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 14

◄ ISA 14 ► ║ ═ ©

14 This will happen because Yahweh will act mercifully toward the descendants of Jacob.

He will choose the Israelites to be his people again,

and he will let them return and live in their land.

Then foreigners will unite with the Israelite people.

2 People from other nations will help the Israelites return to their land,

and the Israelites will make those foreigners serve them on the land that Yahweh gave them.

The Israelites will capture those who once captured them,

and they will rule over those who once oppressed them.

3 Someday Yahweh will relieve you Israelite people from the suffering, distress, and harsh slavery that others forced on you. 4 When that happens, you will mock the king of Babylon by saying,

“See how he is no longer oppressing us!

He will not attack us again!

5 Yahweh has taken away the power of that wicked ruler.

6 He used to harm other people furiously and continuously.

He ruled other nations viciously,

and he did not restrain himself when he persecuted them.

7 But now people throughout the world are resting peacefully.

They are singing happy songs.

8 It is as if even the cypress and cedar trees in Lebanon

are celebrating the defeat of the king of Babylon.

They are singing as if he could hear,

‘Now that you are gone, no one comes to cut us down.’

9 It is as if the place underground where dead people are is excited to meet you when you arrive.

It is as if that place is waking up the spirits of people who were leaders on earth so they can meet you.

It is as if it is making those who once ruled over the nations as kings

stand up from their thrones to greet you.

10 When you arrive, they will say to you,

‘Now you have become as weak as we are!

You have become just like us!’

11 You used to be so arrogant, and you lived in luxury,

but now you have come down here to the place where dead people are.

Maggots and worms are devouring your corpse.

They completely surround your body as if they were its bed and blanket.

12 King of Babylon, it is as if you have fallen from the sky!

You are like the planet Venus, which rises brightly high into the morning sky

but then disappears when the sun rises.

You once defeated many nations,

but now it is as if you are a tree that someone has cut down that is lying on the ground.

13 You said to yourself, ‘I will go up into the sky

and set up my throne higher than the stars that God made.

The divine beings gather on a mountain in the far north,

and I will preside over their gathering.

14 I will rise above the tops of the clouds

and make myself equal to the Most High.’

15 Instead, you have descended to the place where dead people are.

You are in the deepest part of that underground place.

16 The dead people there stare at you and look closely at you.

They say, ‘It is hard to believe that this is the man

who terrified the people who live on the earth

and who conquered so many kingdoms!

17 He devastated the world and tore down cities,

and he never let prisoners go home, but look at him now!’

18 When the king who rules a nation dies,

his people bury him honorably in a tomb near his palace.

19 But no one has buried your body in a grave.

Instead, people have discarded it,

the same way they discard a branch that is useless.

It is as if you died in battle and soldiers first trampled your body while fighting

and then threw it into a pit with a lining of stones

along with the bodies of many other soldiers who died in battle.

20 It is your fault that enemies have destroyed your land

and killed so many of your people.

So no one will bury you the way people have buried other kings.

Because you have been so evil, you will not have descendants,

so people will never remember you.

21 Because the king of Babylon has been so evil,

kill his descendants!

Otherwise, they might become powerful and conquer other lands

and build cities for themselves throughout the world!”

22 Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies, declares,

“I myself will take action against the people of Babylon.

I will make sure that they have no survivors or any descendants

and that no one remembers them.”

That is what Yahweh declares.

23 Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies, declares,

“I will make Babylon a swampy marshland where herons live.

I will destroy it so completely

that it will be as if I had swept it away with a broom.

24 Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies, has made this solemn oath:

“What I have planned will certainly happen,

and no one will change what I have decided: 25 I will destroy the Assyrians in my land and crush them on my mountains.

Then my people will no longer be slaves to the Assyrians

and have to work hard and carry heavy loads for them.

26 This is the plan that Yahweh has made regarding the whole earth.

This is how he has decided to use his power against all the foreign kingdoms. 27 Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies, has decided to do this,

so no one can stop him.

He has decided to use his power,

so no one can resist him.

28 Yahweh gave this message during the year when King Ahaz died:

29 Do not celebrate, all you Philistines,

because the king who used to oppress you has died.

Other kings will succeed him, and they will oppress you even worse,

as if that king had been a serpent and as if a viper and then a flying serpent

came from him the way a branch grows from a stump.

30 The poorest of my people will have food to eat,

and those who are needy will have safe places to settle.

However, I will use famine to destroy the population of you Philistines

so that none of you survive.

31 If your cities and their gates could cry out in fear, they should,

and all of you Philistines should be very afraid.

That is because a great army is coming from the north,

and it will darken the land like a thick cloud of smoke.

None of its soldiers leave its ranks and fall behind.

32 The nation of that army is likely to send messengers

to Jerusalem to demand surrender or tribute.

When it does, we should tell them that Yahweh has made

Jerusalem on Mount Zion a strong city,

and his people who live in the countryside can go there and be safe.