j-Destroying frame and flesh.
It shall be like a sick man who pines away.-j
17The Light of Israel will be fire
And its Holy One flame.
It will burn and consume its thorns
And its thistles in a single day,
18And the mass of its scrub and its farm land.
19What trees remain of its scrub
Shall be so few that a boy may record them.
20And in that day,
The remnant of Israel
And the escaped of the House of Jacob
Shall lean no more upon him that beats it,k
But shall lean sincerely
On the LORD, the Holy One of Israel.
21Only a remnant shall return,
Only a remnant of Jacob,
To Mighty God.
22Even if your people, O Israel,
Should be as the sands of the sea,
Only a remnant of it shall return.
Destruction is decreed;
Retribution comes like a flood!
23For my Lord GOD of Hosts is carrying out
A decree of destruction upon all the land.
24Assuredly, thus said my Lord GOD of Hosts: “O My people that dwells in Zion, have no fear of Assyria, who beats you with a rod and wields his staff over you as did the Egyptians. 25For very soon My wrath will have spent itself, and l-My anger that was bent on wasting them.”-l 26The LORD of Hosts will brandish a scourge over him as when He beat Midian at the Rock of Oreb,m and will wield His staff as He did over the Egyptians by the sea.
27And in that day,
His burden shall drop from your back,
n-And his yoke from your neck;
The yoke shall be destroyed because of fatness.
28He advanced upon Aiath,
He proceeded to Migron,
At Michmas he deposited his baggage.
29They made the crossing;
“Geba is to be our night quarters!”-n
Ramah was alarmed;
Gibeah of Saul took to flight.
30“Give a shrill cry, O Bath-gallim!
Hearken, Laishah!
Take up the cry, Anathoth!”
31Madmenah ran away;
The dwellers of Gebim sought refuge.
32This same day at Nob
He shall stand and wave his hand.o
O mount of Fair Zion!
O hill of Jerusalem!
33Lo! The Sovereign LORD of Hosts
Will hew off the tree-crowns with an ax:
The tall ones shall be felled,
The lofty ones cut down:
34The thickets of the forest shall be hacked away with iron,
And the Lebanon trees shall fall p-in their majesty.-p
11 But a shoot shall grow out of the stump of Jesse,
A twig shall sprout from his stock.
2The spirit of the LORD shall alight upon him:
A spirit of wisdom and insight,
A spirit of counsel and valor,
A spirit of devotion and reverence for the LORD.
3a-He shall sense the truth-a by his reverence for the LORD:
He shall not judge by what his eyes behold,
Nor decide by what his ears perceive.
4Thus he shall judge the poor with equity
And decide with justice for the lowly of the land.
He shall strike down a landb with the rod of his mouth
And slay the wicked with the breath of his lips.
5Justice shall be the girdle of his loins,
And faithfulness the girdle of his waist.
6The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
The leopard lie down with the kid;
c-The calf, the beast of prey, and the fatling-c> together,
With a little boy to herd them.
7The cow and the bear shall graze,
Their young shall lie down together;
And the lion, like the ox, shall eat straw.
8A babe shall play
Over a viper’s hole,
And an infant passd his hand
Over an adder’s den.
9In all of e-My sacred mount-e
Nothing evil or vile shall be done;
For the land shall be filled with devotion to the LORD
As water covers the sea.
10In that day,
The stock of Jesse that has remained standing
Shall become a standard to peoples—
Nations shall seek his counsel
And his abode shall be honored.
11In that day, My Lord will apply His hand again to redeeming the other partf of His people from Assyria—as also from Egypt, Pathros, Nubia, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the coastlands.
12He will hold up a signal to the nations
And assemble the banished of Israel,
And gather the dispersed of Judah
From the four corners of the earth.
13Then Ephraim’s envy shall cease
And Judah’s harassment shall end;
Ephraim shall not envy Judah,
And Judah shall not harass Ephraim.
14They shall pounce on the back of Philistia to the west,
And together plunder the peoples of the east;
Edom and Moab shall be subject to them
And the children of Ammon shall obey them.
15The LORD will dry up the tongue of the Egyptian sea.— He will raise His hand over the Euphrates with the mightd of His wind and break it into seven wadis, so that it can be trodden dry-shod. 16Thus there shall be a highway for the other partf of His people out of Assyria, such as there was for Israel when it left the land of Egypt.
12 In that day, you shall say:
“I give thanks to You, O LORD!
Although You were wroth with me,
Your wrath has turned back and You comfort me,
2Behold the God who gives me triumph!
I am confident, unafraid;
For Yah the LORD is my strength and might,a
And He has been my deliverance.”
3Joyfully shall you draw water
From the fountains of triumph,
4And you shall say on that day:
“Praise the LORD, proclaim His name.
Make His deeds known among the peoples;
Declare that His name is exalted.
5Hymn the LORD,
For He has done gloriously;
Let this be made known
In all the world!
6Oh, shout for joy,
You who dwell in Zion!
For great in your midst
Is the Holy One of Israel.”
13 The “Babylon” Pronouncement, a prophecy of Isaiah son of Amoz.
2“Raise a standard upon a bare hill,
Cry aloud to them;
Wave a hand, and let them enter
The gates of the nobles!
3I have summoned My purified guests
To execute My wrath;
Behold, I have called My stalwarts,
My proudly exultant ones.”a
4Hark! a tumult on the mountains—
As ofb a mighty force;
Hark! an uproar of kingdoms,
Nations assembling!
The LORD of Hosts is mustering
A host for war.
5They come from a distant land,
From the end of the sky—
The LORD with the weapons of His wrath—
To ravage all the earth!
6Howl!
For the day of the LORD is near;
It shall come like havoc from Shaddai.c
7Therefore all hands shall grow limp,
And all men’s hearts shall sink;
8And, overcome by terror,
They shall be seized by pangs and throes,
Writhe like a woman in travail.
They shall gaze at each other in horror,
Their faces d-livid with fright. -d>
9Lo! The day of the LORD is coming
With pitiless fury and wrath,
To make the earth a desolation,
To wipe out the sinners upon it.
10The stars and constellations of heaven
Shall not give off their light;
The sun shall be dark when it rises,
And the moon shall diffuse no glow.
11“And I will requite to the world its evil,
And to the wicked their iniquity;
I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant
And humble the haughtiness of tyrants.
12I will make people scarcer than fine gold,
And men than gold of Ophir.”
13Therefore e-shall heaven be shaken,-e
And earth leap out of its place,
At the fury of the LORD of Hosts
On the day of His burning wrath.
14Then like gazelles that are chased,
And like sheep that no man gathers,
Each man shall turn back to his people,
They shall flee every one to his land.
15All who remain shall be pierced through,
All who f-are caught-f
Shall fall by the sword.
16And their babes shall be dashed to pieces in their sight,
Their homes shall be plundered,
And their wives shall be raped.
17“Behold,
I stir up the Medes against them,
Who do not value silver
Or delight in gold.
18Their bows shall shatter the young;
They shall show no pity to infants,
They shall not spare the children.”
19And Babylon, glory of kingdoms,
Proud splendor of the Chaldeans,
Shall become like Sodom and Gomorrah
Overturned by God.
20Nevermore shall it be settled
Nor dwelt in through all the ages.
No Arab shall pitch his tent there,
No shepherds make flocks lie down there.
21But beastsb shall lie down there,
And the houses be filled with owls;b
There shall ostriches make their home,
And there shall satyrs dance.
22And jackalsbshall abide in its castles
And dragonsb in the palaces of pleasure.
Her hour is close at hand;
Her days will not be long.
14 But the LORD will pardon Jacob, and will again choose Israel, and will settle them on their own soil. And strangers shall join them and shall cleave to the House of Jacob. 2For peoples shall take thema and bring them to their homeland; and the House of Israel shall possess themb as slaves and handmaids on the soil of the LORD. They shall be captors of their captors and masters to their taskmasters.
3And when the LORD has given you rest from your sorrow and trouble, and from the hard service that you were made to serve, 4you shall recite this song of scorn over the king of Babylon:
How is the taskmaster vanished,
How is oppressionc ended!
5The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked,
The rod of tyrants,
6That smote peoples in wrath
With stroke unceasing,
That belabored nations in fury
In relentless pursuit.
7All the earth is calm, untroubled;
Loudly it cheers.
8Even pines rejoice at your fate,
And cedars of Lebanon:
“Now that you have lain down,
None shall come up to fell us.”
9Sheol below was astir
To greet your coming—
Rousing for you the shades
Of all earth’s chieftains,
Raising from their thrones
All the kings of nations.
10All speak up and say to you,
“So you have been stricken as we were,
You have become like us!
11Your pomp is brought down to Sheol,
And the strains of your lutes!
Worms are to be your bed,
Maggots your blanket!”
12How are you fallen from heaven,
O Shining One, son of Dawn!d
How are you felled to earth,
O vanquisher of nations!
13Once you thought in your heart,
“I will climb to the sky;
Higher than the stars of God
I will set my throne.
I will sit in the mount of assembly,e
On the summit of Zaphon:f
14I will mount the back of a cloud—
I will match the Most High.”
15Instead, you are brought down to Sheol,
To g-the bottom of the Pit.-g
16They who behold you stare;
They peer at you closely:
“Is this the man
Who shook the earth,
Who made realms tremble,
17Who made the world like a waste
And wrecked its towns,
h-Who never released his prisoners to their homes?”
18All the kings of nations
Were laid, every one, in honor-h
Each in his tomb;
19While you were left lying unburied,
Like loathsome carrion,i
Like a trampled corpse
[In] the
