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13 This is the vision God showed Isaiah (son of Amoz) concerning Babylon’s doom.

² See the flags waving as their enemy attacks. Shout to them, O Israel, and wave them on as they march against Babylon to destroy the palaces of the rich and mighty. ³ I, the Lord, have set apart these armies for this task; I have called those rejoicing in their strength to do this work, to satisfy my anger. ⁴ Hear the tumult on the mountains! Listen as the armies march! It is the tumult and the shout of many nations. The Lord Almighty has brought them here, ⁵ from countries far away. They are his weapons against you, O Babylon. They carry his anger with them and will destroy your whole land.

⁶ Scream in terror, for the Lord’s time has come, the time for the Almighty to crush you. ⁷ Your arms lie paralyzed with fear; the strongest hearts melt ⁸ and are afraid. Fear grips you with terrible pangs, like those of a woman in labor. You look at one another, helpless, as the flames of the burning city reflect upon your pallid faces. ⁹ For see, the day of the Lord is coming, the terrible day of his wrath and fierce anger. The land shall be destroyed and all the sinners with it. ¹⁰ The heavens will be black above them. No light will shine from stars or sun or moon.

¹¹ And I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sin; I will crush the arrogance of the proud man and the haughtiness of the rich. ¹² Few will live when I have finished up my work.

Men will be as scarce as gold—of greater value than the gold of Ophir. ¹³ For I will shake the heavens in my wrath and fierce anger, and the earth will move from its place in the skies.

¹⁴ The armies of Babylon will run until exhausted, fleeing back to their own land like deer chased by dogs, wandering like sheep deserted by their shepherd. ¹⁵ Those who don’t run will be butchered. ¹⁶ Their little children will be dashed to death against the pavement right before their eyes; their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes. ¹⁷ For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. ¹⁸ The attacking armies will have no mercy on the young people of Babylon or the babies or the children.

¹⁹ And so Babylon, the most glorious of kingdoms, the flower of Chaldean culture, will be as utterly destroyed as Sodom and Gomorrah were when God sent fire from heaven; ²⁰ Babylon will never rise again. Generation after generation will come and go, but the land will never again be lived in.^[a] The nomads will not even camp there. The shepherds won’t let their sheep stay overnight. ²¹ The wild animals of the desert will make it their home. The houses will be haunted by howling creatures. Ostriches will live there, and the demons will come there to dance. ²² Hyenas and jackals will den within the palaces. Babylon’s days are numbered; her time of doom will soon be here.

14 But the Lord will have mercy on the Israelis; they are still his special ones. He will bring them back to settle once again in the land of Israel. And many nationalities will come and join them there and be their loyal allies. ² The nations of the world will help them to return, and those coming to live in their land will serve them. Those enslaving Israel will be enslaved—Israel shall rule her enemies!

³ In that wonderful day when the Lord gives his people rest from sorrow and fear, from slavery and chains, ⁴ you will jeer at the king of Babylon and say, “You bully, you! At last you have what was coming to you! ⁵ For the Lord has crushed your wicked power and broken your evil rule.” ⁶ You persecuted my people with unceasing blows of rage and held the nations in your angry grip. You were unrestrained in tyranny. ⁷ But at last the whole earth is at rest and is quiet! All the world begins to sing! ⁸ Even the trees of the woods—the fir trees and cedars of Lebanon—sing out this joyous song: “Your power is broken; no one will bother us now; at last we have peace.”

⁹ The denizens of hell crowd to meet you as you enter their domain. World leaders and earth’s mightiest kings, long dead, are there to see you. ¹⁰ With one voice they all cry out, “Now you are as weak as we are!” ¹¹ Your might and power are gone; they are buried with you. All the pleasant music in your palace has ceased; now maggots are your sheet, worms your blanket!

¹² How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground—mighty though you were against the nations of the world. ¹³ For you said to yourself, “I will ascend to heaven and rule the angels.^[b] I will take the highest throne. I will preside on the Mount of Assembly far away in the north. ¹⁴ I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the Most High.” ¹⁵ But instead, you will be brought down to the pit of hell, down to its lowest depths. ¹⁶ Everyone there will stare at you and ask, “Can this be the one who shook the earth and the kingdoms of the world? ¹⁷ Can this be the one who destroyed the world and made it into a shambles, who demolished its greatest cities and had no mercy on his prisoners?”

¹⁸ The kings of the nations lie in stately glory in their graves, ¹⁹ but your body is thrown out like a broken branch; it lies in an open grave, covered with the dead bodies of those slain in battle. It lies as a carcass in the road, trampled and mangled by horses’ hoofs. ²⁰ No monument will be given you, for you have destroyed your nation and slain your people. Your son will not succeed you as the king. ²¹ Slay the children of this sinner. Do not let them rise and conquer the land nor rebuild the cities of the world.

²² I, myself, have risen against him, says the Lord of heaven’s armies, and will cut off his children and his children’s children from ever sitting on his throne. ²³ I will make Babylon into a desolate land of porcupines, full of swamps and marshes. I will sweep the land with the broom of destruction, says the Lord of the armies of heaven. ²⁴ He has taken an oath to do it! For this is his purpose and plan. ²⁵ I have decided to break the Assyrian army when they are in Israel and to crush them on my mountains; my people shall no longer be their slaves. ²⁶ This is my plan for the whole earth—I will do it by my mighty power that reaches everywhere around the world. ²⁷ The Lord, the God of battle, has spoken—who can change his plans? When his hand moves, who can stop him?

²⁸ This is the message that came to me the year King Ahaz died:

²⁹ Don’t rejoice, Philistines, that the king who smote you is dead.^[c] That rod is broken, yes; but his son will be a greater scourge to you than his father ever was! From the snake will be born an adder, a fiery serpent to destroy you! ³⁰ I will shepherd the poor of my people; they shall graze in my pasture! The needy shall lie down in peace. But as for you—I will wipe you out with famine and the sword. ³¹ Weep, Philistine cities—you are doomed. All your nation is doomed. For a perfectly trained army^[d] is coming down from the north against you. ³² What then shall we tell the reporters? Tell them that the Lord has founded Jerusalem and is determined that the poor of his people will find a refuge within her walls.

15 Here is God’s message to Moab: In one night your cities of Ar and Kir will be destroyed. ² Your people in Dibon go mourning to their temples to weep for the fate of Nebo and Medeba; they shave their heads in sorrow and cut off their beards. ³ They wear sackcloth through the streets, and from every home comes the sound of weeping. ⁴ The cries from the cities of Heshbon and Elealeh are heard far away, even in Jahaz. The bravest warriors of Moab cry in utter terror.

⁵ My heart weeps for Moab! His people flee to Zoar and Eglath. Weeping, they climb the upward road to Luhith, and their crying will be heard all along the road to Horonaim. ⁶ Even Nimrim River is desolate! The grassy banks are dried up and the tender plants are gone. ⁷ The desperate refugees take only the possessions they can carry and flee across the Brook of Willows. ⁸ The whole land of Moab is a land of weeping from one end to the other. ⁹ The stream near Dibon will run red with blood, but I am not through with Dibon yet! Lions will hunt down the survivors, both those who escape and those who remain.

16 Moab’s refugees at Sela send lambs as a token of alliance with the king of Judah. ² The women of Moab are left at the fords of the Arnon River like homeless birds. ³ The ambassadors, who accompany the gift to Jerusalem^[e] plead for advice and help. “Give us sanctuary. Protect us. Do not turn us over to our foes. ^4-5 Let our outcasts stay among you; hide them from our enemies! God will reward you for your kindness to us. If you let Moab’s fugitives settle among you, then when the terror is past, God will establish David’s throne forever, and on that throne he will place a just and righteous King.”

⁶ Is this proud Moab, concerning which we heard so much? His arrogance and insolence are all gone now! ⁷ Therefore all Moab weeps. Yes, Moab, you will mourn for stricken Kir-hareseth, ⁸ and for the abandoned farms of Heshbon and the vineyards at Sibmah. The enemy warlords have cut down the best of the grapevines; their armies spread out as far as Jazer in the deserts, and even down to the sea. ⁹ So I wail and lament for Jazer and the vineyards of Sibmah. My tears shall flow for Heshbon and Elealeh, for destruction has come upon their summer fruits and harvests. ¹⁰ Gone now is the gladness, gone the joy of harvest. The happy singing in the vineyards will be heard no more; the treading out of the grapes in the winepresses has ceased forever. I have ended all their harvest joys.

¹¹ I will weep, weep, weep, for Moab; and my sorrow for Kir-hareseth will be very great. ¹² The people of Moab will pray in anguish to their idols at the tops of the hills, but it will do no good; they will cry to their gods in their idol temples, but none will come to save them. ^13-14 All this concerning Moab has been said before; but now the Lord says that within three years, without fail, the glory of Moab shall be ended, and few of all its people will be left alive.

17 This is God’s message to Damascus, capital of Syria:

Look, Damascus is gone! It is no longer a city—it has become a heap of ruins! ² The cities of Aroer are deserted. Sheep pasture there, lying quiet and unafraid, with no one to chase them away. ³ The strength of Israel and the power of Damascus will end, and the remnant of Syria shall be destroyed. For as Israel’s glory departed, so theirs, too, will disappear, declares the Lord Almighty. ⁴ Yes, the glory of Israel will be very dim when poverty stalks the land. ⁵ Israel will be as abandoned as the harvested grain fields in the valley of Rephaim. ⁶ Oh, a very few of her people will be left, just as a few stray olives are left on the trees when the harvest is ended, two or three in the highest branches, four or five out on the tips of the limbs. That is how it will be in Damascus and Israel—stripped bare of people except for a few of the poor who remain.

⁷ Then at last they will think of God their Creator and have respect for the Holy One of Israel. ⁸ They will no longer ask their idols for help in that day, neither will they worship what their hands have made! They will no longer have respect for the images of Ashtaroth and the sun idols.

⁹ Their largest cities will be as deserted as the distant wooded hills and mountaintops and become like the abandoned cities of the Amorites, deserted when the Israelites approached (so long ago).^{[f] 10} Why? Because you have turned from the God who can save you—the Rock who can hide you; therefore, even though you plant a wonderful, rare crop of greatest value, ¹¹ and though it grows so well that it will blossom on the very morning that you plant it, yet you will never harvest it—your only harvest will be a pile of grief and incurable pain.

¹² Look, see the armies thundering toward God’s land. ¹³ But though they roar like breakers rolling upon a beach, God will silence them. They will flee, scattered like chaff by the wind, like whirling dust before a storm. ¹⁴ In the evening Israel waits in terror, but by dawn her enemies are dead. This is the just reward of those who plunder and destroy the people of God.