Isaiah 34–36

Judgment on the Nations

34Come near, nations, to hear;

and peoples, listen attentively!

Let the earth hear, and that which fills it;

the world and all its offspring.

²For the anger of Yahweh is against all the nations,

and his wrath is against all their host;

he has put them under a ban,

he has given them up for slaughter.

³And their slain shall be cast out;

as for^a their corpses, their stench shall go up.

And the mountains shall melt with^b their blood,

⁴and all the host of heaven shall rot.

And the skies shall roll up like a scroll,

and all their host shall wither

like the withering of a leaf from a vine,

or^c like the withering from a fig tree.

⁵When my sword is drenched in the heavens,

look! It will descend upon Edom,

and upon the people of my ban, for judgment.

⁶Yahweh has a sword;^d

it is full of blood.

It is covered with^e fat,

with^f the blood of lambs and goats,

with^g the fat of the kidneys of rams,

for Yahweh has a sacrifice^h in Bozrah

and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

⁷And wild oxen shall go down with them,

and steers with strong bulls.

And their land shall be drenched withⁱ blood,

and their soil shall be fattened with^j fat.

⁸For Yahweh has a day of vengeance,^k

a year of retribution for the strife of Zion.

⁹And its streams shall be changed to pitch and its soil to sulfur,

and its land shall become like burning pitch.

¹⁰Night and day it shall not be quenched;

its smoke shall go up forever.

From generation to generation it shall be in ruins;

forever and ever there will be no one who passes through her.

¹¹But^l the large bird and the hedgehog shall take possession of it,

and the owl and the raven shall live in it.

And he shall stretch the measuring line of confusion out over it,

and the plumb line of emptiness.

¹²Its nobles—but no kingdom is there—shall call,

and all its princes shall be nothing.

¹³And thorns shall go up her citadel fortress,

weeds^m and thistle plantsⁿ in her fortresses;

and it shall be the settlement of jackals,

green grass for the daughters of an ostrich.

¹⁴And desert creatures shall meet with hyenas,

and a goat-demon shall call to his neighbor;

surely there Lilith^o shall repose,

and she shall find a resting place for herself.

¹⁵There the owl shall nest and lay

and hatch and care for her chicks in her shadow;

surely there the birds of prey shall be gathered,

each one with her mate.

¹⁶Seek from the book of Yahweh and read;^p

none of these shall be missing;

none shall miss her mate.

For my^q mouth is the one that^r has commanded,

and his spirit is the one that^s has gathered them.

¹⁷And he is the one that^t has cast the lot for them,

and his hand has apportioned it to them with the measuring line;

they shall take possession of it forever,

they shall live in it from generation to generation.^u

The Ransomed Return to Zion

35Wilderness and dry land shall be glad,^a

and desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus.

²It shall blossom abundantly,

and it shall rejoice indeed with rejoicing and exulting.

The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,

the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.

They are the ones who^b shall see the glory of Yahweh,

the majesty of our God.

³Strengthen the weak hands

and make the staggering knees firm.

⁴Say to those who are hasty of heart,

“Be strong; you must not fear!

Look! your God will come with vengeance,

with divine retribution.^c

He is the one who^d will come and save you.”

⁵Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf shall be opened.

⁶Then the lame shall leap like the deer,

and the tongue of the dumb shall sing for joy,

for waters shall break forth in the wilderness

and streams in the desert.

⁷And the parched ground shall become a pool,

and the thirsty ground springs of water.

Her resting place is in a settlement of jackals;

the grass shall become like reeds^e and rushes.^f

⁸And a highway shall be there, and a way,

and it shall be called the way of holiness.

The unclean shall not travel through it,

but^g it is for them, he who walks on the way;

and fools shall not wander about.

⁹No lion shall be there,

and no ferocious wild beast shall go up it.

It shall not be found there,

but^h the redeemed shall walk there.

¹⁰And the ransomed of Yahweh shall return,

and they shall come to Zion with rejoicing.

And everlasting joy shall be on their head;

joy and gladness shall overtake them,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee.

Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem

36And this happened: In the fourteenth year^a of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria went up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and he captured them. ²And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh^b from Lachish to Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah, with a large army, and he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway of the field of the washer. ³And Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace,^c came out to him, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the reminder.

⁴And Rabshakeh said to them, “Now say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: “What is this confidence in which you trust? ⁵I said, ‘Only a word of lips! War has power and a plan!’^d Now, in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me? ⁶Look, you trust in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt, which if a man leans on it, goes into his hand and bores through it! Such is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all those who trust in him. ⁷And if you say to me, ‘We trust in Yahweh our God,’ was it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed? And he said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall bow down in the presence^e of this altar.’ ” ⁸And now please make a wager with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, that is, if you are able to put^f riders for yourself on them! ⁹But how can you drive back one governor among the least of my master’s servants,^g when^h you trust in Egypt for chariotsⁱ and horsemen? ¹⁰And now was it without Yahweh that I have come up against this land to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it!” ’ ”

¹¹And Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we can understand^j it, and you must not speak to us in Judean in the hearing^k of the people who are on the wall.”

¹²But^l Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your masters and you? Was it not for the people who sit on the wall, to eat their dung and drink their urine^m with you?”

¹³Thenⁿ Rabshakeh stood and called in a great voice in Judean and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. ¹⁴Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you! ¹⁵And do not let Hezekiah make you rely on Yahweh, saying, “Surely Yahweh will deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria!” ¹⁶You must not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: “Make a blessing^o with me, and come out to me, and each one will eat from his vine and from his fig tree and drink water from^p his cistern, ¹⁷until I come^q and take you to a land like your land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, ¹⁸lest Hezekiah mislead you, saying, ‘Yahweh will save us!’ Did the gods of the nations each save his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria from my hand? ²⁰Who are there among all the gods of these countries who have saved their land from my hand, that Yahweh should save Jerusalem from my hand?” ’ ”

²¹But^r they were silent and did not answer him a word, for the command of the king was, “You must not answer him.” ²²Then^s Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the palace,^t Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the reminder, came to Hezekiah with torn garments and told him the words of Rabshakeh.