Beginning
God will destroy Babylon
13 This is God's message about Babylon that he showed to Isaiah, the son of Amoz:
2 Lift up a sign on an empty hill. Shout aloud for an army to attack! Wave your hand! Then they will go through the city gates into the rulers' palaces.
3 I, the Lord, have sent my special men. I am very angry. Those men are my brave soldiers who will punish Babylon on my behalf. They are proud because I have made them strong.
4 Listen to the loud noise of a big crowd on the mountains! It is the sound of large armies from many kingdoms as they march and shout. Nations are joining together to fight! The Lord Almighty is preparing an army ready for war.
5 People are coming from countries that are far away, from the ends of the earth. The Lord himself is coming with weapons for war, because he is angry. He will destroy the whole land.
6 Weep, because the day of the Lord is near. That is the time when God Almighty will destroy his enemies. 7 All the people will become weak with fear. They will no longer be brave. 8 They will be very afraid. Their bodies will hurt with great pain, like a woman who is giving birth. They will look at each other, as their faces show fear and pain.
9 Look! The day of the Lord will happen soon! It will be a cruel day. The Lord will punish his enemies with great anger. He will destroy the whole land, as well as all the sinners in it.
10 When he does that, the stars in the sky will give no light. When the sun rises in the morning, it will still be dark. The moon will no longer shine.
11 I, the Lord, will punish the world, because it is evil. I will punish wicked people for their sins. I will stop proud people from boasting. If strong people are cruel to others, I will bring them down low.
12 Very few people will remain after my punishment. Men and women will be more difficult to find than the best gold.
13 Then I will cause the sky to shake. The earth will move from its proper place. People will see how angry I am, when they see the great anger of the Lord Almighty. 14 Everyone will try to run away and escape. They will run anywhere, like a deer that runs away from a hunter. They will be like sheep with no shepherd to lead them. They will return to their own countries and homes.
15 The enemy soldiers will catch all those who do not escape. They will use their swords to kill everyone that they catch. 16 They will knock their children down in pieces while the parents watch. They will rob the people's homes. They will have sex with their wives.
17 Look! I will cause the Medes to come and attack Babylon. Their army has no interest in silver or gold, so nobody can pay them to stop.
18 Their arrows will kill Babylon's young men. They will not let babies or children go free.
19 Yes, God will destroy Babylon, as he did to Sodom and Gomorrah. Babylon has been a great and beautiful city. The people of the whole nation have been very proud of it. But God will still destroy it.
20 The people and their descendants will never live there again. No Arab will put his tent there. No shepherds will take their sheep there to rest. 21 Only wild animals will lie down there. Its old houses will be full of jackals. Ostriches will live there and wild goats will jump in it. 22 Wild dogs and hyenas will cry out in its towers and palaces. Enemies will soon destroy Babylon! Only a few days remain.
God's people will return
14 The Lord will once again be kind to Jacob's descendants. He will choose to help the Israelite people again, as his own people. He will put them back in their land. Foreign people will join them and they will become a part of Jacob's family. 2 People of other nations will help Israel's people to return to their own country. When they are living again in the land that the Lord gave to them, foreign people will become their servants, both men and women. In that way, the people who made the Israelites prisoners will be prisoners themselves! The Israelites will rule over the people who had been cruel to them.
The king of Babylon will die
3 At that time, the Lord will let you live safely, without trouble and without pain. You will no longer have to work for cruel people, as their slaves. 4 Then you will laugh at the king of Babylon. You will say to him,
‘Now you cannot be cruel to us any more! Your power to cause trouble has finished! 5 The Lord has destroyed the authority of wicked rulers like you.
6 You used your power to attack people all the time. In your anger, you ruled over other nations, and you never stopped being cruel to them.
7 But now there is peace in the whole world. People can live safely. Everyone is so happy that they are singing! 8 Even the pine trees and the cedar trees in Lebanon are happy because your power has finished. They say to you, “Now God has knocked you down. So nobody will come again to cut us down!”
9 The deep hole of death below the earth is ready to receive you! People there want to meet you. The spirits of those who ruled on the earth have heard that you are coming. They are standing up from their thrones. 10 All of them will say to you, “Now you have become as weak as we are! You are weak like us!”
11 Your great power has now come down low, into the deep hole of death. People no longer praise you with their harps. Now you will lie on a bed of maggots.[a] A blanket of worms will cover you.
12 Look at you! You have fallen from heaven!
You shine like the bright morning star!
You have won against many nations,
but now you have come down very low!
13 You said to yourself, “I will go up into heaven.
I will put my throne above the stars of God.
I will rule as king on the mountain in the far north,
where the gods of the nations meet together.
14 I will go up above the tops of the clouds.
I will become like the Most High God.”
15 But instead of that, you have come down into the deep hole of death.
You have fallen to the deepest place under the earth.
16 In that deep place, people will look at you carefully. They will be very surprised. They will think, “This is the man who caused the earth to shake. He caused kingdoms to shake with fear. Is that really true? 17 Is this really the man who made the world become like a desert? He destroyed its cities. He did not let his prisoners go back to their homes.”
18 All the kings of all the nations lie down there, with all their valuable things. Each king lies in his own grave. 19 But as for you, Babylon's king, they have thrown you out! You have no grave! You are like a branch that has broken off. You lie among the dead bodies of soldiers that their enemies have killed with their swords. They have thrown your body into a big hole in the rocks, and they have walked over it.
20 They will not bury you with those other kings, because you destroyed your land and you killed your people. Nobody will ever remember the family of a wicked person like you.
21 Prepare to kill this king's children, because of the sins of their ancestors. Then his children will not rule the world. They will not build cities everywhere.’
22 This is what the Lord Almighty says, ‘I will attack Babylon and I will destroy it. I will leave nothing that people can remember. No people or their descendants will remain.’
23 The Lord Almighty says, ‘I will make Babylon a place where wild animals live. There will be pools of bad water. I will sweep everything away, like someone who sweeps dirt away with a brush.’
A message about Assyria
24 The Lord Almighty promises this: ‘It will happen exactly as I have decided. Yes, it will really happen like that. 25 I will destroy the Assyrians who are in my land. I will knock them down on my mountains. They will no longer be cruel to my people. My people will not be their slaves any more. 26 That is what I have decided for the whole earth. I am ready to show my power against all the nations.’
27 Yes, the Lord Almighty has decided what he will do. Nobody can change it. He is ready to show his power. Nobody can stop it.
A message about Philistia
28 In the year that King Ahaz died, God showed this message to Isaiah:
29 Do not feel happy, you Philistine people. God has destroyed the king who was attacking you. That king hit you with a big stick, but a dangerous snake will follow! And that snake will give birth to an even more dangerous snake that moves very fast.
30 The Lord will give food to the poorest of his people. The weak and helpless people will live safely. But you Philistine people will die from famine. I will destroy you all, so that nobody remains.
31 Gate of the city, weep![b] City, cry out in pain! You Philistine people should be very afraid! See that cloud of smoke in the north! It is the dust of an army that is marching towards you. Their soldiers are ready to fight, and none of them is afraid.
32 When a foreign nation sends a message, what should we say? Say that the Lord has made Zion very strong. When his people have trouble, they will be safe there.
A message about Moab
15 This is a message about Moab:
In one night an enemy has destroyed Ar.
In one night they have destroyed Kir.
Those towns in Moab are now a heap of stones!
2 The people in Dibon have gone up to their temple to weep. They have gone up to the altars where they worship their gods. Moab's people are weeping because of what has happened at Nebo and Medeba. They are so upset that they have cut off their hair and their beards. 3 They are wearing rough sackcloth in the streets. On the roofs of their houses and in the open places in their towns, they are weeping. They fall to the ground as they weep.
4 The people in Heshbon and Elealeh cry aloud. People as far as Jahaz hear the sound of their voices! The soldiers of Moab cry aloud because they are afraid. They are shaking with fear.
5 I am very upset because of what is happening to Moab's people. They are running away, as far as Zoar and Eglath-Shelishiyah.
They weep while they climb up the hill to Luhith.
On the road to Horonaim they shout aloud,
‘An enemy has destroyed us!’
6 Streams in Nimrim valley have become dry.
The grass has died. No green plants remain.
7 So Moab's people are leaving.
They are going across Willow stream.
They are carrying away their things
and the food that they had stored.
8 Everywhere in Moab's country the people are calling out for help.
The noise of their sad songs has reached Eglaim and Beer-Elim.
9 Blood fills the streams of Dimon.
But I, the Lord, will cause even more trouble to happen there.
A lion is ready to attack!
Those who are trying to escape will die,
as well as those who remain in the land.
Moab's troubles
16 We must send sheep as gifts to the ruler of our land. Send them from Sela across the desert. Send them to Mount Zion in Jerusalem.[c]
2 Moab's women are standing at the shore of Arnon river. They want to go across. They are like birds that people have chased out of their nests.
3 The Moabites say, ‘Tell us what we should do! Help us in our troubles! Give us some shade in the middle of the day! Hide the people who are escaping! Our enemies are chasing us. Do not let them find us. 4 Let us escape from Moab and come to live among you. Our enemy wants to destroy us. Please keep us safe!’
Yes, one day, the cruel enemy will have gone. He will no longer attack the land and destroy it. 5 One of David's descendants will rule as king. He will be true and honest. He will judge people in a fair way. He will quickly bring justice among his people.
6 The people of Judah say, ‘We know how proud Moab's people are. We have heard how they boast about themselves. They think that they can do anything that they want. But all their pride is empty and useless!’
7 Because of their troubles, Moab's people weep. They are all very upset. They are sad because there are no more sweet raisins from Kir-Hareseth!
8 Yes, nothing grows in Heshbon's fields. There are no grapes on Sibmah's vines. The rulers of other nations have destroyed the vineyards. The branches of those vines reached as far as Jazer, and the desert. They even grew to go across the sea.[d] 9 Because of that, I weep for the vines of Sibmah, as Jazer weeps. I pour out my tears all over you, Heshbon and Elealeh. Your people no longer sing because they are happy at harvest time. There is no more fruit on your trees or crops in your fields. 10 Nobody is happy in the fields. Nobody sings or shouts with joy in the vineyards. Nobody squeezes the grapes to make wine. I have caused all the happy noise to stop.
11 So I cry deep inside me for Moab. I cry like the sad music of a harp. I am very upset for Kir-Hareseth.
12 Moab's people go to their altars and temples to pray for help from their gods. But they will only become tired. Their prayers will be useless.
13 That is the message that the Lord has already spoken about Moab. 14 But now the Lord says, ‘In three years' time, all Moab's glory will have gone. Count every day of those years, as if you are working to receive money. After that, there will only be a few of Moab's people who are still alive. Now they are many and they are strong. But by then they will be few and weak.’
A message about Damascus
17 This is a message about Damascus:
‘Look! Damascus is no longer a city! It has become a heap of stones.
2 Nobody lives in the cities of Aroer. Sheep and goats can safely go there to eat. They can lie down there and nobody will chase them away. 3 There will be no strong cities in Ephraim.[e] No king will rule in Damascus. The few people who remain in Syria are no longer great, like Israel's people!’
That is what the Lord Almighty says.
4 ‘At that time, Israel will no longer be great. It will be like a rich, fat person who becomes weak and hungry.
5 Israel will be like a field of grain in Rephaim valley after the harvest. The workers have cut down the crops. They have picked up the grain from the ground. 6 There will be only a few people that remain in Israel. They will be like a few olives that remain on a tree after the harvest. Perhaps two or three olives are still there on the highest branches. Four or five olives may remain on the other branches.’
That is what the Lord God of Israel says.
7 At that time, people will turn back to their Maker. They will trust the Holy God of Israel to help them.
8 They will no longer trust their idols to help them. They made altars for themselves, where they worshipped their gods. They worshipped Asherah at special poles. They made altars where they burned incense. But they will not do those things any more.
9 At that time, Israel's strong cities will be empty. People will run away from those cities, as the Amorites ran away from the hills when the Israelites attacked them. Israel's strong cities will become heaps of stones. 10 That will happen because you have forgotten the God who rescues you. He is the Rock where you can safely hide, but you have turned away from him.[f]
Instead, you plant the best plants and vines in your gardens. You buy them from foreign countries for a lot of money. 11 You take care of them so that they grow quickly. They may even make flowers on the same morning that you plant them! But you will never have any fruit from them. You will only get trouble and pain that will never go away.
12 It will be very bad for the armies of other nations! They are making a noise like the sea in a storm! They are as loud as powerful waves! 13 But it does not matter how much noise they make. Those people may roar like powerful waves, but the Lord will shout at them to stop. Then they will run far away! They will run like the wind as it blows chaff across the hills. It will be like a strong storm that carries away dead weeds!
14 Look at what happens! In the evening the enemy attacks, and we are very afraid. But by the morning they have disappeared! That is what happens to people who attack us. Anyone who tries to take away our valuable things for themselves will fail.
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