Isaiah 34:5-15

English Standard Version

⁵ For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;
    behold, it descends for judgment upon ^(A)Edom,
    upon the people ^(B)I have devoted to destruction.
⁶ The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood;
    it is gorged with fat,
    with the blood of lambs and goats,
    with the fat of the kidneys of rams.
^(C)For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
    a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
^7 (D)Wild oxen shall ^(E)fall with them,
    and ^(F)young steers with ^(G)the mighty bulls.
Their land shall drink its fill of blood,
    and their soil shall be gorged with fat.

^8 (H)For the Lord has a day of vengeance,
    a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
^9 (I)And the streams of Edom^[a] shall be turned into pitch,
    and her soil into sulfur;
    her land shall become burning pitch.
¹⁰ Night and day ^(J)it shall not be quenched;
    ^(K)its smoke shall go up forever.
^(L)From generation to generation it shall lie waste;
    none shall pass through it forever and ever.
^11 (M)But the hawk and the porcupine^[b] shall possess it,
    the owl and the raven shall dwell in it.
^(N)He shall stretch the line of ^(O)confusion^[c] over it,
    and the plumb line of emptiness.
¹² Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom,
    and all its princes shall be nothing.

^13 (P)Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,
    nettles and thistles in its fortresses.
It shall be the haunt of ^(Q)jackals,
    an abode for ostriches.^[d]
14 (R)And wild animals shall meet with hyenas;
    the wild goat shall cry to his fellow;
indeed, there the night bird^[e] settles
    and finds for herself a resting place.

¹⁵ There the owl nests and lays
    and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow;
indeed, there ^(S)the hawks are gathered,
    each one with her mate.