Isaiah 13:1-22
13 The pronouncement against Babylon*+ that Isaiah* the son of Aʹmoz+ saw in vision:
2 “Upon a mountain of bare rocks* raise up a signal,*+ YOU men. Lift up the voice to them, wave the hand,+ that they may come into the entrances of the nobles.+
3 I myself have issued the command to my sanctified ones.*+ I have also called my mighty ones for [expressing] my anger,+ my eminently exultant ones.
4 Listen!* A crowd in the mountains, something like a numerous people!+ Listen!* The uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathered together!+ Jehovah of armies is mustering the army of war.+
5 They are coming from the land far away,+ from the extremity of the heavens, Jehovah and the weapons of his denunciation, to wreck all the earth.+
6 “Howl, YOU people,+ for the day of Jehovah is near!+ As a despoiling from the Almighty* it will come.+
7 That is why all hands themselves will drop down, and the whole heart itself of mortal man will melt.+
8 And people have become disturbed.+ Convulsions and birth pains themselves grab hold; like a woman that is giving birth they have labor pains.+ They look at each other in amazement. Their faces are inflamed faces.+
9 “Look! The day of Jehovah itself is coming, cruel both with fury and with burning anger, in order to make the land an object of astonishment,+ and that it may annihilate [the land’s]* sinners out of it.+
10 For the very stars of the heavens and their constellations of Keʹsil*+ will not flash forth their light; the sun will actually grow dark at its going forth, and the moon itself will not cause its light to shine.
11 And I shall certainly bring home [its own] badness upon the productive land,*+ and their own error upon the wicked themselves. And I shall actually cause the pride of the presumptuous ones to cease, and the haughtiness of the tyrants* I shall abase.+
12 I shall make mortal man rarer than refined gold,*+ and earthling man [rarer] than the gold* of Oʹphir.+
13 That is why I shall cause heaven itself to become agitated,+ and the earth will rock out of its place at the fury of Jehovah of armies+ and at the day of his burning anger.+
14 And it must occur that, like a gazelle chased away and like a flock without anyone to collect them together,+ they will turn, each one to his own people; and they will flee, each one to his own land.+
15 Every one that is found will be pierced through, and every one that is caught in the sweep will fall by the sword;+
16 and their very children will be dashed to pieces before their eyes.+ Their houses will be pillaged, and their own wives will be raped.+
17 “Here I am arousing against them the Medes,+ who account silver itself as nothing and who, as respects gold, take no delight in it.
18 And [their] bows will dash even young men to pieces.+ And the fruitage of the belly they will not pity;+ for sons their eye will not feel sorry.
19 And Babylon, the decoration of kingdoms,+ the beauty of the pride of the Chal·deʹans,+ must become as when God* overthrew Sodʹom and Go·morʹrah.+
20 She will never be inhabited,+ nor will she reside for generation after generation.+ And there the Arab will not pitch his tent, and no shepherds will let [their flocks] lie down there.
21 And there the haunters of waterless regions* will certainly lie down, and their houses must be filled with eagle owls.*+ And there the ostriches* must reside, and goat-shaped demons* themselves will go skipping about there.+
22 And jackals must howl in her dwelling towers,+ and the big snake will be in the palaces of exquisite delight. And the season for her is near to come, and her days themselves will not be postponed.”+
Footnotes
^ “Babylon,” LXXVg; 1QIsaMTSy, “Babel.”
^ Heb., Yeshaʽ·yaʹhu.
^ Lit., “mountain swept bare.”
^ “Signal.” Heb., nes.
^ “To my sanctified ones,” that is, sanctified for Jehovah’s war. Heb., lim·qud·da·shaiʹ; Lat., sanc·ti·fi·caʹtis meʹis. Compare Joe 3:9 (4:9 in M).
^ Lit., “The sound of.”
^ Or, “its.” Lit., “her.”
^ “Productive land.” Heb., te·velʹ; Gr., oi·kou·meʹnei, “inhabited earth”; Lat., orʹbis, “circle,” that is, of the earth. See Mt 24:14 ftn, “Earth.”
^ “Tyrants.” Heb., ʽa·ri·tsimʹ.
^ “Than refined gold.” Heb., mip·pazʹ.
^ “God.” 1QIsaM(Heb.), ʼElo·himʹ; Gr., ho The·osʹ; TVgc, “Jehovah.”
^ “The haunters of waterless regions.” Or, “the demons.” T, “apes”; LXXSyVg, “wild beasts.”
^ “Dragons,” Vg.
^ Lit., “daughters of an ostrich.”
