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¹ The burden of Babylon which Isaias the son of Amos saw.² Upon the dark mountain lift ye up a banner, exalt the voice, lift up the hand, and let the rulers go into the gates.³ I have commanded my sanctified ones, and have called my strong ones in my wrath, them that rejoice in my glory.⁴ The noise of a multitude in the mountains, as it were of many people, the noise of the sound of kings, of nations gathered together: the Lord of hosts hath given charge to the troops of war.⁵ To them that come from a country afar off, from the end of heaven: the Lord and the instruments of his wrath, to destroy the whole land.

⁶ Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is near: it shall come as a destruction from the Lord.⁷ Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every heart of man shall melt,⁸ And shall be broken. Gripings and pains, shall take hold of them, they shall be in pain as a woman in labour. Every one shall be amazed at his neighbour, their countenances shall be as faces burnt.⁹ Behold, the day of the Lord shall come, a cruel day, and full of indignation, and of wrath, and fury, to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it.¹⁰ For the stars of heaven, and their brightness shall not display their light: the sun shall be darkened in his rising, and the moon shall not shine with her light.¹¹ And I will visit the evils of the world, and against the wicked for their iniquity: and I will make the pride of infidels to cease, and will bring down the arrogancy of the mighty.¹² A man shall be more precious than gold, yea a man than the finest of gold.¹³ For this I will trouble the heaven: and the earth shall be moved out of her place, for the indignation of the Lord of hosts, and for the day of his fierce wrath.¹⁴ And they shall be as a doe fleeing away, and as a sheep: and there shall be none to gather them together: every man shall turn to his own people, and every one shall flee to his own land.¹⁵ Every one that shall be found, shall be slain: and every one that shall come to their aid, shall fall by the sword.¹⁶ Their inhabitants shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes: their houses shall be pillaged, and their wives shall be ravished.¹⁷ Behold I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not seek silver, nor desire gold:¹⁸ But with their arrows they shall kill the children, and shall have no pity upon the sucklings of the womb, and their eye shall not spare their sons.

¹⁹ And that Babylon, glorious among kingdoms, the famous pride of the Chaldeans, shall be even as the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha.²⁰ It shall no more be inhabited for ever, and it shall not be founded unto generation and generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch his tents there, nor shall shepherds rest there.²¹ But wild beasts shall rest there, and their houses shall be filled with serpents, and ostriches shall dwell there, and the hairy ones shall dance there:²² And owls shall answer one another there, in the houses thereof, and sirens in the temples of pleasure.