Isaiah 13–23

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.”

Israel Will Return Home

14The Lord will show mercy to the people of Jacob, and he will again choose the people of Israel. He will settle them in their own land. Then non-Israelite people will join the Israelites and will become a part of the family of Jacob. ²Nations will take the Israelites back to their land. Then those men and women from the other nations will become slaves to Israel in the Lord’s land. In the past the Israelites were their slaves, but now the Israelites will defeat those nations and rule over them.

The King of Babylon Will Fall

³The Lord will take away the Israelites’ hard work and will comfort them. They will no longer have to work hard as slaves. ⁴On that day Israel will sing this song about the king of Babylon:

The cruel king who ruled us is finished;

his angry rule is finished!

⁵The Lord has broken the scepter of evil rulers

and taken away their power.

⁶The king of Babylon struck people in anger

again and again.

He ruled nations in anger

and continued to hurt them.

⁷But now, the whole world rests and is quiet.

Now the people begin to sing.

⁸Even the pine trees are happy,

and the cedar trees of Lebanon rejoice.

They say, “The king has fallen,

so no one will ever cut us down again.”

⁹The place of the dead is excited

to meet you when you come.

It wakes the spirits of the dead,

the leaders of the world.

It makes kings of all nations

stand up from their thrones to greet you.

¹⁰All these leaders will make fun of you

and will say,

“Now you are weak, as we are.

Now you are just like us.”

¹¹Your pride has been sent down to the place of the dead.

The music from your harps goes with it.

Flies are spread out like your bed beneath you,

and worms cover your body like a blanket.

¹²King of Babylon, morning star, you have fallen from heaven,

even though you were as bright as the rising sun!

In the past all the nations on earth bowed down before you,

but now you have been cut down.

¹³You told yourself,

“I will go up to heaven.

I will put my throne

above God’s stars.

I will sit on the mountain of the gods,

on the slopes of the sacred mountain.

¹⁴I will go up above the tops of the clouds.

I will be like God Most High.”

¹⁵But you were brought down to the grave,

to the deep places where the dead are.

¹⁶Those who see you stare at you.

They think about what has happened to you

and say, “Is this the same man who caused great fear on earth,

who shook the kingdoms,

¹⁷who turned the world into a desert,

who destroyed its cities,

who captured people in war

and would not let them go home?”

¹⁸Every king of the earth has been buried with honor,

each in his own grave.

¹⁹But you are thrown out of your grave,

like an unwanted branch.

You are covered by bodies

that died in battle,

by bodies to be buried in a rocky pit.

You are like a dead body other soldiers walk on.

²⁰You will not be buried with those bodies,

because you ruined your own country

and killed your own people.

The children of evil people

will never be mentioned again.

²¹Prepare to kill his children,

because their father is guilty.

They will never again take control of the earth;

they will never again fill the world with their cities.

²²The Lord All-Powerful says this:

“I will fight against those people;

I will destroy Babylon and its people,

its children and their descendants,” says the Lord.

²³“I will make Babylon fit only for owls

and for swamps.

I will sweep Babylon as with a broom of destruction,”

says the Lord All-Powerful.

God Will Punish Assyria

²⁴The Lord All-Powerful has made this promise:

“These things will happen exactly as I planned them;

they will happen exactly as I set them up.

²⁵I will destroy the king of Assyria in my country;

I will trample him on my mountains.

He placed a heavy load on my people,

but that weight will be removed.

²⁶“This is what I plan to do for all the earth.

And this is the hand that I have raised over all nations.”

²⁷When the Lord All-Powerful makes a plan,

no one can stop it.

When the Lord raises his hand to punish people,

no one can stop it.

God’s Message to Philistia

²⁸This message was given in the year that King Ahaz died:

²⁹Country of Philistia, don’t be happy

that the king who struck you is now dead.

He is like a snake that will give birth to another dangerous snake.

The new king will be like a quick, dangerous snake to bite you.

³⁰Even the poorest of my people will be able to eat safely,

and people in need will be able to lie down in safety.

But I will kill your family with hunger,

and all your people who are left will die.

³¹People near the city gates, cry out!

Philistines, be frightened,

because a cloud of dust comes from the north.

It is an army, full of men ready to fight.

³²What shall we tell the messengers from Philistia?

Say that the Lord has made Jerusalem strong

and that his poor people will go there for safety.

God’s Message to Moab

15This is a message about Moab:

In one night armies took the wealth from Ar in Moab,

and it was destroyed.

In one night armies took the wealth from Kir in Moab,

and it was destroyed.

²The people of Dibon go to the places of worship to cry.

The people of Moab cry for the cities of Nebo and Medeba.

Every head and beard has been shaved to show how sad Moab is.

³In the streets they wear rough cloth to show their sadness.

On the roofs ⁿ and in the public squares,

they are crying loudly.

⁴People in the cities Heshbon and Elealeh cry out loud.

You can hear their voices far away in the city Jahaz.

Even the soldiers are frightened;

they are shaking with fear.

⁵My heart cries with sorrow for Moab.

Its people run away to Zoar for safety;

they run to Eglath Shelishiyah.

People are going up the mountain road to Luhith,

crying as they go.

People are going on the road to Horonaim,

crying over their destruction.

⁶But the water of Nimrim has dried up.

The grass has dried up,

and all the plants are dead;

nothing green is left.

⁷So the people gather up what they have saved

and carry it across the Ravine of the Poplars.

⁸Crying is heard everywhere in Moab.

Their crying is heard as far away as the city Eglaim;

it is heard as far away as Beer Elim.

⁹The water of the city Dibon is full of blood,

and I, the Lord, will bring even more troubles to Dibon.

A few people living in Moab have escaped the enemy,

but I will send lions to kill them.

16Send the king of the land

the payment he demands.

Send a lamb from Sela through the desert

to the mountain of Jerusalem.

²The women of Moab

try to cross the river Arnon

like little birds

that have fallen from their nest.

³They say: “Help us.

Tell us what to do.

Protect us from our enemies

as shade protects us from the noon sun.

Hide us, because we are running for safety!

Don’t give us to our enemies.

⁴Let those of us who were forced out of Moab live in your land.

Hide us from our enemies.”

The robbing of Moab will stop.

The enemy will be defeated;

those who hurt others will disappear from the land.

⁵Then a new loyal king will come;

this faithful king will be from the family of David.

He will judge fairly

and do what is right.

⁶We have heard that the people of Moab are proud

and very conceited.

They are very proud and angry,

but their bragging means nothing.

⁷So…