Isaiah 13

¹“Go down and sit in the dust, O Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, O Daughter of the Chaldeans! For you will no longer be called tender or delicate.

²Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams.

¹This is the word that the Lord spoke through Jeremiah the prophet concerning Babylon and the land of the Chaldeans:

¹This is the vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

²⁸PERES means that your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.”

¹Then one of the seven angels with the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters.

²The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and those who dwell on the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her immorality.”

⁶his face grew pale and his thoughts so alarmed him that his hips gave way and his knees knocked together.

⁵⁸This is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Babylon’s thick walls will be leveled, and her high gates consumed by fire. So the labor of the people will be for nothing; the nations will exhaust themselves to fuel the flames.”

²⁶He lifts a banner for the distant nations and whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Behold—how speedily and swiftly they come!

²“Announce and declare to the nations; lift up a banner and proclaim it; hold nothing back when you say, ‘Babylon is captured; Bel is put to shame; Marduk is shattered, her images are disgraced, her idols are broken in pieces.’

²⁵“Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, you who devastate the whole earth, declares the Lord. I will stretch out My hand against you; I will roll you over the cliffs and turn you into a charred mountain.

¹This is what the Lord says to Cyrus His anointed, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him, to disarm kings, to open the doors before him, so that the gates will not be shut:

²“I will go before you and level the mountains; I will break down the gates of bronze and cut through the bars of iron.

³²Yet today they will halt at Nob, shaking a fist at the mount of Daughter Zion, at the hill of Jerusalem.

¹¹Come quickly, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves. Bring down Your mighty ones, O Lord.

²⁰“You are My war club, My weapon for battle. With you I shatter nations; with you I bring kingdoms to ruin.

²¹With you I shatter the horse and rider; with you I shatter the chariot and driver.

¹²The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but will receive one hour of authority as kings along with the beast.

¹³These kings have one purpose: to yield their power and authority to the beast.

²⁰Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced for you His judgment against her.

¹²Artaxerxes, king of kings. To Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven: Greetings.

¹³I hereby decree that any volunteers among the Israelites in my kingdom, including the priests and Levites, may go up with you to Jerusalem.

⁴For the sake of Jacob My servant and Israel My chosen one, I call you by name; I have given you a title of honor, though you have not known Me.

⁵I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God but Me. I will equip you for battle, though you have not known Me,

¹⁴Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the Day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

²⁵I will repay you for the years eaten by locusts—the swarming locust, the young locust, the destroying locust, and the devouring locust—My great army that I sent against you.

³and declare that this is what the Lord God says: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.

⁴I will turn you around, put hooks in your jaws, and bring you out with all your army—your horses, your horsemen in full armor, and a great company armed with shields and bucklers, all brandishing their swords.

¹¹Then I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse. And its rider is called Faithful and True. With righteousness He judges and wages war.

¹²He has eyes like blazing fire, and many royal crowns on His head. He has a name written on Him that only He Himself knows.

¹Blow the ram’s horn in Zion; sound the alarm on My holy mountain! Let all who dwell in the land tremble, for the Day of the Lord is coming; indeed, it is near—

²a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like the dawn overspreading the mountains a great and strong army appears, such as never was of old, nor will ever be in ages to come.

⁷And the locusts looked like horses prepared for battle, with something like crowns of gold on their heads; and their faces were like the faces of men.

⁸They had hair like that of women, and teeth like those of lions.

³¹And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

⁹For behold, I stir up and bring against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the land of the north. They will line up against her; from the north she will be captured. Their arrows will be like skilled warriors who do not return empty-handed.

²⁰“You are My war club, My weapon for battle. With you I shatter nations; with you I bring kingdoms to ruin.

²¹With you I shatter the horse and rider; with you I shatter the chariot and driver.

³For a nation from the north will come against her; it will make her land a desolation. No one will live in it; both man and beast will flee.”

²⁶He lifts a banner for the distant nations and whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Behold—how speedily and swiftly they come!

¹Behold, the Lord lays waste the earth and leaves it in ruins. He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants—

¹⁵Alas for the day! For the Day of the Lord is near, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

¹⁸Woe to you who long for the Day of the Lord! What will the Day of the Lord be for you? It will be darkness and not light.

²“Son of man, prophesy and declare that this is what the Lord God says: Wail, ‘Alas for that day!’

³For the day is near, the Day of the Lord is near. It will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations.

⁷Be silent in the presence of the Lord God, for the Day of the Lord is near. Indeed, the Lord has prepared a sacrifice; He has consecrated His guests.

²For you are fully aware that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

³While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

⁹Behold, the Day of the Lord is coming—cruel, with fury and burning anger—to make the earth a desolation and to destroy the sinners within it.

⁷And when they ask, ‘Why are you groaning?’ you are to say, ‘Because of the news that is coming. Every heart will melt, and every hand will go limp. Every spirit will faint, and every knee will turn to water.’ Yes, it is coming and it will surely happen, declares the Lord God.”

¹⁰She is emptied! Yes, she is desolate and laid waste! Hearts melt, knees knock, bodies tremble, and every face grows pale!

⁶Who can withstand His indignation? Who can endure His burning anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; even rocks are shattered before Him.

¹⁷Every hand will go limp, and every knee will turn to water.

¹This is the burden against Egypt: Behold, the Lord rides on a swift cloud; He is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt will tremble before Him, and the hearts of the Egyptians will melt within them.

⁴³The king of Babylon has heard the report, and his hands hang limp. Anguish has gripped him, pain like that of a woman in labor.

¹⁰She is emptied! Yes, she is desolate and laid waste! Hearts melt, knees knock, bodies tremble, and every face grows pale!

³While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

¹⁷As a woman with child about to give birth writhes and cries out in pain, so were we in Your presence, O Lord.

³Therefore my body is filled with anguish. Pain grips me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am bewildered to hear, I am dismayed to see.

⁴My heart falters; fear makes me tremble. The twilight I desired has turned to horror.

²¹A woman has pain in childbirth because her time has come; but when she brings forth her child, she forgets her anguish because of her joy that a child has been born into the world.

⁵They saw and were astounded; they fled in terror.

⁶Trembling seized them there, anguish like a woman in labor.

¹“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble; the day is coming when I will set them ablaze,” says the Lord of Hosts. “Not a root or branch will be left to them.”

⁶Who can withstand His indignation? Who can endure His burning anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; even rocks are shattered before Him.

¹⁵Whoever is caught will be stabbed, and whoever is captured will die by the sword.

¹⁶Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes, their houses will be looted, and their wives will be ravished.

⁶Wail, for the Day of the Lord is near; it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

³⁵May the violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon,” says the dweller of Zion. “May my blood be on the dwellers of Chaldea,” says Jerusalem.

³⁶Therefore this is what the Lord says: “Behold, I will plead your case and take vengeance on your behalf; I will dry up her sea and make her springs run dry.

³⁵May sinners vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Hallelujah!

³¹The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the Lord.

²⁹Immediately after the tribulation of those days: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.’

²⁴But in those days, after that tribulation: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;

⁷When I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light.

⁸All the shining lights in the heavens I will darken over you, and I will bring darkness upon your land,’ declares the Lord God.

¹⁵The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will no longer shine.

²³The moon will be confounded and the sun will be ashamed; for the Lord of Hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before His elders with great glory.

¹¹The proud look of man will be humbled, and the loftiness of men brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

¹⁵So mankind will be brought low, and each man humbled; the arrogant will lower their eyes.

²⁹Summon the archers against Babylon, all who string the bow. Encamp all around her; let no one escape. Repay her according to her deeds; do to her as she has done. For she has defied the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

³⁰Therefore, her young men will fall in the streets, and all her warriors will be silenced in that day,” declares the Lord.

²²But you his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this.

²³Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house were brought to you, and as you drank wine from them with your nobles, wives, and concubines, you praised your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you have failed to glorify the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways.

¹¹Woe to the wicked; disaster is upon them! For they will be repaid with what their hands have done.

¹²How you have fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the ground, O destroyer of nations.

¹³You said in your heart: “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the far reaches of the north.

¹In that day seven women will take hold of one man and say, “We will eat our own bread and provide our own clothes. Just let us be called by your name. Take away our disgrace!”

⁶Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants must bear the guilt; the earth’s dwellers have been burned, and only a few survive.

⁹Blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

¹⁶It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire.

¹⁵Whoever is caught will be stabbed, and whoever is captured will die by the sword.

¹⁶Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes, their houses will be looted, and their wives will be ravished.

²⁶At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth, but heaven as well.”

²⁷The words “Once more” signify the removal of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that the unshakable may remain.

¹⁶The Lord will roar from Zion and raise His voice from Jerusalem; heaven and earth will tremble. But the Lord will be a refuge for His people, a stronghold for the people of Israel.

²⁹Immediately after the tribulation of those days: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.’

⁴He rebukes the sea and dries it up; He makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts.

⁵The mountains quake before Him, and the hills melt away; the earth trembles at His presence—the world and all its dwellers.

⁶For this is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.

⁷I will shake all the nations, and they will come with all their treasures, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of Hosts.

³⁵Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.

¹⁶Cut off the sower from Babylon, and the one who wields the sickle at harvest time. In the face of the oppressor’s sword, each will turn to his own people, each will flee to his own land.

¹⁷So Micaiah declared: “I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd. And the Lord said, ‘These people have no master; let each one return home in peace.’”

³⁶As the sun was setting, the cry rang out in the army: “Every man to his own city, and every man to his own land!”

⁹“We tried to heal Babylon, but she could not be healed. Abandon her! Let each of us go to his own land, for her judgment extends to the sky and reaches to the clouds.”

¹³The nations rage like the rush of many waters. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweeds before a gale.

⁹Then the kings of the earth who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her will weep and wail at the sight of the smoke rising from the fire that consumes her.

¹⁰In fear of her torment, they will stand at a distance and cry out: “Woe, woe to the great city, the mighty city of Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.”

²⁵The Lord has opened His armory and brought out His weapons of wrath, for this is the work of the Lord God of Hosts in the land of the Chaldeans.

³Do not let the archer bend his bow or put on his armor. Do not spare her young men; devote all her army to destruction!

⁴And they will fall slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and pierced through in her streets.

²⁷Kill all her young bulls; let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them, for their day has come—the time of their punishment.

⁹These two things will overtake you in a moment, in a single day: loss of children, and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the potency of your spells.

¹⁰You were secure in your wickedness; you said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray; you told yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’

³⁵A sword is against the Chaldeans, declares the Lord, against those who live in Babylon, and against her officials and wise men.

³⁶A sword is against her false prophets, and they will become fools. A sword is against her warriors, and they will be filled with terror.

¹⁹But you are cast out of your grave like a rejected branch, covered by those slain with the sword, and dumped into a rocky pit like a carcass trampled underfoot.

²⁰You will not join them in burial, since you have destroyed your land and slaughtered your own people. The offspring of the wicked will never again be mentioned.

¹⁴the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be demolished as Shalman devastated Beth-arbel in the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to pieces along with their children.

¹⁰Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity. Her infants were dashed to pieces at the head of every street. They cast lots for her dignitaries, and all her nobles were bound in chains.

⁸O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, blessed is he who repays you as you have done to us.

⁹Blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

¹⁸Their bows will dash young men to pieces; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; they will not look with pity on the children.

²For I will gather all the nations for battle against Jerusalem, and the city will be captured, the houses looted, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be removed from the city.

¹¹Women have been ravished in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah.

²⁸PERES means that your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.”

²⁹Then Belshazzar gave the command, and they clothed Daniel in purple, placed a gold chain around his neck, and proclaimed him the third highest ruler in the kingdom.

¹¹Sharpen the arrows! Fill the quivers! The Lord has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because His plan is aimed at Babylon to destroy her, for it is the vengeance of the Lord—vengeance for His temple.

⁹For behold, I stir up and bring against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the land of the north. They will line up against her; from the north she will be captured. Their arrows will be like skilled warriors who do not return empty-handed.

²⁵I have raised up one from the north, and he has come—one from the east who calls on My name. He will march over rulers as if they were mortar, like a potter who treads the clay.

²⁷“Raise a banner in the land! Blow the ram’s horn among the nations! Prepare the nations against her. Summon the kingdoms against her—Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a captain against her; bring up horses like swarming locusts.

²⁸Prepare the nations for battle against her—the kings of the Medes, their governors and all their officials, and all the lands they rule.

³I have commanded My sanctified ones; I have even summoned My warriors to execute My wrath and exult in My triumph.

⁴Listen, a tumult on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations gathered together! The Lord of Hosts is mobilizing an army for war.

¹²“Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael. “Because I know the evil you will do to the Israelites,” Elisha replied. “You will set fire to their fortresses, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little ones to pieces, and rip open their pregnant women.”

¹⁷So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who put their young men to the sword in the sanctuary, sparing neither young men nor young women, neither elderly nor infirm. God gave them all into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar,

¹⁶Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes, their houses will be looted, and their wives will be ravished.

¹⁶Samaria will bear her guilt because she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.

¹⁰But as for Me, I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them. I will bring their deeds down upon their own heads.”

⁵And as I listened, He said to the others, “Follow him through the city and start killing; do not show pity or spare anyone!

⁶Slaughter the old men, the young men and maidens, the women and children; but do not go near anyone who has the mark. Now begin at My sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the temple.

³⁰the king exclaimed, “Is this not Babylon the Great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”

⁴⁰As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah along with their neighbors,” declares the Lord, “no one will dwell there; no man will abide there.

⁹Therefore, as surely as I live,” declares the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, “surely Moab will be like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah—a place of weeds and salt pits, a perpetual wasteland. The remnant of My people will plunder them; the remainder of My nation will dispossess them.”

¹¹“Some of you I overthrew as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the Lord.

²³All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His fierce anger.

¹⁸As Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown along with their neighbors,” says the Lord, “no one will dwell there; no man will abide there.

⁴³Her cities have become a desolation, a dry and arid land, a land where no one lives, where no son of man passes through.

²³“I will make her a place for owls and for swamplands; I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord of Hosts.

⁴⁵Therefore hear the plans that the Lord has drawn up against Babylon and the strategies He has devised against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely the little ones of the flock will be dragged away; certainly their pasture will be made desolate because of them.

¹¹Some Philistines also brought gifts and silver as tribute to Jehoshaphat, and the Arabs brought him 7,700 rams and 7,700 goats from their flocks.

³For a nation from the north will come against her; it will make her land a desolation. No one will live in it; both man and beast will flee.”

²⁹The earth quakes and writhes because the Lord’s intentions against Babylon stand: to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant.

²And he cried out in a mighty voice: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a lair for demons and a haunt for every unclean spirit, every unclean bird, and every detestable beast.

¹¹The desert owl and screech owl will possess it, and the great owl and raven will dwell in it. The Lord will stretch out over Edom a measuring line of chaos and a plumb line of destruction.

¹²No nobles will be left to proclaim a king, and all her princes will come to nothing.

⁷The parched ground will become a pool, the thirsty land springs of water. In the haunt where jackals once lay, there will be grass and reeds and papyrus.

²Indeed, You have made the city a heap of rubble, the fortified town a ruin. The fortress of strangers is a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.

³³For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “The Daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time it is trampled. In just a little while her harvest time will come.”

³⁵Vengeance is Mine; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; for their day of disaster is near, and their doom is coming quickly.”

³For the vision awaits an appointed time; it testifies of the end and does not lie. Though it lingers, wait for it, since it will surely come and will not delay.

¹³Her towers will be overgrown with thorns, her fortresses with thistles and briers. She will become a haunt for jackals, an abode for ostriches.