Isaiah 13–14

An Oracle against Babylon

13The oracle of Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw:

²Raise a signal on a bare hill,

lift up your voice to them;

wave the hand and may they enter the gateways of the noblemen.

³I myself I have commanded my consecrated ones,

I have also summoned my mighty warriors concerning my anger,

the ones who exalt over^a my majesty.

⁴A sound, a noise is on the mountains,

the likeness of many people!

A sound of the roar of the kingdoms,

of nations gathering!

Yahweh of hosts is mustering an army for battle.

⁵They are coming from a distant land,

from the end of the heavens,

Yahweh and the weapons of his indignation,

to destroy the whole earth.^b

⁶Wail, for the day of Yahweh is near;

it will come like destruction from Shaddai!^c

⁷Therefore all hands will grow slack,

and every human heart will melt,

⁸and they will be dismayed.

Pangs and labor pains will seize them;

they will tremble like a woman giving birth.

They will stare at one another,^d

their faces flushing.^e

⁹Look! The day of Yahweh is coming,

cruel and wrath and the burning of anger,

to make the earth a desolation,

and he will destroy its sinners from it.

¹⁰For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not flash forth their light;

the sun will keep back when it comes out,

and the moon will not cause its light to shine.

¹¹And I will punish the world for its evil

and the wicked for their iniquity.

And I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant,

and I will bring the haughtiness of tyrants low.

¹²I will make humanity more rare than gold

and humankind more than the gold of Ophir.

¹³Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,

and the earth will quake from its place

because of the wrath of Yahweh of hosts,

and in the day his anger burns.

¹⁴And this shall happen:

like a hunted gazelle or sheep with none to gather them,^f

they will each turn to his own people,

and they will each flee to his own land.

¹⁵Everyone who is found will be pierced through,

and everyone who is carried away will fall by the sword.

¹⁶And their children will be dashed into pieces before their eyes;

their houses will be plundered, and their wives will be raped.^g

¹⁷Look! I am stirring the Medes up against them,

who do not value silver

and do not delight in gold.

¹⁸And their bows will shatter young men.

And they will not show mercy on the fruit of the womb;

their eyes will not look compassionately on children.

¹⁹And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendor of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be like when God overthrew^h Sodom and Gomorrah.

²⁰It will not be inhabited forever,

and it will not be dwelled in forever;ⁱ

and no Arab will pitch a tent there,

and shepherds will not allow their flocks to lie down there.

²¹But wild animals will lie down there,

and their houses will be full of howling creatures,

and the daughters of ostriches^j will live there,

and goats will dance there.

²²And hyenas will answer in its palaces,

and jackals in the pleasure palaces;

and its time is coming soon,^k

and its days will not be prolonged.

The Restoration of Israel

14But Yahweh will have compassion on Jacob,

and he will again choose Israel

and set them on their land,

and the immigrant will join himself to them,

and they will attach themselves to the house of Jacob.

²And the nations will take them

and bring them to their place,

and the house of Israel will take possession of them^a in the land of Yahweh

as slaves and female slaves.

And this will happen:

they will take their captors captive

and rule over their oppressors.

The Downfall of the King of Babylon

³And it shall happen on the day Yahweh gives you rest from your pain and turmoil and hard labor which you had to perform,^b

⁴that you will take this taunt against the king of Babylon,

and you will say:

“How the oppressor has ceased!

his insolence^c has ceased.

⁵Yahweh has broken the staff of the wicked,

the scepter of rulers,

⁶that struck the peoples in wrath, a blow without ceasing,

that ruled the nations in anger

with unrestrained persecution.^d

⁷All of the earth rests and is quiet;

they break forth into singing.

⁸Even the cypresses rejoice over you,

the cedars of Lebanon:

‘Since you were laid down,

no wood cutter comes up against us.’

⁹Sheol below is getting excited over you,

to meet you when you come;^e

it arouses the dead spirits for you,

all of the leaders of the earth.

It raises all of the kings of the nations from their thrones.

¹⁰All of them will respond and say to you,

‘You yourself also were made weak like us!

You have become the same as us!’

¹¹Your pride is brought down to Sheol,

and the sound of your harps;

maggots^f are spread out beneath you like a bed,

and your covering is worms.^g

¹²How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of dawn!

You are cut down to the ground, conqueror of nations!

¹³And you yourself said in your heart,

‘I will ascend to heaven;

I will raise up my throne above the stars of God;

and I will sit on the mountain of assembly

on the summit of Zaphon;^h

¹⁴I will ascend to the high places of the clouds,ⁱ

I will make myself like the Most High.’

¹⁵But you are brought down to Sheol,

to the depths of the pit.

¹⁶Those who see you will stare at you,

they will look closely at you:

‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble,

who caused kingdoms to shake,

¹⁷who made the world like the desert

and destroyed its cities,

who would not let his prisoners go home?’

¹⁸All the kings of the nations, all of them, lie in glory,

each one in his house.

¹⁹But as for you, you are thrown away from your grave,

like an abhorrent shoot,

clothed with the slain,

those pierced by the sword,

those who go down to the stones of the pit,

like a corpse that is trodden down.

²⁰You will not be united with them in burial

because you have destroyed your land,

you have killed your people.

The descendants^j of evildoers will not be mentioned for eternity!

²¹Prepare a place of slaughter for his sons

because of the sin of their ancestors.^k

Let them not rise and take possession of the earth

or fill up the face of the world with cities.”

²²“And I will rise up against them,”

declares^l Yahweh of hosts,

“and I will cut off name and a remnant from Babylon,

and offspring and posterity,”

declares^m Yahweh.

²³“And I will make her a possession of the hedgehog,

and pools of water,

and I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction,”

declaresⁿ Yahweh of hosts.

Oracle of Judgment on Assyria

²⁴Yahweh of hosts has sworn, saying,

“Surely^o just as I have intended, so it shall be.

And just as I have planned, it shall stand:

²⁵to break Assyria in my land,

and I will trample him down on my mountains;

and he shall remove his yoke from them,

and he shall remove his burden from his^p shoulders.”^q

²⁶This is the plan that is planned concerning all of the earth;

and this is the hand that is stretched out over all of the nations.

²⁷For Yahweh of hosts has planned, and who will frustrate it?

And his hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?

Oracle of Judgment on Philistia

²⁸In the year of the death of king Ahaz there was this oracle:

²⁹You must not rejoice, all you Philistines,

that the rod that struck you is broken,

for a viper will come forth from the root of the snake,

and its fruit will be a flying serpent.

³⁰And the firstborn of the poor will graze,

and the needy will lie down in security;

but I will cause your root to die in famine,

and it will kill your remnant.

³¹Wail, gate! Cry, city!

Melt,^r Philistia, all of you!

For smoke is coming from the north,

and there is no straggler in his ranks.

³²And what will one answer the messengers of the nation?

That Yahweh has founded Zion,

and the needy of his people will take refuge in it.