Beginning
An Oracle against Babylon
13 The oracle of Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw:
2 Raise a signal on a bare hill,
lift up your voice to them;
wave the hand and may they enter the gateways of the noblemen.
3 I myself I have commanded my consecrated ones,
I have also summoned my mighty warriors concerning my anger,
the ones who exalt over[a] my majesty.
4 A sound, a noise is on the mountains,
the likeness of many people!
A sound of the roar of the kingdoms,
of nations gathering!
Yahweh of hosts is mustering an army for battle.
5 They are coming from a distant land,
from the end of the heavens,
Yahweh and the weapons of his indignation,
to destroy the whole earth.[b]
6 Wail, for the day of Yahweh is near;
it will come like destruction from Shaddai![c]
7 Therefore all hands will grow slack,
and every human heart will melt,
8 and they will be dismayed.
Pangs and labor pains will seize them;
they will tremble like a woman giving birth.
They will stare at one another,[d]
their faces flushing.[e]
9 Look! The day of Yahweh is coming,
cruel and wrath and the burning of anger,
to make the earth a desolation,
and he will destroy its sinners from it.
10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not flash forth their light;
the sun will keep back when it comes out,
and the moon will not cause its light to shine.
11 And I will punish the world for its evil
and the wicked for their iniquity.
And I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant,
and I will bring the haughtiness of tyrants low.
12 I will make humanity more rare than gold
and humankind more than the gold of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,
and the earth will quake from its place
because of the wrath of Yahweh of hosts,
and in the day his anger burns.
14 And this shall happen:
like a hunted gazelle or sheep with none to gather them,[f]
they will each turn to his own people,
and they will each flee to his own land.
15 Everyone who is found will be pierced through,
and everyone who is carried away will fall by the sword.
16 And their children will be dashed into pieces before their eyes;
their houses will be plundered, and their wives will be raped.[g]
17 Look! I am stirring the Medes up against them,
who do not value silver
and do not delight in gold.
18 And their bows will shatter young men.
And they will not show mercy on the fruit of the womb;
their eyes will not look compassionately on children.
19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendor of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be like when God overthrew[h] Sodom and Gomorrah.
20 It will not be inhabited forever,
and it will not be dwelled in forever;[i]
and no Arab will pitch a tent there,
and shepherds will not allow their flocks to lie down there.
21 But wild animals will lie down there,
and their houses will be full of howling creatures,
and the daughters of ostriches[j] will live there,
and goats will dance there.
22 And hyenas will answer in its palaces,
and jackals in the pleasure palaces;
and its time is coming soon,[k]
and its days will not be prolonged.
The Restoration of Israel
14 But Yahweh will have compassion on Jacob,
and he will again choose Israel
and set them on their land,
and the immigrant will join himself to them,
and they will attach themselves to the house of Jacob.
2 And the nations will take them
and bring them to their place,
and the house of Israel will take possession of them[l] in the land of Yahweh
as slaves and female slaves.
And this will happen:
they will take their captors captive
and rule over their oppressors.
The Downfall of the King of Babylon
3 And it shall happen on the day Yahweh gives you rest from your pain and turmoil and hard labor which you had to perform,[m]
4 that you will take this taunt against the king of Babylon,
and you will say:
“How the oppressor has ceased!
his insolence[n] has ceased.
5 Yahweh has broken the staff of the wicked,
the scepter of rulers,
6 that struck the peoples in wrath, a blow without ceasing,
that ruled the nations in anger
with unrestrained persecution.[o]
7 All of the earth rests and is quiet;
they break forth into singing.
8 Even the cypresses rejoice over you,
the cedars of Lebanon:
‘Since you were laid down,
no wood cutter comes up against us.’
9 Sheol below is getting excited over you,
to meet you when you come;[p]
it arouses the dead spirits for you,
all of the leaders of the earth.
It raises all of the kings of the nations from their thrones.
10 All of them will respond and say to you,
‘You yourself also were made weak like us!
You have become the same as us!’
11 Your pride is brought down to Sheol,
and the sound of your harps;
maggots[q] are spread out beneath you like a bed,
and your covering is worms.[r]
12 How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of dawn!
You are cut down to the ground, conqueror of nations!
13 And you yourself said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise up my throne above the stars of God;
and I will sit on the mountain of assembly
on the summit of Zaphon;[s]
14 I will ascend to the high places of the clouds,[t]
I will make myself like the Most High.’
15 But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the depths of the pit.
16 Those who see you will stare at you,
they will look closely at you:
‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
who caused kingdoms to shake,
17 who made the world like the desert
and destroyed its cities,
who would not let his prisoners go home?’
18 All the kings of the nations, all of them, lie in glory,
each one in his house.
19 But as for you, you are thrown away from your grave,
like an abhorrent shoot,
clothed with the slain,
those pierced by the sword,
those who go down to the stones of the pit,
like a corpse that is trodden down.
20 You will not be united with them in burial
because you have destroyed your land,
you have killed your people.
The descendants[u] of evildoers will not be mentioned for eternity!
21 Prepare a place of slaughter for his sons
because of the sin of their ancestors.[v]
Let them not rise and take possession of the earth
or fill up the face of the world with cities.”
22 “And I will rise up against them,”
declares[w] Yahweh of hosts,
“and I will cut off name and a remnant from Babylon,
and offspring and posterity,”
declares[x] Yahweh.
23 “And I will make her a possession of the hedgehog,
and pools of water,
and I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction,”
declares[y] Yahweh of hosts.
Oracle of Judgment on Assyria
24 Yahweh of hosts has sworn, saying,
“Surely[z] just as I have intended, so it shall be.
And just as I have planned, it shall stand:
25 to break Assyria in my land,
and I will trample him down on my mountains;
and he shall remove his yoke from them,
and he shall remove his burden from his[aa] shoulders.”[ab]
26 This is the plan that is planned concerning all of the earth;
and this is the hand that is stretched out over all of the nations.
27 For Yahweh of hosts has planned, and who will frustrate it?
And his hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?
Oracle of Judgment on Philistia
28 In the year of the death of king Ahaz there was this oracle:
29 You must not rejoice, all you Philistines,
that the rod that struck you is broken,
for a viper will come forth from the root of the snake,
and its fruit will be a flying serpent.
30 And the firstborn of the poor will graze,
and the needy will lie down in security;
but I will cause your root to die in famine,
and it will kill your remnant.
31 Wail, gate! Cry, city!
Melt,[ac] Philistia, all of you!
For smoke is coming from the north,
and there is no straggler in his ranks.
32 And what will one answer the messengers of the nation?
That Yahweh has founded Zion,
and the needy of his people will take refuge in it.
Oracle of Judgment on Moab
15 An oracle of Moab:
Because Ar is devastated in a night, Moab is destroyed;
because Kir of Moab is devastated in a night, it is destroyed.
2 It has gone up to the house,[ad]
and Dibon to the high places
for weeping over Nebo,
and Moab wails over Medeba.
Every head is bald,[ae]
every beard is shaved.
3 They gird themselves with sackcloth in its streets;
on its roofs and public squares everyone wails,
going down in weeping.
4 And Heshbon and Elealeh cry[af] out,
their voice is heard as far as Jahaz;
therefore the armed ones of Moab cry out;
its soul quivers[ag] for him.
5 My heart cries out for Moab;
its fugitives flee up to Zoar,
to Eglath-shelishiyah.
For at the ascent of Luhith it goes up it with weeping;
for on the road of Horonaim they raise up a cry of destruction.
6 For the waters of Nimrim are wastelands;
for the grass has withered,
the vegetation has vanished,
there is no greenness.
7 Therefore they carry the abundance it has made
and their store of goods over the river of the poplars.
8 For a cry for help has encircled the territory of Moab,
her wailing is heard as far as Eglaim,
and her wailing as far as Beer Elim.
9 For the waters of Dimon[ah] are full of blood;
but I will place added things upon Dimon:
a lion for the survivors[ai] of Moab
and for the remnant of the land.
16 Send a ram[aj] to the ruler of the land,
from Sela across the desert to the mountain of daughter Zion.[ak]
2 And this shall be:
like a bird fleeing from a thrust away nest
shall be the daughters of Moab at the fords of Arnon.
3 “Bring counsel,
make a decision;
make your shade like the night
in the middle of noonday.
Hide the outcasts;
you must not betray the fugitive.
4 Let my outcasts of Moab dwell as aliens among you;
be a hiding place for them from the presence of the destroyer.”
When the oppressor is no more, destruction has stopped,
the one who tramples has[al] disappeared from the land,
5 then a throne shall be established in steadfast love,
and one shall sit on it in faithfulness, in the tent of David,
judging and seeking justice
and zealous for righteousness.
6 We have heard of the pride of Moab—exceedingly proud—
of his arrogance, pride, and insolence; his boasting is not true.[am]
7 Therefore Moab wails;
all of it wails for Moab,
for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth you moan, utterly devastated.[an]
8 For Heshbon withers the fields, the vine of Sibmah;
rulers of nations have broken down her tendrils,
they reached up to Jazer,
they wandered to the desert;
her shoots spread abroad,
they crossed over the sea.
9 Therefore I weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah.
I drench you with my tears,[ao] Heshbon and Elealeh,
for a jubilant shout has fallen over your summer fruit and harvest.
10 And joy and gladness are[ap] taken away from the fruitful land,
and in the vineyards no one exults,
no one shouts for joy;
no treader treads wine in the presses;
I have put to an end to the jubilant shout.
11 Therefore my heart moans[aq] like a harp for Moab
and my inner parts for Kir-heres.
12 And this shall happen:
when Moab appears, when it is weary upon the high place
and it comes to its sanctuary to pray, it will not prevail.
13 This was the word that Yahweh spoke to Moab in the past.[ar] 14 But now Yahweh speaks, saying, “In three years, like the years of a hired worker, the glory of Moab will become contemptible, with all of the great multitude, and the remnant will be a few, small, not strong.
Oracle of Judgment on Damascus
17 An oracle of Damascus:
“Look! Damascus will cease being a city
and will become a heap of ruins.
2 The cities of Aroer will be deserted;[as]
they will be for the flocks,
and they will lie down and no one will frighten[at] them.
3 And the fortified city will disappear from Ephraim,
and the kingdom from Damascus;
and the remnant of Aram will be like the glory of the children of Israel,”
declares[au] Yahweh of hosts.
4 “And this shall happen:
On that day, the glory of Jacob will be brought low,
and the fat of his flesh will become lean.
5 And it shall be as when a reaper gathers[av] standing grain
and he reaps grain with his arm,
and it shall be like one who gathers ears of grain
in the valley of Rephaim.
6 And gleanings will be left over in it, as when an olive tree is beaten,[aw]
two or three ripe olive berries in the top of a branch,
four or five on its fruitful branches,”
declares[ax] Yahweh, the God of Israel.
7 On that day, mankind will look to its maker,
and its eyes will look to the holy one of Israel;
8 it will not look to the altars,
the work of its hands,
and it will not see what its fingers made
and the poles of Asherah worship and the incense altars.
9 On that day, its fortified cities[ay] will be like the abandonment of the wooded place and the summit,[az] which they deserted because of the children of Israel; and there will be desolation.
10 For you have forgotten the God of your salvation,
and you have not remembered the rock of your refuge;
therefore you plant plants of pleasantness,
and you plant[ba] a vine of a foreigner.
11 On your planting day you make them grow,
and in the morning of your sowing you bring them into bloom,
yet the harvest will flee[bb] in a day of sickness and incurable pain.
The Roar of the Peoples
12 Ah! The noise of many peoples, they make a noise like the noise of the seas!
And the roar of nations, they roar like the roar of mighty waters!
13 The nations roar like the roar of many waters,
but he will rebuke him, and he will flee far away.
And they are chased like chaff of the mountains before the wind
and like tumbleweed before the storm.
14 At the time of evening, and look, terror!
Before morning he is no more.
This is the fate of those who plunder us
and the lot of those who plunder us.
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