Isaiah 14:3-24

The Voice

People: How silent and still the oppressor;
        the pressure is gone; the raging is done!
⁵     The Eternal has broken the hold of the wicked,
        snapped the staff and the scepter of tyrannical rulers.
⁶     They would stop at nothing to beat, batter, and bruise the nations,
        constantly raging as they hunted down and tyrannized the peoples.
⁷     The whole earth, mountains to sea, breathes a sigh of relief;
        the peace and quiet erupts into a lively, joyful song.
⁸     The cypresses and cedars of Lebanon rejoice at his demise, singing:
        “You can’t hurt us anymore. Now that you’ve been cut down,
    No one comes to cut us down!”

⁹     O Babylon, the land of the dead is excited to greet you at its door.
        Your king will enter the grave with ghastly pomp.
    It stirs the shadows and spirits of the dead—all long forgotten leaders—
        it arouses all the dethroned kings of the nations to welcome your arrival.
¹⁰     These departed souls will respond to you with rattling voices,

Departed Souls: Even you, who were so powerful and unstoppable in life,
        have been weakened just like us!
¹¹     All of your pomp and power and the music of your harps join you here
        where the dead abide,
    Where maggots squirm beneath you,
        where worms cover you like a blanket.

¹² My, how you’ve fallen from the heights of heaven!
    O morning star, son of the dawn!
What a star you were, as you menaced and weakened the nations,
    but now you’ve been cut down, fallen to earth.
¹³ Remember how you said to yourself,
    “I will ascend to heaven—reach higher and with more power—
    and set my throne high above God’s own stars?”
Remember how you thought you could be a god, saying:
    “I will sit among them at the mount of assembly in the northern heights.
¹⁴ I will rise above the highest clouds and
    make myself like the Most High”?
¹⁵ Hah! Instead, you have sunk like a stone to where the dead abide.
    You’ve hit bottom of the bottommost pit.
¹⁶ People peer down at you from above,
    and their curiosity overflows.

People: Wow, is this the man who once terrorized the world?
        Is he the one who rocked the earth’s kingdoms and threatened us with disaster?
¹⁷     Is he the one who turned the bustling cities of the world into a wasteland,
        and never let the prisoners of war go home?

¹⁸ While all the other world leaders are memorialized with honor,
    and each occupies his own elaborate tomb,
¹⁹ You will be reviled and disgraced—your tomb desecrated,
    your corpse thrown aside like a worthless branch.
Those slain in battle, pierced by swords, will cover you;
    you’ll go down to the pit like a corpse left on the battlefield.
²⁰ Because you wrecked your own land and killed your own people,
    your corpse will not share in the honor of a proper burial.
May the offspring of such evil never be mentioned again;
    don’t speak their names or hear their tales.
²¹ Let them be obliterated because of their fathers’ wicked deeds
    so that they never have a chance to follow in their steps,
Terrorizing and possessing the earth,
    filling up the world with their cities!
Then people can live in normalcy and peace.

Eternal One: Things will happen as I plan.
        Things will be as I determine.