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¹ The burden of Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw:² Lift up a banner on a bare mountain; make the voice rise to them; wave the hand that they may enter the gates of nobles.³ I have commanded My holy ones; I have also called My warriors for My anger, those exultant at My majesty.⁴ The noise of a multitude in the mountains, as of a great people! A noise of tumult of the kingdoms of nations gathered together; Jehovah of Hosts is calling up an army for the battle.⁵ They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, Jehovah and the weapons of His wrath, to destroy all the land.

⁶ Howl! For the day of Jehovah is at hand. It shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.⁷ On account of this all hands shall droop, and every heart of man shall melt;⁸ and they shall be afraid. Pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain like one giving birth; they shall be amazed, each man to his neighbor; faces of flames shall be their faces.⁹ Behold, the day of Jehovah comes, cruel and with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land waste. And He shall destroy its sinners out of it.¹⁰ For the stars of the heavens and their constellations shall not give light; the sun shall be darkened in its going forth, and the moon shall not reflect its light.¹¹ And I will visit evil on the world, and their iniquity on the wicked. And I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease; and I will humble the pride of tyrants.¹² I will make a man more rare than fine gold; even a man more than the carvings of Ophir.¹³ So I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall move out of its place, in the wrath of Jehovah of Hosts, and in the day of His fierce anger.¹⁴ And it shall be as a gazelle driven away, and as a sheep no one gathers; each man shall look to his own people, and each one shall flee to his land.¹⁵ Everyone who is found shall be pierced through; yea, everyone who is swept away shall fall by the sword.¹⁶ And their children shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be robbed, and their wives raped.¹⁷ Behold! I stir up the Medes against them, who shall not value silver. And they shall not delight in gold.¹⁸ And bows shall also smash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare sons.

¹⁹ And Babylon, the glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the pride of the Chaldeans, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.²⁰ It shall not be lived in forever, nor shall it be lived in from generation to generation. And the Arabian shall not pitch a tent there, nor shall the shepherds make flocks lie down there.²¹ But the desert creatures shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of howling creatures; and daughters of ostriches shall dwell there; and he goats shall skip there.²² And hyenas shall cry along with his widows; and jackals in palaces of delight. Yea, her time to come is near, and her days shall not be prolonged.