Isaiah 11–13

The King of Peace Is Coming

11A new branch will grow

from a stump of a tree;

so a new king will come

from the family of Jesse. ⁿ

²The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon that king.

The Spirit will give him wisdom and understanding, guidance and power.

The Spirit will teach him to know and respect the Lord.

³This king will be glad to obey the Lord.

He will not judge by the way things look

or decide by what he hears.

⁴But he will judge the poor honestly;

he will be fair in his decisions for the poor people of the land.

At his command evil people will be punished,

and by his words the wicked will be put to death.

⁵Goodness and fairness will give him strength,

like a belt around his waist.

⁶Then wolves will live in peace with lambs,

and leopards will lie down to rest with goats.

Calves, lions, and young bulls will eat together,

and a little child will lead them.

⁷Cows and bears will eat together in peace.

Their young will lie down to rest together.

Lions will eat hay as oxen do.

⁸A baby will be able to play near a cobra’s hole,

and a child will be able to put his hand into the nest of a poisonous snake.

⁹They will not hurt or destroy each other

on all my holy mountain,

because the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord,

as the sea is full of water.

¹⁰At that time the new king from the family of Jesse will stand as a banner for all peoples. The nations will come together around him, and the place where he lives will be filled with glory. ¹¹At that time the Lord will again reach out and take his people who are left alive in Assyria, North Egypt, South Egypt, Cush, Elam, Babylonia, Hamath, and all the islands of the sea.

¹²God will raise a banner as a sign for all nations,

and he will gather the people of Israel who were forced from their country.

He will gather the scattered people of Judah

from all parts of the earth.

¹³At that time Israel will not be jealous anymore,

and Judah will have no more enemies.

Israel will not be jealous of Judah,

and Judah will not hate Israel.

¹⁴But Israel and Judah will attack the Philistines on the west.

Together they will take the riches from the people of the east.

They will conquer Edom and Moab,

and the people of Ammon will be under their control.

¹⁵The Lord will dry up

the Red Sea of Egypt.

He will wave his arm over the Euphrates River

and dry it up with a scorching wind.

He will divide it into seven small rivers

so that people can walk across them with their sandals on.

¹⁶So God’s people who are left alive

will have a way to leave Assyria,

just like the time the Israelites

came out of Egypt.

A Song of Praise to God

12At that time you will say:

“I praise you, Lord!

You were angry with me,

but you are not angry with me now!

You have comforted me.

²God is the one who saves me;

I will trust him and not be afraid.

The Lord, the Lord gives me strength and makes me sing.

He has saved me.”

³You will receive your salvation with joy

as you would draw water from a well.

⁴At that time you will say,

“Praise the Lord and worship him.

Tell everyone what he has done

and how great he is.

⁵Sing praise to the Lord, because he has done great things.

Let all the world know what he has done.

⁶Shout and sing for joy, you people of Jerusalem,

because the Holy One of Israel does great things before your eyes.”

God’s Message to Babylon

13God showed Isaiah son of Amoz this message about Babylon:

²Raise a flag on the bare mountain.

Call out to the men.

Raise your hand to signal them

to enter through the gates for important people.

³I myself have commanded those people

whom I have separated as mine.

I have called those warriors to carry out my anger.

They rejoice and are glad to do my will.

⁴Listen to the loud noise in the mountains,

the sound of many people.

Listen to the noise among the kingdoms,

the sound of nations gathering together.

The Lord All-Powerful is calling

his army together for battle.

⁵This army is coming from a faraway land,

from the edge of the horizon.

In anger the Lord is using this army like a weapon

to destroy the whole country.

⁶Cry, because the Lord’s day of judging is near;

the Almighty is sending destruction.

⁷People will be weak with fear,

and their courage will melt away.

⁸Everyone will be afraid.

Pain and hurt will grab them;

they will hurt like a woman giving birth to a baby.

They will look at each other in fear,

with their faces red like fire.

God’s Judgment Against Babylon

⁹Look, the Lord’s day of judging is coming—

a terrible day, a day of God’s anger.

He will destroy the land

and the sinners who live in it.

¹⁰The stars will not show their light;

the skies will be dark.

The sun will grow dark as it rises,

and the moon will not give its light.

¹¹The Lord says, “I will punish the world for its evil

and wicked people for their sins.

I will cause proud people to lose their pride,

and I will destroy the pride of those who are cruel to others.

¹²People will be harder to find than pure gold;

there will be fewer people than there is fine gold in Ophir.

¹³I will make the sky shake,

and the earth will be moved from its place

by the anger of the Lord All-Powerful

at the time of his burning anger.

¹⁴“Then the people from Babylon will run away like hunted deer

or like sheep who have no shepherd.

Everyone will turn back to his own people;

each will run back to his own land.

¹⁵Everyone who is captured will be killed;

everyone who is caught will be killed with a sword.

¹⁶Their little children will be beaten to death in front of them.

Their houses will be robbed

and their wives raped.

¹⁷“Look, I will cause the armies of Media to attack Babylon.

They do not care about silver

or delight in gold.

¹⁸Their soldiers will shoot the young men with arrows;

they will show no mercy on children,

nor will they feel sorry for little ones.

¹⁹Babylon is the most beautiful of all kingdoms,

and the Babylonians are very proud of it.

But God will destroy it

like Sodom and Gomorrah.

²⁰No one will ever live there

or settle there again.

No Arab will put a tent there;

no shepherd will bring sheep there.

²¹Only desert animals will live there,

and their houses will be full of wild dogs.

Owls will live there,

and wild goats will leap about in the houses.

²²Wolves will howl within the strong walls,

and wild dogs will bark in the beautiful buildings.

The end of Babylon is near;

its time is almost over.”