacred poles[q] and incense stands.

On that day, their strong cities will be like those abandoned by the Hivites and the Amorites;[r] abandoned because of the Israelites. They will be a wasteland,

10 because you forgot the God who saves you,
    and didn’t remember the rock who shelters you.
Therefore, plant your pleasant plants,
    and set out exotic sprouts;
11     make them grow the day you plant them,
    and make them bloom the morning you start them.
But the harvest will disappear on a day of sickness and incurable pain.

12 Doom to the raging of many peoples;
    like the thundering seas they thunder.
    Doom to the roar of nations,
        like the roaring of mighty waters.
13     Nations roar like the roaring of rushing waters.
But God will rebuke them,
    and they will flee far away,
    pursued like chaff by wind in the mountains,
    like tumbleweeds before a storm.
14 In the evening, there is terror;
    but before morning it is gone.
This is the fate of those who loot us,
    the destiny of those who rob us.

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 13:4 Heb lacks Listen!
  2. Isaiah 13:6 Heb Shaddai or Mountain One
  3. Isaiah 13:22 Heb Its
  4. Isaiah 14:4 Heb uncertain
  5. Isaiah 14:4 DSS (1QIsaa), LXX, Syr, Tg; MT fury
  6. Isaiah 14:9 Heb Sheol
  7. Isaiah 14:11 Heb Sheol
  8. Isaiah 14:15 Heb Sheol
  9. Isaiah 14:25 Or them
  10. Isaiah 14:31 Heb uncertain
  11. Isaiah 15:2 Heb uncertain
  12. Isaiah 15:5 Heb uncertain
  13. Isaiah 16:1 Heb uncertain
  14. Isaiah 16:5 Or tent
  15. Isaiah 17:2 Cf LXX; MT The cities of Aroer are abandoned
  16. Isaiah 17:2 Or For flocks they will be
  17. Isaiah 17:8 Heb asherim, possibly objects devoted to the goddess Asherah
  18. Isaiah 17:9 LXX; MT like the abandonment of the forest and the bough

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