Isaiah 14:4–21

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.