A Proclamation Against Babylon

¹The oracle of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.[#Jer 50:1–51:64; #Isa 1:1]

²Lift up a banner on the high mountain,[#Isa 5:26; Jer 50:2]

exalt the voice to them,

shake the hand,

that they may go into the gates of the nobles.

³I have commanded My sanctified ones,

I have also called My mighty ones for My anger,

even those who rejoice in My exaltation.

⁴The noise of a multitude in the mountains,[#Joel 3:14]

like as of a great people!

A tumultuous noise of the kingdoms

of nations gathered together!

The Lord of Hosts musters

the army for battle.

⁵They come from a far country,

from the end of heaven,

the Lord and the weapons of His indignation,

to destroy the whole land.

⁶Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand![#Zep 1:7]

It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.

⁷Therefore all hands shall be faint,

and every man’s heart shall melt,

⁸and they shall be afraid.

Pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them;

they shall be in pain as a woman who travails;

they shall be amazed one at another;

their faces shall be as flames.

⁹Behold, the day of the Lord comes,

cruel, both with wrath and fierce anger,

to lay the land desolate,

and He shall destroy its sinners out of it.

¹⁰For the stars of heaven and their constellations

shall not give their light;

the sun shall be dark when it rises,

and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

¹¹I will punish the world for its evil,

and the wicked for their iniquity;

and I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease,

and will lay low the haughtiness of the ruthless.

¹²I will make a man more rare than fine gold,[#Isa 4:1; 24:6]

and mankind than the golden wedge of Ophir.

¹³Therefore, I will shake the heavens,

and the earth shall be shaken out of her place

at the wrath of the Lord of Hosts

and in the day of His fierce anger.

¹⁴It shall be as the chased roe,

and as a sheep that no man takes up;

every man shall turn to his own people

and flee every one into his own land.

¹⁵Every one who is found shall be thrust through,

and every one who is joined to them shall fall by the sword.

¹⁶Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes;[#Ps 137:8–9; Na 3:10]

their houses shall be devastated and their wives ravished.

¹⁷Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them,[#Jer 51:11]

who shall not regard silver;

and as for gold, they shall not delight in it.

¹⁸Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces,

and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb;

their eye shall not spare children.

¹⁹Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,[#Da 4:30]

the beauty of the Chaldean’s excellency,

shall be as when God overthrew

Sodom and Gomorrah.

²⁰It shall never be inhabited,

nor shall it be lived in from generation to generation,

nor shall the Arabian pitch a tent there,

nor shall the shepherds make their fold there.

²¹But wild beasts of the desert shall lie down there,

and their houses shall be full of owls,

ostriches also shall dwell there,

and shaggy goats shall dance there.

²²The wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses

and jackals in their pleasant palaces.

And her time is near to come,

and her days shall not be prolonged.