The Judgment of Babylon

¹The oracle concerning fBabylon which gIsaiah the son of Amoz saw.

²On a bare hill hraise a signal;

cry aloud to them;

wave the hand for ithem to enter

the gates of the nobles.

³I myself have commanded my consecrated ones,

and have summoned my mighty men to execute my anger,

my proudly exulting ones.1

⁴The sound jof a tumult is on the mountains

as of a great multitude!

The sound of an uproar of kingdoms,

of nations gathering together!

kThe Lord of hosts is mustering

a host for battle.

⁵lThey come from a distant land,

from the end of the heavens,

the Lord and the weapons of his indignation,

to destroy the whole land.2

⁶mWail, for nthe day of the Lord is near;

as destruction from the Almighty3 it will come!

⁷Therefore all hands will be feeble,

and every human heart owill melt.

⁸They will be dismayed:

ppangs and agony will seize them;

qthey will be in anguish like a woman in labor.

They will look aghast at one another;

their faces will be aflame.

⁹Behold, nthe day of the Lord comes,

cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,

to make the land a desolation

and rto destroy its sinners from it.

¹⁰sFor the stars of the heavens and their constellations

will not give their light;

tthe sun will be dark at its rising,

and the moon will not shed its light.

¹¹I will punish uthe world for its evil,

and the wicked for their iniquity;

I will vput an end to the pomp of the arrogant,

wand lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.

¹²I will make xpeople more rare than fine gold,

and mankind than the ygold of Ophir.

¹³Therefore zI will make the heavens tremble,

and the earth will be shaken out of its place,

at the wrath of the Lord of hosts

in the day of his fierce anger.

¹⁴And like a hunted gazelle,

or like sheep with none to gather them,

aeach will turn to his own people,

and each will flee to his own land.

¹⁵Whoever is found will be thrust through,

and whoever is caught will fall by the sword.

¹⁶bTheir infants will be dashed in pieces

before their eyes;

their houses will be plundered

and their wives ravished.

¹⁷Behold, cI am stirring up the Medes against them,

who have no regard for silver

and do not delight in gold.

¹⁸dTheir bows will slaughter4 the young men;

they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb;

their eyes will not pity children.

¹⁹And Babylon, ethe glory of kingdoms,

the splendor and pomp of the Chaldeans,

will be flike Sodom and Gomorrah

when God overthrew them.

²⁰gIt will never be inhabited

or lived in for all generations;

no hArab will pitch his tent there;

no ishepherds will make their flocks lie down there.

²¹But jwild animals will lie down there,

and their houses will be full of howling creatures;

there kostriches5 will dwell,

and there wild goats will dance.

²²Hyenas6 will cry in its towers,

and ljackals in mthe pleasant palaces;

its time is close at hand

and its days will not be prolonged.