Isaiah 13:1-22

  • Pronouncement against Babylon (1-22)

    • The day of Jehovah is near! (6)

    • Medes to overthrow Babylon (17)

    • Babylon never to be inhabited (20)

13  A pronouncement against Babylon+ that Isaiah+ the son of Aʹmoz saw in vision:   “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.   I have issued the command to those whom I have appointed.*+ I have summoned my warriors to express my anger,My proudly exultant ones.   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.+   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.+   Wail, for the day of Jehovah is near! It will come as a destruction from the Almighty.+   That is why all hands will go limp,And every man’s heart will melt with fear.+   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.   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.”