Isaiah 13

² Lift up a standard on the ^[b]bare hill,
Raise your voice to them,
Wave the hand that they may enter the doors of the nobles.
³ I have commanded My consecrated ones,
I have even called My mighty warriors,
My proudly exulting ones,
To execute My anger.
⁴ A sound of tumult on the mountains,
Like that of many people!
A sound of the uproar of kingdoms,
Of nations gathered together!
The Lord of hosts is mustering the army for battle.
⁵ They are coming from a far country,
From the ^[c]farthest horizons,
The Lord and His instruments of indignation,
To destroy the whole land.

⁶ Wail, for the day of the Lord is near!
It will come as destruction from ^[d]the Almighty.
⁷ Therefore all hands will fall limp,
And every man’s heart will melt.
⁸ They will be terrified,
Pains and anguish will take hold of them;
They will writhe like a woman in labor,
They will look at one another in astonishment,
Their faces aflame.
⁹ Behold, the day of the Lord is coming,
Cruel, with fury and burning anger,
To make the land a desolation;
And He will exterminate its sinners from it.
¹⁰ For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not flash forth their light;
The sun will be dark when it rises
And the moon will not shed its light.
¹¹ Thus I will punish the world for its evil
And the wicked for their iniquity;
I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud
And abase the haughtiness of the ^[e]ruthless.
¹² I will make mortal man ^[f]scarcer than pure gold
And mankind than the gold of Ophir.
¹³ Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,
And the earth will be shaken from its place
At the fury of the Lord of hosts
In the day of His burning anger.
¹⁴ And it will be that like a hunted gazelle,
Or like sheep with none to gather them,
They will each turn to his own people,
And each one flee to his own land.
¹⁵ Anyone who is found will be thrust through,
And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
¹⁶ Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces
Before their eyes;
Their houses will be plundered
And their wives ravished.

¹⁷ Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them,
Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.
¹⁸ And their bows will ^[g]mow down the young men,
They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb,
Nor will their eye pity ^[h]children.
¹⁹ And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans’ pride,
Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
²⁰ It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation;
Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there,
Nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there.
²¹ But desert creatures will lie down there,
And their houses will be full of ^[i]owls;
Ostriches also will live there, and ^[j]shaggy goats will frolic there.
^22 [k]Hyenas will howl in their fortified towers
And jackals in their luxurious palaces.
Her fateful time also ^[l]will soon come
And her days will not be prolonged.