UST GEN EXO LEV NUM DEU JOS JDG RUTH 1 SAM 2 SAM 1 KI 2 KI 1 CHR 2 CHR EZRA NEH EST JOB PSA PROV ECC SNG ISA JER LAM EZE DAN HOS JOEL AMOS OBA YNA MIC NAH HAB ZEP HAG ZEC MAL MAT MARK LUKE YHN ACTs ROM 1 COR 2 COR GAL EPH PHP COL 1 TH 2 TH 1 TIM 2 TIM TIT PHM HEB YAC 1 PET 2 PET 1 YHN 2 YHN 3 YHN YUD REV

ISA C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 C16 C17 C18 C19 C20 C21 C22 C23 C24 C25 C26 C27 C28 C29 C30 C31 C32 C33 C34 C35 C36 C37 C38 C39 C40 C41 C42 C43 C44 C45 C46 C47 C48 C49 C50 C51 C52 C53 C54 C55 C56 C57 C58 C59 C60 C61 C62 C63 C64 C65 C66

UST ISA Chapter 13

◄ ISA 13 ► ║ ═ ©

13 Isaiah son of Amoz received this message from Yahweh about Babylon:

2 Lift up a flag on the top of a bare hill

to signal that an army should come to attack Babylon!

Shout to them and wave your hand

to signal them to advance until they break through the gates

that the important people use to enter or leave the city.

3 Yahweh says, “I have set apart some warriors who are glad to help me triumph.

I am angry with the Babylonians,

so I have commanded those warriors to attack them.”

4 Listen! There is a noise on the mountains

that sounds like a huge army!

That noise is the sound of the soldiers

whom Yahweh is gathering from many kingdoms.

Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies,

is assembling an army for battle.

5 Those soldiers are coming from distant lands,

from the farthest places under the sky.

They are the weapons that Yahweh will use

to destroy the whole land of Babylonia

because he is angry with its king and people.

6 The Babylonians should wail, because Yahweh will act very soon.

He, Shaddai, the Almighty God, will destroy them very powerfully.

7 Because of this, the Babylonians will lose their courage,

and they will become weak with fear.

8 They will feel such terror that

they will have great anguish constantly.

They will move about in pain

as a woman does when she gives birth to a baby.

They will look at each other in shock,

and their faces will turn red with shame and anguish.

9 Pay attention! The time when Yahweh acts will be soon.

He will punish the Babylonians fiercely because he is so angry.

He will make the land of Babylonia desolate,

and he will destroy everyone in it who has done wrong.

10 When that happens, it will be as if

no stars or constellations shine in the sky at night.

It will be as if it stays dark even after the sun rises

and as if the moon does not give any light at night.

11 Yahweh says, “I will punish the people of the world for the evil things they have done.

I will punish wicked people for their sins.

I will stop arrogant people from boasting.

I will humble proud people who cruelly oppress others.

12 So many people will die that it will be harder to find a living person

than to find valuable gold such as gold from the land of Ophir.

13 To do this, I will shake the sky and the earth

so that they move from their places.

That will happen at the time when I, Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies,

punish the Babylonians because I am so angry with them.”

14 Then the foreigners living in Babylon will run away,

as if they were a gazelle that hunters were chasing

or as if they were a flock of sheep that had no shepherd to control them.

Each of them will say that he is not Babylonian,

he belongs to a different group of people,

and each of them will flee back to his homeland.

15 The enemy soldiers will not let the Babylonian soldiers escape.

They will pursue them, catch them, and kill them.

16 Those enemy soldiers will kill babies

by hurling them to the ground while their parents watch.

They will steal the valuable possessions from the houses in Babylon,

and they will rape the women there.

17 Yahweh says, “Pay attention! I am going to influence the Medes to attack the Babylonians.

The Medes will not accept gold or silver as payment to stop them from attacking.

18 From their powerful bows, they will shoot arrows

that will smash through the armor of the Babylonian soldiers and kill them.

They will not spare children or even babies.”

19 Babylon has been a very glorious kingdom.

Its people, the Chaldeans, have been proud of how magnificent it is.

However, God will destroy Babylon completely,

just as he destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

20 No one will ever live in Babylon again.

No, in all future generations, no one will settle there.

Nomads will not set up their tents there,

and shepherds will not have their flocks rest there.

21 Instead, wild desert animals will lie down in its ruins,

and owls will make their nests throughout its abandoned houses.

Ostriches will live there,

and wild goats will leap around among the ruins.

22 Hyenas will howl in its ruined towers,

and jackals will make their dens in palaces that used to be beautiful.

These things will happen soon..

God will not let Babylon last much longer.