Isaiah 33-34

Common English Bible

Judgment and hope for the righteous

33 Doom to the destroyer left undestroyed,
you traitor whom none have betrayed:
when you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed;
and when you have stopped betraying, they will betray you.

²Lord, show us favor;
    we hope in you.
Be our strength every morning,
    our salvation in times of distress.
³At the noise, peoples fled;
    on account of your roar, nations scattered.
⁴They gathered spoil like insects;
    they rushed upon it like a swarm of locusts.^[a]
⁵The Lord is exalted; he lives on high,
    filling Zion with justice and righteousness.
⁶He will provide security during a lifetime:^[b]
    a source of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge—
    fear of the Lord will be Zion’s treasure.^[c]

⁷But then those in Ariel^[d] cried out in the streets;
    messengers of peace wept bitterly.
⁸The highways were deserted;
    travelers left the road.
The covenant was broken;
    solemn pledges^[e] were rejected;
    no one cared for humanity.
⁹The land mourned; it wasted away;
    Lebanon was ashamed; it withered.
Sharon became like the desert,
    and Bashan and Carmel were dropping their leaves.

¹⁰Now I will arise, says the Lord.
    Now I will exalt myself; now I will stand tall.
¹¹You conceive straw, give birth to stubble;
    your breath is a fire that devours you.
¹²Peoples will be burned to lime,
    thorns cut up and set ablaze.
¹³You who are far away, hear what I have done;
    and you who are near, know my strength!

¹⁴Sinners became terrified in Zion;
    trembling seized the godless:
        “Who among us can live with the devouring fire?
        Who among us can live with the everlasting blaze?”
¹⁵The one who walks righteously and speaks truthfully,
    who rejects profit from extortion,
    who waves away a bribe instead of grabbing it,
    who won’t listen to bloody plots,
    and who won’t contemplate doing something evil.
¹⁶He will live on the heights;
    fortresses in the cliffs will be his refuge.
His food will be provided,
    his water guaranteed.
¹⁷When you gaze upon a king in his glamour
    and look at the surrounding land,
¹⁸    in dismay you will think:
    Where is the one who counts?
    Where is the one who weighs?
    Where is the one who counts towers?
¹⁹You will no longer see the defiant people,
    the people of speech too obscure to understand,
    who stammer in an incomprehensible language.
²⁰Gaze upon Zion, our festival town.
    Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
    a carefree dwelling,
    a tent that is not packed up,
    whose stakes are never pulled up,
    whose ropes won’t snap.
²¹The Lord’s majesty will be there for us:
    as a place of rivers, broad streams
    where no boat will go,
    no majestic ship will cross.
²²The Lord is our judge;
    the Lord is our leader;
    the Lord is our king—
    he will deliver us.
²³Your ropes are loosened;
    they can’t hold the mast firmly;
    they can’t spread the sail.
Then abundant spoil will be divided;
    even the lame will seize spoil.
²⁴And no inhabitant will say, “I’m sick.”
    The people living there will be forgiven their sin.

Vengeance against Edom

34 Draw near, you nations, to hear;
    and listen, you peoples.
Hear, earth and all who fill it,
    world and all its offspring.
²The Lord rages against all the nations,
    and is angry with all their armies.
God is about to wipe them out
    and has prepared them for slaughter.
³Their dead will be cast out,
    the stench of their corpses will rise,
    and the mountains will melt from their blood.
⁴All the stars of heaven will dissolve,
    the skies will roll up like a scroll,
    and all the stars will fall,
    like a leaf withering from a vine,
    like fruit from a fig tree.

⁵When my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens,
    it will descend upon Edom for judgment,
    upon a people I have doomed for destruction.
⁶The Lord has a sword covered with blood;
    it is soaked with fat
    from the blood of lambs and goats,
    from the kidney fat of rams,
    for the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
        a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
⁷Wild oxen will fall with them,
    steers with mighty bulls,
    and their land will be drenched with blood;
    its soil soaked with fat.
⁸The Lord has a day of vengeance,
    a year of payback for Zion’s cause.

⁹Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch,
    its dust into sulfur,
    and its land will become burning pitch.
¹⁰Night and day won’t be extinguished;
    its smoke will go up forever.
From generation to generation it will lie waste;
    no one will ever pass through it again.
¹¹Screech owls and crows will possess it;
    owls and ravens will live there.^[f]
God will stretch over it the measuring line of chaos
    and the plummet stone of emptiness over its officials.
¹²No Kingdom There, they will call it,
    and all its princes will disappear.
¹³Thorns will grow up in its palaces,
    weeds and brambles in its fortresses.
It will be a dwelling for jackals,
    a home for ostriches.
¹⁴Wildcats will meet hyenas,
    the goat demon will call to his friends,
    and there Lilith^[g] will lurk
    and find her resting place.
¹⁵There the snake will nest and lay eggs
    and brood and hatch in its shadow.
There too vultures will gather,
    each with its mate.^[h]
¹⁶Consult the Lord’s scroll and read:
    Not one of these will be missing;
    none will lack its mate.
    God’s own mouth has commanded;
    God’s own spirit has gathered them.
¹⁷God has cast the lot for them;
    God’s hand allotted it to them with the measuring line.
They will possess it forever;
    they will live in it from generation to generation.