Isaiah 13

The Judgment of Babylon

¹The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.

²On a bare hill raise a signal;

cry aloud to them;

wave the hand for them 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.

⁴The sound of a tumult is on the mountains

as of a great multitude!

The sound of an uproar of kingdoms,

of nations gathering together!

The Lord of hosts is mustering

a host for battle.

⁵They come from a distant land,

from the end of the heavens,

the Lord and the weapons of his indignation,

to destroy the whole land.

⁶Wail, for the day of the Lord is near;

as destruction from the Almighty it will come!

⁷Therefore all hands will be feeble,

and every human heart will melt.

⁸They will be dismayed:

pangs and agony will seize them;

they will be in anguish like a woman in labor.

They will look aghast at one another;

their faces will be aflame.

⁹Behold, the day of the Lord comes,

cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,

to make the land a desolation

and to destroy its sinners from it.

¹⁰For the stars of the heavens and their constellations

will not give their light;

the sun will be dark at its rising,

and the moon will not shed its light.

¹¹I will punish the world for its evil,

and the wicked for their iniquity;

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

and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.

¹²I will make people more rare than fine gold,

and mankind than the gold of Ophir.

¹³Therefore I 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,

each 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.

¹⁶Their infants will be dashed in pieces

before their eyes;

their houses will be plundered

and their wives ravished.

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

who have no regard for silver

and do not delight in gold.

¹⁸Their bows will slaughter the young men;

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

their eyes will not pity children.

¹⁹And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,

the splendor and pomp of the Chaldeans,

will be like Sodom and Gomorrah

when God overthrew them.

²⁰It will never be inhabited

or lived in for all generations;

no Arab will pitch his tent there;

no shepherds will make their flocks lie down there.

²¹But wild animals will lie down there,

and their houses will be full of howling creatures;

there ostriches will dwell,

and there wild goats will dance.

²²Hyenas will cry in its towers,

and jackals in the pleasant palaces;

its time is close at hand

and its days will not be prolonged.