Isaiah 13

VIN^{(i) 1} The oracle of Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw: ² Raise a signal on a bare hill, lift up your voice to them; wave the hand and may they enter the gateways of the noblemen. ³ I have commanded My holy ones; I have also called My warriors for My anger, those who rejoice in My highness. ⁴ A sound, a noise is on the mountains, the likeness of many people! A sound of the roar of the kingdoms, of nations gathering! the LORD Almighty is mustering an army for battle. ⁵ They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the LORD and the weapons of His wrath, to destroy all the land. ⁶ Wail, for the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from Shaddai! ⁷ Therefore all hands will grow slack, and every human heart will melt, ⁸ and they will be dismayed. Pangs and labor pains will seize them; they will tremble like a woman giving birth. They will stare at one another, their faces flushing. ⁹ Look, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy its sinners out of it. ¹⁰ "The stars of heaven and their constellations will not shine forth their light. The sun will be dark when it rises and the moon will not shine its light. ¹¹ I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will humble the arrogance of the terrible. ¹² I will make a man more precious than fine gold, even man than the gold of Ophir. ¹³ "Therefore I will make the heavens tremble. The earth will shake from its place at the fury of the LORD Almighty in the day of his burning anger. ¹⁴ It will happen that like a hunted gazelle, and like sheep that no one gathers, they will each turn to their own people, and will each flee to their own land. ¹⁵ "All who are found will be pierced through. All who are captured will fall by the sword. ¹⁶ Their infants also will be dashed in pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be rifled and their wives ravished. ¹⁷ Behold, I will stir up against them the Medes; who will not regard silver, and who will not delight in gold. ¹⁸ "And their bows will mow down the young men. They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb. Nor will they have compassion on children. ¹⁹ Babylon, the beauty (honor) (glory) of kingdoms, the majesty of Chaldean pride, will be overthrew by God like 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 take their flocks there. ²¹ But wild animals of the desert will lie there, and their houses will be full of jackals. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will frolic there. ²² Wolves will cry in their castles, and jackals in the pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged.