Through My Bible Yr 01 – December 19

Through My Bible – December 19

Isaiah 13:1 – 14:23 (EHV)

See series: Through My Bible

² Raise a banner on a bare hill!
Shout to them.
Signal to them to enter the gates of the nobles.
³ I have given a command to my consecrated warriors.
I have called my elite warriors to carry out my anger—
those who rejoice in my triumph.
⁴ The noise of a horde is heard on the mountains,
like the noise of many people,
    like the uproar of the kingdoms of the nations
    who are massing together!
The Lord of Armies is mustering an army for war.
⁵ They come from a faraway country,
from the ends of the heavens.
The Lord and the weapons of his wrath
come to destroy the whole land.
⁶ Wail, for the Day of the Lord is near.
It will come like destruction from the Almighty. ^[2]
7 Therefore all hands will hang limp,
and every heart will melt.
⁸ They will be terrified.
Pain will overcome them.
They will be in pain like a woman in labor.
They will look at each other in shock.
Their faces are flushed.

⁹ Look, the Day of the Lord is coming,
a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger,
a day to make the land desolate,
a day to destroy its sinners there.
¹⁰ For the stars of the sky and its constellations
    will not give their light.
The sun will be darkened as it rises,
and the moon will give no light.

¹¹ I will punish the world for its evil,
and the wicked for their guilt.
I will put an end to the arrogance of the insolent,
and I will humble the pride of the ruthless.
¹² I will make people rarer than fine gold,
and mankind scarcer than the gold of Ophir.
¹³ Therefore, I will make the heavens tremble,
and the earth will be shaken off its foundation
at the wrath of the Lord of Armies,
in the day of his fierce anger.

¹⁴ Like a hunted gazelle,
like sheep without a shepherd,
each of them will turn to his own people,
and everyone will flee to his own land.
¹⁵ Everyone who is caught will be run through.
Everyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
¹⁶ Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes.
Their houses will be looted, and their wives will be raped.

¹⁷ See, I will stir up against them the Medes,
who have no use for silver,
who do not delight even in gold.
¹⁸ Their bows will strike down the young,
and they will have no pity on newborn infants. ^[3]
There will be no compassion in their eyes for children.

¹⁹ Babylon is the glory of kingdoms,
the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride,
but it will be just like the day when God overthrew
    Sodom and Gomorrah.
²⁰ It will never be inhabited again,
nor will anyone live in it from generation to generation.
No Arab ^[4] will pitch his tent there.
No shepherd will rest his flocks there.
²¹ Instead, wild animals from the desert will rest there.
The houses will be full of wild dogs. ^[5]
Ostriches will nest there,
and wild goats will frolic.
²² Hyenas will howl in its fortresses,
and jackals in the luxurious palaces.
Its time is near,
and its days will not be prolonged.

Isaiah 14

¹ Yes, the Lord will have compassion on Jacob,
and he will choose Israel once again.
He will settle them in their own land.
Aliens will join them.
They will unite with the house of Jacob.
² The peoples will take Israel
and bring them back to their own place.
In the Lord’s land the house of Israel will possess the nations
as male and female servants.
They will take their captors captive.
They will rule over their oppressors.

“How the oppressor has ceased!
How his fury ^[6] has ended!”
⁵ The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked,
the scepter of the rulers,
⁶ who struck down peoples with fury, blow after blow,
who ruled the nations in anger,
with a persecution that no one restrained.

⁷ The whole earth is at rest and is quiet.
Everything breaks into song.
⁸ Yes, the fir trees rejoice with you,
along with the cedars of Lebanon.
They say, “Since the time you were humbled,
no woodcutter has come to cut us down.”
⁹ The grave below is ready to meet you when you come.
It stirs up the departed spirits to meet you—
all those who once were the rulers of the earth.
It makes all those who were kings over nations
    rise from their thrones.
¹⁰ They will all respond to you, Babylon.
The spirits all will ask you,
“Have you also become as weak as we are?
Have you become like us?”

¹¹ Your pomp has been brought down to the grave,
    along with the sound of your harps.
Maggots are spread out beneath you,
and worms cover you.

¹² How you have fallen from heaven,
you bright morning star, ^[7] son of the dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
¹³ You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to heaven!
I will raise my throne above the stars of God!
I will sit on the mountain of the assembly, in the far north!
¹⁴ I will ascend above the tops of the clouds!
I will make myself like the Most High!”
¹⁵ But you will be brought down to the grave,
to the bottom of the pit.
¹⁶ Those who see you will stare at you.
They will ask themselves,
“Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
who shook kingdoms?
¹⁷ Is this the man who made the world like a wilderness,
who overthrew its cities,
who did not let his prisoners go home?”

¹⁸ All the kings of the nations lie in state,
each in his own tomb.
¹⁹ But you will be tossed out of your tomb,
like a rejected branch.
You will be covered with the dead bodies,
with those who have been run through by the sword,
with those who descend into a stone-filled pit.
Like a corpse trampled underfoot,
²⁰ you will not join them in burial,
because you have destroyed your land and killed your people.
The offspring of the wicked will never be mentioned again.

²¹ Prepare a place to slaughter his sons
because of the guilt of their fathers,
so that they may not rise up to inherit the earth
and to cover the world with cities.

²² I will rise up against them,
declares the Lord of Armies.
I will cut off from Babylon her name and her remaining people,
her posterity and progeny, ^[8] declares the Lord.
²³ I will turn it into a marsh, a home for porcupines, ^[9]
and I will sweep it away with the broom of destruction,
declares the Lord of Armies.

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 13:1 The Hebrew word often has the connotation something burdensome.
2. Isaiah 13:6 Hebrew Shaddai
3. Isaiah 13:18 Literally on the fruit of the womb
4. Isaiah 13:20 Or nomad
5. Isaiah 13:21 The identification of some of the wild animals is uncertain.
6. Isaiah 14:4 The translation follows the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah, the Greek, and the Syriac. The meaning of the Hebrew text is uncertain.
7. Isaiah 14:12 The term morning star here refers to the king of Babylon, but the Latin form of his name, Lucifer, has become a name for Satan.
8. Isaiah 14:22 The Hebrew text uses two rare words here.
9. Isaiah 14:23 Or owls