1The burden of Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw.2On a bare mountain lift up a banner; lift up a voice to them; wave a hand, and they will enter the gates of nobles.3I have commanded my consecrated ones; I have also called my mighty men to my anger, my exultant ones who exult in my exaltation.4A sound of tumult on the mountains, like a great people; a sound of an uproar of kingdoms of nations gathered together. The LORD of hosts is mustering an army for battle.5Coming from a faraway land, from the end of the heavens—the LORD and the vessels of his wrath—to destroy the whole earth.6Howl, for the day of the LORD is near; the Chaldeans will come from Shaddai.7Therefore every hand will hang limp, and every human heart will melt.8And they will be terrified. Birth pangs and labor pains will seize them; they will writhe like a woman in labor. Man to his companion will be appalled; faces of flames—their faces.9Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel both with outburst and with fierceness of anger, to put the land to desolation, and its sins he will exterminate from it.10For the stars of the heavens and their Pleiades will not shine their light. The sun has darkened in its rising, and the moon will not shine its light.11And I will visit evil upon the earth and upon the wicked their iniquity, and I will bring to an end the pride of the insolent, and the arrogance of tyrants I will bring low.12I will make a mortal more precious than fine gold, and humanity than Ophir gold.13Therefore I will make the heavens tremble and the earth shake from its place, in the outburst of the LORD of hosts and in the day of the burning of his anger.14And it will be like glory driven away and like sheep with none gathering. A man to his people they will turn, and a man to his earth they will flee.15Everyone found will be stabbed, and everyone fleeing will fall by the sword.16And their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes. They will plunder their houses, and their wives will lie down.17Behold, I am stirring up the Medes against them, who will not value silver and will not desire gold.18And the bows of boys will shatter, and they will not have compassion on the fruit of the womb, sons; their eye will not spare.19And Babylon will be the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, like God's overthrowing of Sodom and Gomorrah.20It will not be inhabited forever, and it will not be tabernacled in from generation to generation. And an Arab will not tent there, and shepherds will not lie down there.21Wild beasts of the desert will crouch there, and wild dogs will fill their houses, and daughters of the ostrich will dwell there, and goats will dance there.22The ostrich will nest in its widowhoods, and jackals in its temples of delight, and it is near to come—its time, and its days will not be prolonged.
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Chapter 14
1For the LORD will have compassion on Jacob and choose Israel again and settle them on their land. The resident alien will join them, and they will attach to the house of Jacob.2And peoples will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will take possession of them on the land of the LORD as servants and as maidservants, and they will become captors of their captors and rule over their taskmasters.3And it will be on the day the LORD gives you rest from your sorrow and from your turmoil and from the hard servitude which they served you.4You will lift up this mashal against the king of Babel, and you will say: "How the oppressor has ceased! The captive woman in marriage has ceased from glorying!"5The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked, the rod of rulers.6striking peoples in wrath with unrelenting blows, ruling nations in anger, pursuing without mercy.7It has rested—a quiet. The whole earth has burst into rēnâ.8Even the cypresses rejoiced over you, the cedars of Lebanon: "Since you lay down, no feller will come up over us."9Sheol from below is in turmoil over your coming; it has roused the Rephaim for you, all the deceased ones of the earth. It has raised from their thrones all the kings of the nations.10All of them will answer and say to you, "Even you have become weak like us; you have been made like us."11Sheol has brought down your pride. Death has killed your carcass. Beneath you maggots are spread out, and worms cover you.12How you have fallen from the heavens, Shining One, son of Dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, one weakening the nations.13And you said in your heart, "I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mountain of the tent of meeting in the recesses of the north."14I will ascend to the high places of the clouds, to the Most High.15But you will be brought down to Sheol, to the recesses of the Pit.16They see you, they gaze at you, they ponder: "Is this the man who shakes the earth, who shakes kingdoms?"17There Tubal is like a wilderness, and her cities are destroyed; her prisoners are not opened, his house.18All kings of nations, all of them lie in divine glory, each man in his House of God.19And you—you have been thrown from your burial site like an offshoot, an abhorred one, to the clothing of those slain, from the loaded ones of the sword, those going down to the stones of the pit, like a carcass trampled down.20Do not join them in burial, for you have devastated your land; you have slain your people. The seed of evil ones shall not be called forever.21Prepare a slaughter for his sons on account of their fathers' iniquity, lest they rise and possess the land and fill the face of the land with cities.22And I will rise up against them, says the LORD of hosts, and I will cut off from Babel the name and the remnant and the offspring and the descendants, says the LORD.23And I will make it a possession of porcupines and pools of waters, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction, says the LORD of hosts.