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God Will Punish His Enemies

34 All you nations, come near and listen! Listen, all you people. The earth and everyone on it should listen to these things. Everything in this world should hear this. The Lord is angry with all the nations and their armies. He will destroy them all and put them to death. Their bodies will be thrown outside. The stink will rise from the bodies, and the blood will flow down the mountains. The skies will be rolled shut like a scroll,[a] and the stars will die and fall like leaves from a vine or a fig tree. All the stars[b] in the sky will rot away. The Lord says, “This will happen when my sword in the sky is covered with blood.”

Look, the Lord’s sword will cut through Edom. He judged them guilty, and they must die.[c] The Lord decided there should be a time for killing in Bozrah and in Edom. So the sword of the Lord is covered with blood and fat. The blood is from the “goats.” The fat is from the kidneys of the “rams.”[d] So the rams, the cattle, and the strong bulls will be killed. The land will be filled with their blood. The dirt will be covered with their fat.

This will happen because the Lord has chosen a time for punishment. He has chosen a year when people must pay for the wrong they did to Zion. Edom’s rivers will be like hot tar. Edom’s ground will be like burning sulfur. 10 The fires will burn day and night—no one will stop the fire. The smoke will rise from Edom forever. The land will be destroyed forever and ever. No one will ever travel through that land again. 11 Birds and small animals will own that land. It will be a home for owls and ravens. God will leave that land in ruins. People will call it “the empty desert.”[e] 12 The free men[f] and leaders will all be gone, and there will be nothing left for them to rule.

13 Thorns and wild bushes will grow in all the beautiful homes there. Wild dogs and owls will live in them. Wild animals will make their homes there. Big birds will live in the grasses that grow there. 14 Wild cats will live there with hyenas.[g] Wild goats[h] will call to their friends. Night animals[i] will spend some time there and find a place to rest. 15 Snakes will make their homes there and lay their eggs. The eggs will open, and small snakes will crawl from the dark places. Birds that eat dead things will gather there like women visiting their friends.

16 Look in the Lord’s scroll and read what it says: Not one of these will be missing. Not one will be without its mate. God said he would make this happen, so his Spirit will bring them together. 17 God decided what he should do with them, and then he chose a place for them. He drew a line and showed them their land. So the animals will own that land forever. They will live there year after year.

God Will Comfort His People

35 The dry desert will rejoice. The desert will be glad and blossom. It will be covered with flowers and dance with joy. It will be as beautiful as the forest of Lebanon, the hill of Carmel, and the Sharon Valley. This will happen because all people will see the Glory of the Lord. They will see the beauty of our God.

Make the weak arms strong again. Strengthen the weak knees. People are afraid and confused. Say to them, “Be strong! Don’t be afraid!” Look, your God will come and punish your enemies. He will come and give you your reward. He will save you. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened so that they can see, and the ears of the deaf will be opened so that they can hear. Crippled people will dance like deer, and those who cannot speak now will use their voices to sing happy songs. This will happen when springs of water begin to flow in the dry desert. Now people see mirages[j] that look like water, but then there will be real pools of water. There will be wells in the dry land where water flows from the ground. Tall water plants will grow where wild animals once ruled.

There will be a road there. This highway will be called “The Holy Road.” Evil people will not be allowed to walk on that road. No fools[k] will walk on it. Only good people will walk there. There will be no dangers on that road. There will be no lions there to hurt people or any dangerous animals on it. That road will be for the people God saves.

10 The Lord will make his people free, and they will come back to him. They will come into Zion rejoicing. They will be happy forever. Their happiness will be like a crown on their heads. Gladness and joy will fill them completely. Sorrow and sadness will be far, far away.

The Assyrians Invade Judah

36 During Hezekiah’s 14th year as king, Sennacherib king of Assyria went to fight against all the strong cities of Judah. Sennacherib defeated those cities. He sent his commander with a large army to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. The commander and his army left Lachish and went to Jerusalem. They stopped near the aqueduct[l] by the Upper Pool,[m] on the street that leads up to Laundryman’s Field.

Three men from Jerusalem went out to talk with the commander. These men were Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Joah son of Asaph, and Shebna. Eliakim was the palace manager, Joah was the record keeper, and Shebna was the royal secretary.

The commander told them, “Tell Hezekiah this is what the great king, the king of Assyria says:

“‘What are you trusting in to help you? I tell you, if you are trusting in power and great battle plans, that is useless. Those are nothing but empty words. Now I ask you, who do you trust so much that you are willing to rebel against me? Are you depending on Egypt to help you? Egypt is like a broken walking stick. If you lean on it for support, it will only stab you and hurt you. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, cannot be trusted by anyone who depends on him for help.

“‘So maybe you will say, “We trust the Lord our God to help us.” But Hezekiah destroyed the altars and high places where people worshiped your God, right? Hezekiah told the people of Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship only at this one altar here in Jerusalem.”

“‘If you still want to fight, my master, the king of Assyria, will make this agreement with you. I promise that I will give you 2000 horses if you can find enough men to ride them into battle. But even then, you couldn’t beat even one of my master’s lowest ranking officers. So why do you still depend on Egypt’s chariots and horse soldiers?

10 “‘Now, do you think I came to this country to destroy it without the Lord’s help. No, it was the Lord who said to me, “Go up against this country and destroy it!”’”

11 Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the commander, “Please, speak to us in Hebrew.[n] We understand that language. Don’t speak to us in the language of Judah. If you use our language, the people on the city walls will understand you.”

12 But the commander said, “My master sent me to speak to everyone, not just to you and your master. I must also speak to those people sitting there on the wall. When we surround your city, they will suffer too. Like you, they will become so hungry they will eat their own waste and drink their own urine!”

13 Then the commander, shouting loudly in Hebrew,[o] gave this warning to them all:

Hear this message from the great king, the king of Assyria! 14 This is what the king says: Don’t let Hezekiah fool you! He cannot save you from my power. 15 Don’t listen to him when he tells you to trust in the Lord. Don’t believe him when he says, “The Lord will save us. He will not let the king of Assyria defeat the city.”

16 Don’t listen to Hezekiah! This is what the king of Assyria says: Come out here and show me that you want peace. Then you will all be free to have grapes from your own vines, figs from your own trees, and water from your own well. 17 After some time, I will come and take you to a land like your own. In that new land, you will have plenty of grain for making bread and vineyards for producing wine.

18 Don’t believe Hezekiah when he tells you, “The Lord will save us.” He is wrong. Did any of the gods of other nations save their land from the king of Assyria? 19 When I destroyed the cities of Hamath and Arpad, where were their gods? What about the gods of Sepharvaim? Were any gods able to save Samaria from my power? 20 None of the gods of these other places were able to save their land from me! So why do you think the Lord can save Jerusalem from me?

21 But the people were silent. They did not say a word to the commander, because King Hezekiah had commanded them, “Don’t say anything to him.”

22 Then the palace manager (Eliakim son of Hilkiah), the royal secretary (Shebna), and the record keeper (Joah son of Asaph) went to Hezekiah. Their clothes were torn to show they were upset. They told Hezekiah everything the Assyrian commander had said.

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 34:4 rolled shut like a scroll This is like someone closing a book when they have finished reading it.
  2. Isaiah 34:4 stars Literally, “the armies of the skies.”
  3. Isaiah 34:5 guilty, and they must die The Hebrew means the people belonged completely to God, and if he does not get them, they must die.
  4. Isaiah 34:6 goats … rams This probably refers to the people and leaders of Edom.
  5. Isaiah 34:11 God … desert Literally, “He will stretch over it the measuring string of ‘emptiness’ and the stone weights of ‘nothingness.’” These two words described the empty earth in Gen. 1:2.
  6. Isaiah 34:12 free men Important citizens of a town or country. These people came from “good families” and had never been slaves.
  7. Isaiah 34:14 hyenas A kind of wild dog that often eats the meat of dead animals that other animals killed.
  8. Isaiah 34:14 Wild goats The Hebrew word means “hairy,” “goat,” or “goat-demon.”
  9. Isaiah 34:14 Night animals Or “Lilith, the night demon.” This name is like the Hebrew word for night.
  10. Isaiah 35:7 mirages In the desert, heat rising from the ground looks like water from far away. This is a mirage.
  11. Isaiah 35:8 fools Here, this means people who don’t follow God and his wise teachings.
  12. Isaiah 36:2 aqueduct A ditch or pipe that carries water from one place to another. Here, this is the Shiloah, a channel that carried water from Gihon Spring to the Old Pool and the Pool of Siloam.
  13. Isaiah 36:2 Upper Pool The Pool of Siloam at the southern tip of the City of David (Jerusalem), just above the older pool now called Birket al Hamrah.
  14. Isaiah 36:11 Hebrew Literally, “Judean,” the language of Judah and Israel.
  15. Isaiah 36:13 Hebrew Literally, “Judean,” the language of Judah and Israel.

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