Isaiah 13:1-22
13 A pronouncement against Babylon+ that Isaiah+ the son of Aʹmoz saw in vision:
2 “Raise up a signal*+ on a mountain of bare rocks.
Call out to them, wave your hand,So that they may come into the entrances of the nobles.
3 I have issued the command to those whom I have appointed.*+
I have summoned my warriors to express my anger,My proudly exultant ones.
4 Listen! A crowd in the mountains;It sounds like a numerous people!
Listen! The uproar of kingdoms,Of nations gathered together!+
Jehovah of armies is mustering the army for war.+
5 They are coming from a distant land,+From the extremity of the heavens,Jehovah and the weapons of his wrath,To bring ruin to all the earth.+
6 Wail, for the day of Jehovah is near!
It will come as a destruction from the Almighty.+
7 That is why all hands will go limp,And every man’s heart will melt with fear.+
8 The people are panic-stricken.+
They are seized with convulsions and pain,Like a woman in labor.
They look at one another in horror,With faces inflamed by anguish.
9 Look! The day of Jehovah is coming,Cruel both with fury and with burning anger,To make the land an object of horror,+And to annihilate the land’s sinners from it.
10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations*+Will not give off their light;The sun will be dark when it rises,And the moon will not shed its light.
11 I will call the inhabited earth to account for its badness,+And the wicked for their error.
I will put an end to the pride of the presumptuous,And I will humble the haughtiness of tyrants.+
12 I will make mortal man scarcer than refined gold,+And humans scarcer than the gold of Oʹphir.+
13 That is why I will make the heavens tremble,And the earth will be shaken out of its place+At the fury of Jehovah of armies in the day of his burning anger.
14 Like a hunted gazelle and like a flock with no one to gather them,Each will return to his own people;Each will flee to his own land.+
15 Whoever is found will be pierced through,And whoever is caught will fall by the sword.+
16 Their children will be dashed to pieces before their eyes,+Their houses will be looted,And their wives will be raped.
17 Here I am raising up against them the Medes,+Who regard silver as nothingAnd who take no delight in gold.
18 Their bows will shatter young men;+They will show no pity on the fruit of the wombNor mercy to children.
19 And Babylon, the most glorious* of kingdoms,+The beauty and the pride of the Chal·deʹans,+Will be like Sodʹom and Go·morʹrah when God overthrew them.+
20 She will never be inhabited,Nor will she be a place to reside in throughout all generations.+
No Arab will pitch his tent there,And no shepherds will rest their flocks there.
21 The desert creatures will lie down there;Their houses will be filled with eagle owls.
The ostriches will reside there,+And wild goats* will skip about there.
22 Howling creatures will cry out in her towers,And jackals in her luxurious palaces.
Her time is near, and her days will not be prolonged.”+
Footnotes
^ Or “signal pole.”
^ Lit., “to my sanctified ones.”
^ Lit., “and their Kesils,” perhaps referring to Orion and surrounding constellations.
^ Or “the decoration.”
^ Or possibly, “And goatlike demons.”