Isaiah 34

¹Draw near, O nations, to hear,

and hearken, O peoples!

Let the earth listen, 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 doomed them, has given them over for slaughter.

³Their slain shall be cast out,

and the stench of their corpses shall rise;

the mountains shall flow with their blood.

⁴All 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 Edom,

upon the people I have doomed.

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.

For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,

a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

⁷Wild oxen shall fall with them,

and young steers with the mighty bulls.

Their land shall be soaked with blood,

and their soil made rich with fat.

⁸For the Lord has a day of vengeance,

a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

⁹And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch,

and her soil into brimstone;

her land shall become burning pitch.

¹⁰Night and day it shall not be quenched;

its smoke shall go up for ever.

From generation to generation it shall lie waste;

none shall pass through it for ever and ever.

¹¹But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it,

the owl and the raven shall dwell in it.

He shall stretch the line of confusion over it,

and the plummet of chaos over its nobles.

¹²They shall name it No Kingdom There,

and all its princes shall be nothing.

¹³Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,

nettles and thistles in its fortresses.

It shall be the haunt of jackals,

an abode for ostriches.

¹⁴And wild beasts shall meet with hyenas,

the satyr shall cry to his fellow;

yea, there shall the night hag alight,

and find for herself a resting place.

¹⁵There shall the owl nest and lay

and hatch and gather her young in her shadow;

yea, there shall the kites be 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.

¹⁷He has cast the lot for them,

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

they shall possess it for ever,

from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.