Isaiah 34–36

God Will Punish His Enemies

34Come, people of all nations! Gather round and listen. Let the whole earth and everyone living on it come here and listen. ²The Lord is angry with all the nations and all their armies. He has condemned them to destruction. ³Their corpses will not be buried, but will lie there rotting and stinking; and the mountains will be red with blood. ^4*The sun, moon, and stars will crumble to dust. The sky will disappear like a scroll being rolled up, and the stars will fall like leaves dropping from a vine or a fig tree.

^5*The Lord has prepared his sword in heaven, and now it will strike Edom, those people whom he has condemned to destruction. ^6*His sword will be covered with their blood and fat, like the blood and fat of lambs and goats that are sacrificed. The Lord will offer this sacrifice in the city of Bozrah; he will make this a great slaughter in the land of Edom. ^7*The people will fall like wild oxen and young bulls, and the earth will be red with blood and covered with fat. ^8*This is the time when the Lord will rescue Zion and take vengeance on her enemies.

^9*The rivers of Edom will turn into tar, and the soil will turn into sulphur. The whole country will burn like tar. ^10*It will burn day and night, and smoke will rise from it for ever. The land will lie waste age after age, and no one will ever travel through it again. ^11*Owls and ravens will take over the land. The Lord will make it a barren waste again, as it was before the creation. ^12*There will be no king to rule the country, and the leaders will all be gone.^{w 13*}Thorns and thistles will grow up in all the palaces and walled towns, and jackals and owls will live in them. ^14*Wild animals will roam there, and demons will call to each other. The night monster^x will come there looking for a place to rest. ^15*Owls will build their nests, lay eggs, hatch their young, and care for them there. Vultures will gather there, one after another.

^16*Search in the Lord’s book of living creatures and read what it says. Not one of these creatures will be missing, and not one will be without its mate. The Lord has commanded it to be so; he himself will bring them together. ^17*It is the Lord who will divide the land among them and give each of them a share. They will live in the land age after age, and it will belong to them for ever.

The Road of Holiness

35The desert will rejoice,

and flowers will bloom in the wilderness.

²The desert will sing and shout for joy;

it will be as beautiful as the Lebanon Mountains

and as fertile as the fields of Carmel and Sharon.

Everyone will see the Lord’s splendour,

see his greatness and power.

^3*Give strength to hands that are tired

and to knees that tremble with weakness.

⁴Tell everyone who is discouraged,

“Be strong and don’t be afraid!

God is

coming to your rescue, coming to punish your enemies.”

^5*The blind will be able to see,

and the deaf will hear.

^6*The lame will leap and dance,

and those who cannot speak will shout for joy.

Streams of water will flow through the desert;

⁷the burning sand will become a lake,

and dry land will be filled with springs.

Where jackals used to live, marsh grass and reeds will grow.

⁸There will be a highway there, called “The Road of Holiness”.

No sinner will ever travel that road; no fools will mislead those who follow it.^y

⁹No lions will be there; no fierce animals will pass that way.

Those whom the Lord has rescued will travel home by that road.

¹⁰They will reach Jerusalem with gladness, singing and shouting for joy.

They will be happy for ever, for ever free from sorrow and grief.

The Assyrians Threaten Jerusalem

36In the fourteenth year that Hezekiah was king of Judah, Sennacherib, the emperor of Assyria, attacked the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. ²Then he ordered his chief official to go from Lachish to Jerusalem with a large military force to demand that King Hezekiah should surrender. The official occupied the road where the clothmakers work, by the ditch that brings water from the upper pond. ³Three Judeans came out to meet him: the official in charge of the palace, Eliakim son of Hilkiah; the court secretary, Shebna; and the official in charge of the records, Joah son of Asaph. ⁴The Assyrian official told them that the emperor wanted to know what made King Hezekiah so confident. ⁵He demanded, “Do you think that words can take the place of military skill and might? Who do you think will help you rebel against Assyria? ^6*You are expecting Egypt to help you, but that would be like using a reed as a walking stick—it would break and jab your hand. That is what the king of Egypt is like when anyone relies on him.”

⁷The Assyrian official went on, “Or will you tell me that you are relying on the Lord your God? It was the Lord’s shrines and altars that Hezekiah destroyed when he told the people of Judah and Jerusalem to worship at one altar only. ⁸I will make a bargain with you in the name of the emperor. I will give you two thousand horses if you can find that many riders. ⁹You are no match for even the lowest ranking Assyrian official, and yet you expect the Egyptians to send you chariots and cavalry. ¹⁰Do you think I have attacked your country and destroyed it without the Lord’s help? The Lord himself told me to attack it and destroy it.”

¹¹Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the official, “Speak Aramaic to us. We understand it. Don’t speak Hebrew; all the people on the wall are listening.”

¹²He replied, “Do you think you and the king are the only ones the emperor sent me to say all these things to? No, I am also talking to the people who are sitting on the wall, who will have to eat their excrement and drink their urine, just as you will.”

¹³Then the official stood up and shouted in Hebrew, “Listen to what the emperor of Assyria is telling you. ¹⁴He warns you not to let Hezekiah deceive you. Hezekiah can’t save you. ¹⁵And don’t let him persuade you to rely on the Lord. Don’t think that the Lord will save you and that he will stop our Assyrian army from capturing your city. ¹⁶Don’t listen to Hezekiah! The emperor of Assyria commands you to come out of the city and surrender. You will all be allowed to eat grapes from your own vines and figs from your own trees, and to drink water from your own wells- ¹⁷until the emperor resettles you in a country much like your own, where there are vineyards to give wine and there is corn for making bread. ¹⁸Don’t let Hezekiah fool you into thinking that the Lord will rescue you. Did the gods of any other nations save their countries from the emperor of Assyria? ¹⁹Where are they now, the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Did anyone save Samaria? ²⁰When did any of the gods of all these countries ever save their country from our emperor? Then what makes you think the Lord can save Jerusalem?”

²¹The people kept quiet, just as King Hezekiah had told them to; they did not say a word. ²²Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah tore their clothes in grief and went and reported to the king what the Assyrian official had said.