Isaiah 34:5-17

Revised Standard Version

⁵ For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;
    behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom,
    upon the people I have doomed.
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.
For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
    a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
⁷ Wild oxen shall fall with them,
    and young steers with the mighty bulls.
Their land shall be soaked with blood,
    and their soil made rich with fat.

⁸ For the Lord has a day of vengeance,
    a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
⁹ And the streams of Edom^[a] shall be turned into pitch,
    and her soil into brimstone;
    her land shall become burning pitch.
¹⁰ Night and day it shall not be quenched;
    its smoke shall go up for ever.
From generation to generation it shall lie waste;
    none shall pass through it for ever and ever.
¹¹ But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it,
    the owl and the raven shall dwell in it.
He shall stretch the line of confusion over it,
    and the plummet of chaos over^[b] its nobles.
¹² They shall name it No Kingdom There,
    and all its princes shall be nothing.

¹³ Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,
    nettles and thistles in its fortresses.
It shall be the haunt of jackals,
    an abode for ostriches.
¹⁴ And wild beasts shall meet with hyenas,
    the satyr shall cry to his fellow;
yea, there shall the night hag alight,
    and find for herself a resting place.

¹⁵ There shall the owl nest and lay
    and hatch and gather her young in her shadow;
yea, there shall the kites be gathered,
    each one with her mate.
¹⁶ Seek and read from the book of the Lord:
    Not one of these shall be missing;
    none shall be without her mate.
For the mouth of the Lord has commanded,
    and his Spirit has gathered them.
¹⁷ He has cast the lot for them,
    his hand has portioned it out to them with the line;
they shall possess it for ever,
    from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.