Judgment on the Nations

¹Draw near, vO nations, to hear,

and give attention, O peoples!

Let the earth hear, and all that fills it;

the world, and all that comes from it.

²For the Lord is enraged against all the nations,

and furious against all their host;

he has wdevoted them to destruction,1 has given them over for slaughter.

³Their slain shall be cast out,

and xthe stench of their corpses shall rise;

ythe mountains shall flow with their blood.

⁴zAll the host of heaven shall rot away,

and the skies roll up like a scroll.

All their host shall fall,

as leaves fall from the vine,

like leaves falling from the fig tree.

⁵For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;

behold, it descends for judgment upon aEdom,

upon the people bI have devoted to destruction.

⁶The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood;

it is gorged with fat,

with the blood of lambs and goats,

with the fat of the kidneys of rams.

cFor the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,

a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

⁷dWild oxen shall efall with them,

and fyoung steers with fthe mighty bulls.

Their land shall drink its fill of blood,

and their soil shall be gorged with fat.

⁸gFor the Lord has a day of vengeance,

a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

⁹hAnd the streams of Edom2 shall be turned into pitch,

and her soil into sulfur;

her land shall become burning pitch.

¹⁰Night and day iit shall not be quenched;

jits smoke shall go up forever.

kFrom generation to generation it shall lie waste;

none shall pass through it forever and ever.

¹¹lBut the hawk and the porcupine3 shall possess it,

the owl and the raven shall dwell in it.

mHe shall stretch the line of nconfusion4 over it,

and the plumb line of emptiness.

¹²Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom,

and all its princes shall be nothing.

¹³oThorns shall grow over its strongholds,

nettles and thistles in its fortresses.

It shall be the haunt of pjackals,

an abode for ostriches.5

¹⁴qAnd wild animals shall meet with hyenas;

the wild goat shall cry to his fellow;

indeed, there the night bird6 settles

and finds for herself a resting place.

¹⁵There the owl nests and lays

and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow;

indeed, there rthe hawks are gathered,

each one with her mate.

¹⁶Seek and read from the book of the Lord:

Not one of these shall be missing;

none shall be without her mate.

For the mouth of the Lord has commanded,

and his Spirit has gathered them.

¹⁷sHe has cast the lot for them;

his hand has portioned it out to them with the line;

they shall possess it forever;

from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.