God’s Wrath against Nations
1Come near, you nations, to hear; and listen, O peoples!
Let the earth and all that is in it hear, and the world and all that comes forth from it.
2
For the Lord is angry at all the nations,
And His wrath is against all their armies;
He has [a]utterly doomed them,
He has given them over to slaughter.
3
So their slain will be thrown out,
And the stench of their corpses will rise,
And the mountains will flow with their blood.
4
All the host of heaven will be dissolved,
And the skies will be rolled up like a scroll;
All their hosts [the stars and the planets] will also wither away
As a leaf withers from the vine,
And as a fig withers from the fig tree.
5
For My sword is satiated [with blood] in heaven;
Indeed, it will come down for judgment on Edom
And on the people whom I have doomed for destruction.
6
The sword of the Lord is filled with blood [from sacrifices],
It drips 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 (Edom’s capital city)
And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7
Wild oxen will also fall with them
And the young bulls with the strong bulls;
And their land will be soaked with blood,
And their dust made greasy with fat.
8
For the Lord has a day of vengeance,
A year of retribution for the cause of Zion.
9
The streams [of Edom] will be turned into pitch,
And its dust into brimstone,
And its land will become burning pitch.
10
The burning will not be quenched night or day;
Its smoke will go up forever.
From generation to generation it will lie in ruins;
No one will ever again pass through it.
11
But the pelican and the porcupine will take possession of it;
The owl and the raven will dwell in it.
And He will stretch over it (Edom) the measuring line of desolation
And the plumb line of emptiness.
12
Its nobles—there is no one there
Whom they may proclaim king—
And all its princes will be nothing.
13
Thorns will come up in its fortified palaces,
Nettles and brambles in its fortified cities;
It will be a haunt for jackals,
An abode for ostriches.
14
The creatures of the desert will encounter jackals
And the [b]hairy goat will call to its kind;
Indeed, [c]Lilith (night demon) will settle there
And find herself a place of rest.
15
There the arrow snake will make her nest and lay her eggs,
And hatch them and gather her young under her protection;
Indeed, the birds of prey will be gathered there [to breed],
Every one with its own kind.
16 Seek from the book of the Lord, and read:
Not one of these [creatures] will be missing;
None will lack its mate.
For His mouth has commanded,
And His Spirit has gathered them.
17
The Lord has cast the lot for them,
And His hand has divided and apportioned [d]Edom to the wild beasts by measuring-line.
They will possess it forever;
From generation to generation they will dwell in it.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 34:2 Lit put them under the ban.
- Isaiah 34:14 Or demon satyr.
- Isaiah 34:14 Thought by some to be a female demon associated with the night.
- Isaiah 34:17 Lit it to them.