13:1 The pronouncement concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw:
13:2 Lift up a flag on the ①bare hill,
Raise your voice to them,
Wave the hand that they may enter the doors of the nobles.
▷ ①Or wind-swept mountain
13:3 I have commanded My consecrated ones,
I have also called for My warriors
Who boast in My eminence,
To execute My anger.
13:4 A sound of a roar on the mountains,
Like that of many people!
A sound of an uproar of kingdoms,
Of nations gathered together!
The LORD of armies is mustering the army for battle.
13:5 They are coming from a distant country,
From the ①farthest horizons,
The LORD and the weapons of His indignation,
To destroy the whole land.
▷ ①Lit end of heaven
13:6 Wail, for the day of the LORD is near!
It will come as destruction from ①the Almighty.
▷ ①Heb Shaddai
13:7 Therefore all hands will fall limp,
And every human heart will melt.
13:8 They will be terrified,
Pains and anguish will take hold of them;
They will writhe like a woman in labor,
They will look at one another in astonishment,
Their faces aflame.
13:9 Behold, the day of the LORD is coming,
Cruel, with fury and burning anger,
To make the land a desolation;
And He will exterminate its sinners from it.
13:10 For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not flash their light;
The sun will be dark when it rises
And the moon will not shed its light.
13:11 So I will punish the world for its evil
And the wicked for their wrongdoing;
I will also put an end to the audacity of the proud
And humiliate the arrogance of the ①tyrants.
▷ ①Or violent
13:12 I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold
And mankind than the gold of Ophir.
13:13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,
And the earth will be shaken from its place
At the fury of the LORD of armies
In the day of His burning anger.
13:14 And it will be that, like a hunted gazelle,
Or like sheep with no one to gather them,
Each of them will turn to his own people,
And each of them will flee to his own land.
13:15 Anyone who is found will be thrust through,
And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
13:16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces
Before their eyes;
Their houses will be plundered
And their wives raped.
13:17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them,
Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.
13:18 And their bows will ①mow down the young men,
They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb,
Nor will their eye pity ②children.
▷ ①Lit dash in pieces ②Lit sons
13:19 And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans’ pride,
Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
13:20 It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation;
Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there,
Nor will shepherds allow their flocks to lie down there.
13:21 But desert creatures will lie down there,
And their houses will be full of ①owls;
Ostriches also will live there, and ②shaggy goats will frolic there.
▷ ①Or howling creatures ②Or goat demons
13:22 ①Hyenas will howl in their fortified towers
And jackals in their luxurious palaces.
Her fateful time also ②will soon come,
And her days will not be prolonged.
▷ ①Or howling creatures ②Lit is near to come