Judgment of the Nations
34 “Come near, you nations, to listen,
and pay attention, you peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all that fills it;
the world, and all that comes out of it.
2 For the Lord is angry against all the nations,
and furious against all their armies.
He has doomed them to destruction,
and[a] given them up to be slaughtered.[b]
3 Their slain[c] will be thrown out;
and as for their dead bodies—
their stench will ascend;
the[d] mountains will be soaked with their blood.
4 The valleys will be split,
all the stars[e] in the heavens will fall down,[f]
and the skies will be rolled up like a scroll.
All their starry host will fade away
like leaves withering on a vine,
or fruit withering on a fig tree.
5 For my sword will be seen[g] in the heavens.
Look! It descends in judgment on Edom,
on the people I have doomed to destruction.
6 The Lord has a sword bathed in blood;
it’s covered[h] with fat,
with the blood of lambs and goats,
and with fat from the kidneys of rams.”
Judgment on Bozrah and Edom
“For the Lord holds a sacrifice in Bozrah,
and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 Wild oxen will fall together with them—
young steers and mighty bulls.
Their land will be drenched[i] with blood,
and their soil will be swollen with fat.
8 For the Lord has a day of vengeance,
a year of recompense for Zion’s cause.
9 Edom’s[j] streams will be turned into burning sulfur,
and its dust into sulfur;
its land will become pitch.
10 It will burn night and day,
and will never be extinguished.
Its smoke will rise from generation to generation,
and it will lie desolate forever and ever.
And no one will pass through it.[k]
11 “But hawks and hedgehogs will possess it;
owls and ravens will nest in it.
God[l] will stretch out over it a measuring line, and chaos,[m]
and plumb lines of emptiness, and its nobles.[n]
12 They will name it “No Kingdom There,”
and all its princes will come to nothing.
13 Thorns will grow over its palaces,
nettles and brambles its fortresses.
It will become a haunt for jackals,
a home for ostriches.
14 And desert creatures will meet with hyenas,
and goat-demons will call out to each other.
There also Liliths[o] will settle,
and find for themselves[p] a resting place.
15 Owls[q] will nest there, lay eggs,
hatch them, and care for their young
under the shadow of their wings;[r]
yes[s] indeed, vultures will gather there,
each one with its mate.”
The Certainty of God’s Deliverance
16 “Study and read from the book of the Lord:
And not one[t] will be missing,
each will not long for its mate.[u]
For it is the mouth of the Lord that has issued the order,
and it is his Spirit that has gathered them.
17 It is he who has allotted their portions,[v]
and his hand has divided it for them with a measuring line forever.[w]
They will possess it forever;[x]
from generation to generation they will live in it.”[y]
Footnotes
- Isaiah 34:2 So 1QIsaa; the Heb. lacks and
- Isaiah 34:2 So 1QIsaa; MT LXX read for slaughter
- Isaiah 34:3 Or mortally wounded
- Isaiah 34:3 So 1QIsaa; the Heb. lacks the
- Isaiah 34:4 Lit. host
- Isaiah 34:4 So 1QIsaa; MT reads All the stars of the heavens will rot away ; LXX lacks this line
- Isaiah 34:5 So 1QIsaa; MT reads has drunk its fill; cf. LXX
- Isaiah 34:6 Or satiated
- Isaiah 34:7 So 1QIsaa LXX; MT reads drench
- Isaiah 34:9 Lit. Its
- Isaiah 34:10 So 1QIsaa; MT reads blazing pitch. 10 Night and day it will not be extinguished. Its smoke will go up forever; from generation to generation it will lie desolate. No one will ever pass through it again. LXX lacks the last line
- Isaiah 34:11 Lit. He
- Isaiah 34:11 So 1QIsaa; MT reads a measuring line of chaos
- Isaiah 34:11 So 1QIsaa; MT reads And plumb lines of emptiness are 12 its nobles; LXX reads and satyrs will live in it. 12 Its nobles
- Isaiah 34:14 I.e. desert demons of the night
- Isaiah 34:14 So 1QIsaa; MT reads The Lilith will settle, and find for itself
- Isaiah 34:15 Or tree-snakes; LXX reads Hedgehogs
- Isaiah 34:15 Lit. in her shadow
- Isaiah 34:15 So 1QIsaa; MT lacks yes
- Isaiah 34:16 So 1QIsaa; MT reads Not one of them
- Isaiah 34:16 So MT; 1QIsaa reads each its mate
- Isaiah 34:17 Lit. has cast the lot for them
- Isaiah 34:17 So 1QIsaa; the Heb. lacks forever
- Isaiah 34:17 So MT; 1QIsaa lacks Forever
- Isaiah 34:17 So MT; 1QIsaa corrector reads will they possess … live in it.